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Special Announcement to CS Subscribers

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 22:05:32 +0000

This is a special announcement for subscribers to the audio podcast > Communio Sanctorum – History of the Christian Church.CS has been rolled over into my new online teaching presence which you can find at > Into His Image.us. The entire Church History series is being re-done in video, on the YouTube channel of the same name > IntoHisImage.I’ll keep the CS website & Facebook page up for a while, but will eventually take them down since all the necessary information and much more will be available at the new site.So head on over to the new website at IntoHisImage.us and the FB page at facebook.com/IntoHisImage.usThere’s also a Telegram channel. Just search for IntoHisImage (this link)Besides History of the Christian Church, you’ll find many other resources for Leadership and Bible study as I’m posting there the regular teaching I do at the church here I serve as pastor.I want to close out this short announcement with a word of the deepest gratitude for the many subscribers to CS over the years. It’s been a while since I posted fresh material, so many one-time subscribers disconnected. But others stayed – waiting for more. Your loyalty means a lot. I hope you’ll find the new offerings at IntoHisImage.us more than you hoped for.

The Change Part 10

This is the 10^th episode in our series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we consider the impact the Faith has had on science.This subject is near & dear to me because when I first went to college in the mid-70’s, I was studying to be a geologist. I’d always been fascinated by science and loved to collect rocks, so decided geology would be my field. I took many classes on the trajectory of one day working in the field as a geological engineer.I was only a nominal believer in those days and when I first entered college saw no incompatibility between evolution and Christianity. It seemed obvious to my then uninformed mind that God had created everything, then used evolution as the way to push things along. I now realize my ideas were what has come to be known as theistic evolution.One of my professors, who was herself an agnostic, was also a fastidious scientist. What I mean is, she hadn’t imbibed the ideology of scientism with its uncritical loyalty to evolution. Though she admitted a loose belief in it, it was only, she said, because no other theory came any closer to explaining the evidence. She rejected the idea of divine creation, but had a hard time buying in to the evolutionary explanation for life. Her reason was that the theory didn’t square with the evidence. She caught significant grief for this position from the other professors who were lock-step loyal to Darwin. In a conversation with another student in class one day, she acknowledged that while she didn’t personally believe it, in terms of origins, there could be a supreme being who was creator of the physical universe and that if there was, such a being would likely be the Author of Life. She went further and admitted that there was no evidence she was aware of that made that possibility untenable. It’s just that as a scientist, she had no evidence for such a being’s existence so had to remain an agnostic.For me, the point was, here was a true scientist who admitted there were deep scientific problems with the theory of evolution. She fiercely argued against raising the theory of evolution to a scientific certainty. It angered her when evolution was used as a presumptive ground for science.It took a few years, but I eventually came around to her view, then went further and today, based on the evidence, consider evolution a preposterous position.I give all that background because of the intensity of debate today, kicked up by what are called the New Atheists. Evolutionists all, they set science in opposition to all religious faith. In doing so, they set reason on the side of science, and then say that leaves un-reason or irrationality in the side of faith. This is false proposition but one that has effectively come to dominate the public discussion. The new Atheists make it seem as though every scientist worth the title is an atheists while there are no educated or genuinely worthy intellects in the Faith camp. That also is a grievous misdirection since some of the world’s greatest minds & most prolific scientists either believe in God, the Bible, or at least acknowledge the likelihood of a divine being.A little history reveals that modern science owes its very existence to men & women of faith. The renowned philosopher of science, Alfred North Whitehead, said “Faith in the possibility of science, [coming before] the development of modern scientific theory, is[derived from] medieval theology."' Lynn White, historian of medieval science, wrote, "The [medieval] monk was an intellectual ancestor of the scientist." The German physicist Ernst Mach remarked, "Every unbiased mind must admit that the age in which the chief development of the science of mechanics took place was an age of predominantly theological cast."Crediting Christianity with the arrival of science may sound surprising to many. But why is that? The answer goes back to Andrew Dickson White, who in 1896 published A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Ever since then, along with the growth of secularism, college & university professors have accepted White's argument that Christianity is an enemy of science. It unthinkable to many that Christianity could have fostered the arrival of science.There are differences between Christianity and pagan religion. One is that Christianity, with its heritage in Judaism, has always insisted that there’s only one God, Who is a rational being. Without this presupposition, there would be no science. The origin of science, said Alfred North Whitehead, required Christianity's “insistence on the rationality of God."If God is a rational being, then human beings, who are made in His image, also employ rational processes to study and investigate the world in which they live. That idea moved Christian philosophers to link rationality with the empirical, inductive method. Robert Grosseteste was one of these philosophers who in the 13^th C went further and began to apply this idea practically. A Franciscan bishop and the first chancellor of Oxford University, he was the first to propose the inductive, experimental method, an approach to knowledge that was advocated by his student Roger Bacon, another Franciscan monk, who asserted that “All things must be verified by experience.” Bacon was a devout believer in the truthfulness of Scripture, and being empirically minded, he saw the Bible in the light of sound reason and as verifiable by experience. Another natural philosopher & Franciscan monk, was William of Occam in the 14^th C. Like Bacon, Occam said knowledge needed to be derived inductively.300 years later another Bacon, first name Francis this time, gave further momentum to the inductive method by recording his experimental results. He’s been called "the creator of scientific induction."' In the context of rationality, he stressed careful observation of phenomena and collecting information systematically in order to understand nature's secrets. His scientific interests did not deter him from devoting time to theology. He wrote treatises on the Psalms and prayer.By introducing the inductive empirical method guided by rational procedures, Roger Bacon, William Occam, and Francis Bacon departed from the ancient Greek perspective of Aristotle. Aristotelianism had a stranglehold on the world for 1500 years. It held that knowledge was only acquired thru the deductive processes of the mind; the inductive method, which required manual activity, was taboo. Remember as we saw in a previous episode, physical activity was only for slaves, not for thinkers & freemen. Complete confidence in the deductive method was the only way for the Aristotelian to arrive at knowledge. This view was held by Christian monks, natural philosophers, and theologians until the arrival of Grosseteste, the Bacons & Occam. Even after these empirically-minded thinkers introduced their ideas, a majority of the scholastic world continued to adhere to Aristotle's approach.Another major presupposition of Christianity is that God, who created the world, is separate and distinct from it. Greek philosophy saw the gods and nature as intertwined. For example, the planets were thought to have an inner intelligence that caused them to move. This pantheistic view of planetary movement was first challenged in the 14^th C by Jean Buridan, a Christian philosopher at the University of Paris.The Biblical & Christian perspective, which sees God and nature as distinctively separate entities, makes science possible. As has been said, Science could never have come into being among the animists of Asia or Africa because they would never have experimented on the natural world, since everything—stones, trees, animals & everything, contains the spirits of gods & ancestors.Men like Grosseteste, Buridan, the Bacons, Occam, and Nicholas of Oresme, and later Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, saw themselves as merely trying to understand the world God had created and over which He told mankind in Gen 1:28 to have "dominion". This paradigm shift is another example of Christianity's wholesome impact on the world.Belief in the rationality of God not only led to the inductive method but also to the conclusion that the universe is governed by rationally discoverable laws. This assumption is vitally important to scientific research, because in a pagan world, with gods engaged in jealous, irrational behavior, any systematic investigation of such a world was futile. Only in Christian thought, with the existence of a single God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, Who functions in an orderly and predictable manner, is it possible for science to exist and operate.From the 13^th to the 18^th C every major scientist explained his motivations in religious terms. But if you examined a science textbook for the local public school you’d never know. Virtually all references to the Christian beliefs of early scientists are omitted. This is unfortunate because these convictions often played a dominant role in their work.One early cutting-edge concept was "Occam's razor", named in honor of William of Occam. This idea had a tremendous influence on the development of modern science. Simply put, it’s the scientific principle that says what can be done or explained with the fewest assumptions should be used. This means that a scientist needs to ‘shave off’ all excess assumptions. The idea first arose with Peter of Spain but Occam finessed it into usable form. Modern scientists use this principle in theorizing and explaining research findings.As was common with virtually all medieval natural philosophy, Occam didn’t confine himself just to scientific matters. He also wrote 2 theological treatises, 1 dealing with the Lord's Supper and the other with the body of Christ. Both works had a positive influence on Martin Luther.Most people think of Leonardo da Vinci as a great artist and painter, but he was also a scientific genius. He analyzed and theorized in the areas of botany, optics, physics, hydraulics, and aeronautics, but his greatest benefit to science lies in the study of human physiology. By dissecting cadavers, which he often did at night because such activity was forbidden, he produced meticulous drawings of human anatomy. His drawings and comments, when collected in one massive volume, present a complete course of anatomical study. This was a major breakthrough because before this time and for some time after, physicians had little knowledge of the human body. They were dependent on the writings of the Greek physician Galen whose propositions on human physiology were in large measure drawn from animals like dogs and monkeys. Leonardo's anatomical observations led him to question the belief that air passed from the lungs to the heart. He used a pump to test this hypothesis and found it was impossible to force air into the heart from the lungs.Lest anyone think Leonardo's scientific theories and drawings of the human anatomy were divorced from his religious convictions, it’s well to recall his other activities. His paintings—The Baptism of Christ, The Last Supper, and The Resurrection of Christ—are enduring reminders of his Christian beliefs.The anatomical work of Leonardo was not forgotten. The man who followed in his footsteps was Andreas Vesalius, who lived from 1514 to 64. At 22, he began teaching at the University of Padua. In 1543 he published his famous work, Fabric of the Human Body. The book mentions over 200 errors in Galen's physiology. The errors were found as a result of his dissecting cadavers he obtained illegally.When Vesalius exposed Galen’s errors, he received no praise or commendation. His contemporaries, like his former teacher Sylvius, still wedded to Greek medicine, called him a "madman." Others saw him as "a clever, dangerous free-thinker of medicine." There’s little doubt of his faith in God. On one occasion he said, "We are driven to wonder at the handiwork of the Almighty." He was never condemned as a heretic, as some anti-church critics have implied, for at the time of his death he had an offer waiting for him to teach at the University of Padua, where he first began his career. Today he’s known as the father of human anatomy.Where would the study of genetics be today had the world not been blessed with the birth of the Augustinian monk Gregor Johann Mendel? As often stated in science textbooks, it was his working on cross-pollinating garden peas that led to the concept of genes and the discovery of his 3 laws: the law of segregation, the law of independent assortment, and the law of dominance. Mendel spent most of his adult life in the monastery at Bruno, Moravia. Though Mendel is used by secularists to explain genetics & evolution, he rejected Darwin’s theory.4 names loom large in the textbooks of astronomy: Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, & Galileo. The undeniable fact is, these men were devout Christians. Their faith influenced their scientific work, though this fact is conspicuously omitted in most science texts.Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland, in 1473. While still a child, his father died, and he was sent to his mother's brother, a Catholic priest, who reared him. He earned a doctor's degree and was trained as a physician. His uncle had him study theology, which resulted in his becoming a canon at Frauenburg Cathedral in East Prussia. History knows him best for having introduced the heliocentric theory that says the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around. During the Middle Ages it was suggested the Earth might be in motion, but nobody had worked out the details. Copernicus did, and therein lies his greatness.Copernicus received a printed copy of his masterwork Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies on his deathbed in 1543. He’d hesitated to publish his work earlier, not because he feared the charge of heresy, as has often been asserted without any documentation, but because he wanted to avoid the ridicule of other scientists, who were strongly tied to Aristotle and Ptolemy. It was Copernicus’ Christian friends, especially Georg Rheticus and Andreas Osiander, 2 Lutherans, who persuaded him to publish.Although Copernicus remained a moderately loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church, it was his Lutheran friends that made his publication possible. That information is surprising to many people, including university students, because most only hear that Christian theologians condemned Copernicus's work. For instance, critics like to cite Luther, who supposedly called Copernicus a fool. John W. Montgomery has shown this frequently cited remark lacks support.When Tycho Brahe died in 1601, Johannes Kepler succeeded him in Prague under an imperial appointment by Emperor Rudolph II. Kepler, who’d studied for 3 years to become a Lutheran pastor, turned to astronomy after he was assigned to teach mathematics in Graz, Austria, in 1594. Unlike Brahe, who never accepted the heliocentric theory, Kepler did. In fact Kepler, not Copernicus, deserves the real credit for the helio-centric theory. Copernicus thought the sun was the center of the universe. Kepler realized & proved the sun was merely the center of our solar system.Kepler's mathematical calculations proved wrong the old Aristotelian theory that said the planets orbited in perfect circles, an assumption Copernicus continued to hold. This led Kepler to hypothesize and empirically verify that planets had elliptical paths around the sun.Kepler was the first to define weight as the mutual attraction between 2 bodies, an insight Isaac Newton used later in formulating the law of gravity. Kepler was the first to explain that tides were caused by the moon.Many of Kepler's achievements came while enduring great personal suffering. Some of his hardships were a direct result of his Lutheran convictions, which cost him his position in Graz, where the Catholic Archduke of Hapsburg expelled him in 1598. Another time he was fined for burying his 2^nd child according to Lutheran funeral rites. His salary was often in arrears, even in Prague, where he had an imperial appointment. He lost his position there in 1612 when his benefactor the Emperor was forced to abdicate. He was plagued with digestive problems, gall bladder ailments, skin rashes, piles, and sores on his feet that healed badly because of his hemophilia. Childhood smallpox left him with defective eyesight and crippled hands. Even death was no stranger to him. His first wife died, as well as several of his children. A number of times he was forced to move from one city to another, sometimes even from one country to another. Often he had no money to support his family because those who contracted him failed to pay.Whether in fame or pain, Kepler’s faith remained unshaken. In his first publication he showed his Christian conviction at the book's conclusion where he gave all honor and praise to God. Stressed and overworked as he often was, he would sometimes fall asleep without having said his evening prayers. When this happened, it bothered him so much that the first thing he’d do next morning was to repent. Moments before he died, an attending Lutheran pastor asked him where he placed his faith. Calmly, he replied, "Solely and alone in the work of our redeemer Jesus Christ." Those were the final words of the man who earlier in his life had written that he only tried "thinking God's thoughts after him." He was still in that mindset when, four months before he died, he penned his own epitaph: “I used to measure the heavens, Now I must measure the earth. Though sky-bound was my spirit, My earthly body rests here."We’ll end this podcast with a brief review of the 17^th C, scientist Galileo. Like Kepler, a contemporary of his, Galileo searched and described the heavenly bodies. He was the first to use the telescope to study the skies, although he didn’t invent it. That credit goes to Johann Lippershey, who first revealed his invention in 1608 at a fair in Frankfurt. With the telescope, Galileo discovered that the moon's surface had valleys and mountains, that the moon had no light of its own but merely reflected it from the sun, that the Milky Way was composed of millions of stars, that Jupiter had 4 bright satellites, and that the sun had spots. Galileo also determined, contrary to Aristotelian belief, that heavy objects did not fall faster than light ones.Unfortunately, Galileo's observations were not well received by his Roman Catholic superiors, who considered Aristotle's view—not that of the Bible—as the final word of truth. Even letting Pope Paul V look through the telescope at his discoveries did not help his cause. His masterpiece, A Dialogue on the Two Principal Systems of the World, resulted in a summons before the Inquisition, where he was compelled to deny his belief in the Copernican theory and sentenced to an indefinite prison term. For some reason the sentence was never carried out. In fact, 4 years later he published Dialogues on the Two New Sciences. This work helped Isaac Newton formulate his 3 laws of motion.Galileo was less pro-Copernican than Kepler, with whom he often disagreed. He largely ignored Kepler's discoveries because he was still interested in keeping the Ptolemaic theory alive. He also criticized Kepler's idea of the moon affecting tides.The mystery is - If he was less pro-Copernican than Kepler—why did he get into trouble with the theologians who placed his books on the Index of forbidden books? The answer was because he was Roman Catholic, while Kepler was Lutheran.When modern critics condemn the Church & Christianity for its resistance to the Copernican theory, it must be noted and underscored that it was not the entire church that did so. Both Lutherans & Calvinists supported the Copernican theory.And it needs to be stated clearly that the reason the Roman Church proscribed Galileo’s work was precisely because they adhered to the scientific ideas of the day which were dominated by the Aristotelianism. Their opposition to Galileo wasn’t out of a strict adherence to the Bible – but to the current scientific thought. I say it again - It was errant science, or what we might call scientism that opposed Galileo. This is the mistake the Church can make today – when it allows itself to adopt the politically correct line of contemporary thought; the majority opinion – what the so-called experts hold to – today; but history has shown, is exchanged for something else tomorrow.Listen: History proves that while scientific theories come and go, God’s Word prevails.And that brings us to the end of The Change series. Next week we’ll return to our narrative timeline of church history.

The Change Part 9

This is the 9^th episode in our series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we take a look at the influence the Faith had on property rights & individual freedom.I begin by saying I know what follows, some will take great exception to. While some of what follows will sound like politicizing, I will attempt to steer clear of that. There is an undeniable political component to this topic but I’m not politicking here. I’m simply trying to show how a Christian Worldview, that is, one that is Biblically consistent, does tend to promote a certain kind of economic system. And that system flows from what the Bible says about property rights.Some listeners might wonder why CS, a church history podcast, as left off its narrative timeline to engage in this series we’re calling “The Change.” Well, really, it still is history. I’m attempting to show HOW the Christian Worldview has impacted WORLD history and how people live and think today. That’s when history becomes relevant, more than just academic fodder – when we understand how the past influences today.In our last episode we took a look at Christianity’s impact on labor & economics. It shouldn’t take long to realize that 12 minutes isn’t long enough to deal with THAT massive subject. A 12 hour podcast would just scratch the surface of the Faith’s impact on economic theory & practice. A 12 month graduate course might make a bare beginning on the subject. Today, we’ll delve a little deeper, realizing that we’re really only dabbling in the shallows of a vast subject.A person’s labor and finances have little dignity when he/she lacks the freedom and right to own property. Both are rooted in 2 of the Ten Commandments; Exodus 20:15, 17 =“You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet”Both these commandments assume the individual has the right and freedom to acquire, retain, and sell his/her property at their own discretion.Private property rights are vital to people's freedom. The 2 cannot be separated. Yet this most basic truth is not well recognized today. It’s rarely taught in public schools which seem bent on promoting socialism, which we’ll see in a moment is contrary to Scripture. Promoters of socialism often decry private property rights, arguing that “human rights” are more important. This sophistry is deceptive and lacks historical support, because where there are no private property rights there are also virtually no human or civil rights. What rights did the people under Communism have in the former Soviet Union, where the state owned everything? Except for a few personal incidentals, private property rights didn’t existent. Not having the right to private property was closely linked to not having the right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press. Similarly, what human rights do the people have today in Cuba or China, where property rights are also nonexistent?The American Founding Fathers, who were strongly influenced by biblical Christian values, knew that individual economic, political, and social freedom was intrinsically linked to private property rights. Even while still subjects of the British king, they made it clear property rights and liberty were inseparable. Arthur Lee of Virginia said, “The right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” That’s why when the Constitution was written, its formulators included private property rights in the Article I, Section 8. The 3^rd Amendment gives citizens the right to grant or deny housing on their property to soldiers. And the 4^th Amendment protects the property of citizens from unlawful search and seizure.But ever since the appearance of Karl Marx's economic and political philosophy known as Communism, private property has been politically attacked. The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, written in 1848 says, “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”Immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin, the first Communist leader of Russia, took the words of the Manifesto seriously when he secretly ordered the destruction of all legal documents showing property ownership, making it impossible for former owners to prove title.Following the founding of the Communist party, numerous politicians, writers, & even a few theologians, have argued that socialism, a term synonymous with Communism in the Manifesto, is the most compatible economic and political philosophy with Christian values.For instance, during the Great Depression, Jerome Davis said Christianity, like socialism, holds human values as higher than property values. While that’s true, it’s also misleading. It suggests property values are the same as property rights. They aren’t. Davis argued that human values are God-given, while property rights are merely human constructs.But nowhere in the Old or New Testament are property rights ever disparaged. On the contrary, the Commandment “You shall not steal” underscores such rights.In his parables and other teachings, Jesus often referred to property and material goods, but He never condemned anyone for possessing them. He only condemned people's over-attachment to possessions because that interfered with loving God and others. The parable of the Rich Young ruler in Matthew 19 well illustrates this. In another parable a chapter later, Jesus has the owner of a vineyard say to one of this hired hands, “Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?” It would seem some socialists today would answer, “No you don’t! We’ll tell you what to do with that money.”The book of Acts records Ananias as judged severely by God, not for withholding his property, but for lying to God. The possession of private property was assumed by Peter asking him, “Didn't it belong to you before it was sold?”Even though Christianity doesn’t espouse a specific economic ideology, it would be wrong to conclude that any & every economic theory is compatible with Christianity. Despite that, many look favorably upon socialism, which is an ideology that is in several regards contrary to Biblical doctrine.A less discriminating student of scripture might assume that because early Christians sold their possessions and “had all things in common, & gave to each as anyone had need” or because they were expected to be their brother's keeper, that socialistic governments are a reflection of Christianity. Such thinking makes at least 3 mistakes.First, it fails to recall that not all of the early Christians sold their possessions. Mary, the mother of Mark, retained her house and received at least implied commendation for doing so as that’s where the church met. Simon, a tanner in Caesarea, retained his house where he hosted Peter in Acts 10.Second, they fail to note that the supposed socialism some of the early Christians practiced was totally voluntary. Whatever they shared in common was out of love for that individual, not because it was forced upon them by government coercion. As we noted in a previous podcast, behavior that’s forced, no matter how noble its objective, is no longer Christian. This point is all too often overlooked today, even by many well-meaning but confused Christians.Third, while Christ wanted all to follow him, He also let them have the freedom to reject him, a precedent that God already established at the time of creation when he gave Adam and Eve the gift of a free will. Christ healed 10 lepers, but only 1 returned to thank him. He’d not denied the 9 the freedom to reject him. Another time He said that He wanted to gather Jerusalem's people to himself spiritually, like a hen gathers her chicks, but they were unwilling. He wept over Jerusalem's spiritual stubbornness, but compulsion was not his MO.Just as God does not want people to be coerced in spiritual matters, so too He does not want them to be coerced in earthly matters, such as in their economic activities. There’s not a single reference in either the Old or New Testaments in which God denies economic freedom to people, as do fascism, socialism, and it’s Siamese twin, Communism. The parables of Jesus that touch on economic issues are always couched in the context of freedom. Consider his parable of the talents, which relates the case of 1 man having received 5 talents; another 2; and a third, 1 (Matthew 25:15-30). The implication is quite clear: each was free to invest or not; there was no compulsion.If we fail to understand that the involuntary, coercive nature of socialism and its state programs is utterly incompatible with the economic practices some early Christians engaged in when they voluntarily had all things in common, we may think that socialism is a good way to practice Christianity. In 1848 this unfortunate thinking led F. D. Maurice to coin the term Christian socialism. Something done involuntarily or as a result of compulsion is no longer Christian. Christian socialism is an oxymoron. As the Austrian economist F. A. Hayek argued, socialism fails to tell people that its promises of freedom from economic care and want can only happen “by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice.” The prescient author Dostoyevsky expressed the incompatibility of socialism and Christianity by having Miusov, in The Brothers Karamazov, say, “The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.”Ever since the atheist and communist Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in the mid-19^th C, the economic system of capitalism has been both misunderstood and castigated, partly because of Marx's definition of labor. He wrongly saw labor as an antithesis to capital, when in reality capital is just labor transformed. Marx’s definition has dominated the discussion, even though it’s based on a false premise. Another misunderstanding relates to capitalism itself. Although Marx didn’t use the term, it became a despised concept to his sympathizers who used it in their pro-socialist, and so necessarily anti-capitalistic propaganda. Capitalism is negatively portrayed in the mass media. Ironically, even many news anchors, celebrities, & university professors who are paid millions of dollars annually—a capitalist salary—cast aspersions on capitalism, biting the hand that feeds them.In reality, capitalism is only a synonym for free enterprise & free markets. If these terms were consistently used instead of the word “capitalism,” socialists would have a more difficult time getting people to see capitalism as evil. This would be especially true in societies that have a strong tradition of freedom, such as the United States, Canada and Great Britain. People would ask: How can this economic system be evil if it’s the product of political and economic freedom and has never been found to exist without such freedom?A definition of capitalism by Pope John Paul II is relevant. In 1996, he asked rhetorically whether the eastern European countries, where Communism failed, should opt for capitalism. Said the Pope, "If by 'capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative.” The Pope’s definition of capitalism underscores that it’s a synonym for free enterprise.This is not to be understood to mean that Capitalism is the official Christian economic ideology. It’s merely that capitalism is a material by-product of the Mosaic law. Capitalism is a by-product of Christianity's value of freedom applied to economic life and activities. The economic freedom of capitalism can be & IS sometimes abused and misused. It’s also the only thing anti-capitalists like communists & socialists attribute to capitalism. Karl Marx believed that the abuses in capitalism would inevitably destroy it. As an atheist, he couldn’t envision the humanitarian spirit of Christianity internalized by thousands of leaders in the West would correct economic abuse. So the free market has not only has survived, it’s given to a greater proportion of the world’s people more prosperity and freedom than any other economic system in history. As Milton Friedman has shown, in countries where the free market is not permitted to operate, the gap between the rich and poor is the widest.It can be argued further that a free market economy as it practiced in America, is of all economic systems the most moral in that it does not coerce or compel individuals to make economic transactions. It permits individuals or companies to act voluntarily. Individuals need not buy or sell their products unless they so desire. Furthermore, individuals are not compelled to produce a product against their will as is the norm in socialist, or so-called “planned” economies.Finally, given the positive relationship between economic freedom and a nation's prosperity, the following question needs to be asked: Is it merely accidental that the greatest amount of freedom and the accompanying economic prosperity happen to exist in countries where Christianity has had, and continues to have, a dominant presence and influence? The evidence shows rather decisively that Christianity tends to create a capitalistic mode of life whenever siege conditions do not prevail.On a deeper level, and maybe this gets more to the heart of the issue, is the question of the profit motive. Is the desire for profit inherently sinful, and if it is, should it be regulated by civil law and an economic system that makes profit something to be shunned?In both the Old & New Testaments, the Bible says a worker is worthy of his/her wages. To pay those wages, the employer has to make a profit, or she/ he has nothing to pay the worker with.In the Parable of the Talents, Jesus gave legitimacy to the profit motive. The crisis of the parable revolves around what each of the 3 servants did with what was given to them. The 2 who made a profits were commended while the one who had no interest in increasing what he’d received was condemned.The idea that the profit motive is evil doesn’t come from the Bible or Christian theology. It was Karl Marx, the atheistic Communist, who said profit, which he called surplus value, was the result of labor not returned to the laborers. So, profit was cast as exploitation of workers. The Soviet Encyclopedia projects this belief when it states, “Under capitalism, the category of profit is a converted form of surplus value, the embodiment of unpaid labor of wage workers, which is appropriated without compensation by the capitalist."Contempt for the profit motive is common fare for some intellectuals who harbor socialistic ideas. They impugn profit by identifying abuses in the world of banking, industry and commerce. To be sure, profits can and have been abused—horribly. But if this is to be used as condemnation of free enterprise, then socialism has to be held to the same standard. When it is, it fares worse than the free market.What’s important to note is that it’s the Christian ethic that ensures the abuses inherent in profit are kept at bay. The Apostle Paul warns that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The NT repeatedly warns of greed & avarice, and their cousin, Envy.Let’s take a look at a case study that well illustrates all this.After the disaster at Roanoke Island and the mystery of the Lost Colony, the next English settlers in America landed in 1607 and called their settlement Jamestown. After a rough start that saw the colony nearly destroyed, Captain John Smith arrived & made moves to make it successful. The colonists were economically organized as a socialist community, requiring all the settlers to give all products of their labor to "the common store." Individuals had no private property and no economic freedom. This system quickly turned disastrous, bringing famine and starvation. An early historian wrote, “It was a premium for idleness, and just suited the drones, who promptly decided that it was unnecessary to work themselves, since others would work for them."' Smith's threats that if a person didn’t work, he wouldn’t eat did little to improve the economic malaise. So, beginning in 1611, Governor Thomas Dale ended the common store, and 4 years later had the London Company deed 50 acres to each colonist if he would clear the trees and farm it. The injection of private property and economic freedom brought about a dramatic change in Jamestown. The colonists immediately went to work and prospered. The new economic system demonstrated that socialism does not work.A similar situation happened among the Pilgrims at Plymouth. When they landed on the shores of Cape Cod in 1620 and set up their Colony, like Jamestown, they tried to equate Christianity with socialism. Their common store system failed as well. The colony experienced economic disaster. So in 1623 William Bradford, the colony's governor, like Governor Dale in Jamestown, assigned all able-bodied persons a portion of land as their own. Before long the slothful and unproductive turned from laggards into willing, productive workers. Men who previously had “feigned sickness were now eager to get into the fields. Even the women went out to work eagerly.... They now took their children with them and happily engaged in labor for their own family. The result was that the following harvest was a tremendous, bountiful harvest, and abundant thanksgiving was celebrated in America." With the common store, the Pilgrims had had little incentive to produce commodities other than those needed for their immediate sustenance.The new system, based on economic freedom, revealed for the second time that when people own their own property, they become energetic rather than lethargic and dependent on others. Socialism could only work if human beings were sinless & always sought the best for their neighbor. That person, however, does not exist. As both the Old and New Testaments teach, man is a fallen, sinful creature who does not seek his neighbor's welfare.As stated earlier, while Christianity doesn’t advocate a specific economic ideology, its support of human freedom and private property rights provides fertile ground for the free enterprise economic system. Contrary to a socialist mentality that advocates a redistribution of wealth, Christianity encourages productivity and thrift, which often results in an individual’s wealth.While Christianity isn’t opposed to individuals becoming wealthy, it doesn’t promote wealth as an end in itself. Christians have always been expected to use their acquired wealth to God's glory and to the welfare of their neighbor, as Martin Luther and John Calvin often made clear.Closely related to the dignity of labor and economic freedom is Christianity's concept of time. The British historian Paul Johnson contends that one of Christianity's great strengths lies in its concept of time. Unlike the Greeks, who saw time as cyclical, Christianity, with its background in Judaism, has always seen time as linear. Life and events proceed from one historical point to another. Groundhog Day is a fun movie, but it’s fiction.Christianity's linear concept of time led to the invention of mechanical clocks in the Middle Ages. In his fascinating books The Discoverers & The Creators, venerable American historian Daniel Boorstin says that for centuries “Man allowed his time to be parsed by the changing cycles of daylight, [and thereby remaining] a slave of the sun.” This changed when Christian monks needed to know the times for their appointed prayers, giving rise to Europe's first mechanical clocks. The appointed periods of prayer in the monasteries became known as "canonical hours."Referring to his second coming , Jesus said, "Keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” This linear concept of time had the effect of Christians seeing time as limited and having an end point. Although Christ's warning referred to his sudden return and the need for Christians to be prepared, Paul Johnson says this awareness caused Christians "a sense of anxiety about time, which made men dissatisfied by progress but for the same reason determined to pursue it.” This time-related anxiousness motivated Christians to make the most of their time, economically and religiously.By giving dignity to labor and accenting the spirit of individual freedom, Christianity produced profound economic effects. Johnson says that “Christianity was one of the principal dynamic forces in the agricultural revolution on which the prosperity of Western Europe ultimately rested, and it was the haunting sense of time and its anxiety to accomplish, its urge to move and arrive, which gave men in the West the will to industrialize and create our modern material structure. . . Christianity provided the moral code, the drill and the discipline-as well as the destination-which enabled the unwieldy army of progress to lumber into the future.”

The Change Part 8

This is the 8^th episode in our series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we take a look at the influence the Faith has had on labor and work.Historians of the traditional school laud Greco-Roman civilization for what it bequeathed the modern world in politics & philosophy. But in the classical world poly-phi was done by the elite; the wealthy & powerful 1% who had the leisure time to engage exclusively in intellectual pursuits. What gets glossed over in this era is the low regard paid manual labor & those classes of society that did it. You could make a good case that it was the tension between the tiny elite, patrician class & the lower masses of plebeians that was the deciding factor in shaping Roman history.Both Greeks & Romans thought manual labor fit only for slaves & the lower classes who had to work because they couldn’t afford slaves. The wealthy shunned work or any kind. Plutarch reported that Plato was infuriated at 2 fellow philosophers because they constructed a machine to help solve problems of geometry. Such a device ought to have been made by a slave or artisan—not by thinkers & freemen. But that wasn’t the end or extent of Plato’s outrage. He was also incensed that a machine had been constructed to make geometry practical; it corrupted the excellence of geometry as a thought-experiment! In Plato, at least, and his thinking here likely expresses the rest of the Athenian elite – there was utter disdain with & for the everyday world of the common man.The ancient mathematician Archimedes was embarrassed by having constructed devices that aided his studies in geometry. The 1^st C BC Roman philosopher Cicero said no gentleman ought to lower himself to engage in daily labor to provide for his needs. He said, “Vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labor…and all mechanics are engaged in vulgar trades.” Seneca, who lists the honorable activities for freemen, never mentions manual labor.In Athens in the 1^st C AD, 1/3^rd of the freemen did nothing more than sit in the city’s political assembly hall and discuss issues of State while slaves performed the work that made the State run. There were 5 times as many slaves in Athens as citizens.So, if the elite 1% weren’t working, what were they doing? They were seeking pleasure purchased by the wealth earned by the lower classes they despised. It was into this anti-work cultural environment the early Christians entered the Greco-Roman world.The value assigned simple work by Christians stemmed from 3 sources.First – they had Jesus as their example.He grew up in the home of a craftsman. Tradition says Joseph was a carpenter but the NT word tecknon refers to a skilled construction worker. Remember that though Joseph & Mary were from Bethlehem in the S just a few miles from Jerusalem, they lived up N in Nazareth when Jesus was born. That’s where He was raised. Joseph lived in Nazareth because in that day, that’s where the work was. Herod was building a new capital for Galilee in the city of Sepphoris, a short hike from Nazareth, which in that day was little more than a work camp for Jewish laborers working on Herod’s project. Tour the ruins of Sepphoris today and you come to the conclusion, Joseph probably did more work as a mason than as a carpenter. And following custom, Jesus would have learned his father’s trade & spent many hours in the quarries & on-site shaping stones. He plied this trade till he was 30.Second – The early Christians had another excellent role model in the Apostle Paul who from his Hebrew heritage had learned a trade, even though his real career was as a rabbi. Paul repeatedly used his tent-making as the means of supporting his ministry. So much so, that phrase has come over into our vernacular.Third – Early Christians were well aware of Paul’s admonition in 2 Thess. 3:10 that “If a man won’t work, he shall not eat.”This embrace of work as noble not only set Christians apart from the Greco-Roman culture, it enabled them to prosper. Their strong work ethic bore fruit. But their increasing prosperity brought them under the eye of Roman officials wary of the power wealth inevitably secured. Though Christians used their wealth to better the lives of others, the Romans couldn’t help but assume they were constructing a secret society that would eventually challenge their control. This became one more reason to be suspicious & to persecute Christians – because of their success in business.Another effect the Christian view of work had on Greco-Roman culture was the way it undermined slavery. If work is noble & industry is a virtue, then slaves possess dignity because they do nearly ALL the work. It was easy for freemen to overlook the suffering of slaves when they were regarded as nothing more than living tools, as Greeks called them. Assigning them dignity was dangerous, because ate away at the conscience of freemen. If a salve is a man or woman, not just a tool—it’s not right for them to be subjected to such treatment. A man can own a thing; but can he own another man? // It was the introduction of Christianity that began the long, slow road toward abolition.In AD 375, church leaders compiled a list of policies regarding what constituted Christian practice. Called The Apostolic Constitutions, they were 8 treatises on discipline, worship, & doctrine, intended to serve as a manual of guidance for clergy & to a lesser extent, for the laity. In no uncertain terms, based on what Paul wrote the Thess., the Constitutions stated – “The Lord our God hates the slothful.”The monasteries of the early Middle Ages were organized around Christianity's high regard for work. Benedictine monks of the 6^th C. considered labor an integral & spiritual part of their discipline that did much to increase the prestige of labor and the self-respect of the laborer. All the monastic orders honored work as they tilled the soil, tended herds, milked cows, & crafted artifacts.Work was also considered an antidote to the sin of laziness. Basil of Caesarea in the 4^th C said, “Idleness is a great evil; work preserves us from evil thoughts.” This is where the phrase, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” originated. In the 12^th C St. Bernard taught; “The handmaid of Christ ought always to pray, read, & work, lest the spirit of uncleanness should lead astray the slothful mind. The [willful] delights of the flesh are overcome by labor.” So strong was the Christian concern in the Middle Ages regarding the willful avoidance of work, the Church counted sloth as one of the 7 Deadly Sins.The high value Christianity assigned manual labor was further bolstered during the Reformation. Martin Luther saw work not only as pleasing to the Lord but as a means by which His glory could be expanded. Work was a calling to serve God. The Latin word was vocatio comes over into English as vocation; a divine call to the service of God, in whatever form that took. Up to that time, it was believed the only calling God gave was into the clergy. The idea that He also called farmers & merchants and the rest of the occupations of society was new & novel & revolutionized people’s view of a career. There was no low-status or high-status work, good work or bad work. It made no difference what kind work the Christian did so long as he/she performed it to the glory of God. Work was not an end in itself but something someone did in everyday life to the glory of God and to the service of mankind. It was thru work, especially the work of Christians, that God maintained and preserved the world and the people in it. Thus, all legitimate work was noble and God-pleasing. Work became a Christian duty.And while the curse of the Fall had turned work into toil, the work itself was still noble because even BEFORE the Fall, God had commanded Adam to tend the Garden. He had work to do before sin made that work hard.All of this conspired to produce the Protestant Work Ethic which found a society wide application in the Puritan settlements of Massachusetts & helped launch American prosperity.When in Luke 10:7 Jesus said "the worker deserves his wages”, He paraphrased Deut 25:4, an OT norm first spoken by Moses when he commanded the Israelites: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Just as the ox treading out the grain needs to be rewarded for his work, so too, laborers are worthy of the reward of their wages. These biblical references made it mandatory workers be paid for their efforts. It also underscored once more in the eyes of Christians that work was honorable.It’s simply assumed by workers today that they deserve a wage or salary for services performed. This hasn’t always been so. In pagan societies of the ancient world right up thru the era of the early church, the norm was for societies to have the majority of their residents work as slaves. These slaves, who performed all manual labor, received little other than a meager subsistence allowance. And that was only given so that they’d be able to keep working, not as a reward for their toil. People today ought to appreciate that the current practice of compensating workers & the belief it’s unjust to deprive them of fair compensation, would not be in place were it not for Christianity establishing the norm that "a worker deserves his wages.”If employers who identified themselves as Christian, had faithfully heeded the biblical admonition to pay their workers as they deserved, labor unions might never have needed to come into existence. And unions, some of them being so rabidly anti-Christian in their policies, ought to consider this: The influence of the biblical admonition that the laborer is worthy of his hire lies behind today's institutionalized practice of unions negotiating contracts for their members. If it didn’t come from this biblical norm, from where did it come? It certainly wasn’t present in the Greco-Roman era, where slaves performed nearly all manual labor.Christianity's 2000 year influence is more deeply ingrained and pervasive in Western economic values and practices than is realized.Before Christians brought dignity to work and labor, there wasn’t much of a middle class in the Greek or Roman society. People were either rich or poor, & the poor were commonly slaves. The Christian emphasis on everyone being required to work and work being honorable had the effect of producing a class between the wealthy & the poor. People like the Christians, who didn’t just live for “bread & games” to use Cicero's expression. Christians couldn’t fail to prosper. So the economic phenomenon of a middle class arose, now present in Western societies but unknown before the advent of Christianity.The presence of a middle class in Western societies has rightly been credited w/greatly reducing the extent of poverty & its inevitable by-product, disease. It’s also been a potent factor in fostering and maintaining political and economic freedom.

The Change Part 7

This episode is another in our series considering the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we take a look at the influence the Faith had on Education.The roots of the Christian posture toward education lies in Jesus’ command to His disciples just before He ascended to heaven. He told them as they went, to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to keep all that He had commanded.The modern Evangelical church has taken the word & idea of discipleship & turned it into something rather different from what those original disciples understood it to mean. A 1^st C disciple from the region of Galilee where the original disciples were from & where Jesus spent most of His life & did most of His ministry, was someone who’d been selected by a rabbi to follow him and become a devoted learner. A disciple was, in the most intense sense of the word – a scholar whose field of study was the life & teaching of his rabbi. His goal was to be just like that rabbi, and he spent 15 years of his life following his rabbi, 24/7/365¼ so that he could be just like his rabbi.He began following at 15 and ended at 30. If he proved himself a worthy student & his rabbi sensed he too was called, he became a rabbi at the age of 30. The Gospels tell us Jesus was about 30 when He began his public ministry. He was following in this pattern for rabbis & disciples in place in 1^st C Galilee.If a disciple wasn’t quite cut out to be a rabbi, which required a demonstrated divine authority from God, then a disciple returned to his village to become the Torah-teacher in the local synagogue school where all Jewish boys & girls went from the age of 6-10. There they trained these youngsters to memorize the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible. Check it out: They didn’t just memorize the names of the 5 books of Moses; they memorized all that was written in them. Genesis thru Deuteronomy, word for word.Those boys who excelled at memorization in this 1^st phase of education went on to phase 2 in which the Torah teacher taught them the rest of the Tanach, as well as the commentary on it by Israel’s most famous rabbis. It was the cream of the crop from this phase that became candidates to train under a rabbi as a disciple.The point is this: When Jesus told His disciples they were to go & do with others what He’d done with them – make disciples, they understood what “teaching them to keep all Jesus had commanded” meant = a rigorous course of education that aimed not just at knowledge but at life-change.The disciples took Jesus’ command seriously. Acts 5 tells us after the Feast of Pentecost, the disciple snow turned Apostles never stopped teaching. As Acts chronicles the Apostle Paul’s ministry, we see his emphasis on teaching. Paul was a teaching machine! He used every opportunity to inform people of the truth then call them to the implications of that truth.In giving the qualifications for the church leaders called “elders,” which in the NT is synonymous with the words “bishop” & “pastor,” Paul says they must be able to teach. Immediately following the time of the Apostles, the 2^nd generation of Christian leaders took up the mantle of leadership & set out to cull the essence of what Christians believe. They devised what’s known as the Didache, meaning – the Teaching / Instruction. This was written sometime between 80-110 AD.In the early 2^nd C, Bishop/Pastor Ignatius of Antioch urged all churches to instruct children in the Scriptures and to teach them a trade. This was a direct carry-over from Judaism which placed tremendous emphasis on literacy, on God’s Word & on knowing a skilled trade.As we saw in a long-ago episode of CS, while baptism in the NT was something believers were urged to do as soon as they came to faith as a public profession of faith, as the decades passed, baptism was delayed until after new believers could be catechized – that is, taught the catechism, which was a question & answer format in which they were taught the doctrines of the faith. These were no lightweight questions. It was some pretty deep theology. They weren’t baptized till they’d taken all the lessons & that meant 2 to 3 yrs before they were dunked.These catechumen, as they were called, were at first taught in the homes of other church members. But eventually there were to many so special schools were built. In these schools, the emphasis was on literacy, where people could learn to read & write so that they could read the Scriptures & other classical works. Justin Martyr built one of these schools in Rome & another in Ephesus. They began popping up all over and earned a reputation as a home of great scholarship. The School in Alexandria, Egypt was regarded around the Empire as a great center of learning & scholarship. Another school in Caesarea on the coast of Israel was another. It was out of these schools that the towering intellects of men like Origen, Clement, & Athanasius arose.While the main course of study in these schools was Theology & the Bible, they included other disciplines as well. Mathematics, medicine, philosophy, grammar, and what passed for science. These centers of learning went far to remove the stigma critics of the Faith had attached to it in its early days – that is was a despicable religion fit only for the poor, uneducated & slaves. The Church was led by some of the brightest minds of the day who were more than capable at not only defending the Faith but dismantling the majority paganism. Many of the early apologists used the best of Greek philosophy to argue for the superiority of the Christian worldview. It infuriated pagan apologists that their own heroes from the past seemed to lend their weight to the Christian Gospel.To be sure, Christians weren’t the first to set up schools. In Corinth, the Book of Acts tells us, there were pagan schools when Paul arrived. They were doing a brisk business. Where the Christian schools defied convention was in their willingness to educate both sexes in the same setting. Romans taught only boys, and only from wealthy families at that. Christians taught men, women, & children, regardless of how many coppers they could pass the teacher.In the 5^th C, Augustine said that most Christian women were better educated than pagan philosophers.As education became more and more of a mark of being a Christian, their schools expanded and the course of study grew more comprehensive. Students were taught the Trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and logic as core subjects, & the Quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry & astronomy as support studies.The Church’s goal in this education was to make sure it’s members were well-educated, especially it’s clergy. They needed to be educated so they could love God with all their mind and serve Him with all their strength.. In the 8^th C, Charlemagne made sure his children were educated well & brought the famous English scholar Alcuin to tutor them as well as other children of the nobility. Hundreds of years later, King Alfred of England made sure his sons & daughters were taught to read & write in their native tongue & Latin, the scholarly language of the day. In the 1330’s a Florentine writer reported there were about 10 thousand children in Florence’s schoolsWhile the Church educated both sexes equally for the first several Centuries, as the Middle Ages approached and the cathedral schools grew, the emphasis on education shifted to men being trained for the clergy. Women were moved to convents & nunneries where they learned basic literacy & the arts.But the passage of time saw the emphasis on women’s education wane in favor of men & boys. There wasn’t so much an official position taken by the Church that opposed the education of women & girls. It was more the result of social apathy. In the 15^th C 2 church leaders, Leonardo Bruni & Battista Guarinao, called attention to the appalling lack of emphasis on education for women & urged reform.Those reforms were at least partially successful as the number of women scholars that appeared in Europe over the next decades and Cs was remarkable. Women such as . . .Lioba // Hrotsvitha // Hildegard // Brigitta // Catherine of Siena & Christine de Pizan.Students of Medieval history often have the mental image of the cloistered halls of monasteries where monks sit hunched over slanted tables laboriously copying ancient texts on parchment with quill & ink. What they ought to add to that is the cloistered halls of convents where nuns sit doing precisely the same thing. It was in these scriptoriums that Scripture & the ancient classics were copied; their treasure saved & passed on to posterity.This emphasis on teaching both sexes dates back to Jesus’ own willingness to teach women. While there were no women numbered among the 12 Apostles, they certainly were counted among the larger number of unofficial disciples who followed Jesus. And that was something that was simply UNHEARD of among 1^st C Jews! Rabbis did not allow women to come into contact with them. They did not accept them as disciples. Girls from age 6 to 10 were taught alongside boys in the Torah schools attached to the synagogue, but at 10 they went home to learn at their mother’s side how to be a wife & mother. Part of the scandal that simmered around Jesus was His acceptance of women as part of the small crowd that accompanied Him where-ever He went. He taught them alongside the men in the Sermon on the Mount. He taught them in Lazarus’ home in Bethany. The famous story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan women in John 4 is stunning in its description of how utterly unexpected it was. She even said, “How is it that you talk to me – a Samaritan & A WOMAN?!?!?”The famous historian Will Durant comments on the uniqueness of Christianity in the Greco-Roman environment it grew up it – that it broke with convention by being a religion for everyone –ethnicity, sex & social standing had nothing to do with its appeal or outreach. All were welcome & welcome equally.The movement toward universal education came during the Reformation in the 16^th C. Martin Luther’s appeal for reform, embodied in the 95 theses he tacked to the church door at Wittenberg, were necessitated by the appalling decline in education that had taken place over the previous centuries in Europe. The Church had become corrupted so that many of its leaders were lazy & shirked the call to scholarship. Instead of the clergy being the best educated, many couldn’t even read or write. As Marin Luther visited the churches of Saxony, he was dismayed by the number of nearly illiterate priests & monks. So he embarked on a campaign of education. In 1529 he wrote the Small Catechism which taught the basics of the Faith. Things began to turn around.Luther said that people needed to understand both “the Word of Scripture and the nature of the world in which the Word took root.” He urged for a state school system in which elementary students would be taught the basics of grammar, reading, writing, then for secondary education would learn Latin so they could read the classics to broaden their worldview. He criticized parents who failed to make sure their children were schooled.One of Luther’s most significant breaks with the religious schools of previous generations was his belief that not only were schools needed to train clergy, just as important a function was to train those doing non-religious or what we call, secular work. Luther believed clergy ought to be called by God, not just educated by man. Those not called to church work were called, just as much by God into secular work – so they needed just as strong an education. It was this sense of divine calling or vocation that framed what came to be known as the Protestant Work Ethic.John Calvin, the reformer whose ideas shaped the City of Geneva, established a school system there.As the Reformation spread across Europe, the idea of universal education met with some resistance from the lower classes; for 2 reasons.1) What little education that had remained until that time was done by the Church which they considered corrupt. So, book-learning was suspected as being something that would corrupt the young; turning them into agents for the Pope.2) The educated tended to be people in the upper social classes, so seen as lazy by the working class.For that reason, in many rural settings, the movement toward universal education was slow to catch on. Luther & other Reformers knew that a healthy church was built by literacy & so urged civil magistrates to make the education of the young compulsory. In Many places in Germany they complied. And soon, public schools supported by taxes were growing across the land.So it’s sad to see how the modern public school system has become so hostile toward Christianity. It owes its very existence to the Faith.

The Change Part 6

This is episode 6 in a series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we continue our look at the impact The Faith had on the world’s view of Charity & Compassion, specifically in the founding of hospitals & health care.In an earlier episode we noted how so many of what are called liberal ideals of modern society had their roots in the Christian transformation of culture, specifically in Western Civilization. Those ideas flowed from the Faith’s high view of the sanctity of human life, which was a radical departure from the pagan view of man and the strict classism that dominated the ancient world. The dilemma today is that secular liberalism wants to keep the advantages and rights Christianity brought w/o the moral and spiritual core that empowered them. Christianity’s exalted view of man is based on its higher & prior exalted view of God. Gut society of that view of God and its view of man is destined to decline. Which is precisely what we’re seeing in modern Western societies today. As one philosopher posed the question: “Can man be good without God?” The answer is; “Not for long.” As my pastor said years ago, “Is it any wonder that when schools tell children they are nothing but the chance result of random chemical reactions and descended from apes, they then begin to act by the law of the jungle while they live in Los Angeles, or London?Those who assume modern charity and compassion, whether it be government welfare or voluntary assistance, developed on its own without the energizing influence of Christianity are misinformed. People need to understand that “civilization” isn’t some kind of mystical force that happens on its own. It’s not the product of social evolution where man keeps getting better & better. Christianity WAS the premier civilizing influence that shaped the modern world and gave Western civilization the benefits that have meant advancement.The German historian C. Schmidt, a century ago said to disregard Christianity’s influence in civilizing the ancient world is “blind to the history of nations, and to the history of the Human heart. Both proclaim loudly that charity cannot be the product of egoism, nor a humility of pride; that without the intervention of God no new spirit could have regenerated individuals in the world.”Carlton Hayes wrote, “From the wellsprings of Christian compassion our Western civilization has drawn its inspiration, and its sense of duty, for feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, looking after the homeless, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting the prisoner.”Who built hospitals? Who founded rescue missions in decaying inner cities? Orphanages? Soup kitchens? Who founded charitable societies, taught literacy, worked tirelessly to end slavery, campaigned for equal rights, ended child labor? Christians! Men & women who understood the sanctity of human life & the urgency of guarding human dignity - that’s who.It’s been interesting watching the assault the New Atheists have leveled on religion in general and Christianity in particular. They say the Faith is standing in the way of human progress. Yet virtually every support that makes it even possible for them to say that was provided by Christians living out their Faith. Where, pray tell, are the atheist rescue mission and orphanages. Where are the atheist founded & funded hospitals?Jesus was concerned for people’s bodies as well as their souls. In commending the faithfulness of the disciples in Matthew 25, Jesus lauded their feeding & clothing the needy. The Gospels tell us as part of His ministry Jesus went all over Israel healing illness & disease. The blind, deaf, palsied, lame and even the socially outcast lepers were all healed by Him. Indeed, Jesus’ ministry seemed to pulse between these 2 poles – teaching & healing. Frequently the text tells us He was moved with compassion as he looked on the crowds coming to Him. Since the goal of a disciple is to be just like his rabbi, when Jesus sent His boys out on their own ministry exercise, they went forth teaching & healing. When they returned they were stoked about the miracles they’d seen God work thru them.Later, when the Apostles went out to continue Jesus’ mission of preaching the Gospel, they carried on the wholisitc task of expanding the Kingdom of God by both preaching & healing. This personal, literal, physical touch was a far cry from the cult of Gnosticism that a century later would reduce the Gospel to an esoteric message utterly divorced from the physical.The Greco-Roman world the early Christians lived in was void of care for the sick & dying. Oh sure, there were doctors, there were even healing centers. But these were exclusively for the service of the rich & powerful. Dionysus, a Christian pastor of the 3^rd C described the behavior of the people of Alexandria in a plague in 250 AD. He said they “thrust aside anyone who began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends. They cast the afflicted out onto the public roads half dead, and left them unburied. The sick were treated with utter contempt when they died.” But the Christians, he reported, came to the aid of the sick and dying. They ignored the danger to themselves. He wrote –“Very many of our brethren, while in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness, did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick without thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time most joyfully... drawing upon themselves their neighbors' diseases, and willingly taking over to their own persons the burden of the sufferings of those around them.”As I noted in a recent episode, the Emperor Julian, who wanted to roll back the ground Christianity had made in the Empire, & reinstall paganism, lamented that pagans could not come close to the charity & compassion exhibited by even the humblest of Jesus’ followers. In truth, Romans considered helping the sick as a sign of weakness. They thought it manly to resist the inner urge to pity. When Christians stayed to help the sick during plague, it unmasked the Roman idea as weak while showing compassion was courageous.Christians of the 1^st thru 4^th Cs rejected the callous & inhumane culture of the Greco-Roman world. They considered everyone as having an eternal & potentially-redeemable soul. It pleased God to tend to anyone, regardless of social status. Because eternal life awaited those who believed in Christ, life on earth wasn’t the ultimate value. If someone died while caring for the sick, a far better life lay ahead. And if a sick person came to faith in Christ because of the charity shown them, another soul was gained for heaven. That kind of thought & behavior was foreign to paganism.Few of those early Christians who risked their lives to tend the ill had their names recorded for posterity. Few, but not none. One name that is known is Benignus of Dijon, a 2^nd C Christian martyred in Epagny because he “nursed, supported, & protected a number of deformed & crippled children that had been saved from death after failed abortions and exposures.” Rescuing frail, unwanted children was an insult to the Romans. It violated their cultural norms. Remember the words of Seneca, the 1^st C Roman philosopher: "We drown children who at birth are weakly and abnormal.”Because of the pagan low-regard for human life and their de-valuing of the sick by not caring for them, there were no hospitals for the treatment or care of the general populace. A careful student of history may object & query, “What about the nearly 300 temples to Aesculapius, the god of healing? Weren’t those ancient hospitals?”The answer is, Not really. Sick people went there but not to be tended by a doctor or receive treatment. They went there to ask the deity for healing and that he’d reveal to them what treatment might help. But no medicine was applied there. There were other places where doctors could be asked for assistance. But while people might be told what treatment to seek, they weren’t nursed at the temple of Aesculapius. The few places were the ill could convalesce were limited only to the recovery of people deemed worthy because of some benefit they provided society or their master. So there were treatment centers for wounded gladiators and soldiers. But there was NOTHING for the treatment & recovery of the lower classes; simply nothing.In India of the 3^rd C BC, King Asoka commanded that hospitals be constructed. But it’s not known who or what they were for. Because while the command was given, it was never carried out. When Europeans arrived in the 18^th C, there were no hospitals in the land.Simply stated, charity hospitals for the poor & needy did not exist prior to Christianity introducing them.During the first 3 centuries, when Christians were the object of frequent and severe persecution, the most they could do was care for the sick where they found them or in extreme cases, take them into their homes. After Constantine removed the ban on the Faith in the early 4^th C, Christians were able to direct more attention toward caring for the sick and dying. At the Council of Nicaea in 325 bishops were directed to set up hospices in every city with a major church.Many of the early Christian hospitals were not what people understand by them today. While their most important function was to nurse and heal the sick, they also provided shelter for the poor and lodging for Christian pilgrims. These hospitals, known as xenodochia were prompted by Christ's command to care for the physically sick and by the early apostolic teaching that Christians be hospitable to strangers and travelers.The first real hospital was built by St. Basil in Caesarea of Cappadocia about AD 369. It was part of a large complex that included houses for physicians and nurses, workshops, and schools. The rehabilitation buildings and workshops gave those with no occupational skills opportunity to learn a trade while recovering. The compound’s comprehensive nature reveals additional humanitarian awareness. It’s difficult to argue this awareness had nothing to do with the spirit of Christ alive in St. Basil, the good bishop of Caesarea.After St. Basil's hospital was built in the East and another in Edessa in 375, Fabiola, a wealthy widow and associate of Jerome, built the first hospital in the West in Rome in about 390. According to Jerome, Fabiola donated all of her considerable wealth to construct it. She then brought in the sick from the streets. They later built another such hospital in the port of Ostia 50 miles from Rome.Since this isn’t a podcast on the history of hospitals, I’ll drop the chronicle there. Suffice it to say more were built & staffed throughout the Empire & world, where ever Christianity gained a foothold.While the Age of Discovery was more often than not a purely commercial enterprise, whenever new realms were opened, Christian missionaries followed and established bases to bring physical relief as well as spiritual light.The 1^st mental institutions were built & ran by Christians. Their later devolution into the hands of secular psychologists saw some of the most bizarre & inhuman treatments of the mentally infirm.It’s important to note that nursing as a profession had its origin completely in the Christian impetus to help the sick & infirm and provide dignity for the dying. Florence Nightingale is world renowned in her care for the sick and wounded. At great personal peril & cost, she ministered to the physically needed – all in the compassion of Christ & for God’s glory.In 1864, Jean Henri Dunant along with 4 others started the International Red Cross. While Dunant was a sometimes fierce critic of the organized church, he was driven by Christ’s example and call to take care of the physical needs of the poor, weak, sick and needy.This brief review of hospitals & health care is enlightening in terms of what it says about the current health care system & debate. Modern society has come to view healthcare as virtually a RIGHT. Many believe it’s the government’s duty to provide healthcare as a basic privilege of citizenship. That’s a far cry from the Greco-Roman roots many of those people say they want to return to. It was Christianity, especially the Faith that developed during the Middle Ages to infiltrate & season Western civilization, that bequeathed to the modern world it’s exalted view of medical care – all based on the sanctity of human life, which rests on the foundation of a conviction man is created in God’s image.One additional remark: As I record this episode, the United States, where I live, is engaged in a rather acrimonious debate over Radical Islam and terrorism. A mass shooting in San Bernardino took place just days ago a couple hours from where I live. The Syrian Refugee dilemma is in the news daily. President Obama held a national speech from the Oval Office of the White house to address these issues. He labored to make a distinction between Radical Jihadists and the larger religion of Islam.Many of the listeners to CS are aware Islam has a long and checkered past. In the history of medicine, it has been a handful of Muslim physicians who’ve advanced the medical arts and bequeathed practices that shaped the origins of modern medicine. By digging a little deeper, we discover these Muslim doctors learned a good part of their practices from earlier Christian schools in the East at places like Edessa & Gundashpur. Those schools were conquered by Muslim invaders and their works were translated in Arabic.As we end this episode, I want to say thanks to the many new subscribers to CS, for referring others to the podcast, and to all those who’ve popped by the Facebook page to give us a like.

The Change Part 5

This episode continues our series examining the impact Christianity had on history & culture. Today we consider how the Faith impacted the world’s view of Charity & Compassion.Early Christians quickly gained a reputation for their concern for the poor & disenfranchised. Unlike paganism with its acceptance of fate & the Greco-Roman enforcement of social classes, the Gospel viewed all human beings as created in God’s image & of equal value. Having its roots firmly in Judaism, Christianity considered justice to include a healthy dose of mercy & compassion. The Law of Moses regulated the treatment of slaves so they retained their dignity. It required the corners of fields be left unharvested so the poor could glean. And it required an annual tithe to be set aside specially for the poor & needy. All of this was unheard of in the pagan world.Building on this base of Jewish charity was the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25 who said that taking care of the hungry, the sick & prisoners was a kindness shown to none other than Himself.The parable of the Good Samaritan was one of the favorites of the Faith & shaped the Church’s mindset toward the needy.In the mid 3^rd C, Tertullian in North Africa records that Christians had a common fund to which they voluntarily contributed. No strong-arm fundraising was needed; believers were glad to add coins to the box whenever they could. This fund supported widows, the disabled, orphans, the sick & prisoners jailed for their faith. It was also on occasion used to bury the poor & to purchase a slave’s freedom.All of this stands in marked contrast with the Greco-Roman attitude toward the poor. They practiced what was known as liberalitas. This was assistance a wealthy benefactor showed to a someone in need, with an eye to their repaying the favor someday, somehow. In Roman society, the upper classes rose in status by having lots & lots of clients who supported you. They shouted your name when cued to do so at some public event. The louder your name was shouted, the more supporters you had & so the more prestige you garnered. So a wealthy Roman would help someone who was needy only if that person could go on to add his voice to his support base. It wasn’t genuine charity; it was buying support. I’ll help you today, if you shout my name tomorrow real loud and get all your family & friends to do the same. The motive was selfish.Charity just for the sake of helping someone in need was officially considered by both the Greeks & Romans as being weak & counter-productive. Someone who’d fallen onto hard times & couldn’t rescue himself was pathetic, not worthy of concern. And who knows; their poverty or illness might be the work of the gods, punishment for some foul sin. So don’t alleviate their suffering or you might incur the wrath of the fickle deities who controlled the fate of mere mortals.I just said that charity wasn’t officially allowed in pagan society for these reasons. But history tells us while Paganism didn’t practice it, some pagans occasionally did. Almost all cases we know of where people reached out to help others in need was when some catastrophe like an earthquake struck of fire swept a city. Then the suffering was so widespread & in everyone’s face people couldn’t avoid helping in some way. But generally, in day to day life, all giving to the needy had a self-serving end.Christians didn’t practice the selfish liberalitas of the Romans. They practiced caritas – compassionate caring. There was no thought of what one was going to get out of such care. It was done simply because the person receiving the help needed it. The motive was to glorify God.Believers were moved by the words of 1 John 4:10–11 – “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”They remembered what Paul had written in Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”In the 5^th C, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, sold the treasures & ornaments of the church to provide relief for starving people and in the 10^th C, the bishop of Winchester sold all the gold & silver vessels of the cathedral to relieve the poor during a harsh famine. He justified his actions saying, “There is no reason the temple of God should abound in riches when the living temples of the Holy Spirit starve.” Historian Christopher Dawson recorded that nearly every local church had an official list of widows & the needy they supported and the sums given by those with means was substantial.Christians didn’t just keep their charity to themselves; they met the needs of those outside the church as well. Both the Didache & the 2^nd C letter called the Shepherd of Hermas called believers to meet the needs of all those who had genuine need. Providing such charity turned into risky business. By the 3^rd C Christians had gained a reputation for their selfless love and this attracted even more to them. So 2 Emperors forbade prisoners from receiving outside help – which was a death sentence since their food came from what family & friends provided. Though it was against the law, Christians continued taking care of prisoners. Thankfully, few jailors enforced the Emperors’ edicts since they didn’t want their prisoners dying.The charity of the early Christians flowed from the wider sense of compassion Jesus had consistently demonstrated throughout His life. The Gospels regularly comment on how Jesus was moved with compassion and reached out to take care of poor & needy souls. Since being a disciple meant being just like their Rabbi, the Christians sought to install compassion as one of their key virtues.Yet as with charity, in paganism, compassion was not esteemed. The formative Greek thinker Plato said that a poor man, & especially a slave, who was no longer able to work because of sickness or age ought to be left to die. The famous Greek physician Aesculapius refused treatment to patients he deemed not worthy of surviving. The Roman philosopher Plautus said, “You do a beggar bad service by giving him food and drink; you lose what you give and prolong his life for more misery.”In the 5^th C BC, the Greek historian Thucydides [thoo-sid-a-dees] reported when a massive plague struck Athens during the Peloponnesian War, unaffected Athenians fled, leaving the sick behind to tend themselves. In the mid-4^th C AD, the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who, as his name implies, hated Christians, couldn’t help but give them grudging respect that they alone stayed to tend the sick when a plague struck the Empire. He wrote, “The impious Galileans (his word for Christians, whom he called impious because they refused to worship the pagan gods) These impious Galileans relieve both their own poor and ours. It is shameful that ours should be so destitute of our assistance.”Of course, we need only look back a few episodes to be reminded of the shocking lack of compassion Roman society had when we consider the popularity of the gladiatorial games. Compassion runs thin when life is cheap.The compassion & charity of Christians stood out all the more when it was seen against the backdrop of a brutal Roman culture. Jesus had said, “Greater love has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.” Christians sought to demonstrate that love in the streets & byways of the Empire. And it had a profound effect in drawing people to faith in Christ.The story of Pachomius is just one of many examples. Pachomius was a pagan soldier in Emperor Constantine's army. He watched while Christians brought food to his fellow soldiers afflicted with famine & disease & was profoundly moved. When he learned they were motivated by a religion called Christianity he became curious to understand a doctrine that inspired them to such love & generosity. So he began to study the faith and was soon a convert. Something similar to that was duplicated tens of thousands of times all across the Empire.Pachomius and others were moved by the compassionate acts of the Christians because Greco-Roman culture just didn’t see the hungry, sick, and dying as worthy of assistance. The worth of a human being was determined by external & accidental circumstances in proportion to the position one held in the community or state. A human being only had value as a citizen, but very few people qualified as citizens. So the sick, poor, & lower classes like slaves, artisans, & other manual workers for whom the Christians had compassion, weren’t citizens in the eyes of freemen. Non-citizens were defined as having no purpose and so not worthy to be helped when their lives were in jeopardy. In their dire condition they received no food or physical protection.So it’s understandable why Christianity spread most rapidly in the early centuries among, can you guess who? Yeah – the poor & needy, among slaves & the disenfranchised. That’s why it came under the scrutiny of officials & scorn of the elite. Now, to be sure, there were both highly placed believers as well as some of the ancient world’s most intelligent & erudite. But generally, officials feared that Christianity would rally the lower classes to rebel while the unbelieving elite shunned it as a religion for the pathetic.They were wrong then. They’re wrong still. In truth, today’s liberalism is but a secularized version of Christian charity & compassion. But without the God who declares life sacred, liberalism’s commitment to compassion will be traded in for paganism’s utilitarianism. A process already well under way.

The Change Part 4

This episode continues our series examining the impact Christianity had on history & culture. Today we take a look at how the Faith impacted the world’s view of women.Contemporary secular feminism came about because of the Christian Gospel’s elevation of women. As with so many other privileges and liberties, as well as the prosperity many in the Western world enjoy; they find their origin in a Biblical view of the world and Mankind’s place in it. But as secularism gained traction in the 20^th C and God was increasingly pushed from the public square, privilege became entitlement, liberty devolved to license, and greed turned prosperity into massive debt. All because the moral base that made them possible was forfeited in favor of the fiction told by secularism.Radical feminism is a grand case in point. Feminists would never have been able to mount their attack on what they deem the subjugation of women were it not for the Christian elevation of women in the first place. They never would have had the platform to make demands were it not for the Biblical worldview Christianity ensconced in Western civilization.In Gal. 3:28 the Apostle Paul wrote, “There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In Ephesians 5 where he defines the roles of husband & wife in marriage, Paul tells husbands to love their wives as they do themselves. Peter tells husbands to treat a wife tenderly & with great care as he would a delicate & precious vase. This seems like common sense, but ONLY because what Paul & Peter instruct has shaped our view of marriage and a husband’s duty to his wife. We don’t realize what an utterly radical assignment that was to men living in the 1^st C.At that time, Jewish men placed far less honor on women. One of the prayers some Jewish men prayed went, “Lord, I thank You I was not born a Gentile, a woman, or a dog.” In the Greek and Roman world, wives were esteemed as little better than servants. A wife was a social convention by which a man raised legitimate heirs for the family name and fortune. But when it came to affection and pleasure, many men kept mistresses or visited temple prostitutes. Generally speaking, a wife had little honor in her husband's esteem and had little claim on his attention or affections.[1]When Paul told husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church in Ephesians 5, he elevated the wife to a place she’d not had before.In 1 Peter 3:7 we read— “Husbands, dwell with your wife with understanding, giving honor to her, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.”When Peter told a Christian husband to honor his wife as he would a precious and delicate vase, this was nothing less than radical social revolution. The idea that a man would take the time to understand his wife was new and novel. And it was precisely for values like this Christians were accused by their critics of upsetting the social order and turning the world upside down. [2]Imagine that! Because Christian men loved and served their wives, they were hated and persecuted. Why? Because they were monkeying with a system that had been in place for hundreds of years. Who knows what chaos might ensue if men started honoring their wives!Now, I know what some feminists would say at this point because I’ve already heard it; “What about Peter & Paul’s instruction that a wife is to submit to her husband? See?! They’re just misogynist keepers of the tradition of a male-dominated society.”Not exactly. In fact, not even close. Just as both Peter & Paul defied all cultural sensitivities of their day by calling men to love their wives sacrificially, & seek daily to understand and honor them, what they said to women in their roles as wives was JUST as revolutionary. Let me explain . . .In Ephesians 5:22-24 the Apostle Paul says a wife's submission to her husband is patterned after her submission to Christ. In v24, he says she’s to submit “in everything,” meaning it’s more than mere outward compliance. It goes deeper than just a tight-lipped surrender.All of us need to understand that submission deals more with the posture of our hearts than with our actions. Before Paul moves to the roles of wives & husbands in Eph. 5, he speaks of the principle of mutual submission all believers are to hold. He then goes on to describe how men are to submit to those God has placed in authority over them at work and in the government. [3]A lot of people think submission merely means giving in outwardly while inwardly they harbor resentment and defiance toward the one they’re supposedly submitting to. Their attitude is, “Okay, I’ll do what you say—but I still think you're a jerk.”In order to understand what Paul meant when he wrote that a wife is to submit “in everything”, let’s think about the cultural setting in which Paul wrote this.In the Greco-Roman world of the 1^st C, it was universally accepted that wives submitted to their husbands. Men were the undisputed rulers of their homes. Paul wrote this letter to the Church in the city of Ephesus governed by the Roman Law known as paterfamilias. This law gave the male head of household absolute authority over his wife, children and servants. He could beat and even put them to death if he wished, and the law was loath to interfere.[4]So why would Paul call wives to something that was already so much an accepted part of life? Telling a wife to submit to her husband was like telling her to breathe. It was that obviousness that would move them to look closer and realize what he was really saying.The clue to what he means is in the grammar. The verb ‘submit’ is in the middle voice. Paul says a wife is to "place herself in submission." What he calls for isn’t merely a resigned outward compliance because of force. He calls for a heart attitude of godly deference. The wife is to submit to her husband on the inside as well as on the outside.Please don’t miss this because it’s the key to understanding the mind-blowing revolution Paul brought. He’s saying to the women of his day, “You've been yielding outwardly because you had no choice. You have no power in society so you have to comply with your husband's wishes. But now God gives you this voluntary choice, this act of will rather than legal requirement & forced compliance. You can submit from your heart too.”This is what he means by “in everything” in verse 24. “Submit in everything: in your actions, in your heart, in your speech, even you body language.”Rather than seeing Paul as some kind of male chauvinist seeking to cruelly subjugate women, realize he was giving them a power they’d never known before. It was the power to choose for themselves. He was making decision-makers of those who had been forbidden to make real decisions before.While this truth may have been obscured for modern readers of the Bible, it it was certainly not lost to the men & women of the 1^st C who when they installed these things in their homes found a new level of life , meaning, purpose & joy they’d never known before. And it was the beauty & excellence of their lifestyle that was so attractive to their unbelieving peers & saw them come into the faith by the hundreds, then thousands. Even though persecution by hostile authorities was still a regular occurrence.Simply put – search the annals of the Greeks & Romans and you will find nothing that comes close to this marital ethic, or any other culture of the ancient world. Honest secular historians admit that the arrival of Jesus was THE turning point in the history of women and that the Gospel marked a sea change in women’s status in society.[1] John MacArthur, Jr., Different by Design, (Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Publishing, 1994) 53[2] Acts 17:6[3] Ephesians 6 & Romans 13[4] Paterfamilias • Originally called by the Latin title of paterfamilias, the father evolved into the patron of Roman Republican and early Imperial society. The father of the Roman family had the power over everyone and everything in the home. He could sell his wife or children into slavery and order their deaths at will. [© 1999-2002 Bible History Online (http://www.bible-history.com)]

The Change Part 3

This episode is part 3 in a series examining the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we go even further in our examination of the sanctity of life that’s been the focus of the previous 2 episodes, but today, we look at it specifically in Christianity’s regard for the Sanctity of Sex.As we begin, I want to pause to say that what we’re going to look at today may offend the sensibilities of some of our more secular &/or liberally-minded listeners. The redefinition of gender that’s become a hot topic of late has split the church, as well as the wider culture. It’s not my intent here to develop a theology of gender, merely to give an accurate, albeit summary, review of sexual ethics in Church history. So summary are the following comments they border on being simplistic, and for that I apologize.This would be a good time to remind CS subscribers & anyone listening to this that I am what can be called a conservative, Evangelical pastor of a non-denominational church whose primary focus of ministry is the verse by verse expository teaching and preaching of the Bible. I believe in the verbal-plenary inspiration of Scripture & seek to cultivate a thoroughly Biblical Worldview. Part of that worldview is to not only cleave to Truth as revealed in the Bible, but to exemplify the character of Christ in my words & actions. We was, as John says in the first chapter of his Gospel, FULL of Truth & Grace. The legacy of the Gospel is that we also are to be filled by that fullness. So while I must, for sake of conscience, speak the truth, I must do so in love. Therefore I apologize for the times past in CS episodes when my joviality has been unkind; when for the sake of a couple yucks, I’ve demeaned others. That is definitely NOT consistent with the character of Jesus, who died to remove shame.With that said, what follows could be found offensive to some because it upholds a Biblical morality in regard to sexual ethics & gender distinctions. I DO NOT apologize for that because it’s not I who’s offending – It’s God’s Word, as historically understood and applied by the Church.And now, let’s get to it . . .Wherever the Bible was read & studied, human beings were understood as being created in the image of God & as the creation account in Genesis makes clear, that meant they were made male & female. The first man & woman were placed in an idyllic setting, were naked & because they were innocent, they were without shame. God Himself officiated at their Garden wedding, then announced that the goal of their union was to become one flesh. You don’t have to be a genius to realize it was God’s original plan for human beings to enjoy a rich & rewarding sex life all within the marriage relationship, & that marriage alone is the proper place for the act of sex.Just as the Christian who arrived in Rome found a low regard for human life, they also encountered a shocking moral depravity in regard to sex. Immorality was everywhere, an integral part of pagan culture. The Apostle Paul wrote of the Greco-Roman debauchery in Romans 1 when he said –²⁴ God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served what was created rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! ²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.We know what social conditions were like at the time the Gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire because of contemporary writers who described it. Juvenal, Ovid and others recorded that sexual activity between men & women was promiscuous & depraved. The famous historian Edward Gibbon, whose epic tome The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire is considered THE standard work on the subject, said that the breakdown in sexuality morality began after the Punic Wars in 146 BC. By the 2^nd C, normal sexual intercourse & marital fidelity had all but disappeared. It wasn’t just that adultery & fornication were common, people engaged in all kinds of bizarre sexual practices. What’s more, they were brazen about it; graffiti & iconic images of their bizzarity appeared on columns, walls, & household items like oil lamps, bowls, cups & vases.It’s interesting that in the early years of the Republic, the Romans considered the Greeks who’d been the dominant civilization just before them to be morally corrupt. The Greeks exercised in the nude & practiced all forms of sexual license. The Romans shunned public nudity & considered much of what the Greeks had done morally shameful. But as power & wealth flowed into Rome from their many conquests, they increasingly aped the older Greek practices. By the 2^nd C AD, they were doing more & worse than the Greeks had even thought.Things were so bad at the turn of the Millennium from the 1^st C BC to AD, that Augustus enacted a set of laws aimed at curbing people’s addiction to illicit sex. The law had little effect, as to be expected when the only person to be punished for committing adultery was the woman. It was a terrible combination when people were on one hand, obsessed with sex & on the other, despised marriage. Marriage was at a low point because most were arranged; social arrangements that aimed at one thing, securing one’s place in a society where standing was EVERYTHING. So men and women married with not an ounce of love or affection for each other. Couple that with no expectation of sexual fidelity on the part of either the husband or wife & it was a formula for massive infidelity. In certain segments of Roman society, women were as debauched as the men. Some women pursued sexual liaisons with every notable public figure they could; gladiators, politicians, actors, & comedians. The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote about these liaisons. The Church Father Tertullian wrote a treatise on proper conduct by Christians living in the debauched Empire. In a treatise called “Concerning Shows” he warned believers away from the theater because the plays enacted there were ribald & blatant live pornography. Ovid wrote that normal heterosexual sex had turned into a brutal sadomasochism; THAT was the new normal.As the debauchery evolved from decade to decade, it grew progressively worse, as sexual sin always does. Since slaves were mere property, both men & women began to use their young slaves as sex objects. Then homosexuality became increasingly accepted, with older men making the object of their desire, younger & younger men & boys. Incest, a strict taboo for generations, was never openly accepted as normal, but it was quietly accepted for those who opted for it. Several Emperors led the way.It was into this sexual maelstrom Christians came with a radically different sexual ethic. Only sex between a husband & wife was acceptable before God. Hebrews 13:4 made it clear – “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”For Christians, sex btwn a husband & wife was an expression of mutual love & intimacy. It wasn’t purely selfish gratification. In truth, the Apostle Paul made a mind-blowing statement when in 1 Cor. 7 he said that a husband & wife OWED each other sexual satisfaction. To a culture that legally treated women as the property of their husbands – that was astounding. For most in the Greco-Roman world, a wife was merely a social convention by which one raised legitimate heirs for the estate & family name. But for pleasure & fun, you had an affair or many. And since a wife didn’t expect her husband to be faithful or really even to check up on her, she also had lovers. So what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church was nothing short of astounding! And if you know anything about Corinth, then you know that’s saying something. As bad as things were all over the Empire, Corinth was considered by most as being really bad! Imagine the casino owners, showgirls & sex workers of Las Vegas saying, “Yeah, Corinth is a really morally nasty place” and you get an idea of how bad it really was.Yet there was a church there, and Paul told the Christians they were to take all that sexual energy & focus it into the husband-wife relationship where it belonged. He even warned them about thinking that abstaining from sex somehow pleased God or made them more spiritual. A husband owed his wife sexual satisfaction, & vice versa. The only time they could abstain was during a short time to devote themselves to fasting. But when the fast was over, they were to get to it again. è I’m not making that up, read 1 Cor. 7 yourself, it’s all right there.While most skeptics scoffed at the Christian commitment to sexual purity, a few commended them. Galen, a Greek physician of the 2^nd C thought the Christian commitment to fidelity in marriage set them apart as noble. The fruit of healthy, loved filled marriages that shaped happy families began to have a dramatic impact on their neighbors. People thought Christians odd for their commitment to fidelity, but they couldn’t argue with the obvious love & devotion Christian couples had for each other. They began to reason – “Sex is fun, but what my soul craves is love. I want pleasure, but what I NEED is significance, and it’s only a committed relationship that’s going to scratch that itch.”Unrestrained sex began to be regarded as NOT inevitable. People COULD in fact reign in their passions & lust. Look! The Christians are doing it by the thousands! And surprise, surprise, they are waaaay happier than the pagans.As the Christian ethic regarding sex gained traction, they told how Jesus had warned about lust in the Sermon on the Mount. He said if a man looks longingly & lustfully on a woman other than his wife, he’s committed adultery in his heart. It wasn’t just an overt act of sex that was prohibited. Christian sexual morality went further! It was about total marital fidelity to one’s spouse that included the thought life. Unbelievers began to realize Christianity wasn’t just moralism. It wasn’t prudish asceticism. It enjoyed physical pleasure, but in the boundaries God designed it for. It was an ethic that enhanced & enriched life, while the immorality they’d given themselves to before was degrading & life-quenching.Biblical Sexual morality allows life to flourish while sin diminishes the quality of life.One of the ways we can see the influence of Christianity in honoring marriage is in the beauty & solemnity of the wedding ceremony. In Greco-Roman culture it was a small affair without much to-do. And marriage had fallen to such a low state by the turn of the Millennium most weddings were more farce that ceremony. Christians changed that. Specifically, Christian women changed that. They took to heart Jesus’ elevation of women & embraced their calling as redeemed daughters of God. As wives & mothers they gladly took hold of their calling to raise godly children and saw the wedding ceremony as the commencement of that. They demanded the ceremony be reverent & solemn. Their commitment worked slowly to effect a sea-change in the way all society viewed marriage & weddings. Christian women took a courageous & heroic stand. The pagan Libanius couldn’t help but express his admiration when he said, “What women these Christians have!”Along with the wanton & debauched heterosexual immorality of Greco-Roman society was its acceptance of homosexuality. And not the plain 2 adults of the same-sex variety. Pederasty or pedophilia was common, where an adult man had sex with a boy btwn the age of 12 & 16. In fact, pederasty was the usual form of homosexuality. Several Roman writers comment on this.Pederasty declined & ultimately failed in its grip on Roman society for the same reason heterosexual immorality declined; because of the sanctifying influence of Christianity. Christians didn’t stage campaigns calling homosexuality wrong any more than they did for adultery & fornication. They simple showed a more excellent way that won the argument by the superiority of their lifestyle.That being the case, in the modern return of the rise of sexual immorality, homosexuality, the turn toward acceptance of same-sex marriage, the popularity of the 50 Shades literary porn for soccer moms, and the plague of internet porn, w/the commensurate explosion of child-pornography & sex crimes against children, reason moves us to conclude it’s the failure of Christians to demonstrate to their culture the superiority of the Christian sexual & marriage ethic. We don’t need campaigns against same-sex marriage. We need Christian husbands & wives to love & serve each other, working for each other’s delight & raising happy, healthy families! Hard to do when the divorce rate among those calling themselves Christians is little better than the wider culture. Impossible when a church guy cheats on his wife or a church gal steps out on her husband.Earlier I said the moral excellence of early Christians commended them to many of their non-Christian peers. While that’s true, it’s certainly not the whole story. The sexual purity of Christians moved others to hate them & accuse them of trying to subvert society. Why, those dangerous Jesus followers were fiddling with centuries of tradition. Keep that up & the gods will be ticked. Who knows what wrath might be brewing, ready to fall on everyone’s head for allowing the Christians to get away with their narrow sexual rules. And what’s this silliness about loving my wife! You Christians are hazardous social revolutionaries. Honestly, in some places of the Empire, it was arguments like this that led to persecutions, and Christians were put to death: è For loving their wives & staying sexually faithful to them.Well, here we are, 1800 years later & the wheel’s turned once more. The Christian sexual ethic that won out because it was proven to be vastly superior to the pagan ethic, the Christian honoring of the sanctity of marriage & sex that transformed society for the better for nearly 200 years, is being rapidly swept away in a re-embrace of humanistic paganism. The failure isn’t the Gospel’s. Nor is it the overwhelming power of immorality & sin.The age grows dark when the light goes dim.

The Change Part 2

This episode is part 2 of our series considering the impact Christianity has had on history & culture. Today we dig a little deeper into how the Faith impacted the world’s view of the sanctity of life.In our last podcast, we talked about the ancient world’s widespread practice of infanticide & how Christianity affected a fundamental shift in the way people evaluated life. This elevation of the value of human life came from Christianity’s roots in Biblical Judaism with its revelation that human beings are created in God’s image, then taken further by the Incarnation; that God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The cross reveals how highly God values people. Therefore, God’s people must value them as well. So while the pagan world thought little of exposing unwanted infants to the elements & wild beasts, Christians rescued & adopted them, raising them as their own. It was an early & inventive church growth program.Another way the Christian view of the sanctity of life affected the Roman world was its impact è on the arena.The Roman writer Ausonius reported that gladiatorial games began in Rome about 264 BC. By the time Christians arrived there, the Romans had watched many thousands of gladiators fight to the death with one other & beasts. Because the whole thing was meant to be a show, more often than not, the battles weren’t quick affairs. They were long, drawn out torments where as soon as one combatant gained a significant advantage on his opponent, he took his time finishing him off to titillate the blood-lust of the spectators. Death by many cuts. As one historian wrote, the 300 year long popularity of the Gladiatorial games “illustrates the pitiless spirit and carelessness of human life lurking behind the pomp, glitter, and cultural pretensions of the great imperial age.”Like infanticide, the games underscore Rome’s low regard for human life.Gladiators were usually slaves, prisoners of war, or condemned criminals, all regarded as expendable. Rome’s seeming unstoppable war-machine meant a constant influx of new slaves & prisoners. The games provided a way to reduce the supply to the slave market to keep their price up & keep the legions who sold them supplied with income. So speaking purely pragmatically, the games were a slick arrangement. It helped regulate the slave industry & provided entertainment for the populace. If one poor soul had to die to keep a thousand happy, it was deemed worth it. Social commentators in ancient Rome remarked on how the State kept the ever-ready-to-riot masses pacified by providing free bread & games; giving rise to the phrase – Bread & Circuses.Though over time a handful of gladiator achieved celebrity status, the main bulk of them were considered by society to be loathsome & doomed, assigned by Fate to a pitiless lot. Only a handful of freemen ever willingly became gladiators and if they did it was for money & fame. They enjoyed the applause of the crowd & were willing to imperil their lives to gain it. There were a few women gladiators.Before being allowed to fight in the arena, gladiators were trained. BTW, that word arena comes from the place where gladiatorial contests were waged. Harena is Latin for “sand” and refers to the floor of the theater which was covered w/a fine sand to absorb the blood. The whole aim of the games were to entertain so gladiators were taught the rudiments of combat so they could make a good showing & increase the tension of the spectators. A good deal of gambling took place in the stands as people bet on their hoped-for champion. Because the games were a major event, the famous, rich & powerful were nearly always in attendance, including senators, emperors, pagan priests & vestal virgins.The games weren’t held just in Rome. Amphitheaters for games were erected in most major cities of the empire. >> I want to pause briefly and make a clarification. In modern usage, the word amphitheater is often used to describe a venue that’s a half circle; like the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. But the prefix amphi means round, a full circle. For the Greeks & Romans, an amphitheater was a full circle, like the Colosseum in Rome. A half circle, is just a theater. Amphitheaters were used for the gladiatorial games while theaters were used primarily for political gatherings, speeches, & plays.Back to the gladiators: In Rome, as combatants entered the arena, they’d file before the emperor’s box, salute & shout, “We who are about to die salute you.” They would then fight either man to man or in small teams. Occasionally masses of men would re-enact famous battles from Roman history. But most of the time it was 2 men battling each other to the death. When it became clear one was the victor & his opponent was close to death, the winner would look to the stands for the audience’s verdict. If the loser had fought well, they might mark their desire that he be allowed to live by extending their arms & giving a thumbs up. Most times, the crowd wanted to see the match finished by slaying the loser, so they gave thumbs down, the women just as much a part of this as men. All eyes then turned to the emperor whose decision decided the loser’s fate. He nearly always went with the crowd’s majority.Occasionally gladiators fought wild animals that often got the better of their human opponents. During the early 2^nd C, the Emperor Trajan celebrated his conquest of the region of Dacia by hosting games lasting 4 months. Ten thousand gladiators participated & 10,000 animals were killed. Half the gladiators died in the arena while many other died later of their wounds. When Titus inaugurated the Colosseum in Rome in 80 AD, 5,000 animals were killed in a single day, along with hundreds of gladiators.While the average Roman throughout the empire enjoyed the games, Christians were appalled by them. But don’t forget, MOST of those early Christians were first, game-loving pagans. A radical transformation took place when they converted. What had once been entertainment became abhorrent as they realized the foolishness of their previous ways. For Christians, the games were gambling with men’s lives. They were a shocking violation of the Command, “You shall not murder.”So, Christians refused to attend the games. It wasn’t so much a boycott as it was a simple decision to not attend an event so fundamentally a grotesque violation of their deeply held conviction. What used to be entertainment became a deplorable & degrading vice.Pagan critics of the Faith noticed the Christian absence at the games & complained; calling Christians anti-social! One critic accused, “You do not go to our shows; you take no part in our processions . . . you shrink in horror from our sacred games.” Interesting that the games were called sacred by this pagan critic. He saw participation in what the majority did civilly as a kind of civil religion everyone needed to be a willing part of or they presented a threat & danger to society. As we consider that attitude of the ancient Roman Empire toward Christianity, it speaks volumes to us today about how Christians are once again marginalized for our moral stand on same-sex marriage & intellectual position on theism & creation.Church leaders called upon their members to not attend the games or other pagan celebrations where debauchery was on display. In AD 220 Tertullian wrote a book called “Concerning Shows” & devoted an entire chapter admonishing Christians to not attend the games.Evidence of the profound impact Christianity has had on history & the valuation of human life is that today, as we read this chapter of the history of the Roman Empire, we shudder at the barbarity & butchery of the gladiatorial games. It’s appalling imagining people in the stands screaming for blood, cheering as a gladius is drawn slowly across the neck of some poor hapless slave.Christianity’s high regard for all human life eventually moved Christian emperors to ban the games. Historians agree – it was the growth of the Faith & the persuasion of the Gospel that affected a fundamental shift in the way people regarded life. People grew uneasy with the idea that they were entertained by cruelty & murder. The emperors Theodosius & his son Honorius brought an official end to the games in the late 4^th C after 7 centuries of brutality and untold thousands slaughtered for no more reason that entertainment.Someone might ask if the modern penchant for violence in movies & TV, with all the blood & gore isn’t a return to the moral bankruptcy of the Roman games. There’s an important difference – in movies & TV, everyone knows it’s contrived – no one is actually hurt. In fact, stunt crews go to great lengths to ensure they aren’t; whereas in the ancient games, the victor was cheered & encouraged by the crowds to finish it by brutally killing his opponent. Even in modern boxing matches, the referee stops the match when one of the contestants is in danger of real harm.Where this seems to be changing though is in the realm of MMA where combatants aim at doing real harm to their opponent and injury is common. As the sport grows & more fighters enter the octagon, the crowd’s thirst for the spectacular keeps growing apace. We can only hope they don’t ever get to the point where they stand, extend their arm and give a thumbs down on a loser who’s tapped out.Christianity had a positive impact on other Romans laws as soon as the Emperor became a Christian. In 315 Constantine banned the practice of branding the faces of criminals condemned to serve in the mines or as gladiators. He did so because man was created in the image of God and the face is a special & unique way of identifying individuals. He eventually banned all branding of slaves. He also required people arrested for a crime be given a speedy trial, since holding them implied guilt by holding them against their will. Coming to see the cross as a most cruel form of execution, crucifixion was also outlawed.Constantine’s son Constantius followed in his father’s reforming ways. He segregated male & female prisoners, to which we say, “Duh!” But know this, until the mid-4^th C, male & female prisoners were incarcerated together. And yes, you can imagine what that meant for the poor women. It reveals what low regard Greco-Roman culture had for women who weren’t under the manus, that is - the controlling hand of a husband. Such women were considered fair game for the unwelcomed attention of men. The elevation of women found in the Bible brought social transformation where ever the Faith spread.We’ve already considered the long historical debate over the legitimacy of Constantine’s conversion. Was it real or feigned because he could see which way the religio-political winds among Rome’s legions were blowing? His reforming of these deep-seated Roman customs regarding the sanctity of life do suggest he really understood the implications of the Gospel & had some kind of a moral revolution himself. A guy who merely used Christianity when it was convenient wouldn’t call for the radical reformation of centuries old traditions knowing the social unrest it would cause unless he was convinced it was the right thing to do.Another way the Christian view of the sanctity of life shines through in transforming the ancient world is in the end it brought to human sacrifice, a fairly common practice in paganism. Child sacrifices were common rituals for Canaanite worshipers of Baal. Before Patrick arrived in Ireland, the Druids sacrificed both adults & infants. As late the 13^th & 14^th Centuries, the yet unreached Prussians & Lithuanians practice human sacrifice. In the New World, the Aztecs & Mayans both sacrificed many thousands of victims in blood orgies. The Aztecs would even subdue a neighboring tribe just to produce victims to sacrifice, leaving pools of blood at the base of their pyramids.But where ever the Gospel went & people were converted to faith in Christ, human sacrifice came to an end.Finally, where ever the Gospel reached, people’s views of suicide changed. The philosophy of Stoicism which held a powerful sway over the mindset of the Roman Empire, put little value on human life, including one’s own. The ancient Romans had gone all in on the idea of quality of life. The only lives that bore any quality were those of the rich, powerful & privileged. The lower classes were taught to accept the fact that Fate had passed them by & the best they could aspire to was to make the lives of the blessed a little better before giving up their pathetic little lives. Suicide was considered a viable option when life was just too much to endure.Some Greeks & Romans even considered suicide a glorious end. The person who took their own life in their own time, their own way was the master of their own fate – not leaving death to claim them at its whim. Many notable Romans took their own lives, including Cato, Seneca, Petronius & some of the Emperors. Suicide was lauded as brave, a noble thing to do if it meant avoiding shame.It’s sad therefore to see the modern resurrection of the old arguments for suicide, that it’s noble if it means being the master of your own destiny, avoiding shame, or is a rebuttal to the supposed lack of quality of a person’s life. Christians joyously announce that in fact we AREN’T the masters of our fate, God is. Shame is dealt with at the cross, & the issue isn’t quality of life – it’s sanctity of life. Quality is subjective, with one person’s abyssmalation being another’s glory, & vice versa. Abyssmalation isn’t even a word – but it gets the point across.Christianity regards suicide as self-murder, a most obvious violation of the sanctity of life. It’s also, in nearly all cases, a profound loss of faith in God; concluding that one’s life is beyond God’s ability to rescue, restore & redeem.Interestingly, while suicide came to be generally regarded as incompatible with Faith in God, it wasn’t until the Council of Elvira in 305 that it was formally condemned. And even then it wasn’t suicide as an act of desperation that was in view by the ban placed on it. What prompted the Council’s ban was the fact some Christians were too eager to be martyred. Remember that the couple decades just before Constantine became emperor were times of great & bloody persecution for Christians. Martyrs had achieved heroic status. What had been meant as a way to encourage Christians to stay faithful went overboard & became a kind of perverse delight in being martyred. So there were dozens who could easily have survived just by exercising some simple wisdom. But they nearly dared their tormentors to kill them, thinking that by doing so they were being heroic and would earn more points with God. Really, it was an ancient form of suicide by cop – in this case, suicide by executioner = Martyrdom. The Council of Elvira called a halt to it in 305.Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Gregory of Nazianus & Eusebius all condemned suicide. But the most vociferously opposed to it was Augustine in the 5^th C. You may remember he wrote against the Donatists in North Africa. The Donatists believed there was no forgiveness of sins after baptism, so some had gone to extreme measures & agreed to a mass suicide right after being dunked.Augustine reasoned suicide violated the command “You shall not murder.” He pointed out that in the Bible, none of the Heroes of the Faith took their own lives and when Elijah asked God to slay him, God refused.As the years passed, the Roman church added more prescriptions to suicide in the hope no one would even think about it for the way it would consign the soul to eternal darkness. Public attitude toward suicide eventually changed to such a degree that it went from being considered noble to cowardly. Instead of using it to escape shame, it became a means to it.In our next episode, we’ll consider Christianity’s impact on sexual morality.

The Change Part 1

We're changing gears a bit to begin a series of podcasts considering the impact Christianity has had on the world. We’ll unpack how the Faith has left its imprint on society. The Title of this episode is The Change - Part 1: The Sanctity of Life.Knowing my fascination with history and especially the history of Rome, a few years ago, someone recommended I watch a mini-series that aired on a cable network. While it was dramatic historical fiction, the producers did a good job of presenting the customs & values of 1^st C BC Roman culture. While the series was suspenseful & entertaining, it was difficult to watch because of the brutality that was commonplace. And it wasn't put in merely for the sake of titillation or to make the shows more provocative. It was an accurate depiction of the time. More than once, I found myself near tears, broken over just how lost the world was. Several times I said out loud, "They needed Jesus!"Exactly! THAT was the very era Jesus was born into & the culture the Gospel spread in. How desperately the Roman Empire needed the life-affirming message the Early Church preached & lived.There's an old saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” When the early Christians came to Rome, we can be thankful they DIDN'T do what the Romans did. On the contrary, slowly but surely, with fits & starts, they eventually transformed the Greco-Roman world from rank paganism to a more or less Biblical worldview. Nowhere was that seen more clearly than in the change that was made to the sanctity of human life.During the early days of the Roman republic, the high value put on the family unit formed a moral base that lent a certain weight to the value of the individual. But as the idea of the State grew during the late republic, then blossomed in the Empire, people were evaluated in terms of what they could contribute to the State. That meant people on the bottom of the social scale had little to no value. The poor, women, and slaves became chattel; property to be used. Life became cheap. And the pagan gods bequeathed no real moral virtue into the Roman world. They were understood to be whimsical & selfish at the best of times, cruel in the worst.The Christian value of the sanctity or specialness of human beings was based in the Jewish view of man as created in God's image. There was a healthy Jewish population in the City of Rome itself & scattered throughout other major cities of the Empire. Early on, the unique Jewish view of man had infiltrated the Roman world where ever Jews were to be found. So different was this view of man from the paganized Greco-Roman worldview that many of the more enlightened Greeks & Romans had begun attending Jewish synagogues. If they stayed, they became known as God-fearers; Gentiles who believed in the God of the Bible, but hadn't become full converts to Judaism by being circumcised, baptized, & keeping kosher. They occupied a section in many synagogues, sitting by themselves to hear the teaching of Scripture. The book of Acts tells us some of Paul's most fruitful work was in this God-Fearer section of the synagogue.The Jewish idea of men & women being created in God's image took on new potency when the Gospel was preached, for it told of God becoming man. And becoming a man so He could go to the cross to ransom lost men & women; translating them from a destiny in hell to the glory of heaven. All this spoke of God's view of the value of human beings. If He would endure the passion & cross, it meant life was of inestimable value. Rather than life being cheap, it was to be honored and protected at all costs, regardless of its station or quality.One way the early Christian demonstrated this was the church's opposition to the widespread practice of infanticide. It was common to expose unwanted children soon after birth, either by drowning or leaving them on exposed where the elements or wild beasts would finish them. They were left to die for physical deformities, for being of the wrong sex, or simply because the parents couldn't afford another mouth to feed.Abandoning unwanted infants was quite common in the Greco-Roman world. In fact, the founding myth of Rome begins with 2 infant boys being tossed into the Tiber River. Romulus & Remus both survived to be suckled by a she-wolf, then raised by an elderly shepherd. It was their later struggle that founded the city of Rome, named for one of the brothers - Romulus.So in the city of Rome itself, parents would regularly leave unwanted children at the base of the Columna Lactaria. In later times, Roman parents would abandon their infants there to show grief over some national calamity, like the death of a beloved emperor. To put that in modern terms, imagine someone dropping off their 2 week old infant at a memorial for 9/11 - and just walking away; thinking that somehow shows solidarity with everyone’s shock & grief. Yet that's what many Romans did with their newborns when calamity struck.Greeks also practiced infanticide by abandoning infants. They did so because it was woven into their mythology. The well-known Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex revolves around Oedipus who at only 3 days was abandoned by his father King Laius of Thebes. Ion, founder of Ionia was abandoned as an infant by his mother. Poseidon, Aesculapius, & Hephaistos were all abandoned infants. Even Paris who started the Trojan War was abandoned as a child. In Sparta, every newborn was brought before the elders for inspection. If the child was deemed weak in any way, it was abandoned.As shocking, is realizing in all the literature come to us from that time, nowhere is there a shred of evidence infanticide was wrong, or even questioned.Infanticide wasn't practiced just among the Greeks & Romans; other ancient societies practiced it as well. Plutarch said the Carthaginians had made infant sacrifice a regular occurrence. When building a new house or wall, they mixed the blood of an infant with the mortar, thinking it made the wall stronger. If a wealthy family had no new-born to offer, they’d buy one off a poor mother. Though we don't have a record of what was on the 12 Tablets that formed the basis of Roman Law & civilization, we know a good deal of what was in them from the quotes of later Romans. Cicero says it was part of Roman law to expose deformed infants. In the 1^st C AD, Seneca, remarks in passing, without batting the proverbial eye, that deformed infants were routinely drowned. Infanticide was so common in the later Greek era that in the 2^nd C BC, Polybius blamed a population decline on it. Because infanticide was so common, large families among both Greeks & Romans was rare. An inscription found at Delphi reveals that in a 2^nd C sample of 600 families, only 1% had more than 1 daughter! Infanticide was practiced in India, China, Japan, Africa, the rainforests of Brazil, among the Inuit, & among the native North & Central Americans.Early Christians balked not at calling infanticide, murder. To them, infants were creatures of God who bore His image no less than their mature counterparts. They'd heard of Jesus' attention to little children in Matthew 19. That passage is interesting because the disciples thought the children approaching Jesus weren't worthy of His august attention. In their attitude toward the little ones, contrary as it was to Jesus' own perspective, we catch of glimpse of how the Greco-Roman culture had influenced them. The pre-Roman Jewish culture put a huge emphasis on children. They were regarded as a great blessing from God. Children were God's promise of a future! Yet in the disciples' shooing the children away from Jesus, we see how the Greco-Roman devaluing of life had infected them.We ought to reflect on how the modern abortion debate may have affected our valuation of human life. The parallels to the current population decline among ethnic Europeans ought to be obvious & a sign of how the Judeo-Christian worldview has been gutted from Western civilization.The Didache, the standard catechism used by the Church in the 1^st C tells Christians, "You shall not commit infanticide." It’s condemned in the Epistle of Barnabas, written about 130. In AD 222, the 1-time slave turned bishop of Rome, Callistus expressed his dismay at the widespread practice of exposing unwanted infants.It was this & the very vocal Christian opposition to it that helped fuel the persecution the early church faced in so many places around the Empire. The Romans placed great stock in tradition and looked with suspicion on anyone who sought to change it. The Christians were doing just that with their radical ideas about how to treat the unwanted.While Christians opposed infanticide, they were unable to do anything about it as a social policy while they were an outlawed group. It wasn't until the Edict of Milan in AD 313 that they were able to even speak to official policy. Then, only 60 years later Emperor Valentinian, at the urging of Basil of Caesarea, outlawed the wicked practice of infanticide.But while they waited for the laws to change, early Christians didn't sit on their hands. They regularly went out to the hillsides where children were left exposed and took them into their homes, raising them as their own children. In Rome, Bishop Callistus organized people to roam the streets in the late evening, looking for abandoned children. He then placed them in the homes of parents wanting them. As far as we know, this was the first organized adoption agency, even though it was done on the sly. The famous martyr Polycarp's protégé, Benignus of Dijon, recused & nurtured abandoned little ones, ministering to the needs of children who'd been deformed because of botched abortions. Afra of Augsburg, a notorious prostitute before her conversion to Christ, began a ministry to the abandoned children of prisoners, thieves, smugglers, pirates, runaway slaves, and all sorts of ne'er-do' wells.No one should get the impression from this that following Valentinian's outlawing of infanticide & child-abandonment, there was an immediate, overnight end to the practice. Far from it. People in Europe & the Eastern Empire continued to off their off spring in large numbers. And Christians continued to adopt them. But as the influence of the Christian worldview spread, there was a deep & fundamental shift that took place in the way people viewed human life; all of it from cradle to grave. And where that respect for life settled in, infanticide evaporated. It got to the point where a single abandoned infant became a shocking event the news of which spread like wild-fire. And when desperation moved some young mother to abandon her child, where did she leave it? Not on a hillside to let it die. No. She left it on the doorstep of the local church because she knew her child would be taken care of.So it ought to be with the deepest kind of grief that we hear now about newborns being left in dumpsters & gas station restrooms. It seems we've regressed, not progressed; devolved, not evolved. Society has at any rate. And to think - there are people who actually rejoice that the Christian worldview has been cut loose from modern society.We have abortion, which is really just an earlier form of infanticide. Partial birth abortion isn't even that! If a woman doesn't make the appointment to rid herself of the unwanted before it's born, no problem; when in Rome, do as the Romans do.What's next? Gladiatorial combat? Oops - too late. // Slavery? Again, too late. It's already here.We’ll be taking a look at many more ways the Christian Faith has impacted culture & civilization in the weeks to come.

Rabban Sauma Part 12

This is the last of a dozen episodes on Rabban Sauma.Having met with all the dignitaries his embassy on Arghun’s behalf required, Sauma was anxious to return home. The delay caused by the Roman Cardinals failure to appoint a new Pope had lengthened his stay beyond what he’d anticipated. Although no record of it is given, Arghun may have urged Sauma to return by a specific date. So he packed up and started the journey back to Persia. It was April 1288.And remember, accompanying him was the French king Philip’s ambassador who bore a personal letter from the King to Arghun. The one Sauma carried was an official correspondence.His route was the same as the one he took West. The only change was his trip to Veroli SW of Rome. The Cathedral of St. Andrew was an attraction he decided to include on his way home. It wasn’t much of a detour. What’s interesting about his stay in Veroli was his inclusion with several Roman church officials in the issuing of indulgences. These indulgences, usually issued in the Name of Christ, were rendered under the auspices of God the Father, indicating a nod on the part of the Catholics to The Rabban’s Nestorian emphasis. The Vatican museum has some of these indulgences granted by Sauma. They bear his seal showing a figure with a halo, left hand on chest and right holding a star. It bears the text, “Bar Sauma—Tartar—From the Orient” Tartar being the common word of Europeans for the Mongols.After Veroli, Sauma took ship and arrived back in Persia in Sept; a journey of five months. He was immediately ushered into the Ilkhan’s presence. He handed off the various gifts and correspondences he’d been given to pass along to Arghun. He then gave his report, a full account of his time in the West.Arghun was pleased that the kings of England and France were on board for an alliance against the Mamluks. Though the Pope hadn’t pledged to the alliance, he’d made clear his desire for closer relations. Stoked at that prospect, Arghun looked with great favor on the Rabban. He expressed his dismay at the hardships Sauma had endured on his journey and promised to take care of him for the rest of his life. He pledged to build the Rabban a church near the palace where he could retire to a life of quiet service of God. Sauma asked that Arghun send for his old friend Mar Yaballaha, head of the Nestorian Church, to come to court to receive the gifts and letters Western leaders had sent him. While there, he could consecrate the land for the new church. The summons was duly sent.Arghun had a special tent-church constructed in anticipation of Mar Yaballaha’s arrival. When the Catholicos did, a three-day banquet was thrown with Arghun himself serving both Sauma and the Nestorian Patriarch. He commanded the people of his realm to offer regular prayers for the health of both the Rabban and Catholicos. The favor he showered on the Nestorians led to a greater boldness on their part across Persia. In 1289, Arghun appointed a Jewish physician as his vizier or prime minister and turned over a good part of the governance of the realm to his capable leadership. With both Christianity and Judaism on the rise, unease among Muslims began to roil.Arghun remained hopeful of the alliance with the West against the Mamluks. He sent a letter by way of a Genoese merchant to Kings Edward & Philip, calling for them to make good on their promise of joining in a campaign to remove the Muslims from the Holy Land. He told them the Mongols would be attacking Damascus in January 1291. They were to attack the Mamluk headquarters in Egypt. They’d then meet in Jerusalem, where Arghun would help them conquer the City, and once secured, turn it over to Europeans control. Both Philip & Edward replied. While Philip’s letter is lost to us, Edward’s remains. He commended the Ilkhan for his zeal in wanting to rid the infidels from the Holy Land, but England wasn’t able to mount a Crusade apart from Papal blessing, which Edward encouraged Arghun to secure. But the Pope had made it clear; no such Crusade was in the offing. Gauging the political winds, Pope Nicholas sensed the monarchs of Europe were pretty much Crusaded out.Arghun’s campaign against Damascus never materialized, and not because of the failure to gain western support. In the Spring of 1290, the Mongol Golden Horde to his north began a series of raids into Persian territory. When a rebellion broke out in the important city of Khurasan at his eastern border, it meant any movement West toward the Mamluks was out of the question. A half year later, he became gravely ill and died in March of 1291. Subsequent Ilkhans gave up attempts at an alliance with the West against the Mamluks. Though Ghazan converted to Islam, he attacked Syria and was able to hand the Mamluks a temporary defeat. Not able to hold the territory, when the Mongols retreated, the Mamluks returned. They were never able to defeat the Mamluks after that.As for the Europeans, while Edward & Philip were up for a Crusade, the Pope wouldn’t sanction one. The monarchs might have pressed the issue had it not been for their issues at home. This was a time when Europe was fractured and disunited. Their inability to take advantage of the alliance Arghun offered meant the Mamluks were eventually able to conquer the last Outremer fortresses in Tripoli, then Acre.When Arghun died, Sauma’s promised church next to the palace hadn’t been built. The new Ilkhan wasn’t interested in the project, but at Sauma’s urging, he provided funds and permission for a new church to be built in the Nestorian headquarters in Maragha, next to Mar Yaballaha’s house. It took three yrs to construct the elaborate structure, which became the home for the many artifacts and relics the Rabban had collected on his travels. Now in his mid and late 60’s, Sauma settled into the life he’d lived years before as a young man; one of quiet study and personal ministry to everyday followers of Christ. He reports that this was the happiest and most fulfilling time of his long and eventful life.His health failing, Sauma was determined to see his good friend Marcos who’d become the Nestorian Patriarch under the name Mar Yaballaha, one last time. Though Marcos’ residence was in Maragha where Sauma’s church was, the headquarters of the Nestorian church was in Baghdad, so the Patriarch spent a good amount of his time there. Sauma made the journey there, the last of his many travels. After an emotional meeting between the two friends who’d shared such amazing adventures and accomplished so much, Sauma’s body, wracked by intense pain, finally gave out. In was January of 1294.Mar Yaballaha was inconsolable. He wept profusely for three straight days. That was followed by a melancholy that took months to dissipate. Then the Nestorian Catholicos engaged in a series of correspondences with the Roman Popes, following up on the lines of communication forged by Sauma.But the goodwill toward the Church launched from Arghun’s appreciation for Sauma’s embassy to the West, began to wither with the Ilkhan Ghasan’s conversion to Islam. When Mar Yaballaha died in 1317, Christianity was on the decline across Persia and Central Asia. It would never recover. The glory days of The Church of the East were now in the past, being covered by a thick dust of obscurity.Sauma’s records were discovered among his papers following his death but were lost after being translated by a Syrian scribe some 20 yrs later. THAT account, as we’ve already suggested, was most likely highly abbreviate, focusing almost entirely on the religious aspects of Sauma’s adventures, specifically the many relics he viewed. The additional information in the Syrian translation comes off as little more than a setting of context for the religious narrative. Sauma’s diplomatic activities are presented as an afterthought. But, in light of Sauma’s ground-breaking and boundary-smashing embassy to the West, surely he took pains to document more than the finger and shin bones of dead saints.The Syrian translator does include Sauma’s journals of the years he spent in Persia after his return from Europe. He even goes on to recount the persecution of Christians that took place after Sauma’s death when Ghazan became Ilkhan. The translator admitted, “it was not our intention to relate and set out in order all the unimportant things which Rabban Sauma did and saw, we have abridged very much of what he wrote, . . . and even the things which are mentioned here have been abridged, or amplified, according to necessity.” That necessity being the translator’s interest in the religious, rather than political, aspects of Sauma’s quest.And that may account for why Rabban Sauma has been largely overlooked by popular history. His political impact wasn’t recognized, subsumed as it was under the editorial bias of his early chronicler. Excised as well from his report were his observations of life in Western Europe, what would have been a tremendous boon to historians researching this period.In conclusion, while Rabban Sauma never returned to China and the court of Khubilai Khan to complete his adventure, he did accomplish most of what he’d set out to do. His original ambition, encouraged by his friendship with the young Marcos, was a religious pilgrimage to the headquarters of the Nestorian Church in Baghdad and the centers of Western Christianity. His dream of visiting Jerusalem birthplace of The Faith went unrealized because of the Mamluk domination of Palestine.Sauma as a genuine scholar who did more than read books. He went to the places they wrote about. He was a gifted linguist, a skilled theologian, an effective diplomat. He must have been an imminently likable fellow who got along with everyone. All who met him embraced him quickly and sought to include him as an ally. His immense wisdom was repeatedly demonstrated in his skill at avoiding subjects sure to arouse the ire of his hosts.Finally, let’s briefly recap his accomplishments.He began as a scholar-monk in the storied Church of the East. His life of quiet study in a tiny house in the mountains of China was interrupted by a teenager named Marcos who’d made Bar Sauma his hero. They became inseparable friends. Marcos’ itch to visit the places he and Sauma read about eventually infected Sauma with the same hunger. They appeared before the Great Khan Khubilai, asking permission to head West on a heretofore unheard pilgrimage to the birthplaces of their Nestorian Church and the Christian Faith. Khubilai not only permitted them, he endorsed them as envoys of his court to his Mongol allies in Persia, the Ilkhans.The journey West crossed some of the most inhospitable territories on the Planet. They encountered a mind-numbing plethora of different cultures, languages, customs & foods. When they arrived in Persia, the corrupt Patriarch of their church tried to turn them into political pawns. They adroitly side-stepped his shenanigans. Then, when he died, Sauma helped to have his friend Marcos elected as the new Patriarch, the Nestorian Catholicos known to history as Mar Yaballaha.After several years in Persia, the Mongol Ilkhan consented to allow Sauma to continue his trek West to visit the centers of European Christianity. He charged him with an additional task; being his official envoy asking for Christian Europe to mount another of the Crusades they’d staged over the previous couple centuries, to clear the Middle East of the Muslim Mamluks. Sauma then embarked on his second great journey, from Persia to Constantinople where he met the Emperor and Eastern Patriarch, then on to Rome where he met the dozen Cardinals meeting to select a new Pope. When they were unable to, he headed to Paris where he met with King Philip, then to Bordeaux to meet the English King Edward. Securing promises of an alliance with the Persian Mongols against the Mamluks, Sauma headed back to Rome where he met with the newly installed Pope Nicholas IV and helped serve the Easter celebrations.When the Pope proved evasive in pledging support for a new crusade, Sauma headed back to Persia where he was welcomed by a grateful Ilkhan.Every student in Western schools learns of the famous Marco Polo. Almost any account of the Age of Discovery that helped lift the Medieval world out of its moribundosity lists the adventures and of Marco Polo as one of its premier causes. His chronicle, written down by a fellow prisoner, became a best-seller in Europe and helped whet the appetite of Europeans for the exotic riches of the Far East. Rabban Sauma, who lived at about the same time, has been overlooked in the popular telling of history. Yet his travels and accomplishments far surpass those of Polo.If only that Syrian translator had translated ALL Sauma’s journals! If only . . .

Rabban Sauma Part 11

This is the 11^th episode in the story of Rabban Sauma, and we’re closing in on the conclusion.After a month-long tour of the holy sites in and around Paris, Sauma had a final audience with King Philip. He meant it to be the crowning achievement in the royal treatment he’d lavished on the Chinese ambassador.It was held in the upper chapel of Saint-Chapelle where the just completed stained glass windows filled the room with light, giving the room its nick-name – The Jewel Box. Being newly installed, the colors were vibrant. The windows tell a Biblical history of the world. The room also holds statues of the 12 Apostles and vivid paintings that all combine to literally dazzle the eye. But it was the relics the room held that would have most impressed the Rabban. Philip carefully opened an ornate box holding, what was reputed to be, Jesus’ crown of thorns. Another reliquary held a piece of wood from the cross.While several of Paris’ relics were indeed brought back from the Holy Land after the first Crusade, these two had been secured by Philip’s grandfather St. Louis in Constantinople 40 yrs before. Saint-Chapelle was built as simply a large reliquary to hold their reliquaries.Sauma’s account of viewing these precious relics reports the King told him they’d been secured during the First Crusade IN Jerusalem. Either Sauma misunderstood, or Philip intentionally misled him. Philip wanted to encourage the Rabban in his appeal for a new Crusade. It’s likely Philip fudged the facts so as to give Sauma the impression the French greatly honored the idea of a campaign to retake the Holy Land, even though he had no intention of making an imminent call for one. His behavior throughout the Rabban’s visit suggests he wanted to curry the favor of the Mongol Ilkhans. Furthering that impression was the envoy and letter he sent with Sauma when he eventually returned to Persia. Before leaving Paris. Philip loaded him with lavish gifts, which the pious and humble monk lumps under the heading, “lavish gifts” in his account.So, armed by the assumption he’d secured the French King’s commitment to a Crusade in alliance with the Mongols in Persia against the Muslim Mamluks, Sauma headed west to see if he could recruit the English King Edward I. It was fortunate that Edward just so happened to be near at hand, visiting his lands in Gascony, a region on the west coast of France just north of Spain. After a 3 week journey, Sauma arrived in Bordeaux in the Fall of 1287.Whereas the Parisians had plenty warning of the arrival of the Far Eastern Ambassador from the exotic Mongols and went all out in their celebration of greeting, the people of Bordeaux were surprised. “Who are you and why are you here,” they asked? When word was brought to King Edward, he sought to make amends for the poor way such an august figure had been greeted. Sauma smoothed over the rough start to his embassy among the English by giving Edward the gifts Ilkhan Arghun sent and letters of greeting from he and the Nestorian Catholicus Mar Yaballaha. Edward received them with marked appreciation, but it was when Rabban Sauma proposed an alliance with the Mongols against the Mamluks that he became most animated. “A new Crusade to liberate Jerusalem and bring aid to the beleaguered Outremer? Why that sounds stellar!” was his enthusiastic reaction. Only 6 months earlier, he’d vowed to take the cross. This seemed a glow of divine favor on his pledge, an affirmation of God’s delight in him.While Edward intended to immediately embark on the adventure, events back home conspired to stall that plan. Wales rebelled, again; and entanglements on the Continent in the fractious politics and schemes of Europe hijacked his resources and attention.But all of that was yet future; near future to be sure, but not yet. As far as Sauma was concerned, he had the support of both the Kings of England and France in the proposed alliance with the Mongol Ilkhans in Persia in their long desire to rout the Mamluks from the Middle East.Furthering Sauma’s sense of favor by the English King was the invitation to officiate Communion for the royal court. Though Sauma consecrated and served the elements according to the ancient Syriac formula, it was enough akin to the Mass that the participants were easily able to follow along, understanding not the words, but the meaning behind each movement of the ritual.And THAT – is simply remarkable!! Think of it. Though it’s the close of the 13^th C, and these two branches of The Church have been sundered from each other for 800 yrs, when adherents from the two groups engage in the focal point of their religious service, though they can’t understand one another’s speech, they DO understand what’s happening, because the rite itself hasn’t fundamentally changed. That’s stunning, by anyone’s reckoning.Once the service was finished, Edward threw a feast. It was his way to finalize and seal the agreement between England and Persia. Sauma didn’t record what this royal feast served, but we have accounts of some of Edwards’ other such feast. Let me just pass along the idea that you can go right ahead and picture the most raucous dining hall scene from any medieval movie with the ox spinning on a spit over a huge fire, chicken bones being thrown across the room in mass quantities, platers laden high with all kinds of bread and vegetables. And keg after keg of drink. Edward was known for these kinds of food & beverage extravaganzas.And once again, having achieved his official duties as Arghun’s ambassador, Sauma turned to his personal mission; visiting the holy sites of Edwards’ domains on the Continent. Edward not only provided guides, he paid all Sauma’s expenses for this pilgrimage.When he returned, Edward did something curious. He took pains to make sure Sauma understood that European Christians believed in Christ alone. It seems someone may have gotten to the King and informed him of the ancient rift between the Nestorian and Western Church. For his part, Sauma wasn’t going to throw over the much-needed alliance between East and West over nuances of theological wording that people who 800 years earlier had divided over – and THEY spoke the same language. A lengthy dissertation on the nature of the Trinity through translators just wasn’t practical. So Sauma let it go.Late in 1287, with two-thirds of his mission accomplished, The Rabban decided it was time to head back to Rome and see if a new Pope had been selected. Two of Europe’s most powerful armies were now committed to the cause. All they needed was permission from Rome’s Bishop. By the end of the year, the obstinate cardinals still had not made a selection.Fleeing the cold of the French winter, he traveled to Genoa to await the election of the New Pope. Sauma’s report of Genoa makes it clear it was maybe his favorite place in all his travels. The city was a beauty, the people warm and friendly.As much as he loved Genoa, Sauma’s sense of responsibility began needling him. He wasn’t, as they say, getting any younger. The trip back to Persia with his report to Arghun was going to be another major epic in a life FILLED with them. If the last months’ long journey from Persia to the West had aged him years, the return trip would age the now sexagenarian a decade. He couldn’t return to Persia by hopping aboard a 747. It meant another rickety ship across some of the most dangerous waters of the Med, to Constantinople, then across the Black Sea with its plethora of pirates, to the western end of the Silk Roads, then across Mesopotamia to Persia. [And we complain when we need to hop in the car and drive to the market down the street!]It’s not difficult sympathizing with Sauma’s rising guilt at enjoying Genoa when he knew how eager both his friend Mar Yaballaha and his ruler, Ilkhan Arghun was for his return and report. Sauma was a man with a profound sense of duty. What else could account for the multitude of manifest difficulties he’d endured over the previous decade? But Genoa had everything he’d been looking for in his pilgrimage. Duty won out over ease and Sauma began to chaff as he waited for the Cardinals in Rome to get it together.They finally did. In February 1288 they elected Jerome of Ascoli as Pope Nicholas IV. It was an auspicious choice for Sauma’s mission. Some years before, Jerome had been Rome’s ambassador to Constantinople to see about effecting a reconciliation between East & West. The effort proved unfruitful, but it made Jerome more aware of the needs and sensitives of the Eastern Church. If any Europeans can be said to be aware of the threat the Mamluks presented the Faith, Pope Nicholas IV was among them.It helped Sauma’s cause that Nicholas was one of the people he’d spent considerable time conversing with when he’d before been in Rome. The two had hit it off, despite the language barrier.Nicholas sent an envoy to Genoa requesting Sauma’s return to the Eternal City. Two weeks later, as Sauma’s party reached Rome’s outskirts, they were met by a delegation of church officials welcoming him to the City.Ushered into Nicholas’ presence, Sauma showed him the highest form of obeisance he could by bowing on hands and knees, kissing the Pope’s hands and feet, then rising to walk backward with arms crossed at the wrists before his chest; a Nestorian sign of the utmost honor. Sauma then delivered the last of his official letters and gifts from Arghun and Mar Yaballaha.Nicholas showed his ready acceptance of Sauma’s embassy and person by requesting he stay and celebrate Easter with his Western brethren. Nicholas knew that Sauma, as a Nestorian Rabban, would feel the need to officiate at the events of Holy Week in some church setting. So rather than travel, we suggested he stay and plan on doing so there in Rome. Plush lodgings were secured for him and his attendants.Sauma then began preparations for Easter celebrations. He requested permission to conduct Mass so as to show Western Christians how it was done in the Nestorian tradition. The pope not only granted him permission, he showed great curiosity to witness the ritual. When the time came, a huge crowd was on hand. When all was said and done, the consensus was the same as in Bordeaux. While the language was different, the ritual was so similar as to make the differences inconsequential. So interesting was Sauma’s conduct at the Mass, the Pope invited him to officiate at more services over the next few weeks. The Rabban asked in return of the Pope would favor him by serving him the Eucharist, which Nicholas heartily assented to. The day was Palm Sunday of 1288.Sauma reports that the crowds attending service that day were beyond anything his imagination could have conjured. People literally filled the streets, carrying branches of palms and olives.On Maunday Thursday of the next week, so many people packed the church where the Pope held Mass that when they said a united “Amen” the walls shook. The service over, the Pope then made the rounds of several locations in Rome where he bestowed blessing and favor on various people and artifacts. He ended by bringing his entire household staff together and washing their feet. Sauma was hugely impressed with this act of papal humility, describing it in depth. The day ended with a huge feast for some 2000.Good Friday began with a procession from the Church of the Holy Cross, where the Pope held aloft a piece of the Cross as massive crowds once again attended the scene. The rest of the day was spent in quiet meditation on the sacrifice of Christ.Saturday saw the Pope making the rounds to bestow more blessing on individual shrines and folk. Then Easter Sunday services were conducted in the ancient Church of Saint Maria Maggiore.Sauma knew his fellow Nestorians were curious about the practices of their Western Cousins, so he paid close attention to all that was happening around him., recording the events in as intimate detail as he could.Easter being complete and his mission now finished, Sauma asked permission to return home. Nicholas asked him to stay. Sauma struck for compromise He was more than pleased to stay, especially since it came from a sincere request on the part of the Pope with whom he was getting along well. BUT, a higher purpose was to be served in his return to Persia where he could share with the Mongol ruler the favorable reception he’d been shown across Europe. Certainly, that had to be a good harbinger of a future alliance. When word got out about the success of Sauma’s mission, lingering tensions between East & West would subside. Such was the nature of medieval diplomacy.Then Sauma made a request that threatened to blow everything up.Picture that scene in a movie where two parties who are potential enemies, are in fact getting along and everyone’s on pins and needles hoping for a new day of peace. Then there’s a pause, and one of them says something that threatens to ruin it all. But the representative of the other aide at first just stares at them with a look of, well. That’s the problem; no one knows what to think. And everyone starts moving their hand slowly toward their gun because they think, “Oh no. This is it. Get ready to start shooting.” But then the guy breaks out in a huge smile and starts laughing. The tension is immediately released.That’s the scene when Sauma asked the Pope, for … Ready? è Some sacred relics. At first, Nicholas was stunned at the boldness of Sauma’s request. Nay; it was more than bold; it was brazen. He told the Rabban that if he were in the habit of giving relics to every foreign emissary who came to see him, there’d soon be nothing left in Rome to give.Still, in light of Sauma’s perilous and long journey, he was pleased to give Sauma some treasures to take home. He gave him some scraps of cloth from clothes that were said to have belonged to Jesus and Mary, as well as various relics of different saints and special vestments for Mar Yaballaha. Maybe the most significant gift Nicholas bestowed was a letter patent authorizing Mar Yaballaha and his Nestorian Catholicus successors as the authority over the Church of the East. He gave Rabban Sauma a letter patent naming him Visitor General for all churches of the East, not just China, as the previous Nestorian Patriarch had done.Implied in Nicholas’ issuing of these letter-patents was that HE, as the Roman Pope, had jurisdiction over the East. Sauma might like to have contested that. But what point? It’s not like he was going to get Nicholas to back down. For goodness sake, the question of prime ecclesiastical authority had been going on for hundreds of years. Sauma was under no illusion he was going to set things right now. Rather, all he could do was blow up the alliance that seemed to be a done deal.After giving Sauma a large gift of gold to help pay his expenses, Sauma began preparations to return home.Nicholas gave Sauma a letter for Arghun, thanking the Mongol ruler for his beneficent rule of the Christians of his realm and thanking him for his offer of an alliance against the Mamluks. A copy resides in the Vatican museum. Then Nicholas launched into an appeal for both Mongols and Nestorians to submit to papal authority. He urged Arghun to convert to Christianity post haste and be baptized under the authority of Rome.Then he indicated while Sauma had indeed faithfully transmitted the Ilkhan’s desire for an alliance, he and he alone could call a Crusade. The secular rulers of Europe might be gung-ho but they had no authority to approve a Crusade. Only he, as the head of the Church, possessed that right. AND, knowing the mindset of the rest of Europe, besides the monarchs of England and France, a Crusade wasn’t in the cards at that time. So he adroitly side-stepped making a commitment, while at the same time, encouraging the Mongols to do their best against the common enemy.Arghun had indicated a willingness in his letter to the Pope to convert and be baptized IF that baptism could be done in a reclaimed Jerusalem, one free of the Mamluk scourge. Nicholas said Arghun had it backward. He ought to convert and be baptized NOW. That would assure him of heaven’s favor in any campaign he undertook. His example would surely lead to mass conversions, furthering the promise of divine favor.So the Pope didn’t out-right turn down an alliance not forbid a Crusade. He just shifted the emphasis of his letter onto the need for Arghun to trust God and surrender to him, which of course would be done by accepting the Roman Church’s hegemony over his realm.Nicholas wasn’t done with his letter writing. He penned one to Mar Yaballaha as well. This one began by praising the Nestorian Catholicus for his wise leadership of a challenged Church. But then it went into a long lecture on “proper” Christian doctrine, something the Nestorian Patriarch wasn’t at all likely to look kindly on. The last paragraph was a blatant and tactless statement of the supremacy of the Roman church.Since these letters were open, Sauma read them both. He was deeply disappointed at the tone they took with the two men he reported to. Their condescending tone was sure to dishearten and alienate their recipients. The Pope refusal to sanction a Crusade or give any support to the proposed alliance seemed to make his entire trip West pointless.No doubt disappointed, Sauma managed to tamp down any expression of it in his concluding meeting with the Pope. He was probably just glad to be quitting the West & the prospect of going home.We’ll wrap up Bar Sauma’s magnificent tale in our next episode.

Rabban Sauma Part 10

This is episode 10 in the on-going epic saga of the Chinese Marco Polo – Rabban Sauma.Realizing he couldn’t get anything done in Rome since there was no Pope, and that the dozen cardinals charged with the task of selecting him were competing for the post, Sauma decided to take his request for a military alliance between Christian Europe and Mongol Persia against the Muslims Mamluks in the Middle East, directly to the Kings of France and England.Leaving Rome, he stopped in Genoa on his way to North. Since Genoa had for some years maintained a thriving trade with the Ilkhanate, that is the Mongols in Persia, Sauma had every reason to expect a warm welcome. He wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t hurt that one of the interpreters who’d accompanied him from Persia was a native-born Genoese merchant.Genoa was at the height of its prosperity when Sauma visited, boasting a population of 70,000, one of the largest in Europe. Its merchants were savvy negotiators who’d been able to arrange deals not only around the Mediterranean but reaching into the Far East. While other Italian City-States like Naples and Venice set up lucrative trade routes with select partners, Genoa was able to walk a tight-rope of diplomacy across dozens of partners who were otherwise in conflict with each other. Because of their wide-ranging connections, many realms of thought and practice combined to influence the intellectual life of Genoa. It was a truly cosmopolitan city whose routine wasn’t knocked off kilter by the arrival of an Embassy form the Far East.While the commerce of Genoa was well established, its government was another matter. Genoa seemed unable to find a political system that satisfied the city’s need for longer than a decade. At the time of Sauma’s visit, the city’s ruler was called a Captain of the People, or Citizens. He rallied the population of Genoa to officially welcome Sauma’s party. Sauma was confused; not able to understand how such a large city wasn’t ruled by a king. Knowing how far-reaching Genoa’s trade was, Sauma wondered if it might even have been better ruled by an Emperor.Once settled into the accommodations made available to him, Sauma plotted his next moves. If it occurred to him to ask the Genoese to join an alliance against the Mamluks, he quickly put it aside. The Genoese would not be drawn into a war with a force that dominated the entire Eastern Med. In fact, forging treaties was what they were known for. When they went to war, it was with their rival Italian City-States, all for the golden prize of increasing trade with everyone else. And Genoa was at that time gearing up for a campaign against their major rival Venice, which it would soon best.So, after visiting the religious sites in an near Genoa, Sauma once again packed up and headed north toward France.Sauma’s hope of help from the French was keen. After all King Louis IX, known to history as St. Louis, had played a major role in 2 Crusades to liberate the Middle East from the Muslim presence. But his son, Philip III, known as Philip the Bold, had been more concerned with securing his control of France and her neighbors. His son, Philip IV, known as Philip the Fair and later as The Iron King, had only been on the throne for 2 yrs when Sauma arrived in Paris. Barely 20 yrs of age, everyone wondered if he’d reprise the career of his famous grandfather or his more mundane father. It seemed a most propitious time for the Rabban’s embassy, as setting out on a new Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from the Mamluks would appeal to the energy and ambitions of a young ruler seeking to make his mark.Arriving at the French border in August of 1287, Sauma’s party was greeted by a large force sent by the King to escort him to Paris. They entered the City at the end of September to much pomp & circumstance. Sauma was then ushered to palatial digs provided by King Philip. And  it was time for a break for the Chinese Monk-ambassador.The trip from Genoa to Paris took a month. While the journey was nowhere near as arduous as that which he’d undertaken a decade before from China to Persia, he was now in his 60’s and the entire adventure was taken a toll on his aging body. He’s been traveling for the past 6 months from Persia, to the Black Sea, Constantinople, Naples, Rome, Genoa, and now Paris. Keep in mind there were no Holiday, Ramada or Quality Inns along the way. The caravanserais they’d enjoyed earlier were far away in Asia. They overnighted either along the roadside or in small public houses where the bedding was rarely changed. The quality of the food was most often abysmal because it was the only thing to be had by travelers.So by the time Sauma arrived in Paris, he was exhausted and needed to rest. Philip recognized that and set aside three days for him to recoup. Then he sent a formal invitation for the Nestorian monk to attend an official audience with his majesty. When Sauma arrived at court, Philip rose to greet him; an unusual gesture for a European monarch at that time. Guests at court were usually required to process a long path to the dais holding the throne, stopping at the foot of the stairs, they then bowed and remained thus in a posture of supplication until told to stand. The entire time the king remained seated. Rising to greet Sauma was a surprising move on Philip’s part because it signaled the court the French King viewed Sauma as an equal.Then, it was down to business. Why, Philip asked, as Sauma there? What did he want? Why had he come and who’d sent him?If Sauma was surprised by the bluntness of the king’s query, he recovered quickly and responded in kind. He told Philip that while originally set on a religious pilgrimage endorsed and sponsored by the Great Khubilai Khan in China, he’d been made the Mongol Ilkhanate in Persia’s official envoy back to Khubilai’s court. But before returning to China to fulfill that task, he’d been given a special assignment: Travel West to the Christian rulers of Western Europe, asking them for an alliance with the Ilkhanate against the Mamluks and recovery Jerusalem from Muslim control. Sauma then handed Philip the letter and gifts from Ilkhan Arghun. These gifts were most likely the kinds of things that would convey the seriousness of the embassy, but could be easily transported by individuals traveling light; jewels, small packages of luxurious silk cloth, so highly prized by the elite of Western Europe.Sauma reports the French King was favorable toward the proposed alliance. Philip was moved by the Mongols desire to free Jerusalem from Muslim hegemony, even though those Mongols weren’t officially Christian. Philip remarked that Christian Europe ought to rise to the challenge presented by the Ilkhans. Rabban Sauma was equally impressed by the King’s devotion to the Faith and his interest in embarking on a new Crusade. For the first time, Sauma’s mission to the West seemed to be bearing fruit.BUT: Sauma wasn’t hip to European politics which had shaped Philip’s exuberant response. Philip was less interested in a Crusade to recapture the Holy Land as he was in securing his control over the contested domains of his north. Ever since ascending the throne, he’d been in contention with England’s King Edward I who owed him fealty in Gascony. In the Spring of 1286, Edward went to Paris to pay Philip honor as his suzerain. But Philip never bought this show of fealty. He had reason to distrust Edward since England backed France’s enemies in the contentious affairs in Aragon. Tensions between the two rulers grew until war broke out in 1294.Another trouble Philip dealt with was a degenerating relationship with the Roman Church. Needing funds in his campaigns to secure the North, the French monarch confiscated the tithes destined for Rome. His nobles already struggled with the burdensome taxes the crown had levied. The only place to secure the much-needed funds was the Church. So in an appeal to nationalism, Philip said French gold and silver ought to stay in France, not shipped off to Rome and the interests of the Pope, whose schemes were cast as contrary to French well-being. All of this would later lead to the major rift that occurred between the French crown and Papacy that we covered in Season One of CS.While Philip’s enthusiastic response to Sauma’s appeal was no doubt sincere, on further reflection, Philip realized mounting a new Crusade wasn’t practical. At least not in the short term. Maybe after movement on his domestic fronts, a Crusade could be staged.On Sauma’s part, having achieved seeming success on the official phase of his embassy, he turned to his personal adventure; visiting the religious sites of Paris and its environs. Philip assigned him an escort and off they went visiting churches and shrines; Sauma once again focusing on relics rather than the marvelous architecture and art.The Rabban was stunned by the large number of students in Paris, which was one of the sites of the new centers of learning called universities. He reports there were 30,000 students in the City.And that brings up a point of historical tension it might be wise for us to skim the surface of.As many subscribers know, the value of numbers in reporting of history has been a contentious issue for a long time. The tension comes over the almost universal tendency of ancient historians to give big numbers while many modern historians are committed to reducing those numbers to a tenth of the original. We see that here. Sauma says Paris had 30,000 students. Modern historians say the City of that time had maybe 3,000. This assumed inflation of numbers by the ancients and chroniclers of yore is just about universal among modern historians. Some wonder if that skepticism is valid. The fact that nearly ALL pre-modern accounts give much larger figures than modern historians allow is provocative. Recent archaeology has caused historians to revise their estimates of population upwards in some cases, significantly.It’ll be interesting for those of us who are historically interested, to watch what happens in the realm of statistics over the next few years as researchers review past assumptions in light of new evidence. Since I tend to give the ancients more credit for veracity, I suspect we’ll see a revising of the numbers upward, dramatically.The University of Paris’s primary course of study was theology. But the school quickly branched out into other areas, including law, medicine, philosophy, rhetoric, and math. The pursuit of these subjects was boosted by a renewal of interest in the recently-published works of Aristotle.As a self-taught scholar who’d studied everything he could get his hands on back in China, Sauma quite impressed with Paris’ schools.Sauma’s chronicle relates his impression of the gorgeous Church of Saint-Denis where French monarchs were interred. He mentions the Chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, but he gives no mention of the nearby Notre Dame; the pride and joy of Paris whose spire could be seen from anywhere in the city. Indeed, Notre Dame and Paris become synonymous. So why does the Rabban omit it from his account? Several opinions are given, probably the best of which is the most obvious. Sauma was a Nestorian monk. He belonged to the Church of the East, a branch of the Faith severed from the West over the identity of Mary. Was she Theotokos, the Mother of God as the West said, or Christotokos, Mother of Christ, as the East said? The Cathedral of Notre Dame was all about the Virgin Mary. Sauma most likely left off mentioning his visit to Notre Dame because of his desire to not end up saying a bunch of critical things about his stay.We’ll finish up his time in Paris and get into his trip north to meet the King of England in our next episode as we move to conclude the amazing tale of Rabban Sauma.

Rabban Sauma Part 9

This is Episode 9 in the on-going epic tale of Rabban Sauma.Finally, Sauma has arrived in Europe. After two months aboard ship, his party arrives in Naples. Which is unusual because the trip from Constantinople ought to have taken less than a month. Here again, it’s Sauma’s account that seems to be lacking detail. Being a commercial vessel, most likely they’d used the route to further their business, so had put into port along the way for days at a time.Sauma took some time in Naples to recover from the long voyage before setting out for Rome. While there, staying at a mansion provided by the ruling family of Anjou, Sauma witnessed from the roof, the Battle of the Counts on June 23^rdin the Bay of Naples. This was part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers between the Houses of Aragon and Anjou. Sauma says the Anjou lost 12,000 men. What surprised him was the care given by both sides to avoid harming non-combatants. Familiar with the Mongol method of war, Sauma assumed no distinction between civilians and soldiers in battle. He was deeply impressed by the caution exercised in the fighting to avoid civilian casualties.Naples had proven to be unsafe due to the conflict, so Sauma decided it was best to leave, even before having a chance to visit the city’s religious sites. An unusual move for him since that was his personal primary motivation. His unease may have been due to the sketchy political situation he sensed taking place around him. Better to ‘git’ while the ‘gitting’ was good.So they packed up and headed for Rome.The trip across Italy was yet another surprise for the Chinese monk. There was simply little landscape without some kind of settlement. Whether that was a solitary farm, hamlet, village, town, or city, the road led across a land that was, to Sauma’s thinking, filled with people. This was in sharp contrast with the territory he’d spent the previous decade in. It was possible to travel for days in Central Asia and not see another soul nor evidence of settlement. The path he now took went up and down hills, but after the towering peaks he’d traversed earlier in his pilgrimage, they were but bumps in the road.As he approached Rome, he rehearsed his speech to the Pope, asking for him to call a Crusade of Europe’s’ monarch against the Muslim Mamluks that would coincide with a Mongol attack from the East. But word was carried to Sauma that Pope Honorius IV had died in early April. Instead of being disheartened, Sauma increased his pace, hoping to be among the first to speak to the new Pope.But it was not to be. The twelve cardinals charged with the task of selecting the pope couldn’t reach a decision, largely because several of them wanted to wear Peter’s ring.Arriving in the City, he sent word to the Cardinals of his presence, requesting an audience. Surprisingly, they invited him into that sacred place where the pope is chosen, the papal palace next to the Church of Santa Sabina. No one else was allowed into their deliberations but their closest assistant. So this was an uncommon honor. Even so, Sauma was briefed on proper etiquette when meeting the Cardinals. He made a good impression and proved a welcome distraction from the grinding machinations of the would-be popes. Their task proved so stressful, half of the Cardinals died before the end of that Summer.After initial introductions and realizing how far the Rabban had traveled, the Cardinals expressed their dismay and concern for his health. They assumed it would take weeks for him to recover his strength and urged him to rest. He assured them his stay in Naples had been sufficient and that he had pressing, indeed, supremely urgent matters to share with the Pope. In this way, he hoped to impress on them the need to be quick to find Honorius’s replacement.But they would not be hurried. They insisted he get more rest and pondered what his arrival and embassy might mean for the future of Europe and the Church. How might Sauma’s mission effect WHO they selected as the next Pope? Should they pick someone who’d be amenable to his request for an alliance with the Ilkhans, or someone who’d refuse?They decided it was best to avoid political discussions with the Rabban altogether. A safer subject, and one of genuine interest to them, was Sauma’s faith. How was the Church of the East now different from the Roman church? The rift that had separated East and West occurred all the way back in the 5^th C. It was over 800 yrs later. How had the two expressions of the Christian Faith diverged, they wondered. And how had Christianity reached all the way to the Far East so that a monk would embark on such a seemingly impossible pilgrimage as Sauma had?In his account Sauma admits some frustration with the Cardinals’ refusal to let him pursue his political assignment. But when it was clear they would not entertain his embassy along those lines, he warmed to the task of explaining his beliefs and the history of the Nestorian Church.Sauma explained that the headquarters of his church was in Baghdad and that he was the Patriarch of the Church of the East’s official representative to the court of the famous Khubilai Khan. The Cardinals were eager to hear how Christianity had reached China. Of chief concern to them was who’d brought them the Gospel. Sauma spoke of the Apostle Thomas who carried the message of Christ to Mesopotamia, Persia, and all the way to India. Thaddaeus and Mari also played a role in planting churches in the East. These were all names the Cardinals were familiar with and settled any concerns they had that the Nestorian Church rested on an apostolic foundation.Sauma told them of the extensive missionary activity of the Nestorian Church. They’d planted churches among the Mongols, Turks, and Chinese. Their outreach to the children of the Mongol elite had proven especially effective. Then he brought the conversation back round to his embassy. Christianity was favored in the Mongol realm of Persia. In fact, the Ilkhan leader Arghun was a good friend and supporter of the Nestorian Catholicus Mar Yaballaha. Like the Europeans, Arghun wanted to dislodge the Mamluks from the Middle East. “Hey, how about an alliance?”The Cardinals retreated to safe ground. They couldn’t agree to anything without a pope, they said. Besides, the previous Pope, Honorius IV, had already tried to rally support for a campaign against the Mamluks, but Europeans leaders weren’t interested.So the Cardinals once more shifted the conversation back to theological issues. They wanted to know how closely the Nestorian Church aligned with Catholic doctrine. Sauma said no envoy from the Pope nor representative from the Vatican had come East with those doctrines. What the Nestorians believed was drawn from the apostles and fathers he’d mentioned earlier. The Cardinals asked him for a run-down of Nestorian theology.This was a critical moment for Sauma. He needed to keep the door open with them. But he was aware of some differences between Nestorian & Catholic doctrine, especially in regard to the nature of Christ.Consider for a moment how monumental the task was for Sauma. He has to explain the complexities of theology, specifically the intricacies of the Trinity, in Persian, which is then translated into Latin. The Cardinals listen, formulate questions for clarification, speak them in Latin which is translated into Persian and passed along to Sauma. For goodness sake! It’s difficult enough explaining the Trinity to someone in your own tongue.Sauma’s managed to describe the Nestorian belief in the nature of Christ in such a way that the Cardinals took no offense. Next, they queried his beliefs about the Holy Spirit. He engaged them in a back and forth Socratic dialog that not only satisfied their concerns about his doctrine but greatly impressed them with his erudition.In fact, Rabban Sauma’s replies, included in his account of the meeting, did convey ideas the Cardinals would have found heretical. But it seems they wanted to avoid controversy as much as he did. Realizing further discussion with its parsing of details would only increase the chance of running afoul of their favor, Sauma indicated he thought his explanation of Nestorian theology was sufficient. He now realized the lack of a head for the Catholic church was a hindrance to his mission. He asked the Cardinals to appoint him someone who could take him round the religious sites to be seen in Rome. They assigned him several monks to escort him on a tour of the Eternal City’s churches and monasteries.The first and most impressive site he was shown was the old Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. Of course, what he saw is not the St. Peter’s of today. That wasn’t built till the 16^th & 17^th Cs. Still, the church of his time was massively larger than anything he’d seen besides the Hagia Sophia. He wrote of it, “The extent of that temple and its splendors cannot be described.” He was shown the 180 columns erected by Constantine, the altar from which only the Pope served Mass, Peter’s Chair, and Peter’s tomb, in which a gold sarcophagus was placed inside a bronze coffin, topped by a solid gold cross weighing 150 pounds.Sauma was especially impressed by a relic purported to bear the image of Christ. Another feature in the church he enthused over was a throne on which popes crowned emperors. He reports his guides told him the pope picked up the royal crown from the floor with their feet, transferred it to their hands then placed it on the ruler’s head. This showed the supremacy of the Church over State; that secular power was under religious authority.Either Sauma’s misunderstood or was misinformed. That wasn’t the procedure. After being crowned, the Emperor knelt and kissed the Pope’s feet. But it was a ritual going out of practice by Sauma’s time. Hostility between popes and monarchs was already growing.After seeing St. Peter’s Basilica, Sauma was shown several other sites, all of major significance to the faith in Rome. While the architecture and furnishings of these churches and shrines were remarkable, Sauma’s account gives little attention to that aspect of them. He was far more interested in the hundreds of relics he was shown. Body parts, clothing, instruments, items tied to the Biblical stories of the saints were his special fascination. It’s clear Sauma attached deep spiritual significance to these relics, giving them a special place as means of communicating grace to his soul.Having had his fill of the religious dimensions of Rome, and realizing the absence of a pope was stalling his mission, he decided to carry out the next phase of his task, visiting the rulers of Western Europe. The subject of our next episode.

Rabban Sauma Part 8

This is episode 8 in the remarkable tale of a Chinese Marco Polo named Rabban Sauma.Well, it’s taken us 7 episodes to get to the point of Sauma’s story that’s set him as a historical figure we even know about. If it weren’t for what follows, even though he’s already lived a genuinely epic life, he’d be little more than a footnote to his companion Marcos’ story. For it was Marcos, not Sauma who became the Catholicos, the reigning patriarch of the entire Nestorian Church, under the name of Mar Yaballaha III.But it’s what happens next that moves Sauma into the ranks of history’s greatest tales.Having been commissioned and provisioned by the Mongol Ilkhan Arghun in Persia to head west with an embassy to the Christian rulers of Europe to enter an alliance against the Muslim Mamluks holding the Middle East, Rabban Sauma set out in early 1287.This section of his travels was nothing like his earlier trek from China to Persia, fraught as that had been with trackless deserts and precipitous peaks. The geography was far more easily traversed, and the population more dense, so there was little worry for provisions along the way. One thing that was similar to the earlier journey was the numerous bandits and petty warlords, then the pirates that sailed the Black and Mediterranean Seas.Accompanying him were a couple European merchants who’d been conducting business in the East and could act as translators. Mostly like due to the editing of Sauma’s Syrian translator, described in the last episode, the route he took from Persia to the Black Sea is omitted from the account. He most likely took the main caravan route that passed through Mosul in Mesopotamia and ended at Trebizond.Because this route was well travelled by an ever-burgeoning column of merchants, caravanserais were established every 20 miles. These were large camps were caravans could replenish and night. Each caravanserai had a large central court surrounded by a curtained area, open to the sky, for various functions, like, sleeping, bathing, and prayers. Larger, more established caravanserais had mosques, churches, or conversely, brothels. Caravanserais provided protection from local bandits as well as entertainment in the form of jugglers, dancers, and storytellers. A good number of Arabic folk tales center on the life of the caravanserais. Merchants, guides, and camel grooms passed along information about local conditions to one another, as well as news from the wider world.At Trebizond, Sauma’s party entered a ship to sail over the Black Sea. The ship must have been a large one as it held 300 passengers. Sauma reports it was overcrowded, lacked adequate provisions and had no accommodations for sleeping. Sauma made the best of the time by giving lectures on the tenets of his faith which the other passengers and crew found interesting. Fortunately, the trip was both uneventful and short. No storms or pirates troubled them. A few days after launching from Trebizond, they landed at Constantinople.Now in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Sauma followed the pattern he’d keep for the rest of his adventure in the West. He immediately sought contact with the ruler. He sent two assistants to the palace notifying officials there of the arrival of an embassy from the Mongol Court of Persia. Of course, these assistants weren’t the first to bear news to Emperor Andronicus II of the arrival of someone of importance from the East. The Byzantine Empire was, after all, Byzantine; the Emperor had eyes and ears everywhere. That’s why Sauma was careful to make sure he reached out to Andronicus quickly. Lest the Emperor begin to wonder why he was there. Now notified of Sauma’s desire for an audience, officials were sent from court to issue a formal invitation.Sauma was greeted with pomp and ceremony. He was received in the Great Palace, then undergoing repairs after the Venetian occupation of Constantinople the indignities they inflicted on the City. Following the welcoming ceremonies, Andronicus assigned Sauma’s party a place to stay on the palace grounds. After a few day’s rest, the formal audience was held.And about that à There’s not much to say. Whether the Syrian translator edited the account, or Sauma omitted the real cause of his trip west, we don’t know. They began with some innocuous pleasantries.“How was the trip?” // “Fine.”“Are you rested now?” // “Yes. Thank you. The food here is marvelous. I especially love the candied dates.”Then Sauma asked permission to visited local Christian sites and view relics. If Andronicus was wondering WHY the Ilkhan sent this embassy, now it seemed clear. It was a religious venture; a pilgrimage – all the rage at that time.So – a little background on where the Byzantines stood in terms of the political situation in the Middle East.Andronicus’ father, Emperor Michael Palaeologus, had married his daughter Maria to the Mongol Ilkhan Abakha. But that was just to cool any hostility the Ilkhans might have toward him. He sought at the same time to steer a middle course with the Ilkhan’s enemies the Golden Horde and the Mamluks. When Andronicus ascended the throne, he continued his father’s policy. He wasn’t about to break the tenuous but lucrative trade agreements with the Horde & Mamluks for a military alliance with the Ilkhans. But – being ultra pious, he understood the motivation of a man like Sauma who simply came to visit the religious sites of the West. Granting him permission to do so would upset no alliances.It’s likely Sauma knew this and so didn’t even broach the subject with the Emperor. If he hadn’t been forewarned back in Persia of the political situation, he no doubt was given a heads up by a Byzantine official who’d been dispatched ahead of the royal audience to provide Sauma a briefing on the state of affairs as well as proper procedure for abiding by court etiquette. The Emperor ought not be put in the place of having to say “No” to an official envoy. That just wouldn’t be kosher. So it’s likely Sauma was briefed on what subjects could and couldn’t come up during their meeting.And – truth be told, aside from his assignment as Arghun’s envoy, Sauma’s real goal—his personal ambition was religious. If he’d had his druthers, he’d have skipped the whole military-alliance-proposal deal and just gone sight-seeing. But, he’d given his word and would keep it. The problem was, keeping it with Andronicus might very well have ended his embassy if the Emperor felt his interests were best served by not allowing Sauma to continue his journey west. The LAST thing the Byzantines wanted was another Crusade by those pesky Europeans, coming over with their knights, getting all worked up into a lather about reclaiming the Holy Lands. They were still recovering from the previous debacles. So, Sauma played nice. Smiled a lot, and asked an easy give; something Andronicus was more than happy to oblige—permission to visit the religious sites of his realm.The Rabban was enthralled by what he saw. The Hagia Sophia stunned him, as was to be expected and as it had every other visitor since the 6^th Century. Another wonder was the sheer number of churches in the city, many of them being architectural marvels in their own right. While Christianity dated back to the 8^th Century in the Far East, Christians were never found in large numbers. The Nestorian church was well rooted in the East, but was a minority. They never commanded the resources the Western Church had. Even in Mesopotamia, birthplace of the Church of the East, their buildings were simple and functional, given much less ornamentation.While Sauma gave passing descriptions of some of the monasteries and churches he’d visited so far in his journeys, the Hagia Sophia was the first he described in detail. Besides the architecture, he elaborated on the contents; its ornaments, art, and relics. Many of these had been looted by the Venetians in the 4^th Crusade earlier that Century and replaced with replicas. Sauma was either unaware of that, or didn’t care. His account lists them as legit.In a bit of local truth-bending, Sauma was shown a portrait of the Virgin Mary supposedly painted by St. Luke, the hand of John the Baptist and body parts of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. He saw the tombs of both Constantine and Justinian. Which is strange, because Constantine’s not buried in the Hagia Sophia.This and many other wonders in and around the royal city dazzled him.Maybe the most unusual site Sauma visited was the Monastery of St. Michael where the bodies of the 318 orthodox bishops who’d attended the 4^th C Council of Nicaea were reputed to be buried; their bodies said to bear no mark of decomposition.To the lament of historians, missing from Sauma’s account is any record of his observation on the great differences in the cultures of East and West. What a treasure it would be to read his account of daily life in what was for him, The West. Either Sauma didn’t care to record it, or more likely, his Syrian translator deleted it as it didn’t advance his goal of giving a religious travelogue.Another option is that Sauma prepared two accounts of his journey; an official diplomatic account in which he recorded the details of his embassy, and another more personal one chronicling just his religious pilgrimage. The first he intended for the Mongol Ilkhans, the second was for his fellows Nestorians. The first has been lost to us while it’s the second personal account we possess. If this option holds, we still might expect a bit more detail on Sauma’s description of daily life and customs in the West. And the account we do have, does include a record, brief as it may be, of his diplomatic dealings.Most likely, in addition to the Syrian translator’s editing of the account, Sauma depended on local guides to take him round the sites. Those guides were assigned by local officials, who most certainly had given strict instructions on what Sauma was to be shown and not shown. Both Byzantines and Europeans knew right well that deception was part and parcel of the Mongolian strategy. They’d already tasted the bitter side of that Mongolian tactic. Who knew but that the Mongols were using this seeming religious pilgrimage as a scouting foray in preparation for a new invasion? So Sauma may have been shielded from meeting commoners or learning about the daily life of the average citizen with their views on the politics of the era. Rulers aren’t keen for potential enemies to learn of unrest in their realm.If we flip it, and consider Europeans like Marco Polo and John of Plano Carpini who went East, their time was spent almost exclusively with the elite. They were kept on a tight leash by their hosts.Well, after getting his fill of the sites round Constantinople, and realizing he couldn’t even bring up the subject of an alliance between the Byzantines and Ilkhans, Sauma decided it was time to move on. He had a last audience with Andronicus, explaining that he needed to continue his journey West. The Emperor loaded him with a substantial gift of gold and silver to help with the costs of the journey and sent him off with his blessing. In the middle of April, 1287, Sauma’s embassy set sail for Naples.Sauma’s account describes the voyage as fraught with peril. The path they took was often struck by storms. Shipwrecks were common along the route. And – there was a dangerous sea serpent that harassed travelers. è Uh – no! This was surely a fabrication on the part of the ship’s crew trying to make the trip more interesting for themselves at the passengers’ expense. What fun terrifying a bunch of people, making yourself look so brave for sailing these dangerous waters for a living. Telling harrowing tales of seas monsters and the many friends lost at sea.One note of interest was Sauma’s report of a volcano they saw pouring smoke into the air. That was most likely Mt Etna in Italy, which exploded on June 18, 1287. After two months of travel, they landed in Naples, exhausted both physically and emotionally.

Rabban Sauma Part 7

This is the 7^th episode in the on-going saga of Rabban Sauma.Last episode ended with the Mongol Ilkhan Arghun in Persia surrounded by enemies. He had a powerful ally in the Great Khan Khubilai, but Persia and China were too far apart and Khubilai was already locked into his own troubles in his contest with his cousin Khaidu.Arghun had risen to the Ilkhanate in Persia by supplanting his nemesis Ahmad, a pro-Muslim ruler who’d been removed & executed after a short reign. Arghun worried Ahmad’s allies, the Muslim Mamluks to the West would embark on a campaign to conquer Persia. But as he looked for allies, the offerings were slim. Khubilai was not help. Only one option remained; Christian Europe. The same realms the Mongol Machine had just a few decades before almost overwhelmed. Would Christian Europe set aside that recent horror to ally with the Ilkhanate in a new Crusade to purge the Middle East of the Muslim threat? Well, that’s the plan Arghun settled on. For Europeans, the Mongols were deemed as great a threat as the Mamluks. Maybe more so. So, in a nod to the old saw, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Arghun hoped maybe an alliance could be forged between Persia and the crusading states of Europe.But, who to send with the proposal? This is where we open chapter 2 on Rabban Sauma’s amazing epic.We open that chapter with some background on the political situation in Persia & Europe.Arghun wasn’t the first Ilkhan to propose a treaty with Christian Europe against the Mamluks. In 1265, Abakha sent an embassy to the Pope requesting an alliance. Since the Mamluks were pressing hard to wipe out the last of the Outremer; the Crusaders states in the Middle East, Abakha assumed they’d gladly want assistance in the fight. But Europe was weary of crusading. Much ado had been made over the previous 200 yrs with little lasting result. Indeed, the success of the First Crusade was followed on by tragedy after tragedy. In addition to that weariness, the European kingdoms weren’t exactly getting along. Just in Italy, the Pope was faced with hostility between the many city-states, with the conflict between Venice and Genoa dominating the Mediterranean.A further intrigue inserted at this time was the relationship between Charles of Anjou and the Pope. Brother of the French King St. Louis IX, Charles was quite ambitious. He secured the Pope’s blessing to become the King of Naples and Sicily. His goal was to dominate the Byzantine Empire so as to control trade in the Eastern Med. He saw the Mongols in Persia as a threat to that ambition because the Ilkhan Abakha had married a Byzantine princess. Charles let the Pope know he wasn’t to entertain any overtures from the Mongols for an alliance. Both Kings Edward of England & Louis of France wanted to stage a Crusade. But the turmoil in Europe stalled their plans.They managed to pull a Crusade together in 1270, but Charles once again deftly managed to take charge of the venture. He changed the goal of the Crusade from the Holy Land to Tunis in North Africa, a land he wanted to conquer in his bid for naval hegemony. When the Tunisians sued for peace and promised to pay tribute, Charles declared the campaign a success. Edward was stunned and sailed his forces to Acre on the coast of Palestine. He then sent an embassy to the Ilkhan Abakha, asking for an alliance against the Mamluks in Syria. But wouldn’t you know it? It just so happened that the Chagatai Mongols on Persia’s Eastern border had invaded and Abakha was now engaged there. He had no troops to send to Edward’s aide. Even though Edward was without allies and had a relatively small force, he carried on his campaign for a year that wore both sides out. The Mamluks agreed to a truce that safeguarded the Outremer for 10 yrs.Edward went home, and things settled down for a while, only to spin up again a few yrs later when a new Pope, Gregory X, came to Peter’s chair. He’d lived for a time in Acre and was eager to see the Crusader States in the Middle East secure against the Muslim threat. He hoped to unite European monarchs in another Crusade and used an Ecumenical Council in an attempt to forge an alliance. It was not to be because he died before it could be organized.It turns out Europe was a lot like the Mongol domains; fractured & divided among many interests. These attempts on the part of both Europeans and Persian Mongols to secure an alliance against the Mamluks just never gelled.Then, in the first half of the decade of the 1280’s things began to change. Charles of Anjou, who’d been such a trouble-maker, lost power and died. His removal saw new alignments. One of the most significant was Venice’s giving up- it’s long-held aspiration to invade Constantinople and take over the Byzantine Empire. They’d been Charles’ ally in that scheme. But when he passed from the scene, they instead, made a treaty with the Byzantines. Trade began flowing from Venice to Constantinople once more. An uneasy peace was made among the Italian city-states.Back in England, Edward was making plans. He was still amped to participate in REAL Crusade. He viewed his earlier foray in Syria as little more than a protracted raid. He wanted to see a major campaign of European nobility sweeping Islam from the Middle East. To that end, he began plans to make an alliance with the Mongol Ilkhans in Persia through marriage. He believed the Ilkhan was a Christian and that a suitable match could be made between their courts that would cement an alliance in preparation for a new crusade. The Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers sent a message to Edward that the Battle of Homs between the Mongols & Mamluks had severely weakened the Muslims and the time was ripe for a new campaign. But in yet another example of timing, Edward had to divert the funds he’d set aside for the crusade to deal with an uprising in Wales.Then, in 1285, Honorius IV became Pope, replacing the pro-Charles Martin IV. Honorius owned different political priorities than Martin. He was all for a Crusade and opened talks with Edward to stage one. When Edward asked for special treatment by the Pope, negotiations stalled and plans for the campaign were put on hold.Back in Persia, the Mongols were encouraged in their hope for an alliance with the West when a group of Franciscans sent by Pope Nicholas III stopped there on their way East. They were the answer to Khubilai Khan’s request for Christian teachers who could instruct his court and people in the Faith. The Ilkhans assumed they were an embassy sent to them. They did stay for a while but then moved on. Then, in 1285 the Ilkhan Arghun sent a letter to Pope Honorius informing him of the careful treatment and favor Christians received in his domains. He then requested a joint campaign against the Mamluks in Syria. Since Honorius was having problems uniting the Europeans in a crusade, he was unable to commit or make any promise of an imminent alliance. But he did make clear Europe’s willingness to enter into one when the time was right.In 1286, Arghun decided it was time to ramp things up by sending an official embassy to Europe. The Mamluks had forged ties with Turks and Kurds in harassing Nestorian communities in the Ilkhan’s realm. Because they were his subjects, he wanted to protect them. But he also viewed their harassment as a possible inducement for the Christian West to come to their aide. He promised that if a joint action against the Muslims was successful, the Europeans could take control of Jerusalem and their settlements in the Outremer would be safeguarded. The key to acceptance of the offer, Arghun believed, would be proportional to the importance of the embassy he sent. He needed an experienced traveler; someone who could take the long and difficult journey and arrive in Europe ready to go. He needed someone fluent in several languages. A scholar well-versed in the learning of the age. Someone with notable accomplishments that would commend him as worthy of listening to. Oh, and he needed to be a Christian since he’d be meeting with Christian leaders. Because Europeans were so hung up on status and class, the envoy needed to be of high rank; someone whose office required attention.Rabban Sauma was the perfect fit for these requirements. Since he was unable to pursue his mission as ambassador to the court of the Great Khan in China due to the war with Khaidu, why not send him the opposite direction – West, to the capitals of Europe?But how would he communicate with Europeans? Sauma knew many languages now. But Italian, German, French, and English were not among them. He had picked up Persian though. And the flourishing trade between Europe and Persia meant there were many merchants who could translate for him.As for office, Sauma was officially an ambassador. And he was a close personal friend of the Nestorian Patriarch, Mar Yaballaha. Indeed, he’d been instrumental in his selection. While Sauma waited for the paths East to open so he could fulfill his role as ambassador to Khubilai Khan’s court, Yaballaha had made Sauma his chief of staff.Arghun couldn’t ask Sauma directly if he’d take on the embassy West. He had to go through proper channels and asked Yaballaha for his counsel on who to send. The Patriarch suggested his friend Sauma, then immediately regretted it. This would be the first time for many years they’d been separated. Yaballaha leaned on Sauma’s wisdom in leading the Nestorian Church. He’d be greatly missed. Though Sauma’s record doesn’t say so, he must have needed some persuading as well. But the travel and adventure bug his young protégé Markos, the now Patriarch Mar Yaballaha, had infected him with years before in their isolated cave in the Fang Mountains of China took over. Their main ambition to visit Jerusalem and the birthplace of Christianity was thwarted by the Mamluk presence there. The next best thing would be to visit the headquarters of both the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. If he could pull it off, Sauma would have the singular privilege of having visited the HQ’s of the 3 main branches of the Church. And not just as a pilgrim, but as an official envoy. Someone granted access to see the most sacred places of the Faith after the Holy Land itself.So, Sauma agreed. Yes—He’d be Arghun’s embassy to Europe.Sauma thus becomes the Mongol’s first ambassador to meet a European monarch, He’s the first Chinese to write an account of his travels to the West.Arghun gave him written communications and gifts to pass along to the Byzantine Emperor, the Pope, and the kings of France and England. He gave him gold for the journey, a caravan of attendants, and the all-important letters-patent, the forerunners of the modern passport, that ensured Sauma’s safe passage.Sadly, we don’t have Sauma’s own account of his travels. What we have is an early translation of it into Syriac. The monk who did it appears to have edited Sauma’s account so that while it gives detailed descriptions of the holy sites Sauma visited it skims over the diplomatic aspects of his mission. So there’s no account of the contents of the letters Arghun sent West. Sauma’s impressions of Europe are all highly abbreviated. The translator was only interested in the religious aspects of Sauma’s account and only includes an outline for context in those religious moments.We’ll pick it up here in the next episode, as Sauma embarks on his journey West.

Rabban Sauma Part 6

This is the 6^th Episode in the amazing story of a Chinese monk named Rabban Sauma.We ended the last episode with Sauma’s protégé and friend Markos, firmly ensconced in the seat of the Catholicus of the Church of The East.Because we’ve already had 5 episodes in this series spread over 5 weeks, it’s easy for subscribers who listen to each episode when it goes up, to forget the arc of Markos’ story.He showed up at the door of the monk Sauma’s cell in the Fang Mountains of China when he was only 15. He let Sauma know he wanted to become his disciple. Sauma knew the rigors of his solitary existence were beyond the pale of most people’s endurance. But Markos proved good to his word and sworn devotion. He was a quick learner and as willing to brave the ardor of the ascetic’s life as humbly and silently as his mentor. The two men became close friends. Years passed. Sauma’s lessons spoke of lands of wonder in the West. They fired Markos’ imagination. He wanted to go see the places he was learning of. He shared the travel and discovery itch with his elder friend. And over time Sauma’s curiosity was sparked as well. So the two decided to make the journey to the headquarters of their Faith, as well as the Holy Land, birthplace of that Faith. This was at a time in history when “the Silk Roads” were more an idea than a reality.Securing resources from the local Nestorian community and permission from the Great Khan Khubilai, they set out. Months later with dozens of harrowing and death-defying moments behind them, they finally arrived in Maragha, Persia, headquarters of the Nestorian Church. The Nestorian Patriarch, bearing the title of Catholicus was a conniving schemer who sought to use the fame and favor of the two Chinese envoys to his own advantage. Their babes-in-the-woods demeanor was but a convenient mask over their more than savvy awareness of the Catholicus’ shenanigans. When the way to Jerusalem, their ultimate destination, proved closed due to the hostility of the Muslim Mamluks, they decided to wait things out in Persia to see if the path would eventually open. They reluctantly agreed to take the promotions the Catholics insisted. Which proved a wise move, since he then soon died. The church leaders responsible for selecting his replacement considered Markos the perfect candidate and against his protests, installed him as the new Catholicus. He was just 36 years old. His elevation was quickly and enthusiastically endorsed by the Mongol Ilkhan, Abakha.Markos’ transformation from a 15-year-old wannabe Chinese monk into Mar Yaballaha, the Nestorian Catholicus, would be similar to a teenage Siberian farmhand becoming a deacon at his local church, then 20 years later walking to Rome and becoming Pope. It’s that strange a story.And what of Sauma? What of the man who’d been Markos’ mentor, his tutor, his teacher and guide. There arguably would not have been a Markos without a Sauma. Most men would be envious of the advancement and promotion of their student. Not Sauma. He encouraged Markos and gave him wise counsel at the outset of his ascension into office as head of the Church of the East.And that’s where Sauma’s story would have ended; a footnote to the story of his protégé and friend who rose from obscurity to fill the seat of one of the most important offices in church history. But all that’s occurred so far is the preface or maybe better, Chapter 1, to Sauma’s tale.Because the turmoil in Central Asia between the forces of Khaidu and Khubilai kept the route East closed, Mar Yaballaha asked his friend to stay and manage his household, which he moved from Mar Denha’s capital at Maragha, to the older capital of Baghdad.The Mongol Ilkhan Abakha was eager to shore up relations with his non-Muslim subjects after a severe trouncing by the Mamluks at the Battle of Homs in 1281. He worried the Muslim victory might raise insurrectionist leanings and hoped his Christian, Buddhist and Jewish subjects would prove a counterweight to any violence. So, making a visit to Baghdad, he granted Mar Yaballaha the power to levy taxes to support church works. But before the law could go into effect, Abakha died, most likely from complications due to alcoholism, a frequent problem with Mongol rulers. It was the Spring of 1282.Abakha’s death set off the powder keg that was the reality of Mongol succession. To the victor go the spoils. The intrigues that followed are the stuff of legend, but wide of our scope here. Let me summarize by saying that the short reign of a pro-Muslim Ilkhan set the Nestorians adrift. Mar Yaballaha was accused by Muslim advisors of the Ilkhan of conspiring with his enemies and supporting his rival in the contest for succession. Their accusations were furthered when a couple envious and ambitious Nestorian bishops joined the whisper-conspiracy against the Catholicus.The Ilkhan was duped and had Mar Yaballaha, Rabban Sauma and the governor of Mosul they were accused of being in cahoots with, arrested and hauled to trial in the Spring of 1283. As the trial commenced, a long laid conspiracy unfolded. Witness after witness was brought in who accused the three of conspiring to stage a coup. They’d supposedly sent letters to Khubilai defaming the Ilkhan as an apostate and turn-coat intending to side with the Great Khan’s enemies. So, Yaballaha, Sauma and the governor were brought in one by one and questioned. Because they were innocent of the charges, their answers all lined up, though they had no idea of what they were being charged with ahead of time. Then Yaballaha made an astute suggestion, evidencing the quickness that had commended him as Patriarch in the first place. An easy way to prove their innocence was to send a rider after the dispatches they’d sent East to Khubilai. Go get them and read them for yourself, Yaballaha told the Ilkhan. A rider was sent, the letters were read, and the conspiracy against the three was exposed. There was nothing in the letters to the Great Khan that were derogatory toward the Ilkhan.Then it became clear the Ilkhan himself may have been in on the conspiracy from the outset. Though it had been exposed, he refused to release or exonerate them. He kept them in custody as his Muslim officials dug dirt, rooting round for some other way to condemn them. When nothing could be found, the Ilkhan toyed with the idea of just asserting his right as ruler to execute them. He was only barely persuaded not to by more fair-minded officials and his own mother, who was a Nestorian. She convinced him he had nothing to fear from the three; that they only desired to be good citizens and to encourage their congregation in the same vein. So he reluctantly released them and returned the gold letter-patent to Mar Yaballaha.The Catholicus realized staying near the seat of power was unwise as it provoked the Muslims who now felt empowered and used their favor to advance their position at the expense of the Christians, Jews and Buddhists. He moved to a small Nestorian community near Lake Urmiya. While there, he had a vision in which he learned he’d never see Ilkhan Ahmad, again. He never did.His rival Arghun, who Yaballaha and Sauma had been accused of being in league with, continued to stage raids in the hinterlands. Just after the turn of the year 1284, things fell apart for Ahmad. His departure from the celebrated Mongol religious tolerance to a certain favoritism toward Islam only served to alienate the majority of his officials and counselors who were NOT Muslims. They remained loyal, but that loyalty began to erode as they watched him being progressively moved into a posture hostile toward his non-Muslim subjects. Ahmad arrested and executed one of his brothers accused of being in league with Arghun. Then in July, Arghun’s forces were defeated and he was captured. But instead of executing him, Ahmad turned him over to his officers and went home to his new bride. This proved a fatal mistake. Arghun became the rallying point for all the turmoil Ahmad’s mismanagement provoked. One official after another began voicing discontent with his rule. The discord grew as they realized others felt the same way they did. It quickly became clear the unrest was widespread. Ahmad’s willingness to treat with their enemies the Mamluks, his arrogance, his ill-advised dismissal of widely regarded officials because some of his close favorites were envious, and his very public mistreatment of the popular Mar Yaballaha and Rabban Sauma for no reason but prejudice, combined to throw him into a disfavor provoking a coup. Sensing one was about to ensue, Ahmad attempted to flee to the Ilkhanate’s northern enemies, The Golden Horde. That was all the proof Arghun needed that Ahmad was indeed a traitor. His contest for succession to the Ilkhanate after Abakha was now proved valid. They ought to have selected him rather than the disastrous Ahmad. When it was clear to Ahmad’s supporters he was doomed, even they switched sides and laid hold of him so he couldn’t flee North.Arghun reluctantly executed his uncle Ahmad on August 10, 1284.Once Arghun took his seat in the Mongol capital at Tabriz, Mar Yaballaha gathered a group of church officials and headed there to congratulate the new Ilkhan. Arghun was informed of the trials Yaballaha and Sauma had endured at the hands of the previous regime and promised a new day of favor with the Mongol throne and court. He offered to have the Nestorian conspirators against Yaballaha arrested and executed. The Catholicus said the Church had its own way of handling them and asked that he be allowed to deal with them. Arghun agreed. The two Metropolitans were defrocked and excommunicated.What would the new administration mean for Rabban Sauma, who, while officially designated as the Nestorian Visitor-General to China, couldn’t go there because of the on-going hostilities in Central Asia?The new Ilkhan Arghun, was beset on all sides by enemies. The Muslim Mamluks to the West and South. Their allies The Golden Horde to the North. And Khaidu, the enemy of Arghun’s ally Khubilai to the East. The Ilkhanate had little to fear from the East because Khaidu was preoccupied on his Eastern front with the Great Khan. They also didn’t worry much about a massed attack from the Golden Horde in the North. As fellow Mongols, they held an uneasy peace neither wanted to break. The real threat came from the Mamluks, who the Golden Horde was more than willing to let act as surrogates for them in the contest with Ilkhanate Persia. The Ilkhans had tried to extend their conquests into the Holy Land but were rebuffed by the Mamluks. When the Mamluks pushed Eastward beyond their bases in Syria, the Mongols were able to pull off a draw that stung the pride of the heretofore victorious Mamluks. But the Mamluks hadn’t really staged a concerted effort. The clashes were more limited forays than major campaigns to take the East.Arghun worried now that the pro-Muslim Ahmad had been removed & executed, the Mamluks would take offense and stage a major campaign to conquer Persia. But as he looked around for allies, the offerings were slim. Khubilai was too far away and already locked in a struggle with his cousin Khaidu. No help would come from that corner. Only one option remained – Christian Europe. The very realms the Mongol Machine had just a few decades before almost overwhelmed. Would Christian Europe set aside that terrifying and recent horror to ally with the Ilkhanate in a new Crusade to purge the Middle East of the Muslim threat? >> That’s the plan Arghun settled on. It was an ambitious, an audacious proposal. Far-fetched, to say the least. Certainly to the Europeans, the Mongols were as great a threat as the Mamluks. Maybe even more so. But Arghun’s back was to the proverbial wall. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, maybe an alliance could be forged between Persia and the crusading states of Europe.But, who to send with the proposal? What embassy would the West receive and treated the offer of an alliance with the seriousness it needed? How about a Chinese monk who’d been promoted to Ambassador and helped install a Patriarch?

Rabban Sauma Part 5

This is Episode 5 in the on-going saga of Rabban Sauma.We left Markos and Bar Sauma headed to Tabriz, the Mongol Ilkhan’s capital in Persia.By way of recap, “Ilkhan” means “under-khan.”The Mongol realms of the late 13^th C were fractured and divided up into warring camps. The Ilkhans of Persia owed allegiance to the Great Khan, Khubilai, whose capital in China would eventually be known as Beijing. Lying between the Ilkhante in Persia and the realm of Khubilai was a Central Asian breakaway region ruled by Khubilai’s estranged Cousin, Khaidu. This was called the Chagatai Khanate.To the north of the Ilkhans in Persia over a much-contested border, was the Mongol Golden Horde, AKA the Kipchak Khanate.The Ilkhan had moved their capital from Maragha to Tabriz to keep a large force near that contentious border with the Horde. It was the plateau of Azerbaijan with it’s rich pastures that was contested. The Mongol mounts that had made their conquests possible needed those pastures, which became increasingly rare the further west they drove.Though Tabriz would eventually grow into a major center of trade, when Sauma & Markos arrived it was already thriving, with European merchants well-established in the city. Its religious mix included both a Dominican and two Franciscan monasteries. The churches of Tabriz represented quite a mix. There were Byzantine, Armenian, Georgian, Nestorian and Jacobite congregations. During times of doctrinal de-emphasis, the Jacobite and Nestorian churches often lined up to share a Patriarch. Then, when doctrinal nuance regarding the person of Christ returned to the fore, the groups split apart once more.But it wasn’t just the Christians that were represented by different groups in Tabriz. It was also a meeting place of various Muslim groups and sects. Because of the famed Mongol policy of religious tolerance, all these various groups lived side by side in a mostly amicable relationship. Combined with a rich East-West trade network, it all made Tabriz a genuinely cosmopolitan city and served as a fit setting for the two monks to meet the Mongol Ilkhan, Abakha. Presented with credentials from both The Great Khan, Khubilai and the Nestorian Patriarch, Abakha demonstrated his quick apprehension of the gravity of his visitors' journey by immediately granting their request to endorse Mar Denha’s appointment as Catholicus. He then gave his officials strict orders to assist Bar Sauma and Markos on the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem.With little delay, the two commenced their journey West to Ani on the Araxes River in Armenia. Ani was known as the city of “a thousand and one churches.” The Ani Cathedral was designed by the same 10^th Century architect who redesigned Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia.Leaving Ani and its gorgeously designed and decorated churches, they headed toward the Black Sea where they hoped to catch a ship headed to the Palestinian coast. But the report of robbers, the Golden Horde and their Mamluk allies who controlled Palestine combined to convince the monks that the way forward was closed.By late 1280, they were back in Maragha, the previous capital of the Ilkhanate and home to the recently confirmed Nestorian Catholicus, Mar Denha, He was pleased with their return. Their presence afforded him more opportunity to work his schemes. He agreed with the assessment of their Armenian hosts that the way to Jerusalem was closed, insinuating that that is what he’d tried to tell them previously when he’d done no such thing. He suggested they instead defer their desire to visit the holy relics of the Holy Land to the several relics he oversaw. Thinking to accrue to himself some of the august spiritual mojo surrounding the two Eastern visitors, Mar Denha promoted Markos to a Rabban, a Master, and declared his intent to install him as the Metropolitan of all East Asia. Sauma was also promoted to the rank of a Rabban and made Visitor-General in China, a kind of Papal ambassador, except for the Nestorian Patriarch rather than the Pope. By these appointments, which due to Markos’ & Sauma’s popularity were sure to pass, Mar Denha hoped to secure his grip over Nestorian affairs far & wide. He’d be installing one of his own as Bishop over the vast area of East Asia in Marko’s See, and would have a voice and ear in the councils of the Great Khan Khubilai.A little background on the power and scope of the Nestorian Catholicus’s authority would be helpful here. The Catholicus of the Nestorian Church, AKA, The Church of the East, was equivalent to the Byzantine Patriarch and Roman Pope in terms of authority as sole head over the Church. The Catholicus bore both spiritual & secular power. Besides steering the Nestorian ship, he was responsible for overseeing the purity of doctrine and appointing all other church officials. He weighed in on secular matters as well, giving guidance and counsel to the civil ruler as the overseer of a large number of the ruler’s subjects.Mar Denha had risen to power as Catholicus more by political machination than spiritual devotion. He elevated Markos and Sauma because his previous movements in China had been disastrous and he hoped to re-secure his base. The previous Metropolitan he’d appointed had promptly denounced him as a fraud. So Denha revoked his appointment and had him sequestered in an out of the way monastery, from which he escaped. Recaptured and returned, he and four of his supporters were soon found dead in their cells. The ensuing scandal threatened to see the Nestorian church black-listed in the Far East. Denha hoped the elevation and appointment of the now famous Chinese monks would return his patriarchy to favor in the Court of the Great Khan.Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” The newly minted Rabbans Sauma and Markos were offered immense power and influence. They’d left home humble monks. They could return as genuine movers and shakers. Men without local peer.They chose a different route.If they’d had any doubts of Mar Denha’s motives before, they saw clearly now. His power had indeed outed him. So they treated him carefully. They flattered him by saying as the head of their church, his words were equivalent to Jesus’ own. Then they pointed back, reminding him of the long and arduous journey they’d recently completed. It was too soon to return home. They begged off the appointments he offered, listing their lack of training in leading the church. They were, after all, humble monks, devoted to a life of study and prayer. If it pleased the august Catholicus, they’d prefer to retire to a quiet monastery and spend their days there.Mar Denha didn’t buy it. Not even close. His mind was made up. He made it clear he considered their objections unworthy of the faith HE’D entrusted in them. How dare they, humble monks as they claimed to be, doubt his perception of their ability! So, Rabbans Sauma & Markos were forced to yield and began preparations for their return to China.Right then, tensions between Khubilai and Khaidu heated up. Word got back to Maragha from merchants making the trip from East to West that fresh hostilities had broken out and the routes through Central Asia were closed.Anticipating their quick re-opening, Mar Denha pressed forward with the ceremonies attendant on the elevation of Markos and Sauma to their new posts. These ceremonies were elaborate. In Markos’ case, as a Metropolitan, he was given a new name, one reflecting the Syrian origin of the Nestorian faith. Several slips of paper with appropriate names were laid on the altar of the main church in Maragha. One was picked at random. It carried the moniker, Yaballaha = God-given. To that was added the revered title “Mar” meaning “Your.” Thus, Markos became Mar Yaballaha.When the routes Eastward failed to open as quickly as Mar Denha had hoped and having them hang around his estate became awkward, he granted their request to head back to the monastery at Mar Michael, where they’d wanted to go all along.February of 1281 proved an eventful month. Mar Denha died unexpectedly. It was later reported that in the few months prior to his death, several church officials had premonitions a major change was coming to their church. Markos was one of them. He made a trip to Baghdad to secure some items appropriate to his role as Metropolitan; a pastoral robe and crozier = the shepherd’s staff. ON his way back to the monastery at Mar Michael, a friend brought him news of the Catholicus’ death. Markos then went to Maragha where he wept profusely over the body.The day after Denha’s entombment, church leaders met in Baghdad to select a new leader. The discussions didn’t take long. They asked Mar Yaballaha to become their new Catholicus. He seemed a perfect choice. His devotion to both God and church were exemplary. His motives had been proven pure. Knowing the Mongol tongue and customs, he’d be the perfect bridge between their church and rulers.He was astonished at their selection and resisted. He didn’t know Syriac, the main language of the Nestorian Faith. He wasn’t a skilled public speaker. He wasn’t schooled in the nuances of Nestorian doctrine. He assumed surely these disqualified him. But all his resistance did was further affirm in the officials' minds that his humility commended him as the perfect candidate. With Mar Denha’s megalomaniacal tenure fresh in their minds, Marko’s humility was a refreshing change that only served to secure his appointment.Realizing they weren’t going to take “No” for an answer, Markos, or we must now call him, Mar Yaballaha finally consented. His first thought was, “I gotta’ tell my buddy.” So he high-tailed it back to the monastery and informed Rabban Sauma. Sauma was elated and urged the new Catholicus to immediately secure the Ilkhan Abakha’s affirmation.The two returned to Maragha where they gathered a retinue of church officials and headed back to Tabriz. Abakha was ensconced in the nearby mountain retreat where he liked to spend the Summer. The Ilkhan was more than happy to replace the Islamophobic Mar Denha with a patriarch who held no special animosity toward Muslims. It helped to have someone connected to the Great Khan back East as well. In affirming Mar Yaballaha as the new Catholicus, he mused that Sauma and Markos’ journey to Jerusalem had been arrested, not by the Mamluks, but by God, to ensure His Church would be provided with solid leadership in the challenging times that lay ahead. Abakha wanted to make sure his approval ofMar Yaballaha was clear, so he gave him a robe fitting his office, a chair resembling a throne, a large sun-umbrella that functioned like a canopy used also by the royal family, a new, comprehensive letter-patent made of solid gold, and official conference of the great seal marking the authority of the Nestorian Catholicus. It was that seal Mar Denha had waited many years to secure from the Ilkhan, the very same seal Sauma & Markos had secured for him. Abakha now gave it confidently to Mar Yaballaha. From then on, Mar Yaballaha’s commands carried the weight of law for the Nestorian community. As a final signifier of his approval, Abakha had his administrators designate substantial funds to pay for the ceremonies that would install Markos into his new office.The group then headed back to Baghdad and Mar Yaballaha was installed as the new Catholicus in November of 1281. Metropolitans, that is, Nestorian bishops, traveled from as far as Western Armenia, Samarkand, and Tripoli to attend the event.So, at the age of only 36, Markos of China, a humble teenager who aspired to little more than the life of a monk in the Fang Mountains of his homeland, had risen to become THE leader of his entire denomination. And not just denomination, but one of the 3 major branches of the Christian Church and Faith – The Nestorian Church of the East!It’s quite a story. But it’s just getting started. For his mentor’s tale has much farther to go. Everything till now has been but the preface to Rabban Sauma’s epic. Join us next time for Part 6.

Rabban Sauma Part 4

This is Episode 4 in the Saga of Rabban Sauma.After their 6 month rest at the oases of Khotan, Bar Sauma & Markos renewed their journey West. Cautious of the fighting taking place between Khubilai Khan and his cousin Khaidu, their guides escorted them around the regions of greatest threat, lengthening the journey by several weeks. They stopped at a Talas, a town in what is today Kyrgyz.500 yrs before, Talas was the scene of one of the most important battles in history. The forces of the Tang Dynasty smashed into those of the Arabian Umayyads. Talas was Khaidu’s HQ. And while the two monks had before been leery of encountering the treacherous would-be khan, they now decided to present themselves before him. They were careful to avoid any hint they were emissaries of his enemy Khubilai. They were just two monks on a spiritual quest, pilgrims to the birthplace of their Faith.Though they already had the precious letters-patent form the Great Khan, they knew securing another passport from Khaidu might grease the wheels for any future local chieftains who aligned with him. So after placing a blessing on Khaidu, they requested the precious letters of passage.Sauma & Markos’ passage across this region, embroiled as it was in war, proved typical for East-West trade and travelers at this time. While groups found all kinds of causes to fight over; ethnicity and religion being foremost, when it came to trade, such distinctions were often set aside in favor of an apolitical posture that was willing to overlook the reasons for war. This allowance for trade across such a wide spectrum of people and faiths was due to the realization trade was a major source of income to the various kingdoms. Harming or hindering it in one area meant diminishing it across the board. So with rare exception, trade was regarded as apolitical.Leaving Talas, the next portion of Markos and Sauma’s journey was yet another challenge to endurance. They headed southwest into Khorasan in northeastern Persia, skirting present-day Afghanistan. Crossing rugged mountains and deserts little better than the Taklamakan which had just about ended them, they lost a good part of their baggage. The mountains soared so high travelers were beset by intense cold, thin ice, howling wind, and the ever-present threat of avalanches.This was also an area fraught with local warlords who survived by robbing caravans. The problem of brigandage was so severe, the Mongols set rules for how caravans were to protect themselves. Disheartening to all who traveled here were the frequent skeletons of camels, pack animals, and humans found regularly along the path.But this was the last leg of their journey from the Far to the Middle East. They finally arrived in the first of their destinations; Persia. But they were likely shocked at what they found. This eastern region in Persia had suffered terribly at the hands of the Mongols. If a city surrendered when first approached, it was spared. If it resisted, the entire population was wiped out. Many cities of this region had thought to resist the invaders and had suffered for it. But as the invaders moved southwest into the heart of the greater Persian plateau, word spread and cities capitulated. The Mongols then recruited skilled craftsmen and the educated into their burgeoning bureaucracy. They drew from Persian Muslims, Jews, and Christians.The year was 1280 when Bar Sauma & Markos settled into a monastery on the outskirts of Tus [Toos], Mongol capital of Khorasan in the northeast frontier region of Persia. Tus was the birthplace of several historical notables as well as the burial place of the great Caliph Harun al-Rashid, whose reign and court provided the literary base for the Arabians Nights.Tus was often the scene of conflict between Shi’a and Sunni pilgrims because not only did it hold the tomb of the Sunni al-Rashid, it was the burial place for the 8th Shi’a Imam Ali al-Rida.While Islam was the predominant religion in Persia at that time, there was a sizeable population of Jews, Buddhists, and Christians as well. Prior to the arrival of the Mongols, the majority Muslims ruled these minority faiths with a begrudged tolerance. After the Mongol Conquest, the Muslims protested that they were treated no better than the others. They believed their vastly superior numbers ought to gain them advantages. But the Mongols enforced their standard policy of religious tolerance. Muslims worried when they saw large numbers of Nestorians promoted into high office in the Mongol system. But the Mongols weren’t showing a religious bias; they were merely filling the ranks of their civil government with the most educated, who happened to come from the highly literate Nestorian clergy.Having recouped their strength in Tus after their arduous passage across Central Asia, Bar Sauma and Markos renewed their journey West. Resupplied by the local Christian community, they set out across Azerbaijan, skirted the Caspian Sea and Dashti Kavir Desert and headed toward Baghdad. Baghdad was HQ’s of the Nestorian Church, home of their Great Patriarch, Mar Denha.But if they hoped to meet the grand leader of their church, they didn’t need to travel to Baghdad to do so. Mar Denha was visiting Azerbaijan at the same time Sauma & Markos were passing through. He granted them an audience in the Mongol Capital of Maragha. The Ilkhan Hulegu had made Maragha a gem, building a large observatory there for the famed astronomer Nasir al-Din Tusi. This observatory was a mecca that attracted Muslim scholars from all over. It housed several ingenious astronomical devices and it’s growing body of discovery and work became the envy of Chinese and Europeans scholars alike. The attached library held 400,000 volumes. So impressive was this center of learning, wealthy Muslim leaders and merchants established grants to fund it.The City provided a fitting stage for the meeting of the two Chinese monks and their church’s leader. Markos and Bar Sauma bowed before him and amidst many tears expressed their gratitude they’d made the difficult journey to see him and carry the collective greetings of his people and churches in the Far East. Mar Denha was deeply moved by the expression of the faith their journey had demonstrated. He was surprised to hear the two monks had met with and been sent on their way with official endorsement by the Great Khan Khubilai. When they said their ultimate goal was to visit the birthplace of the Faith, the Patriarch assured them God would see they made it. After a few more days of meetings with the Mar Denha, they asked for permission and blessing to visit sites of interest to their Faith. There were tombs, churches, and shrines to visit in and around Baghdad, current HQs for the Church of the East. It’s oldest and most revered site was in nearby Ctesphon which they also wanted to visit.In Baghdad, they were given a tour of the Great Church of Koke and the ancient monastery of Mar Mari, named for the early 4^th C missionary who planted the church in Ctesiphon.Bar Sauma’s account lists the sites they visited in the many towns between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Besides cataloging these shrines, he gives little description of what life was like for the locals.Other records tell us Baghdad of 1280- was a seething cauldron of tension between Muslims and Christians, who were universal of the Nestorian brand. The previously mentioned Catholicos Mar Denha had stirred the pot by inciting his flock into hostility toward Islam. When an apostate Christian became a Muslim, Mar Denha ordered his execution by drowning in the Tigris. The Muslims responded by trying to assassinate Mar Denha and burning down his house. Three years later, when an attempt was made on the civil governor’s life, Christians and Muslims blamed each other. So local Nestorian congregations were greatly encouraged by the arrival of the two monks as it seemed to signal support from the Great Khan. After, all they did bear his august approval in tangible form in that letters-patent they carried. They may have been in the minority, but Khubilai and sent them succor in Sauma & Markos.The two ended their tour of Nestorian sites at the Mar Michael monastery in Arbil. Having been so long away from the monk’s life, they decided to renew it by staying in the monastery as participants for a season before setting off for Jerusalem.While Mar Denha had originally applauded and affirmed their plan to travel to Jerusalem, he changed his mind. He’d seen how the two monks had generated hope and much-needed vitality to the increasingly moribund church he presided over. He wrote them a letter, berating them for thinking only of themselves in entering the monastery at Arbil. How dare they seek personal peace, he said, when their brothers and sisters were beset by dangers at the hands of their Muslim neighbors, left & right?Mar Denha was the Catholicos, the Patriarch of the Nestorian Church by selection of church officials. But the Mongol ruler reserved the right to affirm such elections. It had been 15 years and the Mongol Ilkhan, Abakha, still had not officially endorsed him. Abakha was Buddhist but married to a Christian. Because Mar Denha was a well-known antagonist and rabble-rouser in matters involving the majority Muslims, Abakha balked at granting Denha the official title. He knew to do so would risk riots form his Muslim subjects.Mar Denha saw in the two Chinese monks the lever to move the Ilkhan. After all, they enjoyed the favor of The GREAT Khan, did they not? Serving as Khubilai’s unofficial envoys, their counsel could easily be passed off as a directive from the Far Eastern court.So, guilted into it, Sauma & Markos left the monastery, trekked back to Baghdad and met with Mar Denha. They agreed to approach the Ilkhan >> IF >> Denha would provide them an escort who could return him the credentials verifying his title and office, as they continued on their way to Jerusalem. Though the monks had previously treated Mar Denha as a near god-like figure, these shenanigans unmasked him as grasping, power-hungry, & self-serving. Because of the way they’d been treated by other Nestorian leaders back in China, they didn’t trust the Catholicos to keep his word. They knew if they secured the treasure credentials, they’d make themselves too valuable a resource to let go. So their intention was to high tail it out of town as soon as they got Mar Denha what he wanted. So eager was he for the Ilkhan’s recognition, Denha agreed.Eager to be on their way and out of Denha’s grasp, Sauma & Markos traveled to Tabriz, Abakha’s capital on the fringes of Azerbaijan.What would the Ilkhan say to their request for recognition of the scheming Mar Denha as Catholicos? We’ll find out next time in Part 5.

Rabban Sauma Part 3

This episode continues our series on the remarkable Rabban Sauma with Part 3.In Part 1, we looked at the opening chapter in Sauma’s life. By way of a quick recap . . .He was the treasured son of an Onggud noble family who from an early age showed a remarkable passion for pursuing the spiritual. Adept in his studies and excelling in piety, by the age 25 he was a member of the Nestorian clergy, a monk-priest. It was the year 1248.Choosing a life of isolation rather than a monastery, he retreated from the Mongol capital at Tai-tu [later – Beijing] to the Fang Mountains where he devoted himself to study. The isolation he yearned for was often interrupted by people who made pilgrimage to his humble hamlet, seeking a glimpse, maybe a word, from the holy man whose fame was spreading. Though he preferred a life of quiet contemplation, he met with all those who sought him out.That would have been his entire life and one we’d never have known of, were it not for one of those pilgrims, a fifteen-year-old young man named Markos. Markos didn’t just want to spend a couple days with the holy man. He wanted a mentor, someone who’d teach him everything he had to share. Sauma tried to dissuade the young man, just as his parents and others had tried to dissuade him when he was young. It didn’t take long before Sauma recognized in Markos the same zeal and dedication that burned in his soul. Three years later Marcos had proven himself devotionally sincere, academically capable and of equal spiritual mettle with his master, so he was ordained as a monk in the Nestorian church.After a decade together in their mountain fastness, Marcos’ intellectual curiosity prompted a spiritual itch that saw the two men descend from the heights and embark on a journey of literally epic consequence. Marcos wanted to visit the scenes and sites where the Bible story had played out, as well as the birthplace and headquarters of the Nestorian church. In his studies, he read of Christians of other flavors and stripes and wanted to meet them. Nothing less than a journey to the far-reaches of the West could scratch that itch. Markos shared this dream with Bar Sauma, who was now more friend than master. It took a while, but eventually, the younger man’s hunger to discover, breathed new life on the embers of Sauma’s soul and the two decided to pursue their vision. It was 1275 when they began plans to set out, the same year Marco Polo arrived in China. They gave away what few possessions they had and headed to Tai-tu to hire guides and gather provisions. Because they’d taken vows of poverty, they had to ask the local Nestorian churches to support them. The Nestorian leaders scoffed at the undertaking. Such a venture was deemed both physically impossible and spiritually wasteful. There simply wasn’t a safe, navigable route West. And what use was it visiting the Holy Land, they wondered, when the Bible said The Kingdom of God is within us?But by this time, both Bar Sauma & Markos were deft at waving aside objections about the arduousness of the journey. Since they already counted themselves dead and had mortified the flesh, death along the route was of little consequence. Their only ambition was to faithfully follow the path they were convinced God had set before them. Their steely-eyed focus won the Nestorian community over and they went from resistance to a hearty support for their venture of faith.The journey they proposed would be expensive since they’d need an entire caravan. They needed guides, camels, and since camels require considerable attention to stay healthy, camel-attendants, a highly specialized trade.Camels are able to carry between 4 and 500 lbs. Mules, their closest rival as a beast of burden can carry 250 lbs. But camels require far less water and feed. Their hooves are better suited to the sandy soil covering large swaths of the territory in Central Asia. Camels are also reputed to be able to predict sandstorms and can locate underground water. Their dung makes decent fuel for fires. But camels aren’t prolific in the progeny department, so they’re expensive. Their care & upkeep requires special training, so handlers fetch a tidy sum.Markos and Sauma also needed baggage-handlers, cooks, & several other assistants. To give you an idea of how large a group we’re talking about, a 14^th Century European handbook for merchants recommended a China-bound caravan have no less than 60 people. But Bar Sauma & Markos weren’t transporting commercial goods, just themselves and some small items to give as gifts to Western Nestorian leaders.They might have joined a merchant caravan, but the two monks intended to spend considerably more time at places along the route than a commercial interest would be willing to.Adding to the cost was the sheer length of time the trip would take. Six months wasn’t an unreasonable estimate. That meant buying provisions for their entire caravan, as well as paying the inevitable levies and passage fees from petty lords who fancied themselves strong enough to extort coin. Then there was the obvious need for a reserve fund, because who knew what might befall them on the way.So, once the Nestorian community got on board with the venture, they generously supplied the needed funds. When the Mongol Court saw the seriousness with which Markos & Sauma proceeded with their plans, they decided to hop on. This was during the reign of the famous Khubilai Khan. A pragmatic ruler, Khubilai wanted to cover all his religious bases and hoped to gain the Nestorian God’s favor by supporting the monks’ trip. He gave them financial support, provided them with the all-important letters-patents that allowed them to pass unmolested across all Asia. These letter-patents were called pai-tzu in Chinese and were the forerunner of our modern passports. They not only served as evidence of official sanction from Khubilai’s throne, they were certain to provide a warm welcome among Khubilai’s allies. Even those less than friendly to the Khan would be careful to treat his emissaries with respect. For mistreating a Mongol envoy was a sure way to a lot of pain.After Khubilai’s successful contest with his brother for the khanate, he saw it as imperative to gain the favor of as many of his subjects as possible. Supporting Sauma’s & Markos’ trip seemed a good way to gain favor with the Nestorian leaders and to recruit their scholars into his burgeoning bureaucracy. According to one account, Khubilai gave a set of royal clothes to Sauma with instructions to baptize them in the Jordan River then place them over Jesus’ burial place in Jerusalem.So, with both Church & State backing, Sauma & Markos set off on their great adventure. We’re not sure of the exact date of their departure. It was sometime around 1276.The guides they hired in Tai-tu took them on the first leg of the journey, then were replaced with new guides familiar with the territory they were entering.Leaving Tai-tu, their first stop was in Marko’s hometown where the locals assumed he’d returned for good. They were delighted at the prospect the two holy men would assume the mantle of leadership in their church. They were stunned by the news Bar Sauma & Markos were headed to Jerusalem.Their next stop was at the headquarters of two Onggud chieftains allied by marriage to the Mongol court. They also assumed their exalted position and promises of major favors would entice the monks to stay and become a part of their royal retinue. They likewise were surprised at their insistence to continue their journey. Why brave the hardships that most certainly lay ahead when a life of ease and comfort was being handed them on a gilded platter. Such appeals only offended the monks, who were affronted by the idea their devotion to God could be sold for an offer of worldly influence. At one point the Onggud chiefs were so set on retaining them, they plotted their capture. But the presence of Khubilai’s passport worried them. They realized it would be unwise to interfere in the affairs of the Mongol ruler. It seems word reached Sauma and Markos of the rulers’ earlier plans to hang on to them. So in an appeal to their mercy, they sought to load them up with exorbitant gifts of gold, silver, and precious rarities. When the monks refused, they prevailed on them to see it as a loan, and to pay it back by making a generous donation to the Nestorian Churches of the West.They followed the Yellow River southwest along the Alashan Mountains to Ning-hsia just South of the Gobi Desert.The route out of China was a fairly straight-forward affair since the Chinese had long before set up a system of postal stations spaced roughly every 20 miles apart along their frontier. These postal stations served a multitude of purposes. Officials stayed there in making inspection rounds. Merchants and traders were able to resupply at them. Troops stationed there kept a careful lookout on the frontier. Though there wasn’t a highway from station to station, the trail between them was clear.That changed as the monks’ caravan left China and entered Central Asia. Here the stations ended and the trail petered out. An occasional pole or rock cairn might be seen on the horizon, but as often as not, such landmarks were washed away by floods, avalanches, & storms.Leaving Ning-hsia, they followed the route of the Southern Silk Road just south of the dreaded Taklimakan Desert. Bar Sauma’s account includes the terse comment that this was a “toilsome & fatiguing” part of their journey. Which, knowing how austere and arduous their prior lives had been, we might use terms like “brutal & soul-crushingly exhausting.” The Taklimakan Desert has 60-foot tall dunes frequently savaged by dust storms. Marco Polo reported that travelers in this region are often separated from their mates by the opaque winds. Once alone, the bleakness and heat cause hallucinations in which people think they are being called from over the top of this or that mountain of sand. But each peak they traverse only takes them further away from the proper course.Entering the Tarin Basin, they skirted the northern foothills of the Kun-lun Mts. To their South was India. Though Bar Sauma’s account doesn’t say so, they likely stopped for a time in the caravan center at Miran, a trade mecca that saw about as diverse a mix of cultures as to be found anywhere on the planet. Then following the Cherchen River, they embarked on a 500-mile long journey to their next major stop, the city of Khotan, one of the most renowned oases of Central Asia. It took two months for them to travel from Ning-hsia to Khotan and all during this time they only had 8 watering holes.Khotan was a center of the white & black jade prized by the Chinese. As a result, it had become a major center of trade and a meeting place for the Far East & Middle East. Lying north of India, it became a center for the dispersal of Buddhism. A 6^th Century Chinese record attributed Khotan with a plethora of Buddhist temples, stupas, monks and nuns. Khotan was so important to Chinese interests, they established military garrisons there from the 7^th thru 10^th Cs.The residents of Khotan had long before used the nearby river to produce an elaborate irrigation system that produced an abundance of crops. This agricultural bonanza supported a healthy community of merchants and craftsmen who produced a plethora of goods highly prized far & wide. The bazaar boasted fine carpets, silk, and glass. Traders brought goods from Europe, China, & the Middle East, all headed in the opposite direction of their origin to be sold at steep rates due to their rarity in the market of their ultimate destination.Khotan hosted a mixed population, with Uyghurs, Mongols, Chinese, Persians, and locals all adding to the cosmopolitan feel. Finding a community of Nestorians with which they were able to share both their faith and language, Bar Sauma & Markos spent 6 months there. The extra time they spent in Khotan is likely due both to their need for recovery from the difficulty behind them AND to turmoil in the Mongol world that made the path West uncertain.Conflict between Khubilai and his cousin Khaidu had shattered the Pax Mongolica in the region. Khubilai’s general charged with securing the area had been captured by Khaidu’s forces, handing the Great Khan a major setback. While their letters-patent ought to have secured them safe passage, Khaidu’s treachery was a cause for concern. So the two monks decided to cool their heels in Khotan to see if things would steel down. A side trip to the Nestorian See at Kashgar sounded like a good idea. After all, visiting the center of their Faith was the whole point of their expedition and Kashgar was the home of a beloved Metropolitan. But when they arrived, they were shocked to discover the recent inter-Mongolian conflicts had left the city ransacked and depopulated. Marco Polo had visited Kashgar just a few years earlier and described the city as flourishing and prosperous.We’ll end this episode with Bar Sauma and Markos back in Khotan, readying to set out on their westward course once more. The route was no more secure, but they determined to trust themselves into God’s hands and press ahead.

Rabban Sauma Part 2

This is Part 2 of our series on Rabban Sauma.We begin with a brief review of the political scene into which Rabban Sauma’s story fits.Trade between the Roman Empire and the Far East was established as early as the First Century. But this trade was conducted by intermediaries. No single Western merchant made the entire trek to China, nor vice-versa. Goods traveled a ways from East to West or West to East by local caravans, which deposited them at a market, to be picked up by another caravan local to that region to continue the journey. After the Fall of the Han dynasty in the 3^rd Century, and the ensuing chaos of the 4^th thru 6^th Centuries in China, trade stopped. With the emergence of the Tang Dynasty in the 7^th Century, trade resumed. Goods flowed from the Middle East to China and back. But still, no Westerner met with his Chinese counterpart. The West prized Chinese silk and porcelain, while the East wanted frankincense, myrrh, jasmine, horses, and camels. Trade increased as Chinese dynasties and Islamic caliphates grew stronger. When they were in decline, trade did as well because of increased raids by brigands and the various protection schemes of money hungry local warlords.In these early centuries, trade flowed between Western and Eastern Asia. Europe wasn’t involved because Medieval Feudalism simply had no market for Eastern goods. That changed with Europe’s emergence from the Middle Ages and the new appetite for Eastern goods stimulated by the Crusades. The foothold Europeans established in the Outremer during that time opened routes between the Middle East and Europe that brought goods to the marketplace the newly emerging Middle Class were able to afford. It wasn’t long before silk began to adorn the wardrobe of the rich, and in a trend that’s existed since time immemorial, what the rich wear, the poor aspire to.The Mongol conquests of the 13^th Century saw an increase in trade between East & West and the first contact between Europeans and Chinese. By the end of the 1270’s the Mongols controlled more territory than any other empire in history, from Korea and South China, large parts of what would later be Russia, all Central Asia, a large portion of the Middle East and all Persia.In the 12^th Century, mythical stories of a Christian Ruler in the East named Prester John motivated a handful of Europeans to initiate contact in the hope of an alliance to back down the threat from Islam. The legend of Prester John was stoked by Christian communities in the Middle East who knew vaguely of the Nestorian Church of the East and had heard tales of a Central Asian ruler named Yelu Tashih, King of Khara Khitay who’d’ defeated the Muslims of his realm. They just assumed he must be a Christian. He wasn’t. But why let a little detail like that mess up a perfectly good story that might illicit assistance from Europeans in launching a Crusade that would lift the Muslim heel form the necks of Middle Eastern Christians?As the Mongols moved steadily westward in the early 13^th Century, King Bela of Hungary sent a Dominican emissary named Julian to learn more about what was obviously a very real threat. Julian never reached the Mongol base. He was met instead by Mongol envoys dispatched by the Mongol ruler Batu with an ultimatum of unconditional surrender and the release to the envoys of several enemies of the Mongols who’d fled to Bela for refuge.Julian returned to Hungary with the ultimatum and an account of the Mongol army, which he said, was formidable due to its mobility. He reported it was the Mongol ambition to conquer all the way to Rome and add to their already ridiculous wealth by sacking the richest parts of Europe.The Mongol conquest of the cream of Hungary and Poland’s elite warriors and armies in 1240 by what was just the Mongol front screen put all Western Europe on notice about the new threat from the East. But Europe as fractured and disunited. The Pope and Holy Roman Emperor were at odds over who had supremacy. The call for yet another Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from the infidel floundered due to this disunity while the Christian cities in the Outremer pleaded for assistance.Three embassies were sent over the course of 1245 & 6 to the Mongols in an attempt to gather information about their intentions. Only one of them, lead by John of Plano Carpini was successful. He traveled all the way to the Mongol capital of Khara Khorum where he delivered a letter from the Pope, urging the Mongols to convert to Christianity and to leave off any further conquests in the West. While there, John witnessed the ascension of Genghis’ grandson Guyug to the position of Great Khan.Why the Mongols forsook their long history as a loose collection of nomadic tribes ruled by local chieftains to a massed nation under a supreme leader is a matter for a different study and podcast. Of our interest is the liberal policy the Mongols took toward religion in the years of their early expansion. The native religion of Mongolia was shamanism. Most of the tribes were originally ruled by a chieftain in conjunction with a shaman n a power-sharing mode. But shamanism wasn’t well suited to the ruling of the settled populations the Mongols began conquering in China and the Middle East. These peoples tended to be more literate and sophisticated and needed a Faith that reflected deeper interests than shamanism could address. As a result, the Khans either adopted the predominant religion of the region they conquered, or they maintained a policy of toleration that allowed several faiths to prosper. As a result, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity were all accepted forms of Faith in Mongol realms. What wasn’t appreciated by Mongol rulers were demands they embrace a particular faith. So the Pope’s demand he convert and forsake an invasion enraged the Great Khan Guyug. John of Plano was sent home with a letter to Pope Innocent and al Europe’s leaders to submit to the Mongols. If they balked, Guyug boasted, it would be a war the likes of which Europe had never seen.John’s embassy to the East was a disaster. Not only had he failed to convert the Mongols, he’d managed to alienate the very people the West had hoped to ally with in a campaign against the resurgent Muslims of the Middle East. And while his mission was unfruitful, John’s written account of what he experienced in the East proved to be a major boon as it lifted the veil of ignorance the West had to the East. If the Mongols had been shrouded in mystery up to that point, the mystery was dispelled with John’s comprehensive, though at times inaccurate, description of their way of life. After John of Plano Carpini’s mission, there were several attempts by Western rulers like France’s Monarch Louis to forge an alliance with the Mongols against the Muslims. Some emissaries were official, while other missions were undertaken in a more covert fashion. Western insistence on the conversion of Mongol rulers to Christianity and Mongol intransigence on European submission were perennial sticking points. At one point Nestorian emissaries sent by The Great Khan Guyug to King Louis fabricated the lie that Guyug HAD converted and that he was married to the daughter of the fabled Prester John. Impressed, Louis sent two embassies to the Mongol court. Since Guyug was now dead, the Great Khanate became a prize rivals wrangled over; creating an impossible situation for the Western envoys when they became part of the prize being fought for.Relations between the Mongols and Europe remained unproductive until 1256 when The Great Khan Mongke’s brother Hulegu was sent on a mission to enlarge their territory at the expense of hostile Muslim dynasties in the Middle East. It was well-known that Hulegu’s wife was an ardent Nestorian who figured prominently in her husband’s counsels. With Nestorian support, the Mongols under Hulegu captured a portion of Armenia, known then as Cilicia, and two years later overthrew the Abbasid Dynasty and entered Baghdad, executing the last Caliph. The Mongols thus became the rulers of Persia and surrounding territories of the Middle East. In 1261, Hulegu took the title of Ilkhan, meaning under-khan. The Mongol rule of wider Persia became forever after known as the Ilkhanate. It was technically subservient to the domains of the Great Khans but for all practical purposes ended up becoming just another region of Mongol dominance until a resurgent Islam was able to push out the weakening Mongols.After the conquest of Baghdad, Hulegu’s forces continued Westward toward the Mediterranean. After taking territory in Syria, as so often happened in Mongol history, Hulegu was obliged to head home to Mongolia for the selection f the next Great Khan. His brother Mongke had died and as the tradition was among the Mongols, the next Khan would be selected by vote or the subordinate Mongol leaders, who themselves had all risen to position by merit, an innovation devised by the legendary Genghis. Before he departed for home, Hulegu appointed one of his commanders too continue the struggle against the Muslims by taking the key city of Damascus. Once Damascus fell, the rest of Syria would quickly follow. Up to this point, the Mongolian forces had seemed irresistible. But a change in Egypt meant a new state of affairs. In 1249, Turkish mercenaries of the Ayyubid dynasty revolted against their masters and established the Mamluk Dynasty. Fielding a far more powerful army, they set out to face the Mongols in Syria.Both armies were large and the Mongols had early success. They captured Damascus but were handed a serious defeat at the famous Battle of Ayn Jalut on Sept 3, 1260. This was the Mongols first defeat in the West. The Mongol commander was killed and the Mamluks retook Damascus. They then swept the Mongols from the rest of Syria.When word reached Hulegu of the defeat, he turned around without ever reaching Khara Khorum, rallied his defeated forces, determining to avenge his dead. Hulegu feared the Mamluk victory would embolden the Muslims under his rule in Persia to revolt. Since they were in the majority, a rebellion would prove devastating. But disunity in the Mongol world kept Hulegu from dealing with the Mamluks. To his north was his cousin Berke, ruler of the Mongol Golden Horde in what is today Russia. Berke and Hulegu were at odds with each other over the adjoining region of Azerbaijan, a rich plateau needed for the raising of their mounts, crucial for their style of warfare. Azerbaijan was also the region through which the increasingly rich East-West trade flowed, bring vast wealth. Exacerbating the tension between the cousins was Berke’s conversion to Islam. He wasn’t at all happy Hulegu had ended the Abbasid Caliphate and was now embroiled in hostilities with the Muslim Mamluks. So these two regions of Mongol dominance were at odds rather than united. With the defeat of the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ayn Jalut, Berke allied with the Mamluk’s against Hulegu.Joining the fray against the Ilkhanate in Persia was the Mongol realm lying to the East in Central Asia, the Chaghadai Khanate. The tensions here were the same as those between Hulegu & Berke – over territory and religion.Surrounded by hostile realms, Hulegu sought allies to bolster his hold on Persia. Persia and the Middle East simply didn’t provide the pasturage the Mongol army required to wage effective warfare. Defeating the Mamluks and Golden Horde meant bolstering his forces with capable allies. His alliance with the ruler of Armenia provided some assistance, but Hulegu realized their addition could only forestall defeat, not attain the victory that would end the incessant conflicts.Hulegu’s alliance with his brother, the Great Khan Khubilai was more a thing of theory than practice. In Khubilai’s contest with their other brother, Arigh Boke, for the Khanate, Hulegu backed Khubilai, but due to the distance, wasn’t able to offer anything more than verbal support. The same as now true in reverse. While Khubilai supported Hulegu and the Ilkhanate of Persia, he wasn’t able to provide any forces to the contest. The result was Hulegu’s turn to the West for allies. To defeat the Mamluks and regain Syria, he’d need Christian Europe’s help. He figured they’d be open to such an alliance since they still possessed few holdings in the Outremer after the disasters of the Crusades and a resurgent Islam. Hulegu realized the haughty demands of his predecessors would not endear Western rulers to ally with him against the Mamluks. He’d have to appeal to them as equals.What Hulegu didn’t know about was the disunity among Europe’s rulers at the same time as such disorder in the Mongol realms. Also, the year 1260, when Hulegu began casting his net for allies to the West was only 20 years after the harrowing defeat of Hungary and Poland’s military elite at the hands of the Mongols. Europe was terrified of them. Since treachery was a standard part of Mongolian warfare, offers of an alliance would be regarded as ploys for conquest rather than sincere overtures of alliance. From Europe’s perspective, neither the Mamluks nor Mongols were a safe bet for alliance against the other. The best course was deemed as neutrality, and the hope the Mongols and Mamluks would duke it out in a war that would effectively cripple both. The Crusaders could then sweep in and take over.But Hulegu was ignorant of these Western impulses and dreamed of an alliance with the Christian West in a campaign against the Mamluks. Once the threat to his south and west was contained, the Ilkhans would be free to deal with the Golden Horde to their Northeast. While Hulegu’s dream of a Mongol-European alliance was never realized, after his death in 1265, his successor carried on the same hope, putting feet to it in the career of the remarkable Rabban Sauma, whose tale we’ll return to in our next episode.

Rabban Sauma Part 1

Rabban Sauma is the title of this Episode, Part 1.So -- there I was, walking through the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Reagan Library, reading the various offerings on the Great Khan and Mongols - a subject that as a student of history I find fascinating when I came upon an offering that launched an investigation. It spoke of a Nestorian priest who was a Chinese version of the famous Marco Polo. As I read the exhibit’s terse account of Rabban Sauma, I knew I had a new investigation to make. Why had I never heard of this fascinating character before? Why haven’t YOU?The story of Marco Polo is part & parcel of the teaching of World History. His life and career are central to the prompts of what’s called the Age of Discovery. Mini-series have been made of his amazing tale. Virtually unknown to westerners is the story of an equally fascinating character of the same period. A Chinese Christian priest who ended up acting as an ambassador of the Mongols to the Pope and the kings of both France and England. Before that, Rabban Sauma was instrumental in establishing the new Patriarch of the venerable Church of the East. This man lived a truly epic life containing three separate sagas.The Ongguds were a Turkic people living just North of the Great Wall. They’d allied with their Chinese neighbors in the past, and had proven a fertile field for Nestorian missionaries. They were one of the first groups to throw in with Genghis, benefiting from the Great Khan’s liberal toleration policy. The Mongols were largely illiterate while the Onggud’s, having converted to Christianity centuries before, possessed an academic class of priests and scholars. These provided the administrative core of the emerging Mongolian Empire. To prove his loyalty, the Onggud ruler gave one of his sons in marriage to the Khan’s daughter.Shiban was an Onggud noble who married a woman of his class. Longing for a child but unable to conceive, they prayed and fasted. Their prayers were answered and a son was born, whom they named Bar Sauma – Son of the Fast. This was right around 1225. The piety of the parents was passed on to the son, who showed an extraordinary interest in spiritual things from a young age.He was given a religious education and proved so adept at his studies was entrusted with special duties at the church of his hometown. While his parents were proud of their son’s piety, they were disappointed when at the age of 20, he made a vow to abstain from meat and alcohol. They’d hoped Bar Sauma would eventually use his mental acuity as a scholar or official. His vow made it clear he planned on pursuing the life of a monk. While Nestorian monks were required to be celibate, deacons and priests were encouraged to be married. In some eras, they were even required to have a wife as the thought was it would better equip them to offer counsel and guidance. So Bar Sauma’s parents arranged a marriage for their son, hoping to steer his aspirations into a more amenable course. They requested he delay his commitment to becoming a monk, as he prayerfully pondered continuing the Chinese tradition of continuing the family line. They asked him, “How can it possibly be pleasing to you for our seed and name to be blotted out?” Who would inherit their property and wealth, a not insubstantial consideration since they were figured amount the Onggud nobility? This query reflects the assimilation of the Ongguds into the larger and far more dominant Chinese culture. Bar Sauma deferred to his parents wished and delayed his commitment for three years.He continued his education with the teachers his parents had arranged but stayed true to his earlier commitments. Rather than softening to his parents’ requests, they softened toward his and agreed that their son was destined for a religious life. The arranged marriage, part of which had already been formally conducted, was suspended and then annulled.Bar Sauma’s diligence in the study of the Bible came to the attention of the bishop of the Mongol capital at Tai-tu, the city that would eventually be known as Beijing. Mar Giwargis inducted Bar Sauma into the Nestorian clergy at the age of 25.That closes ch. 1 of Rabban Sauma’s amazing story. Before we open ch. 2, it would be wise to set the scene on two important dimensions of his story. The unique aspects of his Nestorianism, and the world scene his story is a part of.We spent some time on the tale of Nestorius and his theological and political contest with Cyril of Alexandria back in Season 1. While Nestorius was declared a Heretic by the Council of Chalcedon in the 5^th Century, we saw that the man himself did NOT espouse heresy. The council’s decision was based more on the politics of the day than a careful analysis of his theology. BUT: it is certainly true those who came after Nestorius by a few generations did indeed deviate from orthodoxy. When Nestorius was banished from Constantinople, he went West to the monastery where he began in Antioch. After Chalcedon, his followers moved to Persia and gave rise to a rich religious tradition that came to be known as The Church of the East, synonymous with The Nestorian Church.Eventually, the very thing the Western Church accused Nestorius of, but he’d vehemently denied, became the doctrinal position of his followers; that Christ possessed not just two natures as God and Man, but that He was two PERSONS. In contradistinction with the West, Mary’s role was downgraded. She wasn’t Theotokos, that is, the bearer of God; she was Christotokos, the bearer of Jesus’ humanity. If the Nestorians had stopped here, they might eventually have been understood to merely use different terminology to describe Jesus as the Son of God and Man. But they went further than Nestorius himself had by editing their view of the Trinity. Jesus wasn’t just subordinate to the Father in the teaching of the Church of the East, He was understood as produced by The Father, with the Holy Spirit then subsequently proceeding from both Father and Son. In other words, ontologically, The Father existed first, then the Son, then the Spirit. This has the Son and Spirit coming into being after the Father -an idea utterly anathema to Western Orthodoxy as it makes the Son and Spirit creations. But, it’s important to make this clear, in classic Nestorianism, the Son and Spirit are understood, not as creations, but as deity co-equal with the Father.The Church of the East retained the sacraments of the West, although as the two branches of the Faith evolved, they’d take on somewhat different expressions.Banished from Roman & Byzantine provinces int eh 5^th Century, Nestorians settled in the Middle East and Central Asia. Beng highly missionary in outreach, they extended their reach all the way t the Far East and China. Their new headquarters was set up in Persia where they established a rich tradition with an emphasis on education and scholarship.From the 6^th through 9^th Centuries missionaries converted many of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. In the 7^th Century, Nestorians reached China and established themselves amongst the Tang Dynasty, lasting into the 10^th Century. In the late 11^th and 12 Centuries, Nestorianism had taken root among the Mongols, with several of their elite women as adherents of the Faith. There was a Nestorian church in the Mongol capital at Khara Khorum.Almost counter-intuitively, The Church of the East was a settled feature of the religious scene in the 13^th Century across Central Asia and the Middle East. That’s counter-intuitive because Islam had swept this area centuries before. Christianity would not decline in this region until the late 14^th Century when Mongol influence also declined. It was then that a resurgent Islam saw both a voluntary and coerced conversion of other Faiths.It may be fairly said that Nestorianism spread much further than it’s Western Cousin over the same period because of its missionary zeal and scholarly ardor. Nestorian leaders were highly motivated to plant churches and extend the borders of the faith into new realms.Facilitating the spread of the faith eastward was the development of new trade routes that connected West & East. Today, we know these routes as the Silk Road, better understood as Roads – plural, as there wasn’t just one route. And they weren’t roads as we think of them. Don’t picture some kind of ancient highway, a wagon trail with clearly defined ruts across hundreds of miles of territory. That’s not what the Silk Roads of this time were. No map charted their course. Few guides could lead others on them. The path Marco Polo & Rabban Sauma took was little more than an idea when they traversed it. Later, their routes would indeed become those trails countless others would travel. But Polo & Sauma were trail-blazers, pioneers of commerce and Faith. It was Nestorian merchants who helped make the old Silk Roads. And everywhere they went, their churches followed.Another factor enhancing the spread of The Church of the East was the Nestorian policy of cultural adaptation. Missionaries didn’t require converts to adopt a Persian or Middle Eastern culture. The Gospel was understood as transcending culture. Even to the point where missionaries accommodated some decidedly unbiblical practices, such as polygamy, a common practice among the nobility of Central Asia. It isn’t that Nestorianism endorsed or approved of polygamy; they just would not see the reach of the Faith stalled until people accepted monogamy. Nestorian missionaries reasoned, Do we require monogamy before we preach The gospel and accept converts, or preach the Gospel, make converts, then disciple them toward a Biblical view of marriage? They decided for the second option.Because of this, not a few of the Mongol nobles were converted, especially among the women. And that insured the protection of Nestorianism as a viable faith under the Mongol policy of religious toleration in their rise to hegemony over all Central Asia, the Far East, and eventually into the Middle East.Nestorianism’s spread over such a vast area, combined with its assimilation of various cultures, resulted in the Faith’s diversification. While keeping its central doctrines intact and uniform, the WAY it was expressed and practiced, in terms of its rituals, took on different forms. So across the whole body of the Church of the East, while some churches looked very different from their Western counterparts, others look quite similar. Rabban Sauma will be asked to conduct a Mass in Italy before Western Church leaders and while his words were translated into Latin, what he said was readily understood and approved of, a remarkable thing when we realize the split between East & West was at that point 700 years old.Another factor that contributed to the success of Nestorianism’s spread across such a vast region is the looseness of its organization. The Church of the East was headquartered in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, modern day Baghdad, led by a Patriarch known as the Catholicus. He appointed archbishops called Metropolitans over the major dioceses. Because travel and communication between these dioceses were difficult and slow, the Metropolitans had considerable flexibility to lead their regions as they saw fit without much interference or guidance from the Catholicus. Each metropolitan, being highly educated and a willing adherent of the Faith, held firm to the doctrinal core of Nestorianism while adapting it to the cultural sensibilities of the locals.Eastern Christianity accommodated itself to local festivals and holidays. Nestorian priests blessed objects brought to them by commoners. Holy sites were designated and made the goal of pilgrimages. Relics took on special significance. What really enhanced the religion’s reach was the Nestorian clergy’s tendency to make medical treatment a part of their practice. This gained the Faith many converts.In part 2, we’ll take a look at the political scene into which Rabban Sauma stepped and lived his amazing life.Listeners to & subscribers of CS are encouraged to visit the FB page and leave a comment on where they live so we can see just how wide the CS family is.Since the podcast has grown tremendously, requiring a major expansion in our hosting requirements, we now want to invite donations to help support the podcast. Many thanks to those who’ve already done so. You can make a donation by going to sanctorum.us and hitting the Donate button.

Some, Not Others

Think I’m on safe ground when I say à Those listening to this are mostly likely students of history. Your knowledge of the past is probably more comprehensive than the average person. And of course, the range of knowledge among subscribers to CS spans the gamut from extensive to, well, not so much. Yet still, more than the average.If asked to make a list of the main thinkers of the past; philosophers, theologians, and such like, of Western tradition, we’d get the usual. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Seneca, Cicero, Virgil. Clement, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas.A name far less likely to make that list is the subject of this episode. Though he’s not oft mentioned in modern treatments of church and philosophical history, his work was a major contributor to medieval thought, which was the seedbed form which the modern world rose.His full name was Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus. But he’s known to us simply as Boethius.Born to a Roman senatorial family sometime between 475 & 80 in Italy, Boethius was left an orphan at an early age. He was adopted by another patrician, Memmius Symmachus, who instilled in the young man a love of literature and philosophy.Symmachus made sure Boethius learned the vanishing skill of literacy in Greek. With the split between the Eastern & Western Roman Empires now settled, and the Fall of the Western Empire to the Goths, it seems Greek, primary language of the East, fell to disuse in favor of Latin. In the West, Greek became increasingly the language of scholars and those suspected of lingering loyalty to the East.Nevertheless, Boethius’ familiarity with the classics commended him to the new rulers of the West – the Ostrogoths. Their king, Theodoric the Great, appointed the 35 year old Boethius as consul. While the office of consul was technically linked to the ancient Roman Republican Consul, by the 6^th C, it was an office far more of image than substance. Still an important position politically, but wielding none of the authority it once had. By Boethius’ time, that is the early 6^th C, being a senator meant little more than, “This is someone to keep your eye on as a potential future leader.” Being made a consul was like making the finals in the last round of the playoffs. But with an emperor seated on the throne, all rule and authority was concentrated in the royal court. A 5^th & 6^th C Roman Consul was more a political figurehead; a polite fiction; a nod to the glory of ancient Rome and her amazing feat of world conquest. From Augustus on, the Roman Senate and her consuls steadily lost place to the new imperial bureaucracy. After Augustus, who moved swiftly to relocate and consolidate all power within his executive office, Roman emperors turned to the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard as the new go to guy in executing Imperial policy. By the time of Boethius, that office had evolved into what was called the Magister Officiorum; head of all government and judicial services.When Boethius’s term as consul was up, his two sons were appointed co-consuls in his place, one for the West, the other for the East. He was then promoted into the role of Magister Officiorum – the highest administrative position in King Theodoric’s court.And that’s where the fun begins. à Well, it wasn’t so fun for Boethius. I probably ought to say; that’s where the political shenanigans and devious machinations began. For it was there, serving Theodoric, that Boethius ran afoul of the ambitions of powerful men.They used Boethius’ faith to bring him down.And here we’re back to the old Arian-Nicaean Controversy. You see, while Arianism had been debunked and expelled from the Western Church long before all this, it found a home among the Goths of the East; the Ostrogoths, who now ruled what was left of the Western Roman Empire. King Theodoric was an Arian, as were his Ostrogoth pals, many of whom were jealous that an outsider like Boethius had the highest post they could aspire to. Oh, and don’t forget that Boethius is fluent in Greek, the language they speak over in the Eastern Empire. Whose Emperor, Justinian I was openly known to aspire to reclaim Italy from Theodoric. Oh, and to add fuel to the fires of controversy & suspicion, those Easterners are also Orthodox, Nicaean Christians, people who’ve systematically wiped out Arians.Boethius’ was doing a stellar job as Magister Officiorum, so they knew they couldn’t attack him directly. They went instead after his less well-connected friends, accusing them of conspiring with Justinian in his designs on Italy. They knew Boethius would come to their defense, and that would be enough to cast a pall over his imperial favor. The ruse worked, and Boethius was arrested, hauled off to an estate in Pavia, where he spent a year in confinement, then quietly executed when the news cycle shifted to other more pressing matters. Ha! Today, the news cycle is down to about 5 days. Back then, it was several months.Now, you may be wondering, what does Boethius have to do with CHURCH history? I’m so glad you asked.Boethius’ main contribution to history in general and to Church history in particular lies in his impact on the relationship between theology and philosophy. He’s regarded by many as the last of the ancient philosophers.Boethius adored the ancient Greeks. It was his life’s ambition, to translate the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin. He died before he was able, but he made a good start. His singular contribution to history is his serving as a bridge between the classical and medieval ages for understanding Aristotelean thought, especially as it regards Aristotle’s work in LOGIC. Boethius recast Aristotle’s principles in terms that Medieval Europeans could grasp. His work then was foundational to many other theologians and philosophers for hundreds of years. One can argue that without Boethius, Roman Scholasticism, might not have happened, or at least it would have adopted a very different form. Boethius provided much of the vocabulary of medieval theology and philosophy. He’s sometimes called “the first scholastic” because in his work titled Opuscula Sacra, written to defend orthodox theology, he applied Aristotelian logic, seeking to harmonize faith & reason – the great task of later Scholastics.But it was during his year of imprisonment in Pavia, as he awaited execution that Boethius wrote his most well-known volume, The Consolation of Philosophy, regarded as the single most influential work on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, & the last great Western work of the Classical Period.Written in 523, The Consolation of Philosophy presents a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy, who’s come to console him. It’s essentially a theodicy; an examination of the age-old dilemma addressing the challenge posed by the dual proposition of the existence of evil & God’s omnipotence and love. A theodicy seeks to answer the question: If the God of the Bible is real, why is there evil in the world; a potent question for a man like Boethius, an innocent man awaiting execution by the wicked.During Lady Philosophy’s discourse, subjects like predestination and free will are examined. The Consolation isn’t an overtly Gospel centered work. Jesus isn’t even mentioned. A rather generic God is assumed; a deity who certainly aligns loosely with The God of Scripture; but a distinctive Christian Trinitarian God isn’t defined. For this reason, some historian claim Boethius wasn’t a Christian. But that assessment simply doesn’t square with the rest of his life, his other writings, or why he was accused of treason. His enemies went after him precisely because his orthodoxy raised Arian suspicion.So, what are we to make of the Consolation’s lack of Gospel content? Surely the answer is found in Boethius’ intended audience. He wasn’t writing to or for Christians, showing them how to link faith and reason. He wrote to convince pagans that real philosophy, the kind that led to a better life, the BEST life, doesn’t flow in tandem with paganism. The best life is a moral life, where justice and moderation are virtues. It was no doubt Boethius’ hope, once pagans realized pagan religion hindered a better life, they’d investigate Christianity, because at that time in Europe those were the only two options, the only available worldviews: Christianity & Paganism. Take down paganism, and people would move to the only thing left – The Gospel.

Just Doing the Job

Taken as a whole, leaders demonstrate a wide array of skills and talent. While great leaders often exhibit some consistent marks, there’s simply no set script they follow. No inventory of essential traits all must possess to excel. Indeed, some great leaders demonstrate contradictory traits from each other. One is gregarious, another reserved. Once is upbeat and energetic, another taciturn and subdued.Many of the Church’s great leaders have been brilliant, their intelligence ranking them as a genius. Others, while being astute, could not be given that lofty epithet. Some had skills that enabled them to accomplish so much, their influence was felt for decades, even centuries, after. Pope Gregory I was of that category. Bruce Shelly says Gregory combined great executive ability with a warm sympathy for the needs of others. Gregory was such a good leader and man, history has given him the title “Gregory the Great.” His tenure as Pope laid the foundations for Medieval Christianity. Since religion played such a central role in European society, Gregory was one of the main architects of Medieval Europe.Born in 540 to a well-established Roman senatorial family, Gregory was groomed from a young age for civil service. But a career in politics at that time was an inordinately difficult proposition. The City of Rome and the lands it had once held hegemony over in the Italian peninsula were like a torn-up soccer ball kicked back and forth by one group after another. The Visigoths were replaced by the Byzantines, who were booted by the Lombards, who did their best to leave Italy a smoldering wreck.As Gregory’s father had been Prefect of Rome & Gregory had trained for govt service, the Eastern Emperor Justin II appointed Gregory to replace the prefect when he retired. He was 33. In all likelihood, it was Justin’s wife Sophia who made the appointment, since the Emperor had gone insane and she was ruling in his place. Not long after Gregory took the office, the Byzantine governor of the region and the reigning Pope, died.Like many young men who train for a position because it’s expected of them, Gregory found that worldly power didn’t appeal to him in the least. He much preferred the solitude of the monastery. So after a few years as prefect, he resigned. When his father passed, leaving Gregory as the heir to a wealthy estate, he used a good part of his fortune to found 7 monasteries, gave the rest to the poor, and turned his mansion into yet another monastery dedicated to St. Andrew; following the Benedictine order. Eschewing all trappings of worldly power that had attended his rank as prefect, Gregory devoted himself to a rigorous asceticism; his diet consisted solely in raw vegetables & fruit. He wore a hair-shirt, prayed most of the night, and applied himself to a diligent observance of his monastic duties. His asceticism was so extreme, it began to weaken his physical frame.Then, in 579, at the age of 39, Pope Pelagius II made Gregory a deacon in the Roman church. This was a position of tremendous influence because the 7 deacons were commissioned with administrative oversight of the Roman Church. Gregory was sent as a papal ambassador to Constantinople, which of course at that time was the new center of what was left of the Roman Empire.He returned to Rome 6 years later and was appointed as abbot over the St. Andrew monastery. Gregory was more than content to serve out what was left of his life in that role. But wider events hijacked his plans.Early in 590, Rome, already hammered by war and flood, found itself in the teeth of a new pestilence; the Black Death, Plague. Rome’s streets emptied as the carts piled higher with the dead. Even Pope Pelagius succumbed.The papal chair remained empty for half a year. Then, Gregory was elected as the new Pope. Instead of rejoicing in his selection, he fled, taking refuge in a nearby forest. Trackers were sent to find him and haul him back. Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be consecrated in the Fall of 590 with Constantinople’s approval.Gregory immediately called for several processions over the next 3 days to demonstrate the City’s repentance and make a plea for divine intervention. Not long after, the plague seemed to make a reversal. Slowly but surely, life made halting strides of returning to normal. But no sooner did hope rekindle than it was once again squashed under the hooves of the Lombard’s who ransacked Italy and laid siege to Rome.The Lombards shattered what little was left of the old Roman order. By the time they rode away, the only institution still standing was The Church. All civil govt had been swept off the board, while the Church was still lead by an organization staffed with capable men. Gregory threw himself into the task of restoring order and providing for the needs of people wherever that order was needed.The power & influence of the Medieval Papacy is in large part due to Gregory’s prolific work during this period of recovery. He was literally, everywhere, doing everything. By everywhere, I don’t mean geographically; I’m referring to the fields into which he stepped. Though never aspiring for the position of Pope, when once there, he USED the position to bring order out of the chaos of the previous years. He took a lead in civil affairs; a hand in economic & military matters.As the Lombards moved on Rome, Gregory had to address the defense of central Italy. He appointed a military governor, and arranged a truce. This positioned the Pope as the most important Italian representative to the Lombards. It also inserted the Church squarely into Italy’s political fortunes. That influence would only grow from that point forward, spreading till it touched most of Europe during the Middle Ages. Beginning with Gregory, the pope became an important political figure.The Church of Rome owned some 1800 sq miles of land in southern Italy. The administration of all this property had been simple when it was productive. But after the devastation left by the Lombards, the survivors were left without a means of support. The survival of thousands in whole cities and communities became the responsibility of Pope Gregory. A task he managed to pull off with aplomb.He engaged the role of being a leader & inspiration to church leaders everywhere. He wrote a manual on church leadership called the Pastoral Rule – exhorting bishops to be a good example of the truths they taught.The amount of work he accomplished is all the more remarkable when we’re confronted with his age and health. His previous and concurrent asceticism saw him often confined to bed. In 601 he wrote a friend, “For a long time, I have been unable to rise from my bed. I am tormented by the pains of gout; a kind of fire seems to pervade my whole body: to live is pain; and I look forward to death as the only remedy.” But Gregory kept such comments limited only to a few close confidants.It was also during Gregory’s term that the power & centrality of the Roman Papacy took another leap forward. This began in earnest with Leo the Great 150 yrs before Gregory’s time. Gregory moved the ball further down the field. It all took place in a skirmish with the Eastern Patriarch, John IV.The Patriarch of Constantinople liked to refer to himself as the “universal bishop” and often did so in official correspondence. The title had been fixed to the Patriarchate by the Eastern Emperors Leo and Justinian, and confirmed in the Synod of Constantinople in 588.This irritated Gregory to no end. He condemned such approbations as the sinister outworking of a demonically-inspired pride. Gregory urged the Emperor to revoke such titles and refused further communiques with John till he renounce such exalted terms.Historians have debated whether Gregory was provoked by the lack of humility such titles evinced, or that it was only the Roman Pope who deserved them. The jury’s still out on the matter. It is true that there was a centuries long contest between Popes and Patriarchs over who was the rightful leader of the Christian Church & Faith. That debate led to the eventual E/W Rift manifest today in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.The fact that Gregory preferred to be known simply as “the servant of the servants of God,” does suggest he simply rejected lofty titles, rather than John’s sole claim to them. When he was once addressed as “universal pope,” he quickly and vehemently denied the approbation, saying: “I’ve said that neither to me nor to any one else ought you to write anything of the kind. Away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!”Gregory’s favored title ended up becoming a standard title for subsequent Popes. Though it seems rather forced when the man it’s attributed to stands decked out in his complete papal regalia; jewel encrusted stole, hat, crozier; the value all of which would buy a whole kingdom.It’s fascinating that while eschewing lofty titles, Gregory expanded the power of the Pope to the extent he did. So influential did the Popes become that they began to take on ever more elevated labels.Gregory was the first Pope to have been a monk. Moving from the monastery to basilica in no way changed his habit of personal austerity. He moved many fellow monks he knew ot be men of marked integrity into leadership positions.Earlier in Gregory’s life, he’d desired to replant the Roman Church in England as a missionary monk. Once he became Pope, he sent 40 brother Benedictine monks under the leadership of Augustine to accomplish the task. They did so, at Kent. It’s that work that provides the British-American Church with its connection back to the early church.A few moments ago I said Gregory may not have possessed the intellectual chops as some other church leaders. His talent lay far more in his administrative abilities. But that’s not to say Gregory was a theological slouch. Far from it. He took quite seriously his call to defend the faith. He looked to Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose as His primary theological influences. Though Gregory devised no new theological formulas, he played the role of amalgamator. He took the common faith of the day as expressed by the councils and creeds, & expanded it to incorporate some of the more popular beliefs, practices, even superstitions of the common people. This then became the Christianity of Medieval Europe.Gregory said The Fall affected all Adam’s descendants; it weakened but did not utterly destroy their moral and spiritual freedom. Once someone is moved by grace, she/he can cooperate with it to perform genuine good works.Gregory said through baptism, God forgives sin previously committed. But sins committed after baptism have to be atoned for by doing penance, which includes sincere repentance, confession, and doing good works. BUT, the believer could not know if she/he had done enough penance for sin until they arrived in heaven.In that needed atonement for sin, people had the potential help of the martyrs & saints, who could be invoked to plead for them with Christ. This belief arose long before Gregory, but he popularized and made it a central feature of medieval church practice. Gregory cast Jesus as a stern judge, the angels arrayed around Him as agents of divine retribution, while the saints, by virtue of their humanity, were more inclined to assist poor mortals.Gregory also encouraged the veneration of relics; the supposed remains of saints. Things like locks of hair, teeth, fingernails, clothing. All these were deemed to possess special power & efficacy to provide protection.If proper penance wasn’t provided before death, then sins could always be expunged in Purgatory after death, Gregory claimed.Gregory regarded the Mass as the supreme miracle of the Faith. In which the bread and wine were turned into the literal body and blood of Christ. Feeding on them imparted grace directly to the soul & nourished the streams of eternal life. The power of the Eucharist lies in its being understood as a present atoning sacrifice. The priest offers it for sins; not the sins of all people as Christ did at the Cross, but only for those who participate in the Mass. It has the same effect as penance, offsetting a certain amount of suffering generic penance would require. So, Masses could benefit the dead suffering in Purgatory since it would lessen their debt.Gregory, along with the earlier Popes Celestine I & Sixtus III, was one of the first church leaders to organize the Roman liturgy and its music. He established a center for the learning & singing of plainsong in Rome called the Schola Cantorum. Plainsong, or chant, as it’s more commonly called, was already in use since the time of Celestine I. Gregory’s work in finalizing the style of plainsong has been memorialized in the phrase Gregorian chant. But recent research has cast doubt on Gregory’s contribution to the tradition of plainsong in Church use.

Come Outers

During the early-mid 19^th C, an interesting phenomenon spread over the thinking of parts of Western Europe and the US. It was a general negativity about the present, but a strong optimism about the future. In some places, it was almost giddy. The current political and economic situation might be a mess and the number of social ills piling higher. But the Enlightenment’s promise of a bright new day gripped the imagination of thousands. The recent boom in technological progress with things like steam engines, cotton gins, and spinning machines promised endless new products, markets, and employment. Medicine was making dramatic steps forward, promising less pain and longer life. Trains & steamships conquered distance in a way the generation before could not have imagined.“Yeah, today might be tough; but hang on, because tomorrow is going to be awesome.”While that mentality was spotty in Western Europe, it was pretty much a blanket across the United States. European immigrants remarked on the nearly euphoric positivity of their new homeland. This positivism was largely the product of the pervasive Evangelical Revivalism that owned most American churches and a good portion of the population. That Evangelicalism conveyed the idea that conversion to Faith in Christ conveyed a new heart that sought after holiness. People began to reason that that new heart ought to pursue holiness in a new world shaped by holiness. All this spilled into numerous reform efforts; attempts to remedy past grievances and address the growing number of new challenges industrialization had produced. For progress did not come cheap. As Charles Dicken’s wrote, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”So, Evangelicals went to work on reforming society.Charles Finney championed abolition as being part & parcel of the Christian faith. He went so far as to refuse Communion to slave-holders.Stephen Caldwell called for new tariffs to protect American wages and to fund the Christianizing of the public school system.In 1816, the American Bible Society proposed distributing Bibles as a moral and spiritual antibiotic aimed to eradicate Theological Liberalism and any goofy ideas brought over by Immigrants.The American Sunday School Union set up dozens of schools in urban centers to educate the growing pool of child laborers.By 1858, Evangelicals in NYC had established 76 missions to minister to the needs of the urban poor.While most reform-minded Evangelicals engaged the culture, a smaller group decided to pursue holiness by withdrawing from society to form separatist communes. Nathaniel Hawthorne labelled these religiously-motivated separatists “Come Outers.”One example is a group known as the Shakers. Their original name was the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing. They began in the mid-18^th C as a splinter group from the Quakers who at the time were moving away from their reputation as enthusiasts of ecstatic forms of worship. The Shakers didn’t just want to maintain that reputation; they wanted to ramp it up. So they became knowns as the Shaking Quakers. They were lead by the ardent and eloquent preaching of Jane Wardley who said the Millennium was about to begin with the Return of Christ. In preparation for the Return of Christ, they gave themselves to strict celibacy and a remarkable egalitarianism that saw a notable influence of women in the leadership of the group.Shakers settled in colonial America but never saw many members until this era of reform in the mid-19^th C when their community grew to its largest number, about 6000. The policy of celibacy as well as changes in society saw the eventual dwindling of the Shaker movement to just a single community today.Another group of Come Outers were the Millerites.William Miller was a well-off farmer and Baptist lay preacher in NE New York. He became convinced Christ would return sometime between 1843 & 44. His calculations convinced a large number of people across many churches and denominations. They set the date of March 21^st, 1843 as the likely day Jesus would Return.But Millerism, as it came to be known, was rejected by most clergy. By the beginning of 1843, the movement had hardened around enthusiasts and those who opposed it. Advocates of Millerism left their churches to form a new group of like-minded supporters. It hardened even more when after the evening of March 21^st, Millerites donned special ascension robes and waited the big event. Some had gone so far as to give away their property. When the morning of the 22^nd dawned, they were supremely bummed out. Because – and I don’t think I’m giving anything away here – Jesus in fact had NOT returned!Miller did some quick figuring and said, he’d missed some minor calculations and needed to revise the date to April 18^th. On April 19^th, he re-upped by saying it wasn’t the days he’d gotten wrong, but the year. It would be March 21^st, 1844; then Oct. 2^nd. But by then the Millerites were a laughing stock and no new dates were set.But instead of calling it quits and going back to their old denominations, the Millerites formed a new one – called the Adventists. In a bit of revisionism, they said that Christ really HAD come at the aforesaid & appointed time, but in Spirit, rather than in flesh. By 1863, the Adventists had 125 churches. They made themselves odious to many Americans by declaiming the US as the Great Whore of Babylon, doomed to the plagues of Revelation.But the most extreme form of come-outerism was the 1830 emergence of the Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith. Taking the name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Smith claimed to have unearthed a record of a Pre-Colombian group of immigrants who’d had travelled all the way from the Middle East to settle in the New World. They fashioned an extensive civilization in the Americas but were wiped out by other Native Americans.The Golden Plates Joseph Smith unearthed contained the record of that lost civilization, with a proper understanding of the Christian Faith. Smith claimed the Church as it was, was a horrible corruption – something God had never intended it become. Mormonism claimed to restore the Gospel Jesus and the Apostles taught.But there was little connection between Joseph Smith’s vision of the Gospel and the Bible, so most churches and denominations opposed Smith’s emerging movement. They moved from New York to the Midwest. But when hostility broke out there, in 1847 they decided to make the big leap and head to a place all their own in the consummate come-outer move. They headed west and settled along the Great Salt Lake in what would one day be the State of Utah. They might as well have settled on the moon.While each of these come-outer sects was radically different in its theological leanings, what united them was their short term pessimism about the world in which they lived. That’s how they justified their break with society. But they maintained a long term optimism about their ability, once they’d come out of a corrupt society, to found a healthy & holy community that could achieve it’s grand vision of establishing, if not heaven on Earth, then at least an outpost of it.And each reprised a story that dates all the way back to the Desert Fathers we talked about early in Season 1. The hermits, who, having swallowed the dualism of Greek philosophy, fled the City to dwell alone in caves for years or sit atop a pillar for weeks. They understood holiness as physical separation from the world.If that’s what Jesus had meant by being holy, that’s what He’d have done. It’s not. Jesus was to be found with people; often the kind of people least likely to show up at synagogue or church. Yes, Jesus spent time alone in the wilderness, but only in preparation for the City. He wasn’t a man OF the City, but He was IN it; where the love of God for needy souls could be seen and passed off to others. His strategy for reform wasn’t to withdraw FROM the world, it was to enter INTO it.Secular reform movements copied religious come-outers in creating communes dedicated, not to a religiously-fueled spirituality, but a philosophically-based morality. Transcendentalists founded Brook Farm as an experiment in communal living. The Northampton Association organized an economic industrial cooperative. Oberlin, Ohio, was organized as a colony and college, with the college based on a philosophy of self-sufficient manual labor.The American obsession with reform drew criticism from some. They saw it as the dark side of democracy. Brownson thought all the enthusiasm for reform was the logical consequence of Protestant individualism. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne who coined the term “come outers” said most reform was based on an overestimation of human nature.Alexis de Tocqueville, by far the shrewdest observer of Americanism in the 19^th C regarded the reform impulse as a mark of the health of American democracy.

Evangelicalism

In this episode of CS, we’ll take a look at something many of our listeners are familiar with; at least, they think their familiar with it – Evangelicalism. Not a few of them would describe themselves as Evangelicals. But if pressed to describe what exactly that means, they’d be hard pressed to say. And they have little to know awareness of the historical roots of the movement they are indeed a part of. // So, let’s start off with a little definition of terms.Evangelicalism is a global movement within Protestantism that crosses denominational lines. Instead of Evangelicals having a comprehensive and extensive list of doctrinal distinctives, they rally round a core of just a few. At the heart of their faith is a conviction that the Gospel, or Evangel, from which they draw their name, is that salvation is by God’s grace, received by faith in Jesus Christ’s atoning work. Salvation commences with a conversion experience called, being “born again.” They hold to the authority of the Bible as God’s Word and the priority of sharing the Gospel message.As a discernable movement, Evangelicalism took form in the 18^th C. But it didn’t rise out of a vacuum. There were numerous trends that merged to for m it. Most important to Evangelicalism’s rise was John Wesley and the Methodists, the Moravians under the leadership of Count Zinzendorf and their community at Hernhutt, and Lutheran Pietism.As we saw in Season 1, Pietism emerged in Germany in the 17^th C as a reaction to a moribund Lutheran church. It protested the cold formalism the institutional church had adopted under Protestant scholasticism. Pietists called for a faith that experienced a real relationship with God. It set high standards of piety for both clergy and laity. Pietism crossed all lines in terms of those who embraced it; from those who stayed in the State Church and followed the old rituals, to separatists who rejected such trappings.Pietism jumped its Lutheran hothouse to influence other groups. When it entered the Presbyterian realm in Britain, it took on a concern for Protestant orthodoxy, as well as an openness to revivalism, a tradition that went all the way back to the 1620s. Puritans added an emphasis on the need for personal experience of conversion to be a part of the church, as well as a dedication of individuals to the study of Scripture.With this involvement of Lutherans, Pietists, Presbyterians and Puritans, we’d assume High-Church Anglicans would have stayed far away. But the movement’s appeal attracted even some of them. They brought to the burgeoning movement of Evangelicalism several traits that would mark the movement. One was a concern for recapturing the essence of “primitive Christianity,” manifest mainly in imitating the ascetic practices of early Christians, as well as a more frequent celebration of Communion than either he Presbyterian or Puritans followed. Anglicans also encouraged the forming of voluntary religious societies and groups.It was in the 1730s when Evangelicalism emerged as a distinct movement. It was a product of revivals in Old & New England. While the Church had witnessed revivals before, those of the 18^th C seemed more fervent and far reaching. It began with the First Great Awakening in the 1730s in New England. Then it hopped the Pond and broke out in England & Wales. This was the time of the careers of such famous revivalist as George Whitefield and the Wesleys. Pietism entered the Evangelical stream through several ports, but primarily through John Wesley, who was deeply impacted by the example of the Moravians.Established Christians and New Converts alike were emboldened with confidence and enthusiasm to share the Gospel, leading to the conversion of thousands more and the planting of hundreds of new churches.If we’re looking for the real dynamism that infused Evangelicalism and made it such a pervasive trait of Protestantism during the 18^th & 19^th Cs, we could say it was the conviction of those converted to the Faith that they’d really had a supernatural experience of salvation. Their conversion had not just gained them heaven after they died; it ushered them, then and there, into a new relationship with God that became the new center and ordering principle of their lives. And while pastors and other church leaders might have a unique role to play in leading the local church, each individual Christian had equal access to God without the need for the mediation of a priestly class or ritual. Each and every Evangelical felt a very real connection to God and owned a sense of their personal responsibility to apply themselves to the practice of their faith. In other words, the duty of religion for the medieval Christian was traded in for the privilege of relationship for the modern Christian.The dawn of the 19^th C was a time of increased outreach both locally and abroad with several mission societies being started. The Second Great Awakening spanning the transition from the 18^th to 19^th Cs, was centered largely in the US. It boosted the ranks of Methodist and Baptist churches. Charles Finney was a major figure in this revival.19^th C Evangelicalism in England carried a distinct social justice flair. British Evangelicals bore the conviction that their Faith ought to be more than a privately held affair. To be real, it ought to impact the world for good. They became leaders in the movement for reform and the end of corruption in government and commerce. They led the charge for Abolition under such notables as William Wilberforce.Toward the end of the 19^th C, that party within the Methodists who’d long argued for what they called “entire sanctification” started a Holiness Movement that separated itself from the rest of Methodism. While it was never popular in England, certain portions of rural America proved fertile soil for it.It was during the 19^th C that an Irish-Anglican minister named John Darby popularized an emphasis on End Times Prophecy, a subject that had languished in obscurity for hundreds of years. This interest in the End Times was layered over Darby’s system of dividing history into different eras, called dispensations, in which God’s overall plan went forward with a different focus in the various dispensations. Others took Darby’s ideas and edited them to their own taste, but Dispensationalism proved to be a convenient way for people to better understand both the Bible’s story and how it related to history at large. It became a part of the emerging energy within Protestantism now called Evangelicalism. What kicked Dispensationalism into high gear was the publication of the popular Scofield Reference Bible, a King James Bible with a comprehensive set of notes that helped readers parse Scripture, along Scofield’s framework, that is. Through Scofield’s influence, Evangelicalism adopted a literalist view of interpreting Scripture.Notable figures for the last half of 19^th C Evangelicalism are CH Spurgeon & Dwight Moody. These men began a trend in Evangelicalism to see the movement led & represented by well-known religious celebrities, whose fame was tied to their ability to preach to large audiences.Founded in 1812, Princeton Theological Seminary stepped into the role of being the intellectual center of Evangelicalism from 1850 to the 1920’s. Under the guidance of Charles Hodge, Archibald Alexander, and BB Warfield, Evangelicals were armed with an erudite defense of conservative orthodoxy in that face of the challenge presented by European Liberalism. When in the 1930’s, the governors of Princeton decided to open the school to Theological Liberalism, the conservatives left to start Westminster Theological Seminary. But the theological work of the Princeton theologians continues to shape the core of conservative Evangelicalism.Church h istorian Mark Noll, describes this as influence as including, a devotion to the Bible, concern for religious experience, sensitivity to the American experience, Presbyterian confessions, Reformation systematics, and Common Sense Realism, which we talked about in Season 1.[1] Common Sense Realism was a push-back by several Scottish philosophers to the skepticism of David Hume.As Theological Liberalism pressed in to challenge the centers of Evangelicalism in the early 20^th C, a reaction rose that came to be known as Fundamentalism. It drew its name from its insistence there were certain fundamentals that could not be negotiated, essentials of The Faith apart from which no one had the right to say they were a Christian. The main point of contention with Liberalism was over the inerrancy of Scripture. This became the main point of contention because Evangelicals regard God’s Word as the ultimate authority. Everything else flows from Scripture. Theological Liberals honor the Bible as a record of humanity’s progress. It’s instructive, but not ultimately authoritative. It’s ideas at points may be inspired and it is certainly inspirational, but no more than that. Human reason, aided by the scientific method, is a superior source of knowledge. Fundamentalists replied that not only is the Bible inspired, that inspiration extends beyond its ideas to its words. The Bible isn’t just the ideas of God filtered through bumbling scribes, it is the Word & words of God Himself, transmitted through human agents, who when they penned, infallibly reported what God wanted written.Needless to say, the contest between Liberals & Fundamentalists was fierce. It lives on to this day. Every decade or so, Theological Liberalism hoists its battering ram and makes another raid on the fortress of Evangelicalism’s tenacious clinging to Scripture’s Inspiration, Infallibility & Inerrancy. They batter the door of this Evangelical group or that denomination. And while mainstream Evangelicalism still adheres officially to the doctrine of Inerrancy, the long-range effect of the contest has been a softening round the edges, so that many Evangelicals are barely aware what’s at stake in the whole debate.Up to the dawn of the 20^th C, Evangelicalism was largely a white church deal centered in North America and the UK. A major boon to the energy of Evangelicalism and a subsequent movement into world missions came about after the Welsh Revival of 1904-5. The Revival swept across Europe and reached into far-flung regions across the globe. The Azusa Street Revival of 1906 in Los Angeles birthed Pentecostalism which added even more spiritual energy and motivation to Evangelicalism.Following WWII, Evangelicals split between those who wanted to engage the culture and those who felt the best way to live was to withdraw. It seemed a reprise of the old Anglican argument between the Puritans and Separatists. In this case, the Separatists were the Fundamentalists while those who wanted to engage culture were mainstream Evangelicals. Many Evangelicals had come to regard Fundamentalists as narrow-minded moralists wed to traditions that were no longer relevant . While this is an oversimplification, let me illustrate this way . . .Fundamentalists had staunchly defended the doctrine of inerrancy, right? What they defended of course, at least in the popular sense, for the Fundamentalist on the street at least, was the King James Bible. THAT Bible was inspired & inerrant. So any other translation or version was suspect. Fundamentalists were determined defenders of The Reformation; they adored the Reformers, but were suspicious of more modern authors & theologians. That suspicion grew to be a kind of general negativity to the wider culture and society. The world was wicked, under God’s wrath; something to be shunned. The result was that Fundamentalists began to be viewed by society as misanthropes. They became the subject of jokes.Most Evangelicals saw what was happening to Fundamentalism and set another course. Called Neo-Evangelicals, they adopted a positive posture of engaging the culture through dialog and exchange. They intentionally backed down from the combative militancy that marked Fundamentalists. Instead of retreating to a theological ghetto where the only people they talked to were like them, they re-applied themselves to an intellectually-astute and Biblically-sound response to the issue facing society. They reasoned that the Gospel was a message of hope for All People, and needed to be shared in as many ways as possible; by deed, as well as in word.This led to a split between Fundamentalists & Evangelicals. Evangelicals came to regard Fundamentalists as something of an ugly cousin they wanted to avoid & disavow. Fundamentalists regarded Evangelicals as sell-outs, wishy-washy compromisers more concerned with the world’s approval than God’s.Over time, the ranks of Fundamentalists dwindled while those of Evangelicals swelled.The Charismatic renewal of the 1960’s and early 70’s saw a resurgent Pentecostalism cross denominational lines. It even swept a number of Catholic churches.Until the Charismatic Renewal, most Protestant churches were affiliated in some way with a denomination. The Renewal saw large numbers of Christians who’d previously identified with their denomination, now identifying as a Charismatic. When local pastors and denominational leaders resisted the Charismatic Renewal, those church members who were part of the renewal often left to start new churches. They established independent, non-aligned or un affiliated works. So the trend of non-denominational churches exploded. They didn’t identify as Protestant so much as Evangelical because it best described their overall theological framework. As the number of non-denominational churches grew and aged, many saw a need for connection to a larger movement and began forming voluntary associations. They became a kind of non-denominational denomination.As the 20^th C closed out and moved into the 21^st, Evangelicalism faced a new challenge from it’s old nemesis – Liberalism. Once again Liberalism morphed into a new form called Post-modernism. If classical Liberalism assailed the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy, Post-modernism went after Truth as a whole.[1] Mark A. Noll, The Princeton Theology 1812–1921 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 13.

Eusebius

In this Episode of CS we’ll take a look at a figure of church history anyone who’s done any reading in such has likely encountered – Eusebius of Caesarea. He’s a prominent figure because he’s known as the Father of Church history for his classic work Ecclesiastical History which charts the course of the early church from its inception to the late 3^rd C.His history of the Church was originally composed in 10 volumes. He began it during the Great Persecution of 303–313 and completed it around 315. Over the next 10 years he edited and revised it several times. It charted the course of primitive Christianity from obscurity in the backwater province of Israel to the favored faith of the new Emperor Constantine. Along the way, Eusebius does future generations a great service by giving careful lists of church regions and their sequence of leaders. He quotes early Christian authors; writings long since lost to us but now preserved by the pen of Eusebius. He describes the early church’s labor to define and understand the Trinity as over against the various heresies that sought to hijack orthodoxy. Though Eusebius began his chronicle during the Great Persecution, he lived to see The Faith’s emergence from the catacombs during the time of Constantine, to stand on the threshold of a new world in which Christ could be envisioned as triumphant over Caesar.^[1]While Eusebius is honored today as the Father of Church History for his literally ground-breaking work, his generation knew him simply as the bishop of Caesarea and a friend of Pamphilus, a scholar who fought valiantly against the Arian heresy.Little is known of Eusebius’ life prior to his tenure as lead pastor at the important church of Caesarea. He seems to have been born in the Roman province of Palestine around 260. He became a pupil of Pastor Pamphilus at Caesarea, then his chief assistant. Pamphilus had come from Alexandria and made at Caesarea one of the greatest libraries of Christian writings. Just before Pamphilus arrived, the great scholar Origen had centered his work at Caesarea and composed the famed Hexapla there, a Bible in 6 side-by-side languages. It was kept in the library there. Though Pamphilus expanded Caesarea’s library, it was Origen who’d started it with volumes he’d collected during his many travels. Eusebius so revered his teacher he called himself “son of Pamphilus.” Pamphilus was imprisoned in the last days of the Great Persecution and died a martyr in 310. Eusebius wrote a 3 volume biography of his mentor.The persecution that claimed Pamphilus continued to wreak havoc among the Christians in Caesarea, so Eusebius fled to Egypt for a few yrs where things were less dicey. When he returned to Caesarea in 313, the church elected Eusebius as bishop. The city had a population of 100,000; no small number of a city of that time and place. There he wrote 3 of his longest works;1) A refutation of paganism in 15 volumes he titled Preparation,2) A 20 volume look at Old Testament prophecy’s fulfillment by Christ titled Demonstration of the Gospel,3) And something he titled Chronicle which was a record of world history to 303, which Eusebius intended as a preface to his magnum opus, Ecclesiastical History.A few yrs after Eusebius became bishop at Caesarea, the Arian Controversy broke out in full force, threatening to tear the church apart. It seemed what persecution had been unable to do during the reign of Diocletian, an argument over theology would accomplish when persecution was over.As the student of Pamphilus, Eusebius did not support Arius’ idea that Jesus wasn’t God. But Eusebius would not go along with the movement to declare Arius a heretic and toss him and his many supporters from the church. For this, Eusebius himself was excommunicated in early 325 aby an Anti-Arian synod at Antioch. At the Council of Nicea later that year, he defended himself before the Emperor by bringing forth a copy of the baptismal creed used in his church at Caesarea. It stated an orthodox view and proved Eusebius was no Arian. What he was, was a church leader who felt the Arian controversy had been turned by some into a grievous black-mark on Christian unity. He though it would be better to keep Arius and his many supporters IN the Church and deal with them as men who needed correction, than to cast them out and see them agitate for their position there where the world would look on it all as a shameful display of pettiness.The Caesarean baptismal formula was such a clear affirmation of an orthodox view, it was apparently used as the template from which the Council of Nicaea crafted its final position and developed the Nicaean Creed. But some members of the council found the Caesarean formula a tad too vague. Then sought to remedy that vagueness by adding the controversial term homoousios that we talked at length about in Season 1.Eusebius reluctantly voted with the rest of the Council in approving the creed, though he was one of many bishops less than thrilled by the inclusion of that word. Over the next months and yrs, controversy raged over the word homoousias, and the condemned Arius returned to favor. The tables turned and orthodoxy seemed to go down to defeat at the hands of a resurgent heresy. And it would have too, were it not for the courageous stand of Athanasius, who refused to allow the Truth of God’s Word to be edited by the prospect of pragmatic church politics. Sadly, Eusebius sat on the board that condemned Athanasius. Again, not for doctrinal reason, but because Eusebius judge Athanasius an divisive agent who hindered unity. What Eusebius had been reluctant to do with a heretic, that is, oust him, he was willing to do with a man who was orthodox.The Emperor Constantine was impressed with Eusebius and asked him to produce a speech to be given at the 13^th Anniversary of the Emperor’s ascension. Eusebius followed that up with a grandiloquent eulogy of Constantine when he died in 335.Eusebius himself died 4 yrs later.One of the works Eusebius produced that has been a source of much help to historians is called the Onomasticon. It was something of a ground-breaking innovation on Eusebius’ part. In modern terms, we’d call it a Bible atlas, or a geographical gazette. His goal was to provide an easily referenced list of all the places the Bible mentions and give a short description of where they were located. He used Roman miles as a measure of distance, and listed them alphabetically and by book of the Bible.When Eusebius was an assistant to his mentor Pamphilus, they’d worked on the challenge of textual criticism with the Septuagint, the Common Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, as well as manuscripts of the NT. Jerome tells us Origen had already collected the Septuagint and that was the text Pamphilus and Eusebius worked on. Eusebius also set about to produce a kind of harmony of the 4 Gospels so that people could read the story of Jesus in a collected format. This work was a favorite text of Medieval scholars and became the source of many illuminated manuscripts.Besides these major works of Eusebius is a plethora of shorter & lesser works; letters, short treatises, notes and such that all bear his distinctive mark. Eusebius is recognized by no one as an author of great prose or eloquence. His writing is classically workman-like. What distinguishes his style, in everything except his praise of Constantine, is its refusal to embellish or fabricate. Not everything he wrote was factual, but whatever he did pen was a careful and faithful transmission of what he’d been told or had researched. For that reason, scholars tend to give Eusebius general credence in his recording of history.^[1] Walter, V. (1992). Eusebius of Caesarea. In J. D. Douglas & P. W. Comfort (Eds.), Who’s Who in Christian history (pp. 239–240). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

Ecumenism

In his marvelous one volume book on Church History, Bruce Shelley relates how the World Council of Churches came up with its motto.In 1962, its General Secretary, Willem Hooft, met a delegation of Russian Orthodox leaders in a Leningrad hotel over breakfast. The Russians complained the current WCC motto left out a crucial element of their theology, without which they couldn’t join. They needed to see some reference to the Trinity, however brief.From discussions with many Protestant groups, Hooft knew what kept them from joining; an absence in the motto of any reference to the importance of the Bible. In a flash of insight, he grabbed the breakfast menu and penned, “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Holy Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”That revised motto was adopted in the New Delhi meeting of the WCC later that year and has remained the organization’s credo to this day.Let’s go back a bit, to the end of the 16^th C. Overlooking the plethora of smaller groups that developed following the Reformation, the major branches of the Christian Faith were four. Europe had both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The Middle East & Asia had Eastern Orthodoxy and the Nestorian Church of the East, which, after the depravations of Islam and the Mongols was a scant shadow of its former self.The Protestant church was further split into 4 main groups; Lutherans, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Anglican. As the 16^th C folded into the 17^th, Protestantism continued to fracture into different movements and groups. These new groups were most often the result of an emerging emphasis on some point of doctrine or practice. By the 20^th C, there were hundreds of denominations, and thousands of movements and churches claiming to be non-denominational.Jesus’ prayer that His people would be one, seemed to be forgotten by the very institution that claimed to be the Earthly manifestation of His will. Seeing this, a new movement began, one seeking to bring Christians and churches from all these various groups together. That movement was Ecumenism.The word “ecumenical” means general, universal. It was adopted by leaders of this movement to bring about unity among disparate Christian groups. As early ecumenists set out to establish unity, they quickly realized the monumental task they’d set themselves. Unity’s a great idea. Forging it means convincing people the things they believe, and that led to the launching of their movement generations before, aren’t really worth clinging to. That’s a tough proposition. If people were willing to depart their parent group over an issue at the group’s inception, how much more wed to that idea, teaching, whatever, are they likely to be when tradition reinforces it?So, the early Ecumenical architects realized their only hope of achieving their goal was to devise a creed on which all Christians could & would agree.On what subjects do all people think alike? The list is small. And it’s no surprise to anyone listening when I say, Christians aren’t unanimous on all aspects of their Faith. They hold differences in doctrine, worship, organization; even issues of morality. Most don’t regard their distinctives as mere opinion either. They’re deeply cherished convictions. Individual believers as well as entire denominations even disagree over what constitutes the divisions that separate them. Some defend their distinctives while others regard them as a scandalous failure to heed Christ’s call to unity. That scandal, and the sensitivity of some t the way disunity in The Church was a glaring black-mark hindering the Gospel and Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations is what fueled the early ecumenists.If the Middle Ages can be called the Era of Catholic Christianity, the 16^th-18^th Cs, the Era of Protestant Proliferation, the 19^th C, The Challenge of Rationalism, then the 20^th could be labeled the C of Ecumenism.The first effort to secure cooperation among Protestants took place in 1846. Leaders from 50 Evangelical groups from England & the US met in London to hammer out guidelines for fellowship. They called themselves the Evangelical Alliance. Their work was promising and soon there were nine branches in Europe. They stood for religious liberty and encouraged their various groups to engage in joint activities and events that would give visible proof to an emerging unity. After a flurry of success at this, enthusiasm cooled toward the end of the C.Other leaders lamented the growing apathy of the Evangelical Alliance and decided to try again. Some thirty American denominations formed a Federal Council of Churches in 1908. The Council issued a string of official statements on political, economic, & social issues, to the dismay of conservative Christians who found them to be little more than the rants of liberal theology. In 1950, the Federal Council re-branded under the name, the National Council of Churches of Christ.But the most widely known expression of 20^th C Ecumenism is the World Council of Churches which began in Amsterdam in 1948. When I say “began,” what I mean is, “emerged,” for the WCC was really the coming together of three previous groups.In 1910, The International Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, gathered a thousand delegates from all over the world to address the task of world missions. Setting aside their difference in favor of the massive challenge of winning the world to Faith in Christ the delegates realized a profound sense of unity. This whet their appetite for more.One of the delegates at the Conference was a young man of charismatic nature named John Mott, an American Methodist layman whose zeal for God was infectious and positioned him as a nexus for on-going work. He was appointed as the chairman of the committee that would continue the work of the conference. He served in that capacity for the next 20 yrs and became one of the key ingredients to the eventual emergence of the WCC.Another major contributor was a Canadian Anglican named Charles Brent who’d served as a missionary to the Philippines. If Mott was driven by a deep love of God, Brent was amped by a commitment to doctrine. He knew the chief obstacle to unity among the various denominations was the doctrinal disputes that had split them in the first place. Brent advocated setting these disputes into two categories, essentials and non-essentials. While denominations could continue to affirm those things that differed between them on incidentals, they ought to rally round and unite over those beliefs considered essential for salvation.Brent left the Edinburgh conference with a conviction to call his fellow Anglicans to become leaders in urging unity around the Essentials. They agreed and issued an invitation to another conference to be called “The World Conference on Faith and Order.” When WWI broke out, the conference was delayed till 1927. Then 150 reps from nearly 70 denominations met in Lausanne, Switzerland to pass a set of resolutions laying the foundations for the yet to come World Council.The third movement that gave rise to the WCC was led by a Lutheran archbishop in Sweden named Nathan Söderblom. Söderblom may have been Charles Brent’s theological polar opposite. His appointment by the King of Sweden was a shock to conservatives because Söderblom was a well-known liberal who openly rejected the orthodox understanding of the dual nature of Jesus as Divine and human; two elements of the faith Brent set in the essentials category.As an advocate of the Liberalism then sweeping many churches in Europe, Söderblom wanted to shed many of the tenets of orthodox Christianity he and his peers considered unacceptable to modern man. He said revelation was ongoing, and that the faith of the Apostolic Age was to be reinterpreted in light of Rationalism. He contended that true religion isn’t located in what we believe about God but in our moral character. It’s not what a person believes; it’s in what they DO!Söderblom’s impetus toward unity was centered in his conviction that as the different groups learned to respect one another, over time, progressive revelation would lead all to a single Faith. His was an evolutionary ecumenism; the inexorable result of forces no one could stop.Söderblom’s contribution to Ecumenism was in his organizing of the Conference on Life and Work held in Stockholm in the Summer of 1925. 500 delegates from 40 countries and 90 denominations agreed that the moral challenges facing modern society were simply beyond the scope of individual effort. They had to address them together or no lasting headway would be made.Brent & Söderblom were strange bed-fellows indeed. But by 1937, they and their organizations realized the task of Christian unity required a more inclusive organization. They issued a call for the formation of the World Council of Churches.As WWI had delayed The World Conference on Faith and Order, WWII delayed the creation of the World Council. It finally met in 1948 in Amsterdam, bringing together 350 delegates representing almost 150 denominations & 44 countries. Those opting out were Roman Catholics, some conservative Evangelicals, and the Russian Orthodox Church.Willem Adolph Visser’t Hooft was made the General Secretary. It was he who secured the membership of the Russian Orthodox church and several Protestant groups in 1961. Under his leadership, WCC conventions were a carefully orchestrated mosaic of different cultures and concerns.It was never the aim of the WCC to produce a new Super-Church. It aimed simply to affirm and give voice to the central purpose for the Church; to rightly represent God and The Gospel in the world. It was able to achieve its objective in the early years by following Brent’s plan of unity around the Essentials and charity around non-essentials. But as the years passed, secularism and the influence of Söderblom’s liberalism asserted themselves. The demand for social justice replaced the Gospel Mandate. The WCC seemed to many to become little more than a shill for such important causes as overcoming racism, war, poverty, alcoholism & drug addiction. Instead of working for unity, the WCC issued statements that divided people. It became an organ of the all too oft repeated slogan, “Unity’s what we say it is,” & “We can be in unity, as long as you agree with us.”Indeed, today’s WCC is likely something neither Mott, Brent, nor Söderblom would want to be a part of.

500 Years – Part 6 // The Way It Was

The title of this episode, Part 6 in the Series 500 Yrs, in commemoration of the Half-Millennial anniversary of The Reformation, is “The Way It Was;” a brief look at popular religion of the Middle and Late Middle Ages in Europe.(more…)

500 Years – Part 05 // Can’t We All Just Get Along?

https://storage.googleapis.com/communio-sanctorum/500Years-Part05.mp3As we come up to the 500 year anniversary of Reformation Day, when Martin Luther tacked his revolutionary list of exceptions to current church practice and belief to the Castle Church door in the German town of Wittenberg, we’re faced with the realization that the Reformation embraced many more people than the popular telling of history enumerates. Many more.(more…)

500 Years – Part 04 // Black Earth

His family name was “Black Earth,” as in the rich, fertile soil around his hometown. In German, Schwartzerdt. His first name was Philipp. He was born in Feb of 1497 at Bretten in SW Germany. His father was an armorer for an important German Count.(more…)

500 Years – Part 03 // The Good & The Bad

By necessity due to time, we ended the last episode in the middle of recounting Luther’s great conversion experience, where he realized the righteousness God requires isn’t one borne of good works, but is the righteousness of God Himself, which He gives freely to those who put their faith in the atoning work of Christ.(more…)

500 Years – Part 02 // The Gift

We left off last time with the close of the Diet of Worms where Martin Luther informed the august assembled officials of both civil government & Church, that he’d not recant what he’d either written or said, because his opponents weren’t able to refute him with Scripture.(more…)

500 Years – Part 01 // The Stage Is Set

Since we’re rapidly approaching the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation, we begin a short series on it’s beginning.(more…)

Heretics – Part 09 // Hanging On

In Season 1 we spent a little time tracking the Enlightenment’s impact on the Christian Faith. Dual impetuses emerged; one leading to Liberalism, the other to Fundamentalism, which was the reaction of Orthodoxy to the challenges of Liberalism.(more…)

Heretics – Part 08 // Templars

Years ago I watched a TV show with fascination as the host, james Burke, started with a single item then over the course of the next hour, showed it’s link to something else, then that to something else, until after a dozen seemingly disconnected links it arrived at some marvel of modern convenience and daily life. The show was called Connections. It’s one of several things that stoked my love of history.(more…)

Heretics – Part 07 // Imagery

One of the most interesting moments in Church History comes in the conflict over the use of images in Worship. It’s born of the reality that Christianity has its roots in Judaism but had vast appeal among pagan Gentiles. (more…)

Heretics – Part 06 // That Pendulum Thing

One of the features of Church History is the tendency for the theological pendulum to swing to one extreme, then back in the other direction to another. At the risk of being simplistic but in an attempt to keep it brief, let me condense things like this . . . (more…)

Heretics – Part 05 // Was He Really?

As we’ve seen in other episodes, theologically, the Church spent the 4^th & 5^th Cs figuring out exactly how to articulate what it believed about the nature of God & Jesus. The main questions it dealt with in the 5^th thru 7^th Cs, centered on how God saves the lost. Theologians were consumed with properly understanding God’s grace, free will, and the nature of sin. Just what happened in the Fall? Instead of the nature of God, it was the nature of humanity that dominated Church councils. (more…)

Heretics – Part 04 // Compelling Issues

This episode of CS will be significantly different from our usual fare. Whereas when I give commentary on things, I usually verbally mark it off by giving a caveat and saying I’m offering an opinion. Well, this entire episode is that. Here’s why . . . and hang with me for a bit because it’s going to take a little time to explain. (more…)

Heretics – Part 03 // Can’t Keep a Certain Heresy Down

We’re going to go forward in time from our last episode nearly a millennium. Last time we talked about the Gnostics and the serious challenge they presented the Early Church. The dualism that lay at the heart of Gnosticism continued to rear its hoary head in the centuries that followed. It was part & parcel of the Zoroastrianism & Manichaeanism rooted in Persia and was the official faith of the Sassanid Empire. Dualistic ideas were so popular, they managed to infiltrate many Christians communities in both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. When Rome fell and Byzantium carried on in its place, the influence of dualism lingered. Church leaders were able to hold it at bay by using the work of earlier fathers who fought Gnosticism. But as those works fell out of use, dualism resurged. (more…)

Heretics – Part 02 // The First Heretics

For 2^nd generation Christians—let’s say, those who came to faith after AD 70, Jesus became less a person they’d personally known, or the friend of a friend—but more of a mysterious agent in a cosmic drama. (more…)

Heretics – Part 01 // What is Heresy?

We start a new series here in Season 2 of CS. This time we’ll take a look at some of the notable Heretics & Heresies in Church History. Most of these we covered in Season 1. This time we’ll go a bit deeper. As we do, we just might discover that some of those movements and groups that have been classed as heretical, weren’t. Aberrant maybe, but heretical, not! As has been said; Winners write history. They get to tell the tale. It seems at least some of the reporting of Church officials misrepresented / mischaracterized the position of those they opposed and were able to stamp out. When the writings of these groups were systematically round & destroyed, all we’re left with is the account of their opponents; a questionable source at best. (more…)

Creeds – Part 11

We’ve worked our way through 6 of what are known as the 7 Ecumenical Councils of Church History. We’ve examined the Councils and the Creeds they produced. Although, after the First Council in 325 at Nicaea, each subsequent Council claimed that all it was doing was refining the verbiage of the Nicaean Creed. Each claimed it was merely an extension of the ground-breaking work of that first august Council convened by the Emperor Constantine I.It seems fitting then that the last of the 7 Ecumenical Councils should come back to Nicaea 450 yrs later. But it’s work had little to do with the Nicaean Creed.These 7 Councils are called Ecumenical because they are generally accepted by both the Western Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox churches as normative in defining doctrine. The Roman Church adds additional Councils and their creeds as definitive which the Eastern Church rejects as the Eastern Church recognizes its own councils and creeds Rome ignores. And of course the huge Nestorian Church in the East stopped honoring the councils with Ephesus.Before we get to the 7^th Council, we need to talk a bit about a Council that was held 12 yrs after the Third Council of Constantinople we ended the last episode with.In 692, Emperor Justinian II convened yet another council in the Eastern capital to finish some of the work that had been omitted by both the 5^th & 6^th Councils, notably, some canons that needed addressing. For that reason, this Council is called the 5^th-6^th Council. But since that sounds silly, let’s use Latin so it’ll sound more scholarly = Voila! It’s the Quinisext Council. It was attended by 215 only Eastern bishops.Most of the canon work that was done aimed at settling ritual differences and coming to a standard practice of discipline for clergy in different regions. Since the Council was attended exclusively by Eastern bishops, it was the Eastern practice what was approved, at the expense of those in the West.The Council condemned the custom of Armenian churches who used undiluted wine in Communion. They also banned clerical nepotism, and the atrocious practice of eating eggs and cheese on the Saturdays and Sundays of Lent. Several canons seemed aimed at provoking hostility from Rome.While the Orthodox Church accepts the Quinisext Council as legit, Western Churches never accepted it as authoritative or in any sense ecumenical. How could it be when no Western bishop attended. Oh, there was a supposed papal legate in attendance; at least the record marks him there.But Rome says no such person ever existed! The Council made him up to make it appear the Pope’s authority was included. The Venerable Bede called the Quinisext Council the “Reprobate Synod.”The Pope at the time of the Council was Sergius I. He refused to endorse the canons & was ordered arrested by the Emperor & carried to Constantinople. But the City of Ravenna’s militia thwarted the troops attempt to seize him.Ah. Isn’t all this just lovely stuff? Isn’t it wonderful hearing about how loving and humble church leaders were? This is what happens when Church & State become aligned under the rule of frail, fallible human beings. This is what happens when those IN authority fail to abide under it.One of the most important products of the Quinisext Council was the official establishment of Pentarchy.Pentarchy was originally articulated in legislation laid out by Emperor Justinian I in the mid 6^th C, then included in canon law in the Council which ranked the ecclesiastical sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in order of authority & pre-eminence in that order. Justinian linked the administrative authority of the Church to that of the State. Rome was regarded as first among equals. But by the time of the Quinisext Council, Constantinople was regarded as New Rome and had achieve parity with Rome in terms of ecclesiastical weight. At least, the Eastern Bishops thought so. Rome and the west, not so much. So they rejected the Council outright.While the Pentarchy was a technical reality due to Justinian’s legislation, it had little weight in determining anything other than one more point for the East & West to argue over.And that brings us to the 7^th Ecumenical Council – the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787.In a word, it met to deal with the use of icons.Since we dealt with the Iconoclast Controversy in Season 1, we’ll summarize here.The veneration of icons was banned by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V. His actions were endorsed by the Council of Hieria in 754. Now, you know how people are. Whatever the ruler says, they all happily comply with, right? Especially when it comes to religious sensitivities and issues of conscience. Yeah – not so much.The iconodules, that is, the supporters of icons rallied and staged a protest that was nothing if not vehement. But the Emperor stuck to his guns and kept the iconoclast policy in place. He vigorously enforcement the ban & persecuted violators. His son, Leo IV continued his policy but died while still young. Leo’s widow, Irene of Athens, then acted as regent and began a restoration of icon veneration.In 784, the imperial secretary Tarasius was appointed as the successor to Constantinople’s Patriarch, Paul IV. Not wanting to take charge of a fragmented church, he consented to become Patriarch on the condition icons could once again be venerated. But since a Council claiming to be ecumenical had abolished icons, another council could be necessary to re- allow them.To make the Council genuinely ecumenical, the Eastern Church realized it HAD to include the Western Church and invited Pope Adrian I to participate. He accepted, but showed his authorization of the Council by sending legates as his reps.The Council met in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople in 786. When iconoclast elements of the military sought to break it up, the government devised a way to get rid of them. They mocked up a bogus campaign & sent the troops to go deal with it. Once they arrived at their destination, they were surrounded, disarmed, and disbanded.The Council was once again summoned to meet, but since the Capital was still torn by iconoclast factions, they chose to meet in nearby Nicaea. The Council met for their First Session on Sept 24, 787 with 350 bishops & their attendants. Patriarch Tarasius presided over 7 sessions that lasted through later October.The main work of the Council was to reinstall the veneration of icons in the worship of the Church.Both the Eastern & Western Churches endorsed the findings of the Council. The last time they’d agree on just about anything.

Creeds – Part 10

Let’s get ready to rumble!Well--It’s not exactly a rumble we’re in for in this episode, so much as a tumble into the rabbit hole of theological wrangling that took place after the Council of Chalcedon that led to the 2^nd & 3^rd Councils at Constantinople in 553 & 680. (more…)

Creeds – Part 09

In 431, the Council of Ephesus dismissed Nestorius’ explanation of the dual nature of Christ in favor of Cyril’s. But that Council was swayed more by circumstance and politics than by sound theology. While Nestorius’ Christology was mis-represented by his critics to be proposing, not just two natures to Jesus, but two persons, Cyril’s Christology put such heavy emphasis on Jesus’ deity, his Christology leaned toward monophysitism; that is, casting Jesus as having a single nature. (more…)

Creeds – Part 08

In the last couple episodes we’ve set the scene for the Council of Ephesus in 431. Last time we did biographies of the two main players at the Council, Nestorius and Cyril.We ended with a brief review of their different Christologies; that is, how they viewed the dual nature of Christ as God & Man. Let’s pick it up now with the events leading to the Council. (more…)

Creeds – Part 07

In the last episode, we introduced the political situation framing the debate that ensued between two church leaders at the Council of Ephesus in 431.Those two leaders were Nestorius, Patriarch of the Capital Church at Constantinople and Cyril, arch-bishop at Alexandria. Let’s get in to the background on these two men so we can better understand the brueha that happened at Ephesus. (more…)

Creeds – Part 06

Buckle up for this episode, because it’s a rocky ride. We’ve come to the Third Ecumenical Church Council. And for those of you who remember this one from Season 1, you know where in for troubled times. We’re looking at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and the battle between Cyril & Nestorius. (more…)

Creeds – Part 05

This is part 5 of our series on the Creeds in which we’ll be taking a look at the First Council of Constantinople.In Part 3 we looked at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. While the Church had a lot to deal with in the decades that followed, they didn’t convene another Council for almost 60 yrs. (more…)

Creeds – Part 04

This is part 4 of our series on the Creeds.Because most of the creeds were the product of a Council of one kind or another, when dealing with the creeds, we have to talk about the Council. (more…)

Creeds – Part 03

With two introductory episodes on the Creeds under our belt, sash, or whatever else you use to hold up your pants, let’s move now to the Council & Creed of Nicaea.What’s referred to as the Nicene Creed is the product of not one, but two councils held about 60 yrs apart. The first was held in the city of Nicaea in 325, the other in Constantinople in 381. The 2 cities are about 140 kms or 86 mls apart. The Nicene Creed may be the most famous in Church history because it addressed the issue of the Trinity; that is, how Christians worship one God Who reveals Himself in three-persons; Father, Son, And Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed was the first to obtain the imprimatur of authority over all churches. (more…)

Creeds – Part 02

While we got a good start in our series on the Creeds last episode, it behooves us to back up a bit and do a brief review of what we’re talking about when we look at the Creeds. There are four terms we need to define as sometimes they get confused; creeds, confessions, catechisms, and their relationship to councils. (more…)

Creeds – Part 01

In the 150 episodes of Season 1, and now 9 episodes into Season 2 of CS, our review of the History of the Christian Church has only touched on the Creeds incidentally. We’ve mentioned the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and so on. But we’ve not gone into depth on any of them. There are some students and scholars of Church History who’d consider that a kind of academic crime. To neglect the creeds as we have would be like studying flight without considering the rules of aerodynamics. It’s unthinkable! (more…)

The First Centuries Part 08 – Art

This episode is a bit different from our usual fare in that it’s devoted to the subject of art in Church History. It’s in no way intended to be a comprehensive review of religious art. We’ll take just a cursory look at the development of art in the early centuries.Much has been written about the philosophy of art. And as anyone who’s taken an art history course in college knows, much debate has ensued over what defines art. It’s not our aim here to enter that fray, but instead of step back and simply chart the development of artistic expression in the First Centuries.It’s to be expected the followers of Jesus would get around to using art as an expression of their faith quickly in Church History. Man is, after all, an emotional being and art is often the product of that emotion. People who would convert from headlong hedonism to an austere asceticism didn’t usually do so simply based on cold intellectualism. Strong emotions were involved. Those emotions often found their output in artistic expression.Thus, we have Christian art. Emotions & the imagination are as much in need of redemption and capable of sanctification, as the reason and will. We’d better hope so, at least, or we’re all doomed to a grotesquely lopsided spiritual life. How sad it would be if the call to love God with all our heart, soul & mind didn’t extend to our creative faculty and art.Indeed, the Christian believes the work of the Holy Spirit after her/his conversion, is to conform the believer into the very image of Christ. And since God is The Creator, it’s reasonable to assume the Spirit would bend humanity’s penchant for artifice to serve the glory of God and the enjoyment of man.Scripture even says we are to worship God “in the beauty of holiness.” A review of the instructions for the making of the tabernacle make it clear God’s intention was that it be a thing of astounding beauty. And looked at from what we’d call a classical perspective, nearly all art aims to simply duplicate the beauty God as First Artist made when He spoke and the universe leapt into existence.Historians tend to divide Early Church History into two large blocks using The First Council of Nicaea in 325 as the dividing line. The Ante-Nicaean Era runs from the time of the Apostles, the Apostolic Age, to Nicaea. Then the Post-Nicaean Era runs from the Council to The Medieval Era. This was the time of the first what are called 7 Ecumenical Councils; the last of which, is conveniently called the 2^nd Nicaean Council, held in 787. So the Ante-Nicaean Era lasted only a couple hundred yrs while the Post-Nicaean Age was 500.It would be nice if Art Historians would sync up their timelines to this plan, but they divide the history of Church Art differently. They refer to Pre-Constantinian Art, while From the 4^th thru 7^th Cs is called Early Christian Art.The beginnings of identifiable Christian art are located in the last decades of the 2^nd C. Now, it’s not difficult to imagine there’d been some artistic expression connected to believers before this; it’s just that we have no enduring record of it. Why is easy to surmise. Christians were a persecuted group and apart from some notable exceptions, were for the most part comprised of the lower classes. Christians simply didn’t want to draw attention to themselves on one hand, and on the other, there wasn’t a source of patronage base for art in service of the Gospel.Another reason there wasn’t much art imagery generated before the 2^nd C is because early generations of believers were mostly Jewish with a long-standing prohibition of making graven images, lest they violate the Commandments against idolatry. By the mid 2^nd C, the Church had shifted to a primarily Gentile body. Gentiles had little cultural opposition to the use of images. Indeed, their prior paganism encouraged it. They quickly learned they were not to make idols, but had no reluctance to use images a symbols and representations to communicate the Gospel and express their faith.The style of this early art is drawn from Roman motifs of the Late Classical style and is found in association with the burial of believers. While pagans generally practiced cremation, the followers of Jesus shifted to burial as an expression of their hope in the Resurrection. So outside Rome’s walls near major roadways, numerous catacombs were excavated where Christians both met when the heat of persecution was up, and where their dead were interred. Some of the oldest of Christian imagery is a simple outline of a ship or an anchor scratched into the wall of a crypt. Both were symbols of the Church. The anchor is drawn from the NT Book of Hebrews which refers to the hope of the believer as an anchor or the soul. The ship was an apt picture for the Church. A vessel which is IN the Sea, but mustn’t have the sea in it, just as the Church is to be in the World, but the World is not to be in the Church. Another symbol used to make the resting place of Christians was the ubiquitous fish. As burial in the catacombs became de rigeur , families carved out entire rooms for the burial of their members. Bodies were placed in marble sarcophagi which over time were decorated with religious imagery; symbols and scenes drawn from Scripture.Missing from the art crafted by Christians at this time are the scenes that will later become common. There’re few Nativity motifs, fewer crosses, and nothing depicting the resurrection. That’s not to say Christians in this early era didn’t regard the cross & resurrection as central to their faith. The writings of Ante-Nicene Fathers make it clear they did. It’s just that they hadn’t made their way into artistic expression yet. Rather than pointing DIRECTLY at Christ’s crucifixion & resurrection, artists instead used OT stories that foreshadowed the Gospel. Images of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Jonah & the fish, Daniel in the lion’s den, Shadrach, Meshach, & Abed-Nego in the fiery furnace, as well as Moses striking the rock are all depicted in frescoes and tomb paintings.The few images of Jesus from the Pre-Constantinian art we see him presented as The Good Shepherd, surrounded either by figures who likely represent the apostles, and symbols from nature, like peacocks, vines, doves and so on.Nothing happened in the way of distinctly Christian architecture until Constantine for obvious reasons. Christians simply could not build their own places. When you’re trying to avoid attention due to persecution, engaging a construction project’s just not wise. But once The Faith was removed from the banned list, and the Rulers of Rome showed the emergent Faith favor, Christians began to shape their meeting places in a manner that maximized their utility, while also adorning them with imagery identifying them as dedicated to The Gospel. The discreet and out of the way places they’d met in before no longer served as suitable meeting places for the rapidly growing movement.After Christianity was allowed to own property, it raised local churches across the Roman empire. There may have been more of this kind of building in the 4^th C than there has been since, excepting during the 19^th C in the United States. Constantine and his mother Helena led the way. The Emperor adorned not only his new city of Constantinople, but also embarked on a campaign to secure the assumed holy Places in the Middle East. Basilicas Churches were erected using funds from his personal account, as well as State funds. His successors, with the exception of Julian, called The Apostate, as well as bishops and wealthy laymen, vied with each other in building, beautifying, and enriching churches. The Faith that had not long before been a cause of great persecution, became a game to compete in; as the wealthy hoped to earn a higher place in heaven by the churches they raised. Churches became a venue for bragging rights. The Church Father Chrysostom lamented that the poor were being forgotten in favor of buildings, and recommended it wasn’t altars, but souls, God wanted. Jerome rebuked those who trampled over the needy to build a house of stone.It might be assumed Christians would adopt the form for their buildings they were used to as pagans – a temple. Interestingly, they didn’t! Most pagan temples were relatively small affairs intended to hold little more than the idol of the god or goddess they were dedicated to. When pagans worshipped, they did so outdoors, often in a courtyard next to the temple. It wasn’t until the 7^th C that believers began to re-purpose some of the larger now abandoned pagan temples for their own use. Even during Constantine’s time, Christians began to use layout of the secular basilica, the formal hall where a king or ruler would hold court.The floor plan of one of these basilicas had a central rectangular hall, called a nave, with two side aisles. The main door was on one of the short sides of the nave, and on the opposite wall was the apse where a raised platform was built for the altar where the minister led the service.During the 4^th C saw Rome saw over 40 lrg churches built. In the New Rome of Constantinople, the Church of the Apostles and the Church of St. Sophia, originally built by Constantine, towered in majestic beauty. In the 5^th C both were dramatically enlarged by Justinian.As I said earlier, in the 7^th C, the now abandoned pagan temples were turned over to Christians. Emperor Phocas gave the famous Pantheon to Roman’s bishop Boniface IV.Anyone who’s been on a tour of Israel ought to be familiar with the term “Byzantine.” Because a good many of the ruins Christian tourists visit are labeled as Byzantine in architecture and era. The Byzantine style originated in the 6^th C. and in the East continues to this day. It’s akin to the influence the French Classicism of Louis XIV had on Western architecture.The main feature of the Byzantine style is a dome spanning the center of a floorplan that is cruciform. Let me see if I can help you picture this. Imagine a classic cross laid on the earth. The long bean is the central nave with the cross piece are the transverse sides used as side chapels. Suspended over the intersection of main & cross beams is a dome, decorated with frescoes of Biblically rich imagery.Previous basilicas tended to be flat, blocky affairs; earthbound in their ponderance. The Byzantine basilica lifted the roof and drew the eye to that dome which seemed to pierce heaven itself. The eye was drawn upward. That idea will be perfected centuries later in the soaring ceilings and arches of Europe’s Gothic cathedrals.The most perfect execution of the Byzantine style is found in the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul. It was built by the Emperor Justinian in the 6^th C on the plans of Anthemius & Isidore. It’s 220’ wide, 252’ long; with a 180’ diameter dome supported by four gigantic columns, rising 169’ over the central altar. The dome is so constructed that the court biographer Procopius describes it as being suspended form heaven by golden chains.The cross, which today stands as the universal symbol for Christianity, wasn’t used in artifice until at least the late 4^th C. The historical record suggest Christians made the sign of the cross on their foreheads, over their eyes, mouths, & hearts as early as the 2^nd C. But they didn’t make permanent images of it till later. And then we find some church father urging Christians not to make magical talisman of them.Julian accused Christians of worshipping the cross. Chrysostom wrote, “The sign of universal detestation, the sign of extreme penalty, has become an object of desire and love. We see it everywhere; on houses, roofs, walls, in cities and villages, in markets, along roads, in deserts, on mountains & in valleys, on the sea, ships, books, weapons, garments, in honeymoon chambers, at banquets, on gold & silver vessels, engraved on pearls, in paintings, on beds, the bodies of sick animals, & the possessed, at dances of the merry, and in the brotherhoods of monks.”It isn’t till the 5^th C that we find the use of the crucifix; that is a cross that isn’t bare. It now holds the figure of the impaled Christ.

The First Centuries – Part 07 – Origen

As I record & post this episode, a new movie’s out called Logan. It’s appears to be the last installment for the venerable X-Men character Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. Logan was an immortal who became the subject of a secret military experiment gone wrong. His skeleton was infused with a fictional metal called adamantium that bears the hardness of a diamond. (more…)

The First Centuries Part 06 / Tertullian & The Montanists

This is part 6 of our series titled The First Centuries, in Season 2 of CS. In the last episode we took a look at the Church Father Irenaeus. This episode we’ll consider Tertullian.That may prompt some to wonder if we’re going to work our way through ALL the church fathers of the Early Church. Uh, no – we won’t. Just a few.While he’s known to history as Tertullian, his full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus. (more…)

The First Centuries Part 05 / Irenaeus

The First Centuries – Part 5 // Irenæus

The historical record is pretty clear that the Apostle John spent his last years in Western Asia Minor, with the City of Ephesus acting as his headquarters. It seems that during his time there, he poured himself into a cadre of capable men who went on to provide outstanding leadership for the church in the midst of difficult trials. Men like Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias & Apolinarius of Hierapolis, & Melito of Sardis. These and others were mentioned by Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus in a letter to Victor, a bishop at Rome in about AD 190.These students of John are considered to be the last of what’s called The Apostolic Age. The greatest of them was Irenæus. Though he wasn’t a direct student of the Apostle, he was influenced by Polycarp, & is considered by many as one of the premier and first Church Fathers.Not much is known of Irenæus’ origins. From what we can piece together from his writings, he was most likely born and raised in Smyrna around AD 120. He was instructed by Smyrna’s lead pastor, Polycarp, a student of John. He says he was also directly influenced by other pupils of the Apostles, though he doesn’t name them. Polycarp had the biggest impact on him, as evidenced by his comment, “What I heard from him, I didn’t write on parchment, but on my heart. By God’s grace, I bring it constantly to mind.” It’s possible Irenæus accompanied Polycarp when he traveled to Rome and engaged Bishop Anicetus in the Easter controversy we talked about last episode.At some point while still a young man, Irenæus went to Southern Gaul as a missionary. He settled at Lugdunum where he became an elder in the church there. Lugdunum eventually became the town of Lyon, France. In 177, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the church in Lugdunum was hammered by fierce persecution. But Irenæus had been sent on a mission to Rome to deal with the Montanist controversy. While away, the church’s elderly pastor Pothinus, was martyred. By the time he returned in 178 the persecution had spent itself and he was appointed as the new pastor.Irenæus worked tirelessly to mend the holes persecution had punched in the church in Southern Gaul. In both teaching and writing, he provided resources other church leaders could use in faithfully discharging their pastoral duties, as well as refuting the various and sundry errors challenging the new Faith. During his term as the pastor of the church at Lyon, he was able to see a majority of the population of the City converted to Christ. Dozens of missionaries were sent out to plant churches across Gaul.Then, about 190, Irenæus simply disappears with no clear account of his death. A 5^th C tradition says he died a martyr in 202 in the persecution under Septimus Severus. The problem with that is that several church fathers like Eusebius, Hippolytus, & Tertullian uncharacteristically fail to mention Irenæus’ martyrdom. Because martyrs achieved hero status, if Irenæus had been martyred, the Church would have marked it. SO most likely, he died of natural causes. However he died, he was buried under the altar St. John’s in Lyons.Irenæus’ influence far surpassed the importance of his location. The bishopric of Lyon was not considered an important seat. But Irenæus’ impact on the Faith was outsized to his position. His keen intellect united a Greek education with astute philosophical analysis, and a sharp understanding of the Scriptures to produce a remarkable defense of The Gospel. That was badly needed at the time due to the inroads being forged by a new threat – Gnosticism, which we spent time describing in Season 1.Irenæus’ articulation of the Faith brought about a unanimity that united the East & Western branches of the Church that had been diverging. They’d end up reverting to that divergence later, but Irenæus managed to bring about a temporary peace through his clear defense of the faith against the Gnostics.Irenæus admits he had a difficult time mastering the Celtic dialect spoken by the people where he served but his capacity in Greek, in which he composed his writings, was both elegant & eloquent without running to the merely flowery. His content shows he was familiar with the classics by authors like Homer, Hesiod, & Sophocles as well as philosophers like Pythagoras & Plato.He shows a like familiarity with earlier Christian writers such as Clement, Justin Martyr, & Tatian. But Irenæus is really only 1 generation away from Jesus and the original Apostles due to a couple long life-times; that of John, and then his pupil, Polycarp. We find their influence in Irenæus’ remark impugning the appeal of Gnosticism, “The true way to God, is through love. Better to know nothing but the crucified Christ, than fall into the impiety of overly curious inquires & silly nuances.” Reading Irenæus’ work on the core doctrines of the Faith reveal his wholehearted embrace of Pauline theology of the NT. Where Irenæus goes beyond John & Paul was in his handling of ecclesiology; that is, matters of the Church. Irenæus wrote on things like the proper handling of the sacraments, and how authority in the church ought to be passed on. A close reading of the 2^nd C church fathers reveals that this issue was of major concern to them. It makes sense it would. Jesus had commissioned the Apostles to carry on His mission and to lay the foundation of the Faith & Church. The Apostles had done that, but in the 2^nd C, the men the Apostles had raised up were themselves aging out. Church leaders were burdened with the question of how to properly pass on the Faith once for all delivered to the saints, to those who came next. What was the plan?We’ll come back to that later . . .Irenæus was a staunch advocate of what we’ll call Biblical theology, as opposed to a theology derived from philosophical musing, propped up by random Bible verses. He’s the first of the church fathers to make liberal use of BOTH the Old & New Testaments in his writings. He uses all four Gospels and nearly all the letters of the NT in the development of his theology.His goal in it all was to establish unity among believers. He was so zealous for it because of the rising popularity of Gnosticism, a new religious fascination attractive an increasing number of Christians.Historians have come to understand that like many emergent faiths, Gnosticism was itself fractured into different flavors. The brand Irenæus dealt with was the one most popular in his region; Valentinian Gnosticism, or, Valentinianism.While several writings are attributed to Irenæus, by far his most important and famous was Against Heresies, his refutation of Gnosticism. Written sometime btwn 177 & 190, it’s 5 volumes is considered by most to be the premier theological work of the ante-Nicene era. It’s also the main source of knowledge for historians on Gnosticism and Christian doctrine in the Apostolic Age. It was composed in response to a request by a friend wanting a brief on how to deal with the errors of both Valentinus & Marcion. Both had taught in Rome 30 yrs earlier. Their ideas then spread to France.The 1^st of the 5 volumes is a dissection of what Valentinianism taught, and more generally how it differed from other sects of Gnosticism. It shows that Irenæus had a remarkable grasp of a belief system he utterly & categorically rejected.The 2^nd book reviewed the internal inconsistencies and contradictions of Gnosticism.The last 3 volumes give a systematic refutation of Gnosticism from Scripture & tradition which Irenæus makes clear at that time were one and the same. He shows that the Gospel which was at first only oral, was subsequently committed to writing, then was faithfully taught in churches through a succession of pastors & elders. So, Irenæus says, The Apostolic Faith & tradition is embodied in Scripture, and in the right interpretation of those scriptures by pastors (AKA as bishops). And the Church ought to have confidence in those pastors’ interpretations of God’s Word because they’ve attained their office through a demonstrated succession. Of course, the succession Irenæus referred to was manifestly evident by virtue of the fact he wrote in the last quarter of the 2^nd C & was himself, as we’ve seen, just a generation removed from the Apostle John.Irenæus set all this over against the contradictory opinions of heretics who fundamentally deviated from this well-established Faith & simply could not be included in the catholic, that is universally agreed on, faith carved out by Scripture and its orthodox interpretation by a properly sanctioned teaching office.The 5^th and final volume of Against Heresies includes Irenæus’ exposition of pre-millennial eschatology; that is, the study of Last things, or in modern parlance – the End Times. No doubt he does so because it stood in stark contrast with the muddled teaching of the Gnostics on this subject. It might be noted that Irenæus’ pre-millennialism wasn’t unique. He stood squarely with the other writers of the Apostolic & post-apostolic age.Irenæus’ view of the inspiration of Scripture is early anticipation of what came to be called Verbal plenary inspiration. That is, both the writings and authors of Scripture were inspired, so that what God wanted expressed was, without turning the writers into automatons. God expressed His will through the varying personalities of the original authors. He even accounts for the variations in Paul’s style across his epistles to his, at times, rapid-fire dictation & the agency of the Holy Spirit’s urging at different times and in different situations.Irenæus’ emphasis on both Scripture and the apostolic tradition of its interpretation has been seen as a boon to the idea of establishing an official teaching magisterium in the Church. Added to that is his remarks that the church at Rome held a special place in providing leadership for the Church as a whole. He based this on Rome being the location of the martyrdom of both Peter & Paul. While Irenæus acknowledges they did not START the church there, he reasoned they most certainly were regarded as its leaders when they were there. And there was a tradition that Peter appointed the next bishop, one Linus, to lead the Church when he was executed. While it’s true Irenæus did indeed suggest Rome ought to take the lead, he said it was the CHURCH there that ought to do so; not its bishop. The point may seem minor, but it’s important to note that Irenaeus himself resisted positions taken by the Bishop at Rome. In our last episode, we noted his chronicle of Polycarp’s & Anicetus’ disagreement over when to celebrated Easter. Anicetus’ successor was Bishop Victor, who took a hardline approach with the Quartodecamins and wanted to forcefully punish them. While as the bishop of the church in Lyon, Irenaeus was ready to follow the policy of the Church at Rome, he objected to Victor’s heavy-handedness and reminded him of his predecessor’s more fair-minded policy.So while Irenaeus does indeed urge a role of first-place for the Church at Rome, we can’t go so far as to say he establishes the principle of the primacy of the bishop of Rome. He’s not an apologist for papal primacy.Nor does he advocate apostolic succession as it’s come to be defined today. What Irenaeus does say is that the Scriptures have to be interpreted rightly; meaning, they have to align with that which the Apostles consistently taught, and that the people who were to be trusted to that end were those linked back to the Apostles because they’d HEARD them explain themselves.He argued this because the Gnostics claimed a secret oral tradition given them from Jesus himself. Irenaeus maintained that the pastors & elders of the Church were well-known and linked to the Apostles and had always maintained the same message that wasn’t secret at all. Therefore, it was those pastors who provided the only safe interpretation of Scripture.For Irenaeus, apostolic authority was only valid so long as it actually squared with apostolic teaching, which itself was codified in the Gospels and epistles of the NT – along with what the direct students of the Apostles said they’d taught. Irenæus didn’t concoct a formula for the passing of apostolic authority from one generation to the next in perpetuity.Irenaeus became a treasured authority for men like Hippolytus and Tertullian who drew freely from him. He also became a major source for establishing the canon of the NT. He regarded the entire OT as God’s Word as well as most of the books our NT while excluding a large number of Gnostic pretenders. There’s some evidence that before Irenaeus, believers lined up under different Gospels as their preferred accounts of the Life of Jesus. The Churches of Asia Minor preferred the Gospel of John while Matthew was the most popular overall. Irenaeus made a convincing case that all 4 Gospels were God’s Word. That made him the earliest witness to the canonicity of M,M,L & J. This stood over against the accepted writings of a heretic named Marcion who only accepted portions of Luke’s Gospel.Irenaeus cited passages of the NT about a thousand times, from 21 of the 27 books, including Revelation. Inferences to the other books can be found as well.Irenaeus provides a perfect bridge from the Apostles to the next phase of Church History presided over by the Fathers, of which he’s considered among the first.

The First Centuries – Part 04 / An Easter Tussle

Have you noticed that, generally-speaking, Christians like to argue?Maybe we get it from our spiritual ancestors, the Jews. Once while on a tour of Jerusalem at what are called the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount, our Jewish guide told us that a frequent joke among his people was that where there are 2 Jews, there’s 3 opinions.Yeah; it seems controversy has been a part of the history of The Church since its inception. And maybe that’s really more a “human” tendency than something unique to, or the sole prerogative of the followers of Jesus. (more…)

The First Centuries Part 03

In part 1 we took a look at some of the sociological reason for persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Then last time we began a narrative-chronology of the waves of persecution and ended with Antonius Pious.A new approach in dealing with Christians was adopted by Marcus Aurelius who reigned form 161–180. Aurelius is known as a philosopher emperor. He authored a volume on Stoic philosophy titled Meditations. It was really more a series of notes to himself, but it became something of a classic of ancient literature. Aurelius bore not a shred of sympathy for the idea of life after death & detested as intellectually inferior anyone who carried a hope in immortality. (more…)

The First Centuries – Part 02

This is part 2 in our follow-up series on the first centuries in Church History. We’re concentrating on the persecution Jesus’ followers endured. In part 1, we examined the social & civic reasons for persecution in the Roman Empire.The suspicion of nefarious intent by Christians, fueled by their withdrawal from society due to its tacit connection to paganism, morphed into a suspicion of covert actions Jesus’ followers were taking to subvert society. Why were Christians so secretive if they weren’t in fact doing something wrong? And if the rumors were true, Christians WERE doing odd things; like pretending slaves had the same dignity as freemen; that women and children were to be honored as equal to men; and they rescued exposed infants. Why, if they kept all that up, and more joined their cause, what was to become of the world? It would look very different from the one that had been. (more…)

The First Centuries – Part 01

Welcome BACK to Communion Sanctorum: History of the Christian Church.We ended our summary & overview narrative of Church History after 150 episodes; took a few months break, and are back to it again with more episodes which aim to fill in the massive gaps we left before.This time, we’ll do series that go into detail on specific moments, movements, people, places, and other topics. (more…)

140-The End

The final episode of Communio Sanctorum. We look briefly at the reaction of some Protestants to Manifest Destiny. DL Moody, The Holiness Movement, Phoebe Palmer, The Azusa Street Revival.

This 150^th episode of CS is titled The End.150 episodes! And this is the rebooted v2. We had a hundred episodes in v1 before I started over again in an attempt to clean up the timeline and fill in some gaps. (more…)

139-Evangementalism

This 139^th episode is titled Evangementalism,We’ve spent a couple of episodes laying out the genesis of Theological Liberalism, and concluded the last episode with a brief look at the conservative reaction to it in what’s been called Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism was one of the most important movements of the 20^th C. The label comes from that which lies at the center of the movement, devotion to an orthodox and traditional understanding of the Evangel, that is, the Christian Gospel - the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.While Evangelicalism is used today mainly to describe the theological movement that came about as a reaction to Protestant theological liberalism, the term can be applied all the way back to the 1^st C believers who referred to themselves as “People of the Gospel,” the Evangel. The term was resurrected by Reformers to call themselves “evangelicals” before identifying as Protestants or any of the other labels used for protestant denominations today.The modern flavor of Evangelicalism came about as a merging of European Pietism and revivals among Methodists in England. We might even locate the origin of modern Evangelicalism in the First Great Awakening of the mid-18^th C. Its midwives were people like Whitefield, Tennent, Freylinghuysen, and of course Jonathan Edwards.Since major stress of all these was the need for a conversion experience and spiritual new birth, revivalism and an emphasis on the task of evangelism have been front and center in Evangelicalism.As we’ve seen in a past episode, the First Great Awakening was followed a century later by the Second which began in the United States and spread to Europe, then the rest of the world and had a huge impact on how Christians viewed their Faith. What’s remarkable about the Second Great Awakening, is that it came at a time when many church leaders lamented the low state of the Church in Western Civilization. Christianity’s enemies gleefully wrote its obituary. Theological Liberalism helped to push the Faith toward an early grave. But the Second Great Awakening literally shook North American and Europe to their core. A wave of missionaries went out across the globe as a result, spreading the Faith to places no church had existed for hundreds of years, and in some cases, ever before.In newly settled regions on the American frontier, Evangelicalism was carried out in week-long “camp meetings.” Think of a modern concert with multiple bands. Camp meetings were like that, except in place of bands playing music were preachers passionately preaching the Gospel. Might not sound too appealing to our modern sensibilities, but the lonely pioneers of the frontier turned out in large crowds. They’d been too busy building homesteads to consider constructing frontier churches. But now they returned home to do that very thing.One of the largest of these camp meetings took place at Cane Ridge in Kentucky in August 1801. Upwards of 20,000 gathered to listen to Protestant preachers of all stripes.Methodist minister Francis Asbury was just one of several circuit-riders who carried the Gospel all over the frontier. Both Baptists and Methodists worked tirelessly to bring the Gospel to blacks. But the fierce racism of the time refused to integrate congregations. Separate churches were plated for black congregations, of which there were many. In the early 19^th C, Richard Allen left the Methodist Church to found the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In the US, it wasn’t long before Evangelical Baptists and Methodists outnumbered older denominations of Episcopalians and Presbyterians, groups where theological liberalism had infiltrated.Charles Finney was an attorney-turned-revivalist who transferred the excitement and energy of the rural camp-meetings to the urban centers of the American Northeast. An innovator, Finney encouraged the newly converted to share the story of how they came to the Faith – called ‘giving your testimony.’ He set what he called an “anxious bench” near the front of rooms where he spoke as a place where those who wanted prayer or to make a profession of faith in Christ could sit. That eventually turned into the modern ‘altar call’ that’s a standard fixture of many Evangelical churches today.By the start of the American Civil War in the mid-19^th C, Evangelicalism was the predominant religious position of the American people. In an address delivered 1873, Rev. Theodore Woolsey, one-time president of Yale could say, without the least bit of controversy; “The vast majority of people believe in Christ and the Gospel. Christian influences are universal. Our civilization and intellectual culture are built on that foundation.”While there are many brands, flavors, and emphases inside modern Evangelicalism, it’s safe to characterize an Evangelical as someone who holds to several core beliefs: those being à1) The authority and sufficiency of Scripture2) The uniqueness of salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ,3) The need for personal conversion4) And the urgency of evangelismFurther refining of Evangelicalism took place when there was a debate over the first of its core doctrines – the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. This is where Fundamentalism diverged from Evangelicalism. The other three core distinctives of Evangelicalism all rest on the authority and sufficiently of the Bible. And while Evangelicalism began as a reaction to theological liberalism, some of the ideas of that liberalism crept into some Evangelical’s view of Scripture.You see, it’s one thing to say Scripture is authoritative and sufficient and another to then say the entire Bible is Scripture. Is the Bible God’s Word, or does it just contain God’s Word? Do we need scholars and those properly educated to tell us what is in fact Scripture and what’s filler? Are the actual WORDS God’s Words, or do the words need to be taken together collectively so that it’s not the words but the meaning they convey that makes for God’s authoritative message?Some Evangelical leaders noticed their peers were moving to a position that said the Bible wasn’t so much God’s Word as it contained God’s Message. While they weren’t as extreme as the Liberal Theologians, they effectively ended up in the same place. This debate goes on in the Evangelical church today and continues to be the source of much unrest.Conservative Evangelicals started linking the authority of Scripture to the doctrine of inerrancy; that is, belief the Bible’s original writings contained no errors, and that because of the laborious process of transmission of the texts over time, while we can’t say our modern translations are perfect or without any error, they are virtually inerrant; they are trustworthy versions of the originals.At the dawn of the 20^th C, Princeton Theological Seminary became the epicenter of this debate as a leading defender of the authority of the Bible. It had long been an advocate for the infallibility of Scripture under such luminaries as Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, his son, AA Hodge, and BB Warfield. In a seminal essay on the doctrine of Inspiration in the Princeton Review, AA Hodge and BB Warfield defined inspiration as producing the “absolute infallibility” of Scripture. They said the autographs, the original writings of the Bible were free from error, not just in regard to theological matters, but in contradiction to what theological liberalism claimed, they were without error in regard to ALL their assertions, including those touching science and history.The theological liberalism coming from Europe had a mixed reception in the US at the outset of the 20^th C. At first, most churches remained conservative and blissfully unaware of the slow sea-change taking place in the intellectual centers of American universities and seminaries. Battle lines were drawn between liberals and conservatives who were branded with a new label = Fundamentalists. The battle they carried out in the hallowed halls of academia soon spilled over into the pews. It was referred to as the contest between modernists and fundamentalists.While modernists embraced a host of varying ideologies, they shared two presuppositions.First, they urged, Christianity must be reframed in light of new insights; meaning the tenants of Protestant Liberalism.Second, the Faith had to be liberated from the cultural encrustations of traditionalism that had obscured the REAL MEANING of the Bible. What that effectively meant was that ALL and ANY traditional beliefs about what the Bible said was no longer valid. It was a knee-jerk rejection of conservatism.Though the term Fundamentalism wasn’t coined until 1920, it flowed from the 1910 publication The Fundamentals. It was a synthesis of different conservative Protestants who united to battle the Modernists who seemed to be taking over Evangelicalism. Fundamentalists banded together to launch a counteroffensive.There were 2 streams of the early Fundamentalist movement.One was intellectual fundamentalism led by J. Gresham Machen [Gres’am May-chen] and his Calvinist peers at Princeton. [the ‘h’ in Gresham is silent!]The other was populist fundamentalism led by CI Schofield who produced the best-selling Scofield Reference Bible which contained his expansive notes and laid out a dispensationalism many found appealing.Other notable fundamentalist leaders were RA Torrey, DL Moody, Billy Sunday, and the Holiness Movement that moved in several denominations, most notably the Nazarenes.While the intellectual and populist streams of fundamentalism attempted to unite in their opposition to modernism, there were simply too many doctrinal differences between all the various groups inside the movement to allow for a concerted strategy in dealing with Liberalism. As a result, Modernists were able to continue their infiltration and take-over of the intellectual centers of the Faith.In reaction to modernists, in 1910, a group of conservative Presbyterians responded with five convictions that came to be considered the core Fundamentals from which the movement derived its name. Those five convictions flowed from their certainty in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. They were . . .1) The inerrancy of the original writings.2) The virgin birth of Jesus.3) The substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross.4) His literal, bodily resurrection.5) A belief that Jesus’ miracles were to be understood as real events and not merely literary mythology meant to teach some ethical imperative. Jesus really fed thousands with a few fish and loaves, really raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, and really walked on water.These fundamentals were elaborated and released between 1910 and 15 in a set of booklets called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. The Stewart brothers funded their publication and ensured they were distributed to every Christian leader across the US. Some three million copies were circulated before WWI to combat the threat of Modernism.

138-Liberal v Evangelical

The title of this 138^th episode is Liberal v EvangelicalIn our last episode, we considered the philosophical roots of Theological Liberalism. In this, we name names as we look at its early leaders and innovators.When I took a philosophy course in college, the professor dispensed on us sorry, unwashed noobs his understanding of faith and reason. After a lengthy description of both, he concluded by saying that faith and reason had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Reason dealt with the evidential, that which was perceived by the senses, and what logic concluded were rationally consistent conclusions drawn from that evidence. Faith, he declaimed, was a belief in spite of the evidence. When I asked if he was thus saying faith was irrational, he just smiled.That professor was an adherent of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. In Kant’s work Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, Kant argued reason is able to comprehend anything in the realm of space and time; what he called the phenomenal realm. But reason is useless in accessing the noumenal, or spiritual realm transcending time and space.Kant didn’t argue against the existence of the spiritual realm. He simply said it’s only something we can experience by feelings. We can’t really THINK about it in the sense that it touches the rational mind.Traditional, orthodox Christians pushed back against the Kantian view of faith as feeling by reminding themselves Jesus said the greatest command was to love God with all they had, including their minds. But liberals found in Kant’s philosophy a justification for unhitching reason from faith and for allowing modern people to live in a secular world while still enjoying the benefits of religious sentiments about ultimate meaning. In other words, it allowed them to get along content with the WHAT of life in the world, without having to bother much with the HOW, or concern themselves at all with WHY.A few years after the publication of Kant’s Critique, the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, going against the heart and soul of Christian apologetics dating back hundreds of years, said the heart of Christian Faith isn’t a historical event, like the Resurrection. It was, he argued, a feeling of one’s absolute dependence on a reality beyond one’s self. That awareness, he claimed, could be developed to the point where a person would be able to imitate Jesus’ own good deeds.He wrote, “The true nature of religion is immediate consciousness of Deity as found in ourselves and the world.” This earned Schleiermacher the title, Father of Theological Liberalism. Schleiermacher was born in a pious Moravian home, but as a young man, he imbibed the rationalism of the Enlightenment and became an ardent apologist for accommodating Christianity to popular society. As a professor of the newly founded University of Berlin, he insisted debates over proofs of God’s existence, the authority of Scripture, and the possibility of miracles weren’t the issues they ought to focus on. He said that the heart of religion had always been feeling, rather than rational proofs. God is not a theory used to explain the universe. Rather, God is to be experienced as a living reality. For Schleiermacher, religion isn’t a creed to be pondered by the rational mind. It’s based on intuition and a feeling of dependence.Orthodox Christians who identified religion with creedal doctrines, Schleiermacher maintained, would lose the battle for the Faith in the Modern world because those creeds were no longer rationally acceptable. Religion needed to find a new base. He located it in feelings.Sin, Schleiermacher said, was the result of people living by themselves, isolated from others. To overcome the sin that makes man independent from God and others, God sent a mediator in Jesus Christ. Christ’s uniqueness wasn’t in doctrines about his virgin birth or deity. No à What made Jesus a Mediator who can help us is the perfect example he was of one utterly dependent on God. By meditating on Christ’s example, and feeling our own inner sense of dependence on the universe around us, we too can experience God as Jesus did.In Schleiermacher’s theology, the center of religion shifts from Scripture to experience. So, the Biblical criticism we looked at in the last episode can’t harm Christianity, since the real message of the Bible speaks to an individual’s own subjective pursuit of the divine. The Bible doesn’t need to be factual or true, as long as it affects the feeling of dependence that is the spark that leads to spiritual illumination.Albrecht Ritschl enlarged on Schleiermacher’s ideas, taking them mainstream.For Ritschl, religion had to be practical. It began with the question, “What must I do to be saved?” But he eschewed the merely theoretical. So the question “What must I do to be saved?” can’t just mean, “How do I get to heaven after I die?” Ritschl said salvation meant living a new life, free from sin, selfishness, fear, and guilt.Ritschl’s practical Christianity had to be built on fact, so he welcomed the search for the historical Jesus we talked about in the last episode. The great fact of the Christian Faith is the impact Jesus made on history. Nature, he maintained, gives an ambiguous understanding of God while History presents us with moments and movements that convey meaning.History conveys meaning alright – but I’m not sure all that history’s given us a less ambiguous understanding of God than Nature.Ritschl asserted religion rests on human values, not science. Science conveys facts, things as they are. Religion weighs those facts and attributes more or less value to them.Many Christians of the late 19^th C considered Ritschl’s work helpful. It freed them from the destructive impact of the increasingly secular pursuits of history and science. It allowed biblical criticism to use scientific methodology in determining things like authorship, date, and the meaning of Scripture. But it recognized religion is more than facts. Values aren’t under the purview of science; that’s religion’s turf.Protestant Theological Liberalism accepted higher criticism’s denial of Jesus’ miracles, His Virgin Birth, and His preexistence. But that did not in any way diminish Jesus’ importance. For Liberals, His deity didn’t need to arise from His essence. It resides in what Jesus MEANS. He’s the consummate human being who shows us the path to enlightenment and nobility. He’s the embodiment of supremely high ethical ideals whose example inspires us to emulate His example. For Liberal Christians, The Church didn’t come out of some actual, factual events around Jerusalem 2000 years ago, it arose from Jesus’ awe-inspiring example. The Church isn’t a community of people who believe in a literally resurrected Savior so much as a value-creating community that gives meaning and mission to life. That mission is to create a society inspired by love, the Kingdom of God on earth.The impact of this Theological Liberalism wasn’t felt in just one denomination or region. It challenged traditional groups all over Europe and North America. It appeared in the churches of New England with the moniker: New Theology. Its leading advocates came out of traditional Calvinism. Its greatest early popularizer was Lyman Abbott. Then came Henry Ward Beecher, William Tucker, and Lewis Stearns.Prior to 1880, most New England ministers and churches held to basic orthodox doctrines . . . The sovereignty of God; the depravity of humanity in original sin; the atonement of Christ; the necessity of the Holy Spirit in conversion; and the eternal separation of the saved and lost in heaven and hell.But after 1880, each of those beliefs came under withering fire from Liberals. The most publicized controversy took place at Andover Seminary. The seminary was established by Congregationalists 80 years before to counter Unitarian tendencies at Harvard. Attempting to preserve Andover’s orthodoxy, the founders required the faculty to subscribe to a creed summarizing their adherence to classic Calvinism. But by 1880, under the influence of liberalism, several of the faculty could no longer make the pledge. The spark that lit the flames of controversy was a series of articles in the Andover Review by liberal professors who argued the unsaved who die without any knowledge of the Gospel will have an opportunity at some future point to either accept or to reject the Gospel before facing judgment.Andover’s board filed an action against one of the authors of the articles as a test case. After years of moves and counter-moves, in 1892 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts voided the action of the Board. By then, most denominations had their own tussles with liberalism seeking to infiltrate their colleges and schools.The response to Protestant theological liberalism was a movement which many of our listeners have heard of – Evangelicalism.Evangelicalism began in England in the 19^th C, an epoch that in some ways singularly belonged to Great Britain. It was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. London became the largest city and financial center of the World. British trade circled the globe; her navy ruled the seas. By 1914, Britannia ruled the most expansive empire in history.But the rapid commercial and industrial growth wasn’t equally distributed across England’s population. The pace of change left many stunned. Every traditionally sacred institution cracked at its foundation. Some feared the horrors of the French Revolution were about to be repeated on England’s hallowed shores while others sang the praises of Lady Progress and dreamed of even greater advances. They regarded England as the vanguard of a new day of prosperity and liberty for all. Fear and hope mingled.As the Age of Progress dawned in England, Protestants attended either the Anglican Church or one of the Nonconforming denominations of Methodist, Baptists, Congregationalist, and a handful of smaller groups. But now, for maybe the first time, Christians from different denominations also formed specialized groups with a specific aim; like distributing Bibles, redressing poverty in urban slums, teaching literacy, and supporting missionaries in the far-flung reaches of the Empire.While liberalism grew in seminaries and colleges among professors and theologians, many ministers working in churches as local pastors and the people in the pews grew increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging doubt in the intellectual centers of their denominations. They may not be as sophisticated or learned in the academic pursuits of the experts, but by golly, they didn’t think a PhD was necessary to believe in or follow God. And if holding a Ph.D. meant having to deny cardinal doctrines of the Faith, then no thank YOU, very much.Evangelicals pushed back on Liberals, saying Christians ought not just to accept what Science says, just because it says it. History proves today’s so-called “science” is tomorrow’s mockery. The Christian faith isn’t just about how it makes you feel and the meaning it brings you. It’s a Faith that rests on the actual, literal events of history. To deny those facts and events is to depart from traditional, orthodox Christianity.The Evangelical Movement began with the work of John Wesley and George Whitefield. Its main characteristics were its emphasis on personal holiness, arising from a conversion experience. It was also devoted to a practical concern for serving a needy world. That holiness and service were nourished by devotion to the Bible which was regarded as inspired and inerrant. The Evangelical message went forth from a large minority of Anglican pulpits and a majority in other denominations.The headquarters of Evangelicalism was a small village three miles from London called Clapham. It was the residence of a group of wealthy Evangelicals who practiced remarkable personal piety. The group’s spiritual leader was John Venn, a man of culture and sanctified common sense. They met for Bible study, conversation, and prayer in the library of the well-to-do banker, Henry Thornton.But the most famous member of the Clapham Groups was William Wilberforce, the parliamentary statesman. Wilberforce found a universe of talented help for Evangelical causes among his Clapham friends. These included John Shore, Governor-General of India; Charles Grant, Chairman of the East India Company; James Stephens, Under-Secretary for the Colonies; and Zachary Macauley, editor of the Christian Observer.At the age of just 25, Wilberforce was dramatically converted to Christ after reading Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. He possessed all the qualities for outstanding leadership: ample wealth, a liberal education, and outstanding talent. Prime Minister William Pitt said Wilberforce had the greatest natural eloquence he’d ever known. Several testified of his amazing capacity for close friendship and his superior moral principles. For many reasons, Wilberforce seemed providentially prepared for the task and the time.He once said, “My walk is a public one: my business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the part which Providence has assigned me.”Under Wilberforce’s leadership, the Clapham friends were knit solidly together. At the Clapham mansion, they held what they called “Cabinet Councils.” They discussed the wrongs and injustices of their country, and the battles they’d have to fight. Inside and outside Parliament, they moved as one, delegating to each member the work he could do best to accomplish their common purpose.They founded . . .

The Church Missionary Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society
The Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor
The Society for the Reformation of Prison Discipline
and many more.

Their greatest effort though was the campaign to end slavery. Which is a tale I’ll leave for others to follow up.While the Clapham group accomplished much, it was their role in abolishing slavery that provides a sterling example of how an entire society can be influenced by just a few.

137-Why So Critical

The episode is titled Why So Critical?Two episodes back we introduced the themes that would lead eventually to Theological Liberalism. The last episode we talked a bit about how the church, mostly the Roman Catholic church, pushed back against those themes. In this episode, we’ll go further into the birth of liberalism.The 20^th century was unkind to Theological Liberalism, with its shining vision of the Universal Brotherhood of Man under the Universal Fatherhood of God. Yet, many mainline Protestant denominations still hold solidarity with Liberalism. It was Professor Sydney Ahlstrom’s view that liberals had provoked as much controversy in the 19^th century as the Reformers did in the 16^th. The reason for that controversy lay in their objective, stated by one of its premier advocates and popularizers - Harry Emerson Fosdick. In his autobiography, The Living of These Days, the influential pastor of the famous Riverside Church in New York City, said the aim of liberal theology was to make it possible “to be both an intelligent modern and a serious Christian.”Liberals hoped to address a problem may be as old as The Faith itself: That is, how can Christians reconcile their faith to the intellectual climate of their time without compromising the Essentials of The Gospel? By the evaluation of modern Evangelicals, Liberalism failed in that quest precisely because they DID compromise those essentials in their desire to be relevant among their unbelieving peers. Richard Niebuhr expressed the irony of theological liberalism when he said in liberalism “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”Personally, I’ve been reluctant to produce this episode because the more I’ve studied Theological liberalism, the less certain of being able to handle it competently I’ve grown. Definitions for it are no easier than for political liberalism. In fact, many deny that Protestant liberalism is a theology at all. They refer to it as an “outlook,” or “approach.” Henry Coffin of Union Seminary described liberalism as a “spirit” that honors truth so supremely and it craves the freedom to discuss, publish, and pursue what it believes to be true.But then, if THAT is true, it must certainly lead to certain convictions that derive values and produce judgments. And THAT is precisely what we see the history of Protestant liberalism producing.In the words of Bruce Shelley, “Liberals believed Christian theology had to come to terms with modern science if it ever hoped to claim and hold the allegiance of intelligent men.” So liberals refused to accept religious beliefs on authority alone. They insisted faith must submit to reason and experience. Following the thinking of the Enlightenment, of which they were the spiritual children, they claimed the human mind was capable of thinking God’s thoughts after Him. So, the best insight into the nature and character of God wasn’t His self-revelation in Scripture, which smacked of the old authoritarianism they eschewed; it was human intuition and reason.By surrendering to what we’ll call “the modern mind” liberals accepted the assumption of their time that the universe was a massive but synchronized machine, like a well-made watch. The key to this machine was Unity.I’ll come back to that in a moment, but a little editorializing seems in order. And while some may be rolling their eyes, I think this is germane to what this podcast is – a review of History – specifically Church History. I just made reference to “the modern mind.”Modern is another term that has multiple meanings. Historians use it to refer to the Modern Era, which they debate over the time span of, but let’s go with the common view that it runs from about 1500 to 1900-ish. So wait! IF the Modern Era ended at the beginning of the 20^th century, what Era are we in now? The Atomic or Nuclear Era, the Post-Modern Era, the Information Age? Different labels get assigned to the current historical epoch. But don’t we still refer to current trends and fashions as being “modern”? Aren’t we “moderns” in the sense that we’re living NOW? Not many people would want to be considered not modern.It gets confusing because the word modern is plastic with a lot of different meanings and connotations. But here’s where it adds to the confusion as it relates to our discussion on theological liberalism, and some of this spills over into political liberalism. There was a desire to accommodate Christian theology to the modern mind. By which emerging liberals meant accepting the findings of “modern science” as (air-quote) fact and making theology fit into those supposed facts. But there’s a difference, a vast difference between facts and interpretations of facts. A few years after a so-called “Fact” was established by science, others came along to say, “Yeah, uh, we weren’t quite right about that. It’s actually this.” And, it wasn’t uncommon for even that revised new paradigm to be revised yet again.Is coffee good or bad for you? Right now, it’s good. But wait a month and it’ll be bad again, But not to worry, a year out, coffee will be the key to long life and amazing prosperity. Okay. I exaggerate, but not by much.My point is this, the current moment, what we mean by at least ONE of those definitions of “modern” – has a nasty habit of thinking that just by virtue of the fact that we’ve progressed to this point, we’re now smarter, more enlightened and so better than all the moments before this. There’s a kind of arrogance that seems endemic to the fact that we’re here now – the most evolved and educated class of human beings history has known.But a few moments from now, the people living then will think the same thing about themselves and see us as unenlightened bores. And the modern mind will have moved on to the new so-called facts of what turns out to not be science but is in truth scientism.When theology is hitched to “the modern mind” as liberals aimed to do, its eternal verities are traded in for the changing whims of what that is now, and now, then now. And we have to unhitch the adjective ‘eternal’ from those verities – because they simply aren’t true any longer.Okay, end of the editorializing. Adopting the modern view that the universe was a vast harmonious machine, liberals aimed for Unity. They tried merging revelation with natural religion and Christianity with other religions by looking for common themes. Thus, the study of comparative religions was born as an academic pursuit. They aimed to lower the wall between those who were saved and the lost, between God and man.Liberals regarded the traditional and orthodox belief in a transcendent God who exists in a realm above and beyond the natural as stalling their agenda to unify and harmonize. They blurred the lines between the natural and supernatural and equated the spiritual realm with human consciousness. The spiritual realm became little more than the intellectual and emotional activity of human beings. And God was defined as the universal life force that even now is creating the Universe. One liberal said it this way, “Some call it evolution; others call it God.”Remember, theological liberals, aimed to harmonize science with faith. The newest darling on the scientific scene was Darwin and his emerging theory of everything – Evolution by Mutation and Natural Selection. Theological Liberalism had no problem accepting Darwin’s theory.While the challenge of some of the assertions of science to orthodox Christianity was serious, they were secondary to the new views of history. Those views were adopted from the scientific method, which began a rigorous review of the assumptions that had framed classical or traditional history. If facts are based on evidence and repeatable observations, what were we to do with history, which by its very nature refers to the past? Historical criticism became the framework for a new generation of historians and academics. If a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, events regarded by traditional history as certain were now suspect until proven true. Modern sensibilities were read back into and layered over persons and events of the past.The application of these liberal principles of historical inquiry to the Bible was called “biblical criticism.” But don’t understand the term criticism here to be pejorative. Biblical criticism simply meant a study of Scripture in order to discover its real meaning. But Biblical criticism discarded the dogmatics of traditional inquiry in favor of a more rationalistic approach.Biblical criticism flowed into two streams, lower and higher criticism. The low-critic dealt with the problem of the physical manuscripts and codices. Their goal was to find the earliest and most reliable texts of Scripture, as close as possible to the originals. The work of lower criticism helped produce the large number of New Testament manuscripts we have today and assisted translators in the work of producing modern Bible versions.Higher criticism proved to be a very different matter. The high-critic wasn’t so much interested in the accuracy of the text. He was more concerned with the meaning of the text. To get at that meaning, he often read between the lines or went behind the text to the events assumed to have produced it. This meant discovering who wrote it, when, and why. Higher criticism held that we can only get at the meaning of a passage when we see it against its background. Higher critics then went to work, systematically dismantling traditional views regarding hundreds of passages. A beloved Psalm, attributed in the text itself to David, higher critics tell us wasn’t written by King D. All because it has a word scholars say wasn’t used for forty-two years after David. So, it must have been written by the Jews in exile.The methods of Biblical higher criticism weren’t new. They’d been in use for a while on other ancient texts. But during the 19^th century, they were applied to the Bible. And for many liberals, all it took was some scholar with a Ph.D. to say a traditional view of a passage was wrong, it was this other thing, for them to categorically throw over tradition in favor of the new view.Higher criticism agreed generally that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch as both Jews and Christians had universally agreed till then. Instead, they’d been penned by at least four authors. And passages that seemed to be prophetic of future events must have been written after the events they supposedly foretold because modern scientific sensibilities don’t allow for the supernatural. High-critics said the Gospel of John, wasn’t = John’s Gospel, that is.Diverging from the discipline of Biblical Criticism was what’s known as the search for the “historical Jesus.” Liberals like the idea of Jesus, if not the actual Jesus presented in the Gospels. You know, the One Who made a whip and cleared the temple and called people white-washed tombs. A liberal reforming Jesus was someone they could get behind, but not the substitutionary-atoning Jesus of the Epistles because THAT Jesus meant a Holy God whose justice demands a sacrifice to discharge sins. And that was an archaic idea no longer acceptable to modern sensibilities. So, liberal critics assigned themselves the mission of saving Jesus from such barbaric and outdated modes of thinking. They assumed the early church and writers of the Gospels embellished Scripture to that end. It was their task to sift through the text and pull out what was legitimate and what was bogus.Literally dozens of so-called “lives of Jesus” were written during the 19^th century, each claiming it revealed the true, historical Jesus. While most contradicted each other, they nearly all agreed to disavow the miraculous was central to the genuine Jesus story. They were bound to this since “science” proved the impossibility of miracles.Quick editorial comment – Let’s be clear, the scientific method can’t prove miracles are impossible. Miracles are by their very definition outside the realm of scientific investigation because repeatability is one of the required elements of the scientific method. Miracles, by the very definition, are a contravention of the laws that govern the material realm, and AREN’T typically repeatable. Miracles are unexpected!In their quest to merge science and faith, liberal theologians allowed the so-called facts of their time to be the filter through which they re-worked the content of the Christian Faith. They said Jesus not only didn’t work miracles, He never claimed to be the Messiah, or that history would climax in His visible return to establish the kingdom of God.The cumulative effect of all this was the doubt cast on the Bible as the inspired and infallible Word of God as the authority for faith and practice.When higher critics were done, Liberals were free to sort through Scripture to pick and choose what they wished. They read the Bible through the filter of evolution and saw a progression from blood-thirsty deities requiring sacrifices, to the Jews who embraced the idea of a righteous God served by those who pursue justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. This progressive revelation of God reached its climax in Jesus, where God is portrayed as the loving Father of all Humanity.So far, our review of Theological Liberalism has seemed bent toward a tearing down of traditionalism. That looks at just one side of the liberal coin. The other side was the concurrent movement known as Romanticism.During the early 19^th century, Romanticism was a movement that flowed mainly in the artistic and intellectual communities. It looked at life through feelings. The Industrial Age seemed to many to reduce man to a cog in a vast societal machine. Romanticism was an attempt to lift man out of the gears and set him down as a glorious creator and engineer. Man was evolution’s apex achievement and had every right, duty even, to exalt in his lofty place, as well as to aspire to even greater heights. Romanticism focused on the individual and his/her ambitions to attain their ultimate potential. This was the genesis of the Human Potential Movement.So on one hand, liberals aimed for unity, but Romanticism exalted the individual. Liberalism broadened its agenda to unify the two by harmonizing them.Theological liberalism saw itself as the force to do it. Biblical Criticism had rescued the historical Jesus from the muck and mire of traditional orthodoxy. Romanticism then wanted to plant the idea of Jesus in the hearts of all people so they could become all their potential made possible.

136-Push Back

The title of this episode is Push-BackAs we move to wind up this season of CS, we’ve entered into the modern era in our review of Church history and the emergence of Theological Liberalism. Some historians regard the French Revolution as a turning point in the social development of Europe and Western Civilization. The Revolution was in many ways, a result of the Enlightenment, and a harbinger of things to come in the Modern and Post-Modern Eras.At the risk of being simplistic, for convenience sake, let’s set the history of Western Civilization into these eras of Church History.First is the Roman Era, when Christianity was officially opposed and persecuted. That was followed by the Constantinian Era, when the Faith was at first tolerated, then institutionalized. With the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, Europe entered the Middle Ages and the Church was led by Rome in the West, Constantinople in the East.The Middle Ages ended with the Renaissance which swiftly split into two streams, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. While many Europeans broke from the hegemony of the Roman Church to launch Protestant movements, others went further and broke from religious faith altogether in an exaltation of reason. They purposefully stepped away from spirituality toward hard-boiled materialism.This gave birth to the Modern Era, marked by an ongoing tension between Materialistic Rationalism and Philosophical Theism that birthed an entire rainbow of intellectual and faith options.Carrying on this over-simplified review from where our CS episodes have been, the Modern Era then turned into the Post-Modern Era with a full-flowering and widespread academic acceptance of the radical skepticism birthed during the Enlightenment. The promises of the perfection of the human race through technology promised in the Modern Era were shattered by two World Wars and repeated cases of genocide in the 20^th and 21^st Cs. Post-Moderns traded in the bright Modernist expectation of an emerging Golden Age for a dystopian vision of technology-run-amuck, controlled by madmen and tyrants. In a classic post-modern proverb, the author George Orwell said, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”In our last episode, we embarked on a foray into the roots of Theological Liberalism. The themes of the new era were found in the motto of the French Revolution: “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”Liberty was conceived as individual freedom in both the political and economic realms. Liberalism originally referred to this idea of personal liberty in regard to economics and politics. It’s come to mean something very different. Libertarian connects better with the original idea of liberalism than the modern term “liberalism.”In the early 19^th C, liberals promoted the political rights of the middle class. They advocated suffrage and middle-class influence through representative government. In economics, liberals agitated for a laissez faire marketplace where individual enterprise rather than class determined one’s wealth.Equality, second term in the French Revolution’s trio, stood for individual rights regardless of legacy. If liberty was a predominantly middle-class virtue, equality appealed to rural peasants, the urban working class, and the universally disenfranchised. While the middle class and hold-over nobility advocated a laissez-faire economy, the working class began to agitate for equality through a rival philosophy called socialism. Workers inveighed for equality either through the long route of evolution within a democratic system or the shorter path of revolution via Marxism.Fraternity, the third idea in the trinity, was the Enlightenment reaction against all the war and turmoil that marked European history till then; especially the trauma that had rocked the continent through endless political, economic, and religious struggle. Fraternity represented a sense of brotherhood that rolled across Europe in the 19^th C. And while it held the promise of uniting people in the concept of the universal brotherhood of man under the universal Fatherhood of God, it quickly devolved into Nationalism that would only lead to even bloodier conflicts since they were now accompanied by modern weapons.These social currents swirled around the Christian Faith during the first decades of the Age of Progress, but no one predicted the ruination they’d bring the Church of Rome, steeped as it was in an inviolable tradition. For over a thousand years she’d presided over feudal Europe. She enthroned dozens of monarchs and ensconced countless nobles. And like them, the Church gave little thought to the power of peasants and the growing middle class. In regards to social standing, in 18^th C European society, noble birth and holy calling were everything. Intelligence or achievement meant little.Things began to heat up in Europe when Enlightenment thinkers began to question the old order. In the 1760s, several places around the world began to feel the heat of political unrest. There’d always been Radicals who challenged the status quo. It usually ended badly for them; forced to drink hemlock or such. But in the mid and late 18^th C, they became popular advocates for the middle-class and poor. Their demands were similar: The right to participate in politics, the right to vote, the right to greater freedom of expression.The success of the American Revolution inspired European radicals. They regarded Americans as true heirs of Enlightenment ideals. They were passionate about equality; and desired peace, yet ready to fight for freedom. In gaining independence from the world’s most formidable power, Americans proved Enlightenment ideals worked.Then, in the last decade of the 18^th C, France executed its king, became a republic, formed a revolutionary regime, and crawled through a period of brutality into the Imperialism of Napoleon Bonaparte.As we saw in an earlier episode, the Roman Catholic church was so much a part of the old order that revolutionaries often made it an object of their wrath. In the early 1790s, the French National Assembly sought to reform the Church along rationalist lines. But when it eliminated the Pope’s control and required an oath of loyalty on the clergy, it split the Church. The two camps faced off against each other in every village. Between thirty and 40,000 priests were forced into hiding or exile. Atheists recognized the cultural wind was now at their back and pressed for more. Why stop at reforming the Church when you could pry its grip from all society? Radicals moved to remove all traces of Christianity’s influence. They adopted a new calendar and elevated the cult of “Reason.” Some churches were converted to “Temples of Reason.”But by 1794 this farce had spent itself. The following year a statute was passed affirming the free exercise of religion, and loyal Catholics who’d kept a low profile during the Revolution returned. But Rome never forgot. For now, Liberty meant the worship of the goddess of Reason.When Napoleon took control, he struck an agreement with the pope; the Concordat of 1801. It restored Roman Catholicism as the quasi-official religion of France. But the Church had lost much of its prestige and power. Europe would never again be a society held together by an alliance of altar and throne. On the other side of things, Rome never welcomed the liberalism reshaping much of Europe’s courts.As Bruce Shelley aptly remarks, Jesus and the apostles spent little time talking about political freedom, personal liberty, or a person’s right to their opinions. Valuable and important as those things are, they simply do not come into view as values in the appeal of the Gospel. The freedom Christ offers comes through salvation, which places a necessary safeguard on liberty to keep it from becoming a dangerous license.But during the 19^th C, it became popular to think of liberty ITSELF as being free! Free of any and all restraint. Any restriction on freedom was met with a knee-jerk opposition. Everyone ought to be as free as possible. The question then became; just what does that mean. How far does “possible” go?John Stuart Mill suggested this guideline, “The liberty of each, limited by the like liberty of all.” Liberty meant the right to your opinions, the freedom to express and act upon them, but not to the degree that in doing so, you impinge others’ ability to do so with theirs. Politically and civilly, this was best made possible by a constitutional government that guaranteed universal civil liberty, including the freedom to worship according to one’s choice.Popes didn’t like that.In the political and economic vacuum that followed Napoleon, several monarchs tried to re-establish the old systems of Europe. They were resisted by a new and empowered wave of liberals. The first of these liberal uprisings were quickly suppressed in Spain and Italy. But the liberals kept at it and in 1848, revolution temporarily triumphed in most European capitals.Popes Leo XII, Pius VIII, and Gregory XVI by all accounts were good men. But they ignored the emerging modernity of 19^th century Europe by clinging to a moribund past.There are those who would say it’s not the duty of the Church to keep pace with changing times. The truths of God don’t change. So on the contrary, the Church is to remain resolute in holding to The Faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Faithfulness to the essentials of the Christian Faith is not what we’re referring to here. You can change the flooring in your house without agreeing with the world. Some Popes of the late 18^th to mid 19^th century seemed to kind of pull the blinds of Vatican windows, trying to keep out the philosophical ideas then sweeping the Continent. That posture toward the wider culture tended to only further alienate the intellectual community.This early form of Liberalism wanted to address historic evils that have plagued humanity. But it refused to allow the Catholic Church a role in that work as it related to morality and public life. Liberals said politics ought to be independent of Christian ethics. Catholics had rights as private citizens, but their Faith wasn’t welcome in the public arena. This is part of the creeping secularism we talked about in the last episode.One of the lingering symbols of papal ties to the Medieval world was the Papal States where the Pope was both spiritual leader and civil ruler. In the mid-19^th C, a movement for Italian unity began that aimed to turn the entire peninsula into a single nation. Such a revolution wouldn’t tolerate the Papal States. Liberals welcomed Pope Pius IX, who seemed a reforming Pope who’d listen to their counsel. In 1848, he installed a new constitution for the Papal States granting moderate participation in government. This movement toward liberal ideals moved some to suggest the Pope as leader over a unified Italy. But when Pius’ appointed Prime Minister of the Papal States was assassinated by revolutionaries, Pius rescinded the new constitution. Instead of putting the revolution down, it broke out in Rome itself and Pius had to flee. With French assistance, he returned and returned the Papal states to an absolutist regime. Opposition grew under the leadership of King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. In 1859 and 60 large sections of the Papal States were carved away by nationalists. Then in March of 1861, Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy in Florence.But the City of Rome was protected by a French garrison. When the Franco-Prussian War forced the withdrawal of French troops, Italian nationalists invaded. After a short engagement in September of 1870, Rome surrendered. After lasting for a millennium, the Papal States were no more.Pius IX holed up in the Vatican. Then in June 1871, King Victor Emmanuel transferred his residence to Rome, ignoring the protests and threatened ex-communication by the pope. The new government offered Pius an annual salary together with the free and unhindered exercise of his religious roles. But the Pope rejected the offer and continued his protests. He forbade Italy’s Catholics to participate in political affairs. That just left the field open to more radicals. The result was a growing anticlerical course in Italian civil affairs. This condition became known as the “Roman Question.” It had no resolution until Benito Mussolini concluded the Lateran Treaty in February 1929. The treaty stipulated that the pope must renounce all claims to the Papal States, but received full sovereignty in the tiny Vatican State. This condition exists to this day.1870 not only marks the end of the rule of the pope of civil affairs in Italy, it also saw the declaration of his supreme authority as the Bishop of Rome in a doctrine called “Papal Infallibility.” The First Vatican Council, which hammered out the doctrine, represented the culmination of a movement called “ultramontanism” meaning “across the mountains.” Originally referring to the Pope’s hegemony beyond the Alps into the rest of Europe, the term eventually came to mean over and beyond any mountain. Ultramontanism formalized the Pope’s right to lead the Church.It came about thus . . .Following the French Revolution (and here we are yet again, recognizing the importance of that revolution in European and world affairs) an especially strong sense of loyalty to the Pope developed there. After the nightmare of the guillotine and the cultural trauma of Napoleon’s reign, many Catholics came to regard the papacy as the only source of civil order and public morality. They believed only popes were capable of restoring sanity to society. Only the papacy had the power to guide the clergy to protect religion from political coercion.Infallibility was suggested as a necessary prerequisite for an effective papacy. The Church had to become a monarchy adjudicating God’s will. Shelley says as sovereignty was to secular kings, infallibility would be to popes.By the mid-19^th C, this thinking attracted many Catholics. Popes encouraged it in every possible way. One publication said when the pope meditated, God was thinking in him. Hymns appeared that were addressed, not to God, but to Pius IX. Some even spoke of the Pope as the vice-God of humanity.In December 1854, Pius IX declared as dogma The Immaculate Conception; a belief that had been traditional but not official; that Mary was conceived without original sin. The subject of the decision was nothing new. What was, however, was the way it was announced. This wasn’t dogma defined by a creed produced by a council. It was an ex-cathedra proclamation by the Pope. Ex Cathedra means “from the chair,” and defines an official doctrine issued by the teaching magisterium of the Holy Church.Ten years after unilaterally announcing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, Pius sent out an encyclical to all bishops of the Church. He attached a Syllabus of Errors, a compilation of eighty evils then in place in society. He declared war on socialism, rationalism, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, public schools, Bible societies, separation of church and state, and a host of other so-called errors of the Modern Era. He ended by denying that “the Roman pontiff ought to reach an agreement with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”It was a hunker down and rally round an infallible pope mentality that aimed to enter a kind of spiritual hibernation, only emerging when Modernity had impaled itself on its own deadly horns and bled to death.Pius saw the need for a new universal council to address the Church’s posture toward Modernity and its philosophical partner, Liberalism. He began planning for it in 1865 and called the First Vatican Council to convene at the end of 1869.The question of the definition of papal infallibility was all the buzz. Catholics had little doubt that as the successor of Peter the Pope possessed special authority. The only question was how far that authority went. Could it be exercised independently from councils or the college of bishops?After some discussion and politicking, 55 bishops who couldn’t agree to the doctrine as stated were given permission by the Pope to leave Rome, so as not to create dissension. The final vote was 533 for the doctrine of infallibility. Only 2 voted against it. The Council asserted 2 fundamentals: 1) The primacy of the pope and 2) His infallibility.First, as the successor of Peter, vicar of Christ, and supreme head of the Church, the pope exercises full authority over the whole Church and over individual bishops. That authority extends to all matters of faith and morals as well as to discipline and church administration. Consequently, bishops owe the pope obedience.Second, when the pope in his official capacity, that is ex cathedra, makes a final decision concerning the entire Church in a matter of faith and morals, that decision is infallible and immutable and does not require the consent of a Council.The strategy of the ultramontanists, led by Pius IX, shaped the lives of Roman Catholics for generations. Surrounded by the hostile forces of modernity; liberalism and socialism, Rome withdrew behind the walls of an infallible papacy.

135-Liberal

The title of this episode of CS is Liberal.The term “modern” as it relates to the story of history, has been treated differently by dozens of authors, historians, and sociologists. Generally speaking, Modernization is the process by which agricultural and rural traditions morph into an industrial, technological, and urban milieu that tends to be democratic, pluralistic, socialist, and/or individualistic.In the minds of many, the process of modernization is evidence of the validity of evolution. The idea is that evolution not only applies to the increasing complexity and adaptation of biological life, it also applies sociologically to civilization and human systems. They too are evolving. So, progress is good; a sign of societal evolution.But critics of modernization decry the abuses it often creates. Not all modern innovations are beneficial. The increased emphasis on individual rights can weaken a person’s sense of belonging to and identity in a family and community. It weakens loyalty to valuable traditions and customs. Modernization builds new weapons that may encourage their inventors to assume they’re superior, then use them to subjugate and dominate those they deem inferior, appropriating their land and resources.Modernization is often linked to a creeping secularization, a turning away from theistic religion. Periodic revivals are viewed as just momentary blips in societal evolution; temporary distractions in progress toward the realization of the Enlightenment dream of a totally secular society.It was during the 19^th C that the rationalist ideas of the Enlightenment finally moved out of the halls of academia to settle in as the status quo for European society. Christians found themselves caught up in a world of mind-numbing change. Their cherished beliefs were assailed by hostile critics. Authors like Marx and Nietzsche attacked the Christian Faith from a base in Darwin’s popular new theory.In an attempt to accommodate Faith and Reason, Ludwig Feuerbach, author of The Essence of Christianity, published in 1841, reduced the idea of God to that of a man. He said God is really just the projection of specific human qualities raised to the level of perfection.In 1855, Ludwig Büchner suggested that science dispensed with the need for supernaturalism. A materialist, he was one of the first to say that the advent of modern science meant there was no longer a need to explain phenomena by appealing to the miraculous or some ethereal spiritual realm. No such realm existed, except in the minds of those who refused to accept what science proved. He said, “The power of spirits and gods dissolve in the hands of science.”During the last half of the 19^th C, Frederic Nietzsche made the case for atheism. Son of a Lutheran pastor, Nietzsche received an education in theology and philology at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig.An amateur musician, Nietzsche became friends with composer Richard Wagner, who like Nietzsche, admired the atheist Schopenhauer.In Nietzsche’s philosophy, we see the fruit of something we looked at in an earlier episode. The rationalist emphasis on reason divorced from faith leads ultimately to irrationality because it claims omniscience. By saying there IS no realm but the material realm, it closes itself off to even the possibility of a non-material realm. Yet the process of reason leads inevitably and inexorably to the conclusion there MUST be a realm of being, a category of existence beyond, apart from the material realm of nature.So Nietzsche embraced what has to be called non-rational ideas as the source for creativity, what he called “true living,” and art. An early indication his mind was fracturing, he identified as a follower of Dionysus, god of sexual debauchery and drunkenness. It’s no surprise he indicted Christianity as promoting all that which was weak. He hated its emphasis on humility and its acceptance of the role of guilt in aiming to better people by moving them to repentance and renouncing self. For Nietzsche, the self was the savior. He advocated for people to exalt themselves and unapologetically assert their quest for power. He coined the term Übermensch, the superman whose been utterly liberated from the outdated mores of Biblical Christianity and governed by nothing but truth and reason. This superman decides for himself what’s right or wrong.Nietzsche claimed “God is dead,” so no absolutes exist. There were no facts, only interpretations. Many creatives; authors, painters, and researchers were inspired by Nietzsche and used his writings as inspiration.It was at this time that advocates for what was called comparative religions argued Christianity ought to be studied as just one of several religions rather than from a confessional perspective that views it as TRUE. The assumption was that religion, just like everything else, had evolved from a primitive to a more complex state. A comparative study might find the core idea that united all religions, just as paleontologists looked for the common ancestor to man and apes.By the second half of the 19^th C, derivations of the word “secular,” along with new words like agnostic, and eugenics, were part of European vocabularies. Secularization was identified with an emerging modernist separation of morality from traditional religion.Thomas Huxley minted the word agnostic to distinguish mere skeptics from hard-boiled atheists. It seems his development of the term may have actually helped many students, academics, and members of the upper classes in Victorian England shed traditional religious faith and embrace Rationalist-styled unbelief. They did so because they could now express their growing discomfort with supernaturalism without having to go all the way and declaim any belief in a Supreme being. It provided some philosophical wiggle room.Francis Galton introduced the word eugenics in 1883 to designate efforts to make the human race better by “improved” breeding. Galton, an evolutionary scientist, believed eugenics would favor the fittest human beings and suppress the birth of the unfit.In light of all this, it’s not hard to understand why Christian leaders were suspicious that “modernity” and “secularization” seemed to go hand in hand. Many materialists came right out and said they were the same; to be modern meant to be secular and hostile to religious faith.In 1874 John Draper published the hugely influential History of the Conflict between Science and Religion, in which he said religion is the inveterate enemy of reason and science. European society in particular saw a collapse of the political, religious, and social masters that had steered it for centuries. In their place intellectuals emerged who sought a secular substitute to traditional religion.What made this process seemingly unstoppable was the results of modernization and the fruit of technology rapidly enhancing the quality of life across the continent. Many Christians felt they faced a losing battle defending the faith, “once for all delivered to the saints” against the onslaught of a science delivering such wonderful tools every other week.They began to wonder if they could remain “orthodox” while becoming “modern” Christians.That challenge was complicated by the work of Charles Darwin. What made it an even greater challenge was when believers heard from scientists who said they were Christians, who told them Darwin was right. Humans were descended from the apes, not Adam and Eve.Others, like Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, boldly declared Darwin’s ideas incompatible with Scripture. In 1860, Wilberforce published a well-crafted and lengthy response to the Origin of Species. He praised Darwin’s research and engaging style and even gave a nod to Darwin’s admission to being a Christian. But Wilberforce was careful to mark out many of Darwin’s claims as erroneously conceived.Wilberforce said God is the Author of both the Books of Nature and Scripture. So it’s not possible for the two to contradict each other. It’s been the object of one branch of Apologetics to justify that ever since.In October 1860, Bishop Wilberforce and Huxley engaged in a famous debate at the British Association in Oxford over Darwin’s theories. Huxley shrewdly portrayed the cleric as meddling in scientific matters beyond his competency. Wilberforce used a classic debate rhetorical device that had little to do with the substance of the debate but would prejudice the audience against his opponent. Huxley took the barb, then turned it around and used it to paint Wilberforce as HAVING to use such tactics because of the supposed weakness of his argument. If the Bishop had stuck to the content of his original article in the British Digest, he’d have fared much better.The debate over Darwin’s theory took many turns. Some wondered if he was right that evolutionary processes were progressive in the sense that they moved toward a species perfection. Darwin had said, “As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.” Supporters of Darwinism had a rationale for what came to be known as Social Darwinism with its advocacy for racism and eugenics.Ernst Haeckel introduced Darwinism to Germany. A brilliant zoologist, in 1899, Haeckel published The Riddle of the Universe, in which he argued for a basic unity between organic and inorganic matter. He denied the immortality of the soul, the existence of a personal God, promoted infanticide, suicide, and the elimination of the unfit. Using a hundred lithographs drawn from nature (1904), Haeckel campaigned for the teaching of evolutionary biology in Germany as fact. This was in contrast with the many scientists who viewed Darwinism as an evolving theory.At the dawn of the 20^th C, the debate over Darwinism continued. As early as 1910, some claimed the theory of evolution was already dead. As subsequent history has shown, yeah –uh, not quite.Under mounting pressure, Europeans who wanted to be considered “modern, scholarly” yet remain “Christian” often made accommodations in the way they expressed their faith. Early in the century, liberal theologians found new ways to describe and explain the Christian faith. Friedrich Schleiermacher proposed that Truth in Christianity was located in a personal religious experience, not in its historical events or correspondence to reality. He criticized Scholastic Protestant orthodoxy emphasizing assent to propositions about God. He said what was far more important was one’s subjective experience of the divine.Later in the century, Catholic modernists said the Roman Catholic Church must accommodate the advances in knowledge made by higher criticism and Darwinism. They also declaimed the lack of democracy in the running of the Church. Pushing back against all this in 1910 Pope Pius X condemned modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies.”Faced with such dramatic changes and challenges, many 19^th C Christians felt the need to define and defend their faith in new ways. That wasn’t an easy task in light of some of the charges being made against it. Those who wanted to align the Faith with the modern scholarship discovered its rules tended to ensconce naturalist presuppositions that allowed no room for the supernaturalism required in theism.Anglicans and those in the Oxford Movement saw no such need to adjust their beliefs. They simply reaffirmed the authority of their faith communities and emphasized the importance of confessions, creeds, and Scripture. In mid-July, 1833, the Anglican theologian John Keble preached a famous sermon titled, “National Apostasy,” which triggered the beginning of the Oxford Movement. Keble warned about the repercussions of forsaking the Anglican Church.We’ll take a closer look at the emergence of Theological Liberalism in our next episode.

134-Coping

The title of this episode is Coping.It’s time once again to lay down our focus on the Western Church to see what’s happening in the East.With the arrival of Modernity, the Church in Europe and the New World was faced with the challenge of coping in what we’ll call the post-Constantine era. The social environment was no longer favorable toward Christianity. The institutional Church could no longer count on the political support it enjoyed since the 4^th C. The 18^th C saw Western Christianity faced with the challenge of secular states that may not be outright hostile but tended to ignore it.In the East, Christianity faced far more than benign neglect for a long time. When Constantinople fell in 1453 to the Turks, The Faith came under a repressive regime that alternately neglected and persecuted it.While during the Middle Ages in Europe, Popes were often more powerful than Kings, the Byzantine Emperor ruled the Church. Greek patriarchs were functionaries under his lead. If they failed to comply with his dictates, they were deposed and replaced by those who would. When the Emperor decided reuniting with Rome was required to save the empire, the reunion was accomplished against the counsel of Church leaders. Then, just a year later, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Many Eastern Christians regarded this calamity as a blessing. They viewed it as liberation from a tyrannical emperor who’d forced them into a union with a heretical church in Rome.The new Ottoman regime initially granted the Church limited freedom. Since the patriarch fled to Rome, the conqueror of Constantinople, Mohammed II, allowed the bishops to elect a new patriarch. He was given both civil and ecclesiastical authority over Christians in the East. In the capital, half the churches were converted to mosques. The other half were allowed to continue worship without much change.In 1516, the Ottomans conquered the ancient seat of Middle Eastern Christianity in Syria and Palestine. The church there was put under the oversight of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Then, when Egypt fell a year later, the Patriarch of Alexandria was given authority over all Christians in Egypt. Under the Ottomans, Eastern Church Patriarchs had vast power over Christians in their realm, but they only served at the Sultan’s pleasure and were often deposed for resisting his policies.In 1629, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, wrote what was considered by many, a Protestant treatise titled Confession of Faith. He was then deposed and executed. Fifty years later, a synod condemned him as a “Calvinist heretic.” But by the 18^th C, the Reformation wasn’t a concern of the Eastern Church. What was, was the arrival of Western philosophy and science. In the 19^th C, when Greece gained independence from Turkey, the debate became political. Greek nationalism advocated Western methods of academics and scholarship. The Greeks also demanded that the Greek Church ought to be independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Conservatives wanted to subsume scholarship under tradition and retain allegiance to Constantinople.During the 19^th and early 20^th Cs, the Ottoman Empire broke up, allowing national Orthodox churches to form in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The tension between nationalist and conservative Orthodoxy dominated the scene. In the period between the two world wars, the Patriarch of Constantinople acknowledged the autonomy of Orthodox churches in the Balkans, Estonia, Latvia, and Czechoslovakia.Early in the 20^th C, the ancient patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch were ruled by Arabs. But the newly formed states existed under the shadow of Western powers. This was a time when out of a desire to identify with larger groups who could back them up politically and militarily, a large number of Middle Eastern Christians became either Catholic or Protestant. But an emergent Arab nationalism reacted against Western influence. The growth of both Protestantism and Catholicism was curbed. By the second half of the 20^th C, the only nations where Eastern Orthodox Christianity retained its identity as a state church were Greece and Cyprus.The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was viewed by Russian Christians as God’s punishment for its reunion with the heretical Rome. They regarded Moscow as the “3^rd Rome” and the new capital whose task was to uphold Orthodoxy. In 1547, Ivan IV took the title “czar,” drawn from the ancient “Caesar” a proper name that had come to mean “emperor.” The Russian rulers deemed themselves the spiritual heirs to the Roman Empire. Fifty years later, the Metropolitan of Moscow took the title of Patriarch. The Russian Church then churned out a barrage of polemics against the Greek Orthodox Church, Roman Catholics, and Protestants. By the 17^th C, the Russian Orthodox Church was so independent when attempts were made by some to re-integrate the Church with its Orthodox brothers, it led to a schism in the Russian church and a bloody rebellion.Now—I just used the term “metropolitan.” We mentioned this in an earlier episode, but now would be a good time for a recap on terms.The Roman Catholic Church is presided over by a Pope whose authority is total, complete. The Eastern Orthodox Church is led by a Patriarch, but his authority isn’t as far-reaching as the Pope. Technically, his authority extends just to his church. But realistically, because his church is located in an important center, his influence extends to all the churches within the sphere of his city. While there is only one pope, there might be several Patriarchs who lead various branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church.A Metropolitan equates loosely to an arch-bishop; someone who leads a church that influences the churches around it.Peter the Great’s desire to westernize a recalcitrant Russia led to an interest on the part of Russian clergy in both Catholic and Protestant theology. Orthodoxy wasn’t abandoned; it was simply embellished with new methods. The Kievan school adopted a Catholic flavor while the followers of Theophanes Prokopovick leaned toward Protestantism. In the late 19^th C, a Slavophile movement under the leadership of Alexis Khomiakov applied some of Hegel’s analytics to make a synthesis called sobornost; a merging of the Catholic idea of authority with the Protestant view of freedom.Obviously, the Russian Revolution at the beginning of the 20^th C put an end to all this with the arrival of a different Western Philosophy - Marxism. In 1918, the Church was officially separated from the State. The Russian Constitution of 1936 guaranteed “freedom for religious worship” but also “freedom for anti-religious propaganda.” In the 1920s, religious instruction in schools was outlawed. Seminaries were closed. After the death of the Russian Patriarch in 1925, the Church was forbidden to name a successor until 1943. The State needed all the help it could get rallying the population in the war with Germany. The seminaries were re-opened and permission was given to print a limited number of religious books.In the late 20^th C, after 70 years of Communist rule, the Russian Orthodox Church still had 60 million members.In a recent conversation I had with a woman who grew up in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet Era, she remarked that under the Communists the Church survived, though few attended services. Freedom of religion was the official policy under the Soviets. But in reality, those who professed faith in God were marked down and passed over for education, housing, and other amenities, thin as they were under the harsh Soviet heel. You could be a Christian under Communism; but if you were, you were pretty lonely.Several years ago, when Russia opened to the rest of the world, I had a chance to go in with a team to teach the Inductive Study method as part of Russia’s attempt to teach its youth morality and ethics.A senior citizen attended the class who between sessions regaled us with tales of being a believer under Communism. He looked like something straight out of an old, grimy black and white photo of a wizened old man with thinning white hair whose wrinkled face speaks volumes in the suffering he’d endured. He told us that he’d spent several stints in Russian prisons for refusing to kowtow to the Party line and steadfastly cleaving to his faith in God.It’s remarkable the Church survived under Communism in the Soviet Bloc. Stories of the fall of the Soviets in the early ’80s are often the tale of a resurgent Church.There are other Orthodox churches in various parts of the world. There’s the Orthodox Church of Japan, China, and Korea. These communions, begun by Russian missionaries, are today, indigenous and autonomous, with a national clergy and membership, as well as a liturgy conducted in their native tongue.Due to social strife, political upheavals, persecution, and the general longing for a better life, large numbers of Orthodox believers have moved to distant lands. But as they located in their new home, they often transported the old tensions. Orthodoxy believes there can only be a single Orthodox congregation in a city. So, what to do when there are Greek, Russian or some other flavor of Eastern Orthodox believers all sharing the same community?Keep in mind not all churches in the East are part of Eastern Orthodoxy. Since the Christological controversies in the 5^th C, a number of churches that disagreed with established creeds maintained their independence. In Persia, most Christians refused to refer to Mary as Theotokos = the Mother of God. They were labeled as Nestorians and declared heretical; though as we saw way back when we were looking at all this, Nestorius himself was not a heretic. Nestorians are more frequently referred to as Assyrian Christians, with a long history. During the Middle Ages, the Assyrian church had many members with missions extending as far as China. In modern times, the Assyrian Church has suffered severe persecution from Muslims. Early in the 20^th C and again more recently, persecution decimated its members. Recent predations by ISIS were aimed at these brethren.Those churches that refused to accept the findings of the Council of Chalcedon were called Monophysites because they elevated the deity of Christ over His humanity to such a degree it seemed to make that humanity irrelevant. The largest of these groups were the Copts of Egypt and Ethiopia. The Ethiopian church was the last Eastern church to receive State support. That support ended with the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974. The ancient Syrian Monophysite Church, known more popularly as Jacobite, continued in Syria and Iraq. Its head was the Patriarch of Antioch who lived in Damascus. Technically under this patriarchate, but in reality autonomous, the Syrian Church in India has half a million members.As we saw in a previous episode, the Armenian Church also refused to accept the Chalcedonian Creed, because it resented the lack of support from Rome when the Persians invaded. When the Turks conquered Armenia, the fierce loyalty of the Armenians to their faith became one more spark that lit the fuse of ethnic hostility. In 1895, 96, and again in 1914 when the world was distracted elsewhere by The Great War, thousands of Armenians living under Turkish rule were massacred. A million escaped to Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Greece, France, and other Western nations where the memory of the Armenian Holocaust lives on and continues to play an important role in international relations and the development of foreign policy.

133-Coming Apart

This episode is titled Coming ApartEurope in the late 19^th C was recovering from the Napoleonic Wars. War-weary, nations longed for a prolonged peace in which to take a breath, and consider HOW they were going to rebuild from the devastation recent conflicts had left. A plethora of new economic and political theories were available for them to choose from as they rebuilt. Most settled on economic and political ideas that were more liberal toward individual rights. The prosperity that marked Holland became a model for a good part of Europe as they moved to a free-market system. With few exceptions, the governments of Europe adopted modified parliamentary systems.This is the time when Europe moved from kingdoms to the more modern notion of nation-states. Religious affiliation keying off the Reformation and Counter-reformation often played a part in defining borders. For instance, under the influence of Prussian leadership, Germany was fiercely Protestant while Austria was doggedly Roman Catholic. Belgium was Catholic while The Netherlands were Protestant.But maybe the most important development that occurred from the mid to late 19^th C in Europe was the escalating divide between church and state.Following the Reformation, in those regions where Protestantism reigned, the church maintained a relationship with the State, much as the Catholic Church had before. But after the French Revolution, things changed. This was due to the emerging power of civil governments no longer beholden to clerical authority. The laisse-faire economics practiced across Europe birthed an economic boom that had a remarkable impact on the way people regarded much more than just economics. While many nations kept a State church subsidized by public funds, there was a boom in free churches supported solely by the offerings of their members. Being economically independent, they didn’t see the need to comply with some overarching ecclesiastical hierarchy. Freedom of thought and the freedom of the individual conscience so exalted by Enlightenment philosophy was linked solidly to the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura, so that people valued their right to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. It got to the point where the free churches considered themselves as the real bastions of orthodoxy since their doctrine wasn’t tainted by economic interests and the need to endorse the State in order to keep their subsidy.While Great Britain followed a parallel track to that of the Continent in the 19^th C, the Industrial Revolution had a greater impact there. The Industrial Revolution benefitted the middle class and those entrepreneurs who rode its wave, while diminishing the wealth and influence of the old nobility and pulverizing the poor. The too-rapid growth of cities led to overcrowding, slums, and increased crime. The poor lived in miserable conditions and were exploited at work. That led to a mass migration to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. It also led to the birth of the Labor Party which became a potent force in British politics. It was in England, against the back-drop of the abuses of the Industrial Revolution, that Karl Marx developed many of his economic theories.All this influenced the Church in England. During the French Revolution, it held several of the evils that had characterized the worst of the medieval church: Errors such as clerical absenteeism and holding multiple church offices for nothing more than personal gain. Then, a major renewal shook the Church of England. A reform-minded clergy took charge and bolstered by laws enacted by Parliament, were able to roll back the abuses. These reformers where of the Evangelical movement within Anglicanism, Pietists who longed to move away from the high-church magisterialism of Anglicanism to a greater solidarity with Continental Protestantism. A counter-movement responded in the Oxford movement, which produced a kind of Anglo-Catholicism. Heavily influenced by Romanticism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the Oxford movement emphasized the authority of tradition, apostolic succession, and Communion, rather than preaching, as the center of Christian worship.But it was in the free churches in England that most spiritual vitality was found during the late 19^th C. The growth of the middle-class resulted in an surge in membership at free churches. Outreaches to the poor helped alleviate the suffering of tens of thousands. Others worked to enact laws to curb abuse of workers. This was also a time a massive missionary outreach from England. In a desire to help the poor, Sunday Schools were started. Others organized the Young Men’s Christian Association, the YMCA, as well as a women’s version, YWCA. New denominations were born, like the Salvation Army, whose primary focus was to help urban poor.Methodists, Quakers, and others led in the founding of labor unions, prison reform, and child labor laws. But the most important accomplishment of British Christians during the 19^th C was the abolition of slavery. Quakers and Methodists had condemned slavery for yrs. But now, thanks to the leadership of William Wilberforce and other believers, the British government ended slavery. They first ended the slave trade. Then decreed freedom for slaves in the Caribbean. Following that, slavery ended in other English colonies. The British prevailed on other nations to end the slave trade. The British Navy was authorized to use force against slavers. Soon, most Western nations had abolished slavery.In the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of Latin America in the 19^th C, the tension between the immigrants recently arrived from Europe called peninsulares;, and the criollos; descendants of earlier immigrants, was high. The criollos had become wealthy by exploitation of Indians and slaves. They thought themselves more astute at running the affairs of the colony than the recently arrived peninsulares. The problem was, the peninsulares had been appointed to both governmental and ecclesiastical positions by officials back home. Despite the fact that the wealth of the colonies had been dug out by the sweat and toil of the native population and imported slaves, the criollos claimed they were the cause of the wealth. So they resented the intrusion of the peninsulares. Although remaining faithful subjects, they abhorred laws that favored the home country at the expense of the colonies. Since they had the means to travel to Europe, many of them returned home imbued with the new political and economic ideologies of the Continent. The criollos were to Latin America what the bourgeoisie was to France.In 1808, Napoleon deposed Spain’s King Ferdinand VII, and replaced him with his brother Joseph Bonaparte. Resistance to King Joe centered at Cadiz, where a council called a “junta” ruled in the name of the deposed Spanish monarch. Local juntas were also set up Latin America. The colonies began ruling themselves, in the name of the Spanish king. Then when Ferdinand was restored in 1814, instead of gratitude for those who’d preserved his territories, he reversed all that the juntas had done. When he abolished the constitution the Cadiz junta had issued, the reaction was so strong he had to reinstate it. In the colonies, the criollo resentment was so strong to his iron-fisted attempt to re-assert control, they rebelled. In what is today Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay—the junta simply ignored the mandates from Spain and continued governing until independence was proclaimed in 1816. Two years later, Chile followed suit. To the north, Simón Bolívar’s army defeated the Spanish and proclaimed independence for Greater Colombia; which was eventually broken up into Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama. Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivar soon joined the independence parade.Brazilian independence came about as fallout from the Napoleonic Wars. In 1807, fleeing Napoleon’s armies, the Portuguese court took refuge in Brazil. In 1816, João [joo-auo] VI was restored to rule but showed no desire to return to Portugal until forced to 5 years later. He left his son Pedro as regent of Brazil. When HE was called back to Portugal, Pedro refused and proclaimed Brazilian independence. He was crowned Emperor Pedro I. But he was never really allowed to rule as his title implied. He was forced to accept a parliamentary system of government.Events in Mexico followed a different course. The criollos planned a power-grab from the peninsulares but when the conspiracy was discovered, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, proclaimed Mexican independence on Sept 16, 1810 at the head of a motely mob of 60,000 Indians and mestizos—persons of mixed Indian and Spanish blood. When Hidalgo was captured and killed, he was succeeded by the priest José María Morelos. The criollos regained power for a time, but under the leadership of Benito Juárez, native Mexicans re-asserted control. Central America, originally part of Mexico, declared independence in 1821, and later broke up into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.Haiti’s independence was another result of the French Revolution. As soon as the French Revolution deprived the white population on the island of military support, the majority blacks rebelled. Independence was proclaimed in 1804, acknowledged by France in 1825.Throughout the 19^th C, the overarching ideological debate in Latin America was between liberals and conservatives. Leaders of both groups belonged to the upper class. And while conservatives tended to be located in a landed aristocracy, liberals found their support among the merchants and intellectuals in urban centers. Conservatives feared freedom of thought and free enterprise while those were cardinal virtues for liberals, because they were modern and were suited to their interests as the merchant class. While conservatives looked to Spain, liberals looked to Great Britain, France, and the USA. But neither group was willing to alter the social order so lower classes could share the wealth. The result was a long series of both liberal and conservative dictatorships, of revolutions, and violence. By the turn of the century, many agreed with Bolívar that the continent was ungovernable. The Mexican Revolution seemed to make the point. It began in 1910 and led to a long period of violence and disorder that impoverished the land and caused many to emigrate.Throughout this colonial period in Latin America, the Church was under Patronato Real = Royal Patronage. The governments of Spain and Portugal appointed the bishops for the colonies. Therefore, the higher offices of the church were peninsulares while criollos and mestizos formed lower clergy. While a few bishops came to support the cause of independence, most supported the crown. After independence, most returned to Spain, leaving their seats empty.Now, we might think, “Well, that’s not difficult to sort out. Why didn’t those local sees just appoint their own bishops?” They wanted to, but in the tussle between Spain claiming the right to appoint bishops and the locals claiming the right, the Pope wavered. He did so because Spain was still a much-needed ally, while the new nations of Latin America were a substantial part of the Catholic flock. Papal encyclicals tried to walk a thin line between honoring European monarchs while at the same time culling back to the Vatican the ability to name its own bishops. It was a political sticky wicket that dominated the diplomatic scene for years.The attitude of the lower clergy, again, made up mostly of criollos and mestizos, contrasted with that of the bishops who tended conservative. In Mexico, three out of four priests supported the rebellion. Sixteen out of the twenty-nine signatories of Argentina’s Declaration of Independence were priests.You may remember the Liberation Theology movement popular across Latin America in the early 80’s. It was led largely by Roman Catholic priests. They followed in the footprints of earlier priests from a century before.

132-Off with Their Heads

The title of this 132^nd episode is “Off with Their Heads.”In this installment, we give a brief review of the French Revolution, which may not seem at first blush to have much to do with Church History. Ahh, but it does. For this reason: What we see in the French Revolution is a proto-typical example of the Church, by which the institutional church, not necessarily the Christian Gospel and Faith, collided with Modernity.Some astute CS subscribers may take exception to this, but I’ll say it anyway è In the French Revolution we see the boomerang of the Enlightenment that sprang FROM the Renaissance, come back round to give the Church a mighty slap in the face. The Renaissance opened the door to new ways of thinking, which led first to the Reformation, which cracked the Roman Church’s monopoly on religion and made it possible for people to not only believe differently, but to go even further to choose not to believe at all. Rationalism may have ended up agnostic and atheistic, but it didn’t begin there. Some of the first and greatest scientists worked their science in the context of a Biblical worldview, as we’ve shown in previous episodes. And the earliest rationalist philosophers based their work on the evolving theology of Protestant scholastics.It was during the French Revolution when the dog bit the hand that had fed it. Or maybe better, when the lion mauled its trainer.The French monarch Louis XVI was a weak ruler and an inept politician. Economic conditions grew worse, especially for the poor, while of the king and his court were profligate in spending. In a desperate need to raise funds, the king convened the Estates General, the French parliament.It was composed of three orders, three Estates; the clergy, the nobility and the middle-class bourgeoisie. Louis’ advisors suggested he enlarge that Third Estate of the middle class so he could coerce the other two estates of clergy and nobility to comply with his request for more taxes. The ranks of the clergy were then enlarged as well by adding many parish priests to offset the bishops who were largely drawn from the French nobility. These priests were no friend to the nobles.When the assembly gathered in early May, 1789, the Third Estate had more members than the other two combined. And among the clergy less than a third were nobles. The Third Estate insisted the Parliament function as a single chamber. The Clergy and Nobility were used to operating separately so that there were three votes. They usually united to vote down anything the Third Estate of the Middle class came up with. A row ensued, but when priests sided with middle class members, it was decided things would be decided by a united house and simple majority vote. The nobility balked so Priests and Bourgeoisie formed anew body they called the National Assembly, claiming they were now the legal government and represented the nation. Two days later the entire Clergy joined the National Assembly.The economy worsened, and hunger was widespread. Fearing what the National Assembly might do, the Crown ordered it to disband and forcibly closed the doors. Its members refused to comply and continued working on a new Constitution. The king moved troops to the outskirts of Paris and deposed a prominent and popular member of the opposition government named Jacques Necker. Parisians expressed their outrage by rioting in a bout of civil unrest that reached a climax on July 14, when they took the Bastille, a fortress that served as an armory, bunker, and prison for those who’d run afoul of the Crown.From that point on, things moved quickly toward full-fledged revolution. Three days later the king capitulated and recognized the authority of the National Assembly as the new government. The Assembly then issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which became foundational to democratic movements in France and other nations. But when Louis reneged and refused to accept the Assembly’s decisions, Paris rioted yet again. The royal family became prisoners in the capital.The National Assembly then moved to reorganized France’s government, economy, and religion. The most important step in this was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, put into effect in 1790.For centuries the French church had been governed by Gallican liberties, protecting it from interference by Rome. French bishops had a buddy-system with the French Throne. But now, with the Crown gutted of authority, the National Assembly assumed the role in the Church the king had played. Recognizing the need for reform, they set to work. A the peak of church hierarchy were members of the aristocracy. These prelates weren’t used to the real work of shepherding God’s flock. Their seat was a matter of income and prestige, pomp and ceremony. Monasteries and abbeys had become private clubs filled with debauchery. Abbots were known, not for their simple homespun smocks and bare feet, but for their excessive luxury and crafty political intrigues.Some members of the Assembly wanted to reform the church. Others were convinced the Church and the Faith it was supposed to stand as the eternal servant of, was naught but a lot of hog-wash, silly superstition from times long past, and ought now be swept away. Those voices were few at first, but their numbers grew and took the foreground later in the Revolution.Most of the measures the Assembly proposed aimed at reform of the Church. But the deeper challenge leveled by some was, did the Assembly even have authority to make changes? Since when did the civil government have a say in Church affairs? And hold on – since the Reformation introduced a divide between Protestants and Catholics, which church was being addressed? A suggestion was made to call a council of French bishops. But the Assembly quashed that because it put power back in the hands of aristocratic bishops. Others suggested the Pope be invited to weigh in. But the French were reluctant to surrender their Gallicanism by giving Rome a foothold.Pope Pius VI sent word to Louis XVI the new Constitution was something he’d never accept. The king feared the Assembly’s reaction if they found out about the Pope’s resistance so he kept it secret. Then, at the insistence of the Assembly, the king agreed to the Constitution, but announced his approval was contingent on the Pope signing off. The Assembly tired of the delay and decreed that all who held ecclesiastical office had to swear allegiance to the Constitution. Those who declined would be deposed.The Church was divided.You see, in theory, those who refused were to suffer no more than a loss of office. On the basis of the Assembly’s declaration on rights, they couldn’t be deprived of their freedom of thought. And anyone who wanted to maintain them as their clergy were welcome to do so. But they were on their own. Those who signed on to the new Constitution would be supported by the state. à Again, all that was in theory. In practice, those who refused to swear allegiance were persecuted and branded as dangerous counterrevolutionaries.Revolutionary movements gained strength across Europe. Such movements in the Low Countries and Switzerland failed, but monarchs and the nobility feared the French movement would spread to other lands. That inspired French radicals to more extreme measures. In 1791, the National Assembly morphed into the Legislative Assembly, with far fewer voices calling for moderation. Half a year later, France went to war with Austria and Prussia—beginning a long series of armed conflicts that continued till the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.The day after securing victory at the Battle of Valmy, the Legislative Assembly again reformed into the National Convention. In its first session, the Convention abolished the monarchy and announced the French Republic. Four months later, the king was accused of treason, convicted and executed.But that didn’t put an end to France’s problems. The economy was in shambles in every village, town, and city. Every social class suffered. But the peasants suffered most, as they always do. They revolted. Fear of foreign invasion grew. All this led to a wave of terror where everybody was suspected of counterrevolutionary conspiracies, and many major figures of the revolution were put to death one after another at the guillotine.Combined with all this was a strong reaction against Christianity, of all stripes. The new leaders of the revolution were convinced they were prophets and engineers of a New Age where science and reason would overcome superstition and religion. They claimed that as the new age was born, time had come to leave behind the silly ideas of the old.The Revolution created its own religion, called first the Cult of Reason; later the Cult of the Supreme Being. By then the Constitution with its rights for individuals was forgotten. The revolution wanted nothing to do with the Church. The calendar was changed to a more “reasonable” one where a week was 10 days and months were named after nature. Elaborate spectacles were staged to celebrate the new age of reason and new holidays were established to replace the old religious ones. Temples to Reason were built to replace churches, and a list of saints was issued—among whom were Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and Rousseau. New rites were devised for weddings, funerals and the dedication of children, not to God but to philosophical ideals like Liberty.As I record this, and you listen, with whatever activity you’re doing, all these radical rationalist ideas may seem ridiculous, in light of their short lifespan. Like demanding everyone suddenly call red blue, and blue is from now on going to be called green. Just because we say so. It would be ridiculous, were it not for the fact they were deadly earnest about it and killed thousands for no more reason than being under suspicion of calling their changes absurd.“Off with their heads” became a slogan that literally saw people slipped under the guillotine’s blade. Christian worship was supposedly permitted; but any priest who refused to swear before the altar of Freedom was accused of being a counterrevolutionary and sent to the guillotine. Somewhere between two and five thousand priests were executed, as well as dozens of nuns and countless laypeople. Many died in prison. In the end, no distinction was made between those who’d sworn allegiance to the Constitution, those who refused to, and Protestants. Although the reign of terror ended in 1795, the government continued to oppose Christianity. Where ever French troops marched and asserted their presence, their policies followed. In 1798, they invaded Italy and captured Pope Pius VI, taking him to France as a prisoner.Napoleon, who risen through the ranks of the French army, became ruler of France in November of 1799. He believed the best policy for France was to seek a reconciliation with the Catholic Church, and opened negotiations with the new pope, Pius VII. In 1801, the papacy and French government agreed to a Concordat that allowed the Church and State to work together to appoint bishops. Three years later, Napoleon decided he wanted to be more than just the First Consul of France, and fancied the title “Emperor.” He had Pope Pius officiate his coronation. Then Napoleon turned around and decreed religious freedom for Protestants.So, Pope and Emperor fell out wit one another and France once again invaded Italy ending with the Pope again in chains. But in his captivity Pius refused to endorse Napoleon’s actions. He was especially critical of his divorce from Josephine. Pius remained a prisoner until Napoleon’s fall, when he was restored to his seat at Rome. There he proclaimed a general amnesty for all enemies, and interceded for Napoleon before his British conquerors.

131-Behind Enemy Lines

This 131^st, episode is titled, Behind Enemy Lines.Following up their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks conquered most of the Balkans. They now controlled the former Byzantine Empire and the substantial region of Armenia. They required the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs in Constantinople to obey their rules and policies. Ottoman Turks employed their Christians subjects in key positions in the military and government. Bureaucrats who’d served the labyrinthine Byzantine system made excellent court officials in the new realm. And thousands of young Christian boys were inducted into the Janissaries; elite fighting units renowned for their ferocity and loyalty to the Sultan. If you want to read some fascinating history, dig into the story of the Janissaries.Throughout Turkish lands, Christians and Jews were given a measure of autonomy in running their own affairs. Note I said “a measure.” They weren’t free to live however they pleased. While there was a general, persistent low-grade animosity between Christians and their Turkish masters, there were periods of intense oppression and outright persecution.Western Europeans were indifferent to the plight of Eastern Christians. They were anxious to maintain a favorable posture toward the Ottomans so as to have access to the rich trade that flowed between East and West. The conspiracies and conniving that went on between the competing nations of Europe for this rich trade was a thing of legend. Sadly, it was a prime example of how the desire for wealth trumped a deeper and more pressing humanitarian directive.Thank God we’ve moved past that today, huh?Keeping our historical perspective, the lack of concern on the part of Western Europeans for their Oriental brothers and sister living under the Ottoman yoke isn’t so hard to understand. After all, how many years had it been since the rift broke East from West? It had been almost exactly 400 years. And the LAST time West met East was in the brutality of the Fourth Crusade that shattered Constantinople and ultimately left it vulnerable to the Turkish conquest.At the end of the 16^th century, Jeremias II, patriarch of Constantinople, ordained Bishop Job as the first patriarch of Russia. That made Moscow a patriarchate on the same footing as the much older centers of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.In the final yrs of the 16^th century, four bishops along with the metropolitan of Kiev, created what became known as the Uniate Church. These churches became an Eastern branch of the Catholic Church. They looked to the Roman Pope as their spiritual head and embraced Roman doctrine. But they kept the Byzantine liturgy and the right of their priests to marry. For three centuries, Uniate Christians were the target of fierce persecution by Cossacks. During the Cossack-Polish War of 1648–57, many Uniates were slaughtered.Eastern Orthodox or as they’re sometimes called, Greek Orthodox, theologians rejected the Protestant Reformation’s emphasis on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But when Cyril Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, published a work in 1629 that seemed influenced by the theology of John Calvin, it sparked a firestorm of controversy and fierce opposition from other Orthodox theologians. One chapter said Scripture was infallible and inerrant, its authority superseding that of the Church. Another chapter said sinners are justified by faith rather than works and that it’s Christ’s righteousness applied by faith to repentant sinners that alone justifies.The Turk Sultan Murad IV conspired to assassinated Patriarch Cyril Lucaris, because he was regarded as a theological as well as a political troublemaker. The Janissaries were sent to kill him on June 27, 1638; his body was dumped over the side of a ship.The years 1598-1613 we labeled the “Time of Troubles” in Russia. It was a time of transition from the Rurik Dynasty to the Romanovs. The years saw a famine that killed some two million Russians, one-third of the populace. It also witnessed the Polish-Muscovite War when Russia was occupied by a Polish-Lithuanian Consortium and endured endless civil uprisings. The Romanovs went on to rule Russia for the next 300 years. During the period from Peter the Great thru Catherine the Great, Russia emerged as a military competitor to the French, Spanish, English, Prussians, and Hapsburgs. Her army and navy grew and she gained large tracts of land at the expense of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey.Russia’s conquests brought many non-Orthodox Christians under her control; mostly Roman Catholics. It also brought in many Jews. East European rulers were wary of the new Russian bear and how it’s aggression could unsettle the careful balance European diplomats had managed to secure. In 1763, King Louis XV of France declared, “Everything that may plunge Russia into chaos and make her return to obscurity is favorable to our interests.”The impact of the reign of Peter the Great on Russian society was profound. Fascinated by all things military, Peter was as ruthless with enemies as he was charming with those aimed to woo. He assumed the arduous task of transforming Russia from an agricultural backwater into a modern economic powerhouse. During a more than year-long tour of Germany, the Netherlands, England, and Austria in 1697–8, he gained a working knowledge of economics, farming, munitions, and ship-building. He visited schools, hospitals, and factories. He was warmly received by kings and queens.Once back in Russia, Peter used forced labor to build the port city of Petersburg as a “window on the West.” In 1713, it became the capital of Russia. He finally defeated the Swedes, gaining more territory. His trip to western European countries provided him with new insights into how to streamline Russia’s military, government, and schools.His opponents came from the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as what was called the “Old Believers and Ritualists” drawn from the ancient Russian nobility and the Cossacks. The clergy said Peter was engaged in a blasphemous arrogance by moving the capital from Moscow, which they regarded as a “Third Rome” to Petersburg.Unlike the clergy, the Old Believers had a different beef with Peter. They were enraged by what they called his irreligious behavior. He failed to support their departure from the Russian Orthodox Church due to a bruhaha over how to make the sign of the cross. These Old Ritualists broke with the Russian Church in the 1650s when the Metropolitan Nikon revised the liturgy along a more Byzantine fashion. Nikon said the sign of the cross was to be made with the first 3 fingers of the right hand, not 2 fingers as was the usual practice. Those who refused to put up 3 fingers were deemed heretics.So à “Off with is head.”In 1682, a leader of the Old Believers was burned at the stake. Some of his followers living in their separate communities engaged in mass suicides.Peter’s opponents among the clergy were worked up about his requiring them to adopt modern and Western clothes. Russian nobles were ordered to shave unless they paid a tax. Some Russian men assumed being bearless would bar them from heaven.Peter professed faith in Christ, but it’s questionable if he did so for purely pragmatic reasons. He venerated icons, quoted Scripture at length, cited the Liturgy by heart, and sang on occasion in church choirs. But he had little patience with the Patriarch of Moscow who opposed his “Western” innovations.One critic claimed Peter the Great’s actions toward the Church in Moscow “led to a cultural shock from which Russia never recovered.” When Patriarch Adrian died in 1700, Peter postponed the election of a new patriarch. That dealt a major blow to the traditions and the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1716, Peter declared that he alone ruled Russia, setting himself over the church.The reigns of the next several Romanovs were marked by intrigue and palace coups.For example, Peter III had a brief reign. He married the German-born and Lutheran-raised Catherine II, who converted to Orthodoxy so as to make entry into marriage smoother. Peter disbanded the secret police and favored religious toleration. He despised the Orthodox Church and was accused of leaning toward “Lutheranism.” A conspiracy headed by his wife’s illicit lover forced Peter’s abdication, then she had him murdered.Catherine became the ruler of Russia being assigned the title Catherine the Great. She built on the expansionist policies of Peter, adding 200,000 square miles to Russia. Her armies put down the Cossack Rebellion of 1773–5 and extended the borders of Russia in Crimea and Poland, Belarus, and western Ukraine. She centralized and streamlined the government, which was then run by civilians with skills like those of their counterparts in Western Europe. Russia, traditionally introspective and self-congratulatory, looked for a while to be opening to the outside world, willing to embrace the culture of its neighbors.Catherine has sometimes been portrayed as an “Enlightened Despot.” She was steeped in the literature of the French philosophes. Diderot and Grimm spent time at her court, as did other western thinkers. She mostly refrained from terror in dealing with her opponents in bringing reforms.In 1773, Catherine promoted a measure of religious toleration. She defended the Jesuits after the papacy dissolved their Order. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants enjoyed limited religious rights.But, Catherine’s openness to Enlightenment ideas had limits. She took over monasteries and turned them into state property. She was hostile to the Masons and feared the spread of subversive republican ideas by partisans of the French Revolution. She made three decrees that forced Jews to settle in a region called “the Pale” stretching from the Black to the Baltic Sea. It encompassed present-day Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. Jews lived in the Pale under harsh poverty and frequent pogroms.18th-century religious life in Europe and Asia is a harbinger of what lies ahead for us as we wrap up our narrative of church history over the next episodes.The concern expressed by Roman Catholic leaders in the face of the Reformation was that if the Protestants were allowed to break away to form their own churches and movements, the fracturing would never end and Mother Church would disintegrate into a bo-zillion daughters who looked nothing like their mother. That concern has largely proven true, as is evidenced by the literally tens of thousands of different denominations, movements, groups, and independent churches existing worldwide, all calling themselves faithful followers of Jesus and Home of the True Gospel.It’s during the 18^th C in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent in the New World that we see that splintering reaches an exponential rate.And that’s why our review of the narrative of church history must necessarily come to a close soon. Because to carry one we’d need to track the growth and development of literally dozens of groups and that would be a royal pain in inflicted tedium. We could deprogram hardened terrorists by making them listen to that; or torture them.But, that might be a good place for burgeoning podcasters to start their own podcast. I know you’re out there. You’ve listened to CS for a while and regularly say to yourself, “I could do a better job than this.” I’ll bet you could. So--why don’t you? Start your podcast where we’ll leave off. Track the origins of your group to where we end and take it from there.As we end, I again say thanks to all you subscribers who write such glowing reviews on iTunes & Apple Podcasts, as well as those who check-in and give the CS FB page a like or leave comments.As you may or may not know, or care for that matter, I’m a pastor at an independent Evangelical Christian church in SoCal. If you like CS, don’t find my voice too annoying, and would like to hear something a little different, check out the church podcast. I teach twice a week; one is a general expository survey of the Bible. The other is a sermon where we go in-depth in the same passage. You can find it in iTunes & Apple podcasts by searching for Calvary Chapel Oxnard or going to the calvaryoxnard.org website.And for those who are really interested, I’ll soon be starting a YouTube channel where the first project with be a video version of CS.

130-Up North, Then South

This 130^th episode is titled Up North, Then South.This is the last episode in which we take a look at The Church in Europe following the Enlightenment. The narrative is nowhere near exhausTIVE. It’s more an exhaustING summary of Scandinavia, the Dutch United Provinces, Austria, and Italy. We’ve already looked at Germany, France, and Spain.The end of the 17^th century proved to be a brutal time in Scandinavia. Some 60% of the population died from 1695-7 due to warfare and the disease and famine of its aftermath. As if they hadn’t had enough misery, the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 then followed. In the desperation of the times, Lutherans provide devotionals offering hope and comfort, while calling for prayer and repentance.Along with northern Germany -- Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland were Lutheran strongholds. Citizens were required to swear loyalty to a Lutheran State Church in league with absolutist monarchs.But during the Great Northern War, Swedish King Charles XII suffered a massive defeat by the Russian armies of Peter the Great. Sweden lost large tracts of land and the throne lost clout with the people. A so-called “Age of Liberty” followed that lasted most of the rest of the 18^th century. The Swedish Parliament gained power and reformers gave a rationalist slant to Swedish education. They battled with Lutheran clergy who wanted to retain some theology in the education of Sweden’s young.Many returning captured Swedes imprisoned in Russia, had converted to Pietism by missionaries sent by Francke and the University at Halle we talked about last time. The soldiers became advocates for Pietism back home. Moravians also promoted revivals in Scandinavia.After a grab for power in 1772, Gustavus III nullified the Swedish Constitution restraining the reach of royal power. He imposed a new Constitution designed to reinforce Lutheranism as the basis of government. He said, “Unanimity in religion, and the true divine worship, is the surest basis of a lawful, concordant, and stable government.” But in 1781, limited toleration came to Sweden when other Protestant groups were once again allowed. Catholicism, however, remained banned.From 1609, when the Dutch won their liberty from Spain, until Louis XIVth’s invasion in 1672, the Dutch United Provinces had its “Golden Age” and enjoyed what Simon Schama called an “embarrassment of riches.” This was due mostly to their lucrative international trade and free market economy. The Dutch eschewed the traditional monarchy dominating the rest of Europe in favor of a far more egalitarian Parliamentary system.Amsterdam was a thriving commercial and cultural center. Its population more than doubled from 1600 to 1800. Amsterdam’s docks were always packed. Its warehouses stuffed with goods from all over the world and the trade of the massive and powerful Dutch East India Company. From its earliest days, this trading enterprise supported Reformed missionary work at posts in the Malay Archipelago, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. In July 1625, Dutch traders established New Amsterdam, later known as New York City.The United Provinces were intellectual a religious crossroads for Europe through its universities, publishing houses, and churches. Protestant students from Germany, Finland, and France flocked there to study at the University of Leiden and other schools.The main task of the faculty at the University of Leiden was the study of Scriptures. Its chief professor was Joseph Scaliger whose knowledge of the classics and biblical textual criticism made him one of Europe’s premier scholars. Others notable scholars were scholars included Arminius and Gomarus.As many of our listeners know, the 17^th century was the Dutch golden age of art. Thousands of painters created millions of paintings with scenes ranging from battles and landscapes, to churches, still life, and portraits. Among the more famous masters were Rembrandt, Frans Hal, and Vermeer. But by the 18^th century, the quality of Dutch art had somewhat fallen.The Dutch Reformed Church affirmed the 1561 Belgic Confession of Faith. It addressed topics ranging from the Trinity, the work of Christ, and the sacraments, to Church-State relations. Although the Reformed Church was the “official” faith, the United Provinces were known for their toleration of other groups. That didn’t mean there weren’t heated theological rows. Two parties emerged in the Dutch Reformed Church: the “precise” Calvinists who wanted churches to possess binding doctrinal authority, and the “loose or moderate” Calvinists who desired greater freedom of religious thought.The Dutch Provinces often served as a haven for those seeking relief from persecution in other parts of Europe. Amsterdam was a notable home to a large Jewish community. Some 70,000 French Huguenots took refuge there and married into the populace. An Anabaptist community flourished. Religious dissidents like Baruch Spinoza and Anthony Collins, an exile from England, weren’t much respected but they were at least not beat up.Many Europeans admired the Dutch Republic for its successful war of liberation from the Spanish, its egalitarian government, as well as its vital free market economy. By 1675, there were fifty-five printing presses and 200 booksellers in Amsterdam, adding to the burgeoning base of middle-class scholars.During the 18^th century, the Dutch, while continuing to be officially Reformed, saw an increase in the number of those they’d been less tolerant toward; namely=Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews. Revivals frequently passed through more rural domains. In 1749 and 50, emotionally-charged revival meetings took place with the ministry of Gerard Kuypers. Villages in the Netherlands and nearby Germany experienced similar revivals.In a foreshadowing of Intelligent Design and the fine-tuning of the universe arguments, a number of Dutch theologian-scientists wrote works in which they sought to demonstrate that the intricacy of designs in nature prove God’s existence. Until the 1770s, the Reformed Church played a dominant role in Dutch public life. Some 60% of the population was Reformed, 35% Catholic, 5% percent Anabaptists and Jews.There really never was a Dutch version of the Enlightenment. Most of its participants never espoused a militant atheism, but sought to accommodate their faith to educational reforms and religious toleration. They appreciated the new science and advances in technology.Now we turn back to Geneva; adopted home of John Calvin.During the early 1750s, Geneva was the home of both Voltaire and Rousseau, well-known Enlightenment thinkers and scoffers at Christianity.Several of Geneva’s pastors proposed a reasonable and tolerant form of Christianity that warmed to some of the more liberal Enlightenment ideas. This was a huge turn from the position of Francis Turretin who in the mid-17^th century, led the Reformed and conservative theologians of Geneva to the idea that the City was a theocracy with God as its ruler. Turretin said the government ought defend “the culture of pure religion and the pious care of nurturing the church.” Turretin’s party defended the Masoretic pointing of the Hebrew text, making this belief binding on the Swiss church. These pastors feared if Hebrew vowels were left out, the Hebrew words of the Old Testament were susceptible to interpretations that varied from those they approved. They also tried to force pastoral candidates to repudiate the doctrine of “universal grace” being championed by an emerging class of theologians.But in 1706 Turretin’s son, Jean, repudiated his father’s work and embraced a more liberal theology that advocated the role of reason in determining truth. He denied his father’s soteriology, doctrine of salvation, and eschewed limited atonement. By the 1720s, Arminianism had taken firm root in Geneva.In Feb, 1670, the Hapsburg, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and a devout Roman Catholic, ordered all Jews to leave Austrian lands. Vienna became a major center of cultural. After the defeat of the Turks, it’s population boomed, growing from about 100K in 1700 to twice that 80 years later. The construction of the Schwarzenberg and Schönberg Palaces enhanced its prestige while the music of Haydn and Mozart made Vienna famous across Europe.The Hapsburg Emperors Joseph I and Charles VI supported Jesuit missionary efforts to convert Protestants. Jesuits created a baroque Catholic culture in Austria and Bohemia with the construction of magnificent churches in cities and the countryside.Though loyally Catholic, the Hapsburgs rejected the pope’s interference in Austria’s religious and political life. They’d proven their devotion to Rome when in 1683, Leopold saved The Church from the Turks. Austria was the “rock” on which the Catholic Church was built. It was the Hapsburgs who saved the faith form the infidel, not the pope.In October of 1740, at the death of her father, Maria Theresa took the titles Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Bohemia, and Queen of Hungary. In 1745, her husband, Francis Stephen, became the Holy Roman Emperor under the name Francis I. Disturbed by the Prussian Frederick II’s seizure of Silesia, Maria Theresa attempted to reform the military and governmental structures of Austria after Enlightenment ideals. She became the proponent of what’s called “Enlightened Absolutism.” At the same time, she was ready to apply repressive measures against those who resisted her reforms. On one occasion she warned that he is “no friend to humanity who allows everyone his own thoughts.”Maria Theresa was a devout Catholic influenced by counselors favorable to Jansenism. With the advice of her chancellor, she tried to establish a national Catholic Church in which the pope had authority only in spiritual matters.Maria Theresa did not allow Protestants to sell their property or leave her lands. She required those who refused to convert to Catholicism to emigrate to Transylvania, where Protestantism was permitted. Nor did Maria Theresa intercede to save the Jesuits when their society was dissolved. She allowed 2000 Protestants to live in Vienna, but she forced the city’s Jews to live in a ghetto.Upon the death of Maria Theresa, Joseph II passed Edicts of Toleration that allowed greater freedoms for non-Catholics and continued the policy of subjugating Church power to that of the State. He confiscated the property of over 700 monasteries, displacing 27,000 monks and nuns and used the proceeds to build new churches.Like Germany, during the 18^th century, Italy didn’t exist as a nation as we know it. It was a hodge-podge of various principalities. They didn’t even share a common language.The population of the peninsula grew from eleven to fifteen million in the first half of the century. But in the 1760’s a severe famine struck Florence, Rome, and Naples.The region of Tuscany was a hot-bed of the Jansenists who, as you’ll remember, were a kind of Calvinist-Catholics.A handful of Italian academics promoted rationalist views in the Catholic church, eliminating what they regarded as backward features of Italian culture. But the Enlightenment just didn’t gain the traction in Italy it did in the rest of Europe.The popes of the 18^th century had difficulty dealing with the now powerful secular rulers of Europe, no longer threatened by Church power or political machinations.Even the Papal States were frequently invaded by foreign powers. Conquerors only left after they’d secured hefty ransoms. Popes were forced to make concessions that made their weakness evident to all. Despite that, Rome continued to attract large numbers of pilgrims, students, and artists. Pilgrims hoped for a blessing from the Pope or a healing while visiting the many shrines.Then there were the youth on the Grand Tour, as it was called. They were most often graduates of Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Paris or some other school who headed to Italy to gain knowledge in classical culture. In 1776, Samuel Johnson underscored the importance of Italy as a destination for those making the Grand Tour: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority. The grand object of traveling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman.”Several popes supported the establishment of academies, colleges, and universities and encouraged general scholarship. Under their generous patronage Rome’s artistic riches in painting, sculpture, music, and monuments flourished. Pope Clement XI initiated plans for the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps in the early 18^th century.But to give you an idea of how the tables had turned and now kings dominated popes, it was this same Clement, who became a pawn in the hands of Emperor Joseph I and Louis XIV. Louis forced Clement to issue a papal bull dealing with the Jesuit-Jansenist controversy.Papal prestige suffered seriously during the French Revolution. Pope Pius VI was obliged to condemn the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” as well as the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy.” This split the French between those revolutionaries who wanted to throw off the Absolutist government of the French monarchy but maintain their Catholicism, and those French who wanted to be done with religion as well.Bottom Line: The Enlightenment witnessed serious challenges to both the papacy’s temporal and spiritual authority.

129-Pressed

This episode is title “Pressed.”In our last episode, we took a look at the French church of the 17^th C and considered the contest between the Catholic Jansenists and Jesuits.It’s interesting realizing the Jansenists began as a theological movement that looks quite similar to Calvinism. Their theology eventually spilled over into the political realm and undercut the Divine Right of Kings, a European political system that had held sway in for centuries, and reached its apex in France under Louis XIV, granting him the august title of The Sun KingIn this episode, we’ll take a look at what happened to the French Protestants, the Huguenots.By the mid 16^th century, Huguenots were 10% of the French population. They hoped all France would one day adopt the Reformed Faith. But their hopes were shattered by defeat in nine political and religious wars.You may remember from an earlier episode that Henry IV, a convert to Catholicism from Protestantism, that conversion being a purely pragmatic and political maneuver, granted the Huguenots limited rights in the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Thirty years later, those rights were revoked by the Peace of Alais. Then the fortified Protestant city of La Rochelle surrendered in 1628, ending any hope of France’s conversion to Protestantism.For twenty-four years, Louis XIV waged a devastating anti-Protestant campaign. Nearly 700 Reformed churches were closed or torn down. And in 1685, Louis replaced the Edict of Nantes with the Edict of Fontainebleau.He ordered uniformed troops called dragoons to move into the Huguenot homes in Protestant centers. These troops were allowed by the king’s decree to use whatever means they wanted, short of murder and rape, to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism.Some 200,000 Huguenots fled France. They took refuge in Geneva, Prussia, England, and North America. Those refugees were often people of great learning and skill who enriched the intellectual and economic life of their adopted realms.But thousands of Huguenots stayed in France. Many made a show-conversion to Catholicism, while secretly remaining Protestants. They formed an underground church known as the “Church of the Desert.” From 1684 to 98, twenty Huguenot pastors were hunted and killed.Louis XIV feared the Huguenots because he equated them with the Puritan rebels who’d executed Charles I in England in 1649. Louis was also in competition with the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, for hegemony in Europe. Allowing a large and politically powerful Protestant base in his realm didn’t commend Louis as a strong Catholic leader. He already faced criticism for not sending troops to defend Vienna from invading Turks while Leopold had. It was Louis’s plan to attack the Turks AFTER they’d taken Vienna! His plan fell apart when the Europeans managed to defeat the enemy before Vienna’s walls.Louis’ suspicion of the Huguenots seemed justified by the Camisard War of 1702 to 4. They called for “freedom of conscience” and “no taxes.” Protestant prophets predicted a liberation from their oppressors. But the prophets were proven to be of the false variety when the revolt was put down.In 1726, an underground seminary for young men was established in Lausanne, Switzerland. It received financial support from Protestants in Switzerland, England, and the Netherlands. Studies lasted from six months to three years. After that, graduates returned to minister to outlawed churches in France. If captured, they were executed.During the Seven Years War, known in the US as the French and Indian War, French Protestants became the beneficiaries of unofficial toleration. While no friend to Christianity, Voltaire assisted Huguenots by writing a book defending toleration. Finally, in the Edict of Toleration of 1787, Louis XVI gave Huguenots the right to worship.But in the three years BEFORE that, 7000 Huguenots were executed, another 2000 forced to serve in the French Navy, a kind of living death if you know anything about the life of a lowly sailor at that time.After 1760, some Reformed pastors, influenced by Voltaire, moved toward theological liberalism.From the late 17^th to late 18^th century, what we know as Germany today was a patchwork quilt of over 300 mostly autonomous principalities, kingdoms, electorates, duchies, bishoprics, and other political enclaves. Rarely used, the term “Germany” meant a nebulous region that included many of these regions, much like the term “Europe” refers to a continent with many nations. Germany was just one part of a larger entity known as the Holy Roman Empire. That realm included 1,800 territories. Places like Poland, the Hapsburg Empire, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Transylvania, and Italy.A Council of Electors, ranging from seven to nine, picked the Holy Roman Emperor.The Emperor’s ability to raise armies, collect taxes, and make laws was often hampered by the many groups in the empire that enjoyed a measure of their own sovereignty. The fiction known as the Holy Roman Empire ended under Napoleon.In the 1740s, Frederick the Great, King of Brandenburg-Prussia from the Hohenzollern family and Calvinists since 1613, challenged the Hapsburg’s power. At the outset of the War of the Austrian Succession, Frederick’s troops seized Silesia and Prussians became THE military power in Europe.In Germany, the leading kingdoms were Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony, the Rhineland Palatinate, Hanover, and Bavaria. Following the principle established by the Peace of Westphalia, the religion of these kingdoms was that of their prince.While Bavaria was staunchly Catholic, Brandenburg-Prussia was Calvinist with strong pietistic leanings. The rest of Germany was Lutheran of the pietist mold. A unified Germany nation would not emerge until the days of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck in the second half of the 19^th century.The emergence of Prussia as a great military power in the 18^th century impressed their European neighbors. The kingdom’s army of some 83,000 ranked fourth in size among the European powers, though its landmass was a tenth of the area and only thirteenth in population. Its rulers promoted a disciplined lifestyle like that of the Pietists as a model for Prussian bureaucrats, military, and nobles (called Junkers). The highly militaristic Frederick III ruled Brandenburg from 1688 to 1713. Being reformed in theology, he encouraged French Huguenots who’d fled France to settle in his kingdom. In 1694, he founded the University of Halle as a Lutheran university. He welcomed Pietists like Jakob Spener and Hermann Francke. In 1698, Francke began teaching theology there. Frederick III made the University of Konigsberg another Pietist center.In his work Pious Desires, published in 1675, Spener, who you’ll remember was the founder of Pietism, centered his call for reform of the Church in the faithful teaching and application of Scripture. He called for daily private Bible reading and meditation and the reading of Scripture in small groups.Spener urged that pastoral training schools should not be places for theological wrangling, but as “workshops of the Holy Spirit.” Nor should seminary professors seek glory by authoring lofty tomes filled with showy erudition. They ought instead to be examples of humble service. Spener emphasized the priesthood of ALL believers. Ministers should seek help from laypeople to assist in the task of tending to the needs of a congregation instead of assuming they had to do everything themselves. Spener took this idea from what the Apostle Paul had written in Ephesians 4. As described there, pastors were to equip believers so they could do ministry.At the University of Halle, Hermann Francke insisted that those training for pastoral ministry ought to study Scripture in its original languages of Hebrew and Greek. Francke wrote: “The exegetical reading of Holy Scripture is that which concerns finding and explaining the literal sense intended by the Holy Spirit Himself.”In 1702, Francke founded the Collegium Orientale Theologicum. Advanced students could learn Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian, Chaldean, Syriac, and Hebrew.Francke established an orphanage in Halle in 1695. He created schools and businesses including a printing house where orphans could learn a trade. By 1700, Francke’s various institutions gained the support of Emperor Frederick III, who valued their contribution in fostering Christian discipline among his students, the Prussian populace, and his soldiers. Francke wanted to make Halle a center for Christian reform and world missions. In anticipation of what George Mueller would later give testimony to, Franke wrote of examples of how he prayed for specific needs and provision came to feed the poor and keep the schools open, sometimes arriving at the last moment. He wrote: “These instances I was willing here to set down so that I might give the reader some idea both of the pressing trials and happy deliverances we have met with; though I am sufficiently convinced that narratives of this kind will seem over-simple and fanciful to the great minds of our age.”On one occasion, Frederick IV, King of Denmark, gave a direct order to his chaplain: “Find me missionaries.” That chaplain asked Francke for help. Francke proposed two students from the University of Halle. The Danish-Halle Mission was launched. On Nov. 29, 1705, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau set sail for India. Eight months later they arrived. They were dismayed to discover the horrid immorality of the Europeans there. Claiming to be Christians, the Indians assumed all believers in Christ were immoral. There was great resistance to the Gospel at first, but the missionaries’ faithfulness eventually softened the hearts of the Hindus. Ziegenbalg translated the Bible into Tamil and set up a school and a missionary college before he died at the age of 36.Christian Schwartz also served as a missionary in India. Johann Steinmetz ministered in Teschen, Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia. Others took the gospel to Russia during the reign of Peter the Great. Halle missionaries met the physical and spiritual needs of captured Swedish troops who, when they returned to Sweden, spread Pietism in their homeland. Sixty students went forth from the University of Halle as missionaries.The press of the Bible Institute in Halle produced more than 80,000 copies of complete Bibles and another 100,000 copies of the New Testament.In 1713, the Pietitst Frederick William I became king. He not only built up the military, he funded the production of thousands of Bibles so that all his subjects could read it for themselves. When he died in 1727, some 2000 students attended the school in Halle. His orphanage served as a model for George Whitefield’s in Savannah, Georgia.We need to do a bit of summarizing now so we can avoid that thing we’ve talked about before – the reporting of history as a bunch of dates and names. I’ll do so by simply saying the Enlightenment that swept France and England, also impacted Germany. The original faculty of the University at Halle would have been shocked to see the way later professors turned away from what they considered orthodoxy.We’ll jump ahead to a bit later in the 18^th century and the work of Johann Semler considered the Founder of German Higher Criticism.Semler began teaching at Halle in 1751. He’d been a student of professors who merged Enlightenment philosophy with the Faith. For twenty-two years, from 1757 till ‘79, Semler was the most influential of the German theologians. He called for a more liberal investigation of the Bible, one not tethered to long-held orthodox assumptions about the canon of Scripture or its infallibility.Semler held forth that religion and theology ought not be linked. He also set a divide between what he called the “Word of God” and “Scripture.” He maintained that not all the books or passages of the Bible were in truth God’s Word and that God’s Word wasn’t limited to the Bible.He taught that the authors of scripture accommodated their writings to the errant ideas of their times, especially the Jews. Sifting out the authentic Word of God from the mythological, local, fallible, and non-inspired dross in Scripture, by which he meant a belief in the supernatural, was the task of the wise Bible student. Then, once the authentic canon within the Bible was identified, real doctrines would need to be parsed.Astonishingly, Semler claimed his ideas were faithful to the work of Martin Luther, which they most certainly were NOT!The reaction to Semler was mixed. Some scholars supported him because his work opened a lot of wiggle-room that allowed them to accommodate the growing popularity of Enlightenment skepticism. But his critics pounced, accusing him of abandoning the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.When Frederick the Great died in 1786, his nephew Frederick William II became King of Prussia. He attempted to rein in the growing volume of literature now exposing the German populace to heterodoxy; that is, ideas outside the pale of orthodoxy, by passing an edict calling for censorship of any work about God and morality. Any such work was to be submitted to a government commission of censors for approval. Several Lutheran pastors resigned in protest, and the main publisher of such works moved his operations out of Berlin. The government feared radical expressions of the German Enlightenment would subvert the faith of the people and their loyalty to the State.In March 1758, Johann Hamann was converted to Christ and became a brilliant counter to the Enlightenment. He pointed out the errors in Kant’s philosophy and said the light of the so-called “Enlightenment” was cold, more like the moon, compared to that which comes from the Sun of Christian revelation in Scripture and nature.

128-Backing Up

The title of this 128^th Episode is Backing Up.… because once again we’re backtracking a bit to hop into the story of Church History earlier than where our last few episodes have taken us. We’re focusing this time on what happened in France during the late 17^th and into the 18^th century.This period saw a massive struggle between the French monarchy and two groups; Catholic Jansenists and Protestant Huguenots. At stake was the throne’s claim that it alone had the power to determine the religion of the French people.France was the most populous and wealthy country in Europe. It was also the most feared, admired, and imitated. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, the population was 28 million.From the late 17^th century to the Revolution, the Court at Versailles, the main residence of the French kings, was the center of political life. But a mix of disparate factors led to a growing disillusionment with the Crown. Philosophes engaged each other in Parisian salons in political discussions that implemented dangerous new ideas; to the Crown anyway. And once the King found out about these dangerous liaisons, they became downright lethal to those who engaged in them. As the power of the French court grew, Masonic lodges popped up all over, advocating more subversive ideas. Illegal books and broadsides were printed by a clandestine press. All these challenged Versailles’s political dominance in the second half of the 18^th century. A powerful “court of public opinion” emerged to dare the status quo into change.France’s monarchs wanted to protect their inheritance rights while expanding the kingdom’s economic and political power over more of Europe and overseas. Continental Wars often spilled over into the colonies. Louis XIV occasionally referred to “French Europe” and France’s ongoing conflict with Spain. But after his passing, France often teamed with Spain in opposition to England and other European powers.After the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1778 during the War for Independence, Louis XVI, to spite the English, supported the Americans in their quest to gain independence from the British. But this French aid took an ironic turn. Louis abetted revolutionaries who aimed to throw off a monarchy in favor of a democratic republic, while at the same time adding to France’s already massive debt.In Late Spring of 1789, Louis was forced to call a meeting of the French Parliament, called the Estates-General to deal with the now intense fiscal crisis. After intense debate, delegates of the French people declared they represented the “nation” choosing that word rather than ”kingdom” and invited members of the clergy and nobility to join them. Many did. On June 17, the Assemblée Nationale formed and claimed it, rather than the King, represented the realm.This was a severe blow to a principle that had found varying degrees of expression in Europe for hundreds of years; that is, the Divine Right of Kings.Earlier, in his work Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture, Jacques Bossuet [boo-sway], advisor to Louis XIV, justified the divine right of kings by citing Scripture. He wrote, “God is the King of kings: it is for Him to instruct them and to rule them as His ministers. Listen then, Monseigneur, to the lessons which he gives them in His Scripture, and learn from the examples on which they must base their conduct.” He said, “Rulers act as the ministers of God and as his lieutenants on earth. It is through them that God exercises his empire.” Bossuet argued the king’s power was absolute. But the king wasn’t to act like a despot issuing arbitrary and selfish decrees. He was in covenant with his subjects and was called to care for them the way a father cares for his children.According to divine right theory, kingship was a sacred position, manned by someone uniquely called to occupy the center of the religious sphere. Without him, chaos would descend. His lineage stretched back to Adam thru mythical figures like Pharamond, Clovis, Pepin, and Charlemagne. From the Middle Ages on, writings knowns as the Mirrors of Princes called on the French monarch to be pious, just, and good; while avoiding wanton luxury, cruelty, and moral weakness.At the king’s coronation, the archbishop of Reims anointed him with sacred oil and blessed his gloves, scepter, and ring. The king swore an oath to uphold the Catholic faith. If his subjects rebelled against, since he was a God-ordained sacred person in a sacred office, they deserved death. In 1757, Robert Damiens attempted to assassinate Louis XV. He was pulled apart before a cheering crowd of thousands. A subversive word against His Majesty earned the author time in prison.Louis XIV became king at age five but due to his age, wasn’t allowed to rule till he was 22. As he waited for the throne, France was torn apart by civil war in which his agents were barely able to eke out a victory. Traumatized by what he saw during this time, Louis determined to short-circuit future revolts by establishing an absolute monarchy. He learned well how to rule under the watchful eye of the shrewd politician Cardinal Mazarin. He came to control of France by a sophisticated system of rewards and honors that kept everyone beholden to his favor. He understood the threat of various religious factions all vying for control and set a Gallican, a French form of Catholicism for the realm, regardless of what they might profess to believe.Since 1516, the year before Luther published his 95 Theses, French kings selected bishops for the French church. They filled the positions with loyal nobles. When Pope Innocent XI rejected Louis XIV’s naming of bishops and his appropriation of funds from vacant bishoprics, the king, with approval of the Clergy, encouraged Bossuet to draw up a Declaration of Gallican Liberties of 1682, stipulating that kings “were not subject to any ecclesiastical power in temporal affairs.”The result was that French bishops had sweeping authority to rule both in temporal and spiritual matters. Besides ordinations and baptisms, they mandated that religious books could be published only with their permission. They regularly called on censors in the National Librairie to condemn what they called “wicked books.” The bishops’ personal privileges were extreme. They ruled over a church that owned 10% of the land. In exchange for immunities from taxation, they gave a [uh-humm] “gift” to the king.In 1690, Pope Alexander VIII condemned the Declaration of Gallican Liberties. Three years later, Louis XIV rescinded the declaration. Then two years after that gave his bishops authority over all priests. The French throne and church both exhibited a willingness to defy the papacy in temporal and spiritual matters. There was only one realm in which the Gallican Church and Vatican united; in the contest between the Jansenists and Jesuits.As we saw in a previous episode, Jansenists were followers of Cornelius Jansen, a professor of theology at the University of Louvain and for a time, the bishop of Ypres. Jansen proposed an interpretation of Augustine’s theology in his posthumous work Augustinus that extolled God’s sovereignty and denied any role humans have in salvation thru free will. Jansen said the elect are saved by God’s grace alone. As their lives are transformed, the elect do the will of God by performing acts of love for God and others. In seeking assurance of salvation, the elect overcome temptation by following an austere lifestyle of rigorous penance and frequent celebration of the Mass. Yep; They were Catholic Calvinists; an oxymoron if there ever was one.Jansenists argued forcefully for the inviolability of the individual conscience of the believer; even to the point of refusing to accept a church teaching, they deemed errant.Jansenists were especially critical of Jesuits, whom they believed had succumbed to the teachings of Molinism, a theology based on the work of Luis Molina who advocated free will. Molina was a Spanish Jesuit who’d argued that God provides sufficient grace to move someone to repentance, but didn’t force it. Molina said God elects according to His foreknowledge of our choices.Jansenists also rejected the Jesuits’ defense of a papal monarchy. Like the Gallicans, they held a conciliarist position: that the authority of the church was vested in all the members of the body of Christ, including themselves as a Catholic minority.The Jansenists criticized the Jesuits for their rule-based ethics, their love of classical pagan culture, and their worldliness. In the Provincial Letters, the Jansenist Blaise Pascal parodied the Jesuits to the delight of most Parisians. But Louis XIV wasn’t amused and ordered the book burned.The Jesuits fired back; accusing Jansenists of being anti-monarchical Protestants.To clear themselves of that charge, leading Jansenists of the mid-17^th century, became major combatants in the Eucharistic Controversy of the 1660s and 70’s. This was the debate that raged in Reformed churches over how to understand the elements in Communion. Just as the Controversy had run in the 9^th century in the Catholic Church, now it ran in the Reformation churches of Europe in the 17^th. Jansenists believed in the classic Catholic position of Transubstantiation, which all reformed churches had rejected to one degree or another. The Jansenists knew by adhering to it, they could set themselves over against the label Protestant being tossed at them by the Jesuits.Despite their best anti-Protestant efforts, the Jansenists failed to win Louis XIV’s favor. In 1678, they were forced to leave France.On September 1, 1715, Louis XIV died, leaving the French church deeply divided. Though the Jansenists had been officially exiled, many of the French were secret, and some, not-so-secret Jansenists. Numerous appeals were made to Rome by high-ranking clergy for a repeal of anti-Jansenist rulings.Then, a series of reported healings took place at a Jansenist leader’s graveside. This seemed to mark God’s favor on the movement. Throngs of Parisians flocked to the cemetery. In 1732, the government closed it to curb its propaganda value. A jokester posted a sign on the cemetery’s entrance: “By order of the king: God is prohibited to do miracles in this place.”The Jansenists may have lost the support of the religious and political hierarchy, but their popularity soared with commoners. Priests were regarded as successors to Christ’s disciples. This undercut the authority of bishops. Then the law courts reasoned if priests had as much authority as bishops, THEY had as much authority as bureaucrats and nobles. As adjudicators of the Law, collectively they had as much authority, maybe MORE, than the king.So, although originally a theological movement, Jansenism took on a political dimension; as theology often eventually does. Jansenists effectively used the printed page to keep the public current regarding their struggles in France and the rest of Europe.Rumors swirled through Paris in December 1756 and into January of armed revolt. Three-fourths of Paris backed the Jansenists. A rumor said the Jesuits would soon be slaughtered.On the bitterly cold afternoon of Jan 5, 1757, Robert-François Damiens broke through the king’s guards and drove a knife into the side of Louis XV. He was immediately arrested. The wound was superficial. The assassin’s short knife didn’t make it far enough through the king’s thick coat to inflict a fatal wound. But Parisians were shocked and profoundly saddened. They feared another St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was upon them.Despite torture, Damiens remained resolute in denying the existence of co-conspirators. After a trial in which judges assumed his guilt, Damiens’s body was literally pulled apart at a public execution witnessed by a large and boisterous crowd.Louis XV was badly shaken by the attempt on his life and the rumor his own cousin was behind it. In September, he lost the will to enforce anti-Jansenist and Protestant restrictions.In Nov. 1764, Jansenists scored a victory against the 3,300 Jesuits in France when the court ordered them to vacate the kingdom and its colonies, and Louis XV reluctantly agreed. The Jesuits had stumbled rather badly in some mission ventures in China and South America which tarnished their reputation and raised a public outcry against them.Three years later, Charles III of Spain, King of Naples and Duke of Parma, expelled the Jesuits from their lands. Eventually, in 1773, the papacy dissolved the order with its 26,000 members worldwide and its nearly 1,000 colleges and seminaries. It wasn’t till 1814 that the Society of Jesus was re-established.Despite complaints Protestants brazenly touted their new toleration under Louis XV, the French Church affirmed Catholicism as the only legitimate religion in France. In 1765, the Assembly of Clergy declared, “There is, Sire, in your Kingdom, only one master, one single monarch whom we obey: there is only one single cult and one single faith.” They called on the king to uphold anti-Protestant legislation. Louis XV said he would, but as stated, he didn’t have the will to enforce it.In 1774, Louis XV died of smallpox. Louis XVI was crowned king in the cathedral of Reims. During a magnificent coronation service, he affirmed his desire to uphold the Catholic religion and to reinvigorate the sacred character of his union with the people of France. In 1776, a resurgence of Roman Catholic devotion took place in Paris. But in 1787, Louis yielded to a well-orchestrated campaign by Jansenists and the Protestant Pastor Rabaut Saint-Etienne. He issued the Edict of Toleration for Protestants.We wrap this episode by noting that as the religious landscape opened up in France, so too did the political. New ideologies and political theories were popping out of the Enlightenment like fleas off a mongrel. John-Jacques Rousseau was popular, and his ideas began to infiltrate the minds of the French public. If the individual was free to think for him and herself, and worship according to one’s own conscience, why not extend that idea to the lesser realm of human governments? If bishops aren’t supreme, the Bishop of the bishops, the Pope isn’t either. And if the Pope isn’t supreme, neither is the king. The Divine right of kings was an ideology on the way out.

127-Then Away

In this 127^th episode of CS, titled “Then Away,” we give a brief account of the rise of Theological Liberalism.In the previous episodes, we charted the revivals that marked the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Social transformation is a mark of such revivals. But not all those engaged in the betterment of society were motivated by a passion to serve God by serving their fellow Man. At the same time that revival swept though many churches, others stood aloof and held back from being carried away into what they deemed as “religious fanaticism.”As Enlightenment ideas moved into and through the religious community, some theologians shifted to accommodate what had become the darling ideas of academia. Instead of becoming outright agnostics, they sought to wed rationalism with theology and arrived at an amalgam we’ll call Theological Liberalism.Not to be outdone by Revivalists transforming culture through the power of The Gospel and a conviction they were to be salt and light in a dark and decaying world, Liberalism developed what came to be called The Social Gospel; a faith that emphasized doing as much, if not more than, believing.The name most associated with the Social Gospel is Walter Rauschenbusch. He began pastoring a Baptist church in New York in 1886. It was there that he came face to face with the desperate condition of the poor. He joined the faculty of Colgate-Rochester Theological Seminary, where over the course of 10 years he wrote 3 books that were hugely influential in promoting the Social Gospel.Someone might say at this point >> You’ve used that phrase a couple of times now. What’s ‘The Social Gospel’?”The Social Gospel was a movement among Protestant denominations in the early 20^th century, mainly in the United States and Canada, but a limited expression in Europe. It addressed social problems with Christian ethics. Its main targets were issues of social justice like poverty, addiction, crime, racism, pollution, child labor, and war. Advocates of the Social Gospel sought to implement that line in the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”Advocates of the Social Gospel were usually post-millennialists who believed the Second Coming would not occur unless humanity rid itself of injustice and vice. The leaders of the movement were largely connected to the liberal wing of the Progressive Movement.The Social Gospel movement peaked in the early 20^th century. It began to decline due to the trauma brought about by WWI, when the ideals of the movement were so badly abused by world events. A couple of under-pinnings of theological liberalism are the Brotherhood of Man and the innate goodness of human beings. WWI conspired to prove the lie to both assumptions and create doubt in the minds of millions that humans are good or could be a brotherhood.Though Rauschenbusch’s early theology included a belief in original sin and the need for personal salvation, by the time he’d written his last tome, he regarded sin as an impersonal social ill and taught that reform would arrive with the demise of capitalism, the advance of socialism, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God by human effort. His views were accepted by such prominent spokesmen as Shailer Matthews and Shirley Jackson Case of the University of Chicago.Rauschenbusch’s impact was combined with other developments in liberalism during the 19^th century. Unitarianism had made deep inroads into mainline denominations under the leadership of William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker. Channing’s sermon “Unitarian Christianity” in 1819, deserves credit for launching the Unitarianism movement.Another influential figure of the 19^th C was Horace Bushnell. He published Christian Nurture in 1847, arguing that a child ought to grow up in covenant with God, never knowing he was anything but a Christian. This was contrary to the Pietist emphasis on having a datable conversion experience. Bushnell’s ideas of growing a child up from birth in a covenant of grace had a huge impact on Christian educators for generations.In addition to Theodore Parker’s support of Unitarianism, he introduced German biblical criticism into American Christianity. By doing so, the way was opened for Darwinian evolution and the ideas of Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen was one of the originators of the Documentary Hypothesis, which forms the core of much of modern liberal scholarship on the Bible to this day.These influences led to a creeping theological liberalism based on the twin postulates of the evolution of religion and a denial of the supernatural. In their place emerged the idea of the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the establishment of God’s Kingdom as a natural outcome of evolution.Three German scholars were also central to the development of Theological liberalism: Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Harnack.Friedrich Schleiermacher adapted the ideas of Existentialism to Christianity and said that the core of faith wasn’t what one believed so much as what one FELT, what we experience. Religion, he urged, involved a feeling of absolute dependence on God. For Schleiermacher, doctrine hung on experience, not the other way around. Today, a mature Christian might counsel a neophyte, saying something like, “Don’t let feelings control you.” Or, “We need to evaluate our experiences by God’s Word, not the other way around.” Schleiermacher would disagree with that. In his view, experience VALIDATES doctrine. Feels are key. A Faith that isn’t felt is no faith at all, he maintained.Albert Ritschl claimed Christ’s death had nothing to do with the payment of a penalty for sin. He said it resulted from loyalty to His calling of bringing about the Kingdom of God on Earth, and that it was by His death that He could share his experience of Sonship with all people, who would then become the vehicle and means by which the Kingdom could be constructed. The practice of a communal religion was of vital importance to Ritschl because Christ best shared Himself through the community of the Church. Ritschl’s impact on other scholars was great.Probably the most affected by Ritschl’s works was Adolf Harnack. Harnack regarded the contributions of the Apostle Paul to the Gospel as a Greek intrusion on the Christian Faith. His goal was to get back to a more primitive and Jewish emphasis that centered on ethical imperatives as opposed to doctrine. As a professor in Berlin in 1901 he published his influential What Is Christianity? This focused on Jesus’ human qualities, who preached not about Himself but about the Father; the Kingdom and the Fatherhood of God; a higher righteousness; and the command to love.The views of these three German scholars came ashore in America to further the liberal ideas already underway.If Theological Liberalism with its Social Gospel were a reaction to the Revivals of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, those who’d been revived were not going to sit idly by as that liberalism grew. They responded with a movement of their own.Charles Briggs, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, was put on trial before the Presbytery of New York and suspended from ministry in 1893 for promulgating liberal ideas. Henry Smith of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati was likewise defrocked that same year, as was AC McGiffert for holding and teaching similar views. Other denominations had heresy trials and dismissed or disciplined offenders. The most famous conflict of the 20^th century concerned Harry Emerson Fosdick, who in 1925 was removed as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of New York City to became an influential spokesman for liberalism as the pastor of Riverside Church.Roman Catholicism wasn’t immune to the impact of theological liberalism and reacted strongly against it. Alfred Loisy, founded Roman Catholic Modernism in France, but was dismissed in 1893 from his professorship at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He was further excommunicated in 1908. The English Jesuit George Tyrrell was demoted in 1899 and died out of fellowship with the church. Liberalism invaded American Roman Catholicism. To silence the threat, Pope Pius X issued the decree Lamentabili in 1907, and in 1910 he imposed an anti-modernist oath on the clergy.In contest with Liberalism, Evangelicals had a number of able scholars during the latter part of the 19^th and early part of the 20^thcenturies. Charles Hodge defended a supernaturally-inspired and inerrant Bible during his long tenure as professor of biblical literature and theology at Princeton. AA Hodge carried on his father’s work. In 1887, BB Warfield followed Hodges as professor of theology. Fluent in Hebrew, Greek, modern languages, theology, and biblical criticism, Warfield staunchly defended the inerrancy of Scripture and basic evangelical doctrines in a score of books and numerous pamphlets. In 1900, the scholarly Robert Dick Wilson joined the Princeton faculty, and J Gresham Machen [Mah khen] arrived shortly after. In 1929, when a liberal realignment occurred at Princeton, Machen and Wilson joined Oswald Allis, Cornelius Van Til, and others in founding Westminster Theological Seminary. Other scholars could be mentioned, but these were some of the most prestigious.This movement came to be known as Fundamentalism; a word with a largely negative connotation today as it conjures up the idea of wild-eyed religious fanatics who advocate violence as a means of defending and promulgating their beliefs. Christian Fundamentalism was simply a theologically conservative movement that sought to preserve and articulate classic, orthodox beliefs on the essentials of the Christians Faith. They were called Fundamentals because they were regarded as those doctrines essential to the integrity of the Gospel message; things that had to be believed in order to be saved.Fundamentalism was largely a reaction to Theological Liberalism which appeared to many Evangelicals to be taking over the colleges and seminaries. Liberalism wasn’t popular with the average church-goer. It founds it’s base among academics and those training clergy. But evangelical leaders knew what began in classrooms would soon be preached in pulpits, then practiced in pews. So they began the counter-movement called Fundamentalism.Since Theological Liberals had already managed to co-opt the chairs of many institutions of higher learning, they cast their Fundamentalist opponents as uneducated and unsophisticated nincompoops. Knuckle-dragging theological Neanderthals who couldn’t comprehend the complexities of higher criticism and the latest in theological research. That image has, for many, become part and parcel of the connotative meaning of the word Fundamentalist today. And it’s grossly unfair since those early Evangelical scholars who shaped the Fundamentalist movement were some of the brightest, best-educated, and most erudite people of the day.

126-Yet Again

This 126^th episode of CS is titled, Yet Again.Donations to keep the CS host site up are welcome and needed. You can do so at sanctorum.us. Just look for the “Donate” link.In the last episode, we considered the Second Great Awakening and ended with this . . .By the 1850s the United States was thriving, largely because of the benefits brought by the Awakening. The Mid-West was being developed, the economy booming. People made 18% interest on their investments. But as is so often the case, economic prosperity turned into a neglect of the Spirit. The pursuit of pleasure replaced the pursuit of God. The nation was politically divided over the issue of slavery. And it wasn’t just States that were divided. Churches and denominations split over itInto this national argument that ended up tearing the country in two was added a dose of religious turmoil.A veteran and farmer named William Miller rediscovered the doctrine of the 2^nd Coming. For generations, most of the Church considered Bible prophesy a closed book. Miller began teaching on the Return of Christ. But he made the mistake many have and said Christ would return in 1844. About a million people followed his views. When it didn’t happen, they were bitterly disillusioned because they’d sold their homes, businesses, and farms. Skeptics piled on the fanaticism of the Millerites and fired up a new round of mocking faith. Then, in 1857, things began to change.Another revival began as a movement of prayer. It was leaderless, though it produced several notable leaders.In September 1857, a businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier printed up a leaflet on the importance of prayer. It announced there would be a weekly prayer meeting at Noon, in the upper room of the North Dutch Reformed Church in Manhattan. When the time for the first meeting came, only Lanphier was there. He prayed anyway and at 12:35, six more businessmen on their lunch break came up the stairs. They prayed till 1 pm. As they broke up to return to work, they agreed they’d been so moved, they’d meet the following week at the same time and place.The next week, their number doubled to 14. They sensed something special was about to happen and agreed to meet every day, Monday-Saturday in that room at Noon. A few weeks later the room overflowed and they filled the basement, then the main sanctuary. A nearby Methodist Church opened its doors for noontime prayer. When it filled, Trinity Episcopal Church opened. Then church after church filled with people praying at noon, Monday-Saturday; mostly businessmen on their lunch break.Throughout the remainder of 1857, prayer meetings spread throughout the States. In Feb. 1858, New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley sent a reporter out to cover the story of the growing movement. The reporter went by horse and buggy and was able to make a dozen stops during the noon hour. He estimated there were over 6000 businessmen praying at those stops. Greeley was so surprised he made the story the next day’s headline. Other papers didn’t want to be outdone, so they began to report on the revival.The publicity further fanned the flames and more began showing up. Soon every auditorium and hall in downtown NY was filled. Then, theaters filled.We might wonder what were these prayer meetings like. They were run by laymen, not professional clergy. Pastors were often present but did not conduct the meetings. They might be asked to open pray or read a scripture, but then the meeting was turned over to fifty minutes or more of prayer.There was a remarkable sense of unity that marked the meetings. Those who attended came from different churches but were cautious about debating doctrines. There was more a concern to focus on the things they agreed on. They were there to pray and that’s what they did.At one prayer meeting in Michigan led by a layman, he said, “I see my pastor and the Methodist minister are here. Will one of you read a scripture and the other pray, then we’ll get started.” They did, then the laymen said, “I’m not used to this kind of public and impromptu prayer so we’ll follow the example we’ve read about in the NY papers. We have so many here today please write your request down then pass them to the front. We’ll read them one at a time, and pray over each one.”The first request said, “A praying wife asks the prayers of this company for the conversion of her husband who’s far from God.” (That’s certainly a common request.) But immediately a blacksmith stood up and said, “My wife prays for me. I must be that man. I need to be converted. Would you please pray for me?” A lawyer said, “I think my wife wrote that note because I know I’m far from God.” Five men all claimed the request was surely for them. All were converted in a matter of just a few minutes.This was common at the beginning of the revival. People were converted during the prayer meetings. They’d simply express their need for salvation then would be prayed for by the rest.One minister stood up and said he’d stayed till 3 PM the day before answering the questions of those who wanted Christ. He announced his church would be open each evening from then on for the preaching of the Gospel. Soon, every church was holding similar meetings.As the revival spread across the States, 10,000 were converted each week. In Newark, NJ, of a population of 70,000; 2,785 were brought to faith in 2 months. At Princeton University, almost half the students came to Christ and half of those entered full-time ministry.The revival swept the colleges of the nation.On Feb. 3^rd, 1858 in Philadelphia, a dozen men moved their daily prayer meeting from the outskirts of the city to downtown. They met at the James Theater, the largest in The City. A couple weeks later sixty were attending. By the end of March, 6,000 were literally crammed in.That Summer, churches united to hold mass services. They erected big-top tents and conducted evangelistic meetings that thousands flocked to. In Ohio, 200 towns reported 12,000 converts in just two months. In Indiana, 150 small towns saw 4,500 come to Christ.In two years, of a national population of 30 million, 2 million made a profession of faith.

Edwin Orr remarks that this points up the difference between Evangelism and Revival. In evangelism, the evangelist seeks the sinner. In revival, sinners come running to God.

It was during this Revival that a young shoe salesman went to the Sunday School director of the Congregational Church in Chicago and said he wanted to teach a class. He was turned down because there were sixteen ahead of him waiting to teach. They put him on the wait-list. He told the director, “I want to do something NOW.”The director said, “Okay – start a class.” He asked, “How?”He was told to “Go get boys off the street, take them to the country and teach them how to behave, then bring them in.”He went out to the alleys, gathered up a dozen street urchins and took them to the beach on Lake Michigan. He taught them Bible games and Scripture. Then brought them to the church where he was given a closet to hold his class. That was the beginning of the ministry of Dwight Lyman Moody who went on to preach all over the US and England and led tens of thousands to Christ.Today, we’re accustomed to the secular press giving a cold shoulder to the things of God. That’s not new; it’s usually that way. Even during times of revival, the world tends to stand back and wait for it to pass. They may give grudging acknowledgment of the good fruit revival brings, but they always dig up some critic who dismisses it as religious fanaticism and emotionalism. So the Revival of 1857-8 stands out because the secular press received it with enthusiasm. Maybe because it was a movement that began in the sophisticated urban centers of the nation and spread their first. It was called The Businessman’s Revival. These weren’t backwoods, country hicks who were “getting religion.” They were educated, literate, successful people being profoundly changed for the better. In a day when nearly everyone read the newspaper, they were familiar with the revival because it consistently made headlines. There was near-universal approval of it.Yes, it had a few critics, but their objections were dismissed as the grousing of unreasonable skeptics and the envious. The Anglicans were at first against it, until their churches began filling with seekers; then they approved of it as they saw its glorious effect. The same happened among the Lutherans.The prayer meetings were marked by order. And the conversions were as frequent among the older and more mature members of a community as the younger.It quickly spread up into Canada, then across the Atlantic to Ireland, Scotland, and England where conservative estimates say 10% of the population was brought to faith in Christ. In London, every theater and auditorium was filled for prayer. It was during this time Charles Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle and Hudson Taylor started the China Inland Mission. Just a mile from where Taylor started, William Booth formed the Salvation Army.All of these came out of the Revival of 1857-9. The revival spilled over into Europe and reached India. The Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa still celebrates the revival for the huge impact it had on them. Jamaica was covered as were numerous other cities and nations.What I’d like to note as we end this episode is the date of this revival. Its peak was from 1857-60. A few years later the US was torn in two by the Civil War; a bloody chapter in my nation’s history. Many of those who died in the war were saved in the Revival.This seems to be a consistent pattern of revival; that it takes place just prior to a major war. Dr. Orr says that this has been a consistent pattern throughout our nation’s history.The First Great Awakening occurred shortly before the Revolutionary War. The Second before the War of 1812. The Revival of 1857-8 before the Civil War. The Welsh Revival that so affected Great Britain, Europe, and the US came right before WWI. It’s as though God pours out His Spirit to reap a harvest before evil falls and there’s a great loss of life.

125-A Second Awakening

This 125^th episode of CS is titled A Second Awakening.I usually leave this announcement for the end but will insert it here at the beginning.Donations to keep the CS host site up are welcome and needed. You can do so at sanctorum.us. Just look for the “Donate” link.We ended our last episode with the dour spiritual condition of both the United States and Europe at the end of the 18^th C.I mentioned Dr. J Edwin Orr a couple of episodes back. He was the 20^th C’s foremost expert on Revival and Spiritual renewal. While he could speak with eloquence on literally dozens of Revivals, one of his favorite subjects was what’s come to be known as the Second Great Awakening.Before it began, there were many who worried if God did not intervene, Christianity might die out of Europe and the US.Following Independence from England, many American intellectuals fell in love with France. But France was throwing off religious faith as fast as it could. The French Revolution made a mockery of the Church and Christianity. A well-known prostitute in Paris was crowned Goddess of Reason IN the Cathedral of Notre Dame. A majority of churches in France closed and the famous skeptic Voltaire claimed Christianity would be consigned to the dustbin of history in only 30 years. Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands were taken over by Rationalism. England was afflicted by a sophisticated Skepticism led by the philosopher David Hume. His attacks on faith are still used on campuses today.French radicals contributed millions of francs to propagandize and seduce American students. In Christian colleges like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, students welcomed the new French ideas, not because they promised justice, but because of they welcomed immorality. It was a time of great moral decline. Of a population of 5 million--300,000 were alcoholics. They buried 15,000 of them annually.To give you an idea of just how prolific drinking was, President Washington had to call out troops to put down an armed revolt over alcohol in what’s come to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion. There was a plague of lawlessness with bank robberies a daily occurrence. Out-of-wedlock births and STDs sky-rocketed. Public profanity soared, cheating was epidemic. The turn toward immorality was so dramatic Congress appointed a special commission to investigate what had happened and how to correct it. The Commission discovered that in Kentucky, there’d been only one court of law held in five years. They simply could not administer justice on the frontier. It became so bad, a group of vigilantes formed and fought a pitched battle with the outlaws è and LOST!A poll taken at Harvard found most students were atheists. At Princeton, a far more evangelical college; there were only two believers in the entire student body. All but five were members of the Filthy Speech Movement. Christians were so unpopular they had to meet in secret. Students burned down buildings and forced college presidents to resign. A mob of students attacked a Presbyterian church, breaking windows and burning the pulpit Bible. Students often entered churches during Communion to interrupt the service by spitting on the floor.The largest and fastest-growing denomination had been Methodists. But they were now losing thousands each year. The second-largest were the Baptists. They described this time as their “most wintry season.” Presbyterians met in Philadelphia to express their dismay at the immorality of the nation. Lutherans and Episcopalians were so far gone they held talks to consider merging.Samuel Provost, Bishop of NY had not confirmed anyone as a new member in so long, he quit and looked for other work. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshal wrote to Bishop Madison of Virginia that the Church in the US was too far gone to ever recover. Charles Lee, a popular hero of the Revolutionary War loudly advocated pulling down all the churches claiming they were obstacles to progress.The church historian Dr. Kenneth Scott Latourette summed it up by saying it looked as though Christianity was about to be ushered out of the affairs of man. But it wasn’t. On the contrary, a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit was about to come.In 1784, Pastor John Erskin of Edinburgh, Scotland published a plea for prayer by all Christians in Scotland. He sent a copy to Jonathan Edwards in America. Edwards replied in what became a book titled A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth.Erskin published both his book and Edwards’ reply as one-volume and sent it to Dr. John Rylands, a Baptist leader in Britain. Rylands read it, was profoundly moved, and pondered what to do with it.He gave it to two men of prayer who determined to spread it among church leaders. They convinced dozens of Baptist churches to set aside the first Monday of each month to pray for a spiritual awakening. Other denominations found out about what the Baptists were doing and joined. Congregationalists, Evangelicals in the Churches of England and Scotland, and the Methodists all held monthly prayer meetings devoted to praying for revival. Within seven years Britain was covered with a network of prayer.Then in 1791, the first evidence of an answer to their prayers began in the churches at Yorkshire. Mockers went to the monthly prayer meetings intending to disrupt them but went home converted. Some of these meetings were quiet prayer, others noisy.Then in the city of Leeds, the Methodist Church there saw a thousand unbelievers brought to faith in just a few months. Soon all the churches were experiencing the same. What they saw was the renewal of believers and the conversion of the lost. And this winning of so many to Christ stunned both Baptists and Congregationalists. They didn't believe in instantaneous conversion. They assumed it took three months of challenge, another three months of instruction to prove someone had been converted. That an alcoholic could attend a church meeting and go away converted and dramatically changed was hard to believe à Until they saw it happening in their own services. It revolutionized their understanding of conversion, changing it forever.The revival strengthened Evangelicals in the Church of England like William Wilberforce who went on to lead the abolition movement in England.The revival moved into Scotland. It swept Wales. By 1796 it had covered Norway.One of the products of real revival is the new ministries it gives rise to. A pastor named Thomas Charles was moved by the story of Mary Jones, a serving girl who’d saved up her pennies to by a Bible. The nearest store was thirty miles away, so on her day off, she walked there, to find they were sold out. She returned home in tears. Pastor Charles was so moved he went to London and asked the publishers to print more Bibles. They refused saying the revival was a fad, a temporary emotionalism that would quickly pass and no one would want any Bibles then. So Charles formed the British and Foreign Bible Society, the first of all the Bible societies that would end up printing millions of Bibles that went all over the world.The Second Great Awakening resulted in a massive missionary outreach as well as major social reforms. It led to the abolition of slavery, thousands of schools, and a host of organizations to help the poor and needy.In the US and Canada, the first glimmers of revival began in 1792. It started in Boston where all but a couple of the churches had gone off into the error of Unitarianism. In Lenox, Mass. not a single young person had been received into the Church in 16 years. So a couple of churches agreed to hold special prayer for revival. They prayed for two years, then in 1794, a few pastors sent out a letter to every congregation in the US calling for a concert of prayer. They’d heard about what was happening in England and determined to do the same.The Presbyterians adopted it in mass. Congregationalists, Baptists, and Moravians all took it up. Soon Christians across the nation were praying the first Monday of every month for spiritual awakening. Their prayers were desperate as they realized the urgency of the need. The momentum built over the next four years until 1798 when the Second Great Awakening began in earnest in the US.One church in NYC began with 80 members. They prayed for revival and three years later had grown to 720. This was typical for most churches during the revival.In the Eastern States, there was little to no emotional extravagance. But in the Western states of Kentucky and Ohio things were different. Remember the horrible conditions that existed on the Western frontier. People were brought under such conviction of sin they were often in an agony that once confessed and repented of, was replaced by unbound joy in salvation. Many would go from unrestrained weeping to dancing and celebration.James McCready was the pastor of three small churches in Kentucky. McCready’s chief claim to fame was that he was so ugly he attracted attention. His voice was coarse and his style of preaching was far from elegant. In 1799 he said the ministry was “Weeping and mourning with the people of God.” But a year later, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit began in Kentucky.The churches of the frontier were small buildings inadequate to house all those who wanted to attend, so ministers like McCready rode to outdoor campsites where thousands gathered to hear the Word of God and take Communion.At these camp meetings, as many as 20,000 would show up and stay for 3-4 days as one preacher after another preached.The revival swept Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. Dr. George Baxter, a Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia heard about what was happening and went to investigate. He said Kentucky was the most moral place he’d ever seen in his life. He heard not a word of profanity the entire time he was there. He said a sense of religious awe hovered over the entire countryside.There was a great movement for the further evangelization of the Western frontier. Those who were converted traveled back East to attend college and get their degree in theology so they could return and continue the revival. So, revival broke out in those godless colleges of the East we talked about earlier. The Westerners returned home and started dozens of colleges in what today we call the Midwest. ¾’s of all Midwest colleges were the result of the Second Great Awakening.The Revival swept the South and was as evident among the slaves as among the white population.The War of 1812 interrupted the revival, but historians mostly agree that the Second Great Awakening marked the US as a thoroughly Christian nation.As the Awakening began to lose steam, Charles Finney came on the scene with his revival efforts. Beginning in New York State in 1824, he conducted effective meetings in several Eastern cities. The greatest took place in Rochester, New York, in the fall and winter of 1830–31, when he reported a thousand conversions in a city of 10,000. The revival affected nearby towns as well, with over 1,500 making professions of faith. At the same time, there were about 100,000 conversions in other parts of the country from New England to the Southwest.In 1835, Finney became president of Oberlin College in Ohio, where he continued to be an influential revivalist through personal campaigns and the wide distribution of his book Lectures on Revival. It was from the Oberlin school that the Holiness and Pentecostal churches emerged. Not only did Finney’s work make a great impact on America, he also made two trips to Europe, where he experienced extensive success.Finney is credited with introducing something called the anxious bench in his meetings. This was a place for people who wanted to express a desire for conversion to sit and await someone leading them to faith by walking them through an understanding of the Gospel then praying with them. The modern-day altar call practiced in many Evangelical churches and meetings is the descendant of Finney’s anxious seat.Fast-forward 50 years from the Second Great Awakening and it seemed the tide had gone out again. By the 1850s the country was thriving, largely because of the benefits brought by the Awakening. The Mid-West was being developed, the economy was booming. People made 18% interest on their investments. But as is so often the case, economic prosperity turned into a neglect of the Spirit. The pursuit of pleasure replaced the pursuit of God. The nation was politically divided over the issue of slavery. It wasn’t just States that were divided. Churches and denominations split over it.Into this national argument that ended up tearing the country in two was added a dose of religious turmoil.A veteran and farmer named William Miller rediscovered the doctrine of the 2^nd Coming. For generations most of the Church considered Bible prophesy a closed book. Miller began teaching on the Return of Christ. But he made the mistake many have and said Christ would return in 1844. About a million people followed his views. When it didn’t happen, they were bitterly disillusioned because they’d sold their homes, businesses, and farms. Skeptics piled on the fanaticism of the Millerites and fired up a new round of mocking faith. Then, in 1857, things began to change. What that change was, we’ll take a look at it next time.

124-Decline

This is episode 124-Decline.Following the Great Awakening, which produced a deep-seated sense of Faith in so many Americans prior to the Revolutionary War, as the new nation organized itself around its new national identity, it realized something unique was taking place. A genuine religious pluralism had taken root. That was very different from the centuries of conflict that marked the Europe their ancestors had come from.There are several reasons for the religious pluralism of the United States. But when we speak of pluralism at that point in history, let’s make sure what we mean is a lack of the establishment of a specific Christian denomination as a National or Federal Church. 18^th Century pluralism didn’t extend to other major religions. There were no Buddhist or Hindu temples; no Islamic mosques nor Shinto shrines. Americans were Christians, if not of the committed stripe, at least nominally.The first reason for the religious pluralism of the US was immigration after 1690. It brought a mixture of people with various faiths so that no group was dominant. The Quakers of Pennsylvania opposed a formal church structure which prevented the rise of a State church there. Please note this: While the first Amendment prohibited the FEDERAL govt from establishing a National Church, there was no ban on the States establishing a State Church. Several states in fact HAD State churches. But the Quaker dominance of Pennsylvania resisted an established church. Their presence in New Jersey contributed to the religious mixture in that colony, and Pennsylvania’s control over Delaware during most of the colonial period meant freedom of religion there as well. French Huguenots took refuge in several colonies. Having suffered brutal persecution back home, they had no desire to persecute others.A second wave of immigrants in 1700, consisted mostly of some 200,000 Germans. While most were either Lutheran or Reformed, several smaller sects were also present. Most shared the Pietistic emphasis on a deeply felt personal faith. They had no desire to dominate others’ religious persuasion. These Germans settled in Pennsylvania and northern New York.Last came a wave of about a quarter-million Scotch-Irish from Northern Ireland. Nearly all Presbyterians, they’d been persecuted by the Anglican Church of Ireland. They spread throughout the Middle & Southern colonies. By 1760, the population of the colonies was about 2½ million. A third born in a foreign land.A second influence favoring religious pluralism was that many of the colonies were Proprietary, meaning they were business ventures. For the sake of the business, religious feuds needed to be tamped down lest they prove a distraction to the colony’s profitability. Even where a specific church or denomination was favored, large numbers of people from others faiths meant the requirement to get along for the greater good.Third, the revivals we looked at in the last episode proved a leveling influence. They crossed denominational lines as if there was no distinction whatever. Revival preachers and promoters universally stressed the equality of all in the sight of God.Fourth, the Western frontier was another leveler. Pioneers were self-reliant individualists or they didn’t survive. In case you haven’t noticed, rugged individualism and religious institutionalism don’t mix. Frontiersmen were suspicious of and opposed to attempts by them City-folk back East asserting their will over the Frontier – in any form, including dictating what church would be built where and led by who.Fifth, following the revivals of the 18^th century, spiritual apathy began to grow once more. The churches that had filled during the Great Awakening began to empty. And without new ministers in training, it meant more churches were left without gifted leaders. Let me be clear—While the Frontier resisted Eastern denominations reaching into their realm, they still wanted their own churches. But the rapid evolution of the Western Frontier meant churches weren’t built or manned quickly enough. The Frontier became a largely unchurch region. In proportion to the population, probably more than anywhere else in Christendom during the first third of the 18^th century, the Western frontier of the British colonies was the least churched.Sixth, the philosophy of natural rights percolating for a couple of centuries coalesced during the Enlightenment. It now began to influence many. One of those natural rights people came to accept was the privilege of deciding what religion they’d follow. John Locke’s Letters on Toleration argued for the separation of church and state and a voluntary religious affiliation for any and all. Most leaders of the generation that saw the American Revolutionary, such as Thomas Jefferson, were enamored with this philosophy and were active in bringing down the church establishment in Virginia soon after the new nation won its independence.When the Revolution began, the Anglican church suffered greatly because many of its ministers remained Loyalists who supported England. When the war was over, there were few Anglican ministers left in the country and many churches had been destroyed.In all, the disestablishment of religion seemed a foregone conclusion in the United States. With the founding of the new nation, one after another, State churches toppled. The last to go was Congregationalism in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in the first half of the 19^th century.I realize the narrative I’ve just shared appears to challenge the picture some modern apologists paint of the role of Christianity in the Early American Republic. A deeper look makes it clear there’s no challenge at all. To say the United States saw a disestablishment of churches doesn’t mean Americans were irreligious. On the contrary; remember what we saw in the last episode. The Great Awakening had such a huge impact on the colonies that for a time, to be an American meant to be a Christian. And not just as a default label derived at by the process of elimination. You know, that attitude some have that says, “Well, I’m not a Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim; so I must be a Christian.” Coming out of the Great Awakening, the American identity was one that was thoroughly and sincerely Christian of the pietistic stripe; where having a personal testimony of the experience of being born again was paramount.So à IF there was so much religious diversity and agitation against an established Church during the 18^th century, what were the attitudes of the different denominations toward the Revolution?As noted, Anglicans in the Church of England were divided, but dominated by a loyalist majority. In the north, Anglicans leaned heavily toward the loyalist cause. In the south, many of the great planters, men like George Washington, favored the Revolutionary cause. Congregationalists gave enthusiastic support to the Revolution, their ministers preached fervent sermons favoring of the patriot cause.Presbyterians leaned that way as well in a continuation of the old conflict back home between themselves and Anglicans. Presbyterian John Witherspoon, was a signer of the Articles of Confederation, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Lutherans also supported the Revolution under the leadership of the Muhlenbergs. Though divided, Roman Catholics were generally patriots.Baptists supported the Revolution because they felt the cause of separation of church and state was at stake. They believed a British victory would bring a round of new political control and a tightening on the religious scene.Methodists were suspect because at the beginning of the war Wesley urged neutrality. Then colonial preachers came out in support of the Revolution. Although Quakers, Mennonites, and Moravians were pacifists, most of them were in sympathy with the Revolution and some joined the army.The Revolution dissolved the ties between many religious groups in America and their spiritual relatives in Europe. This meant the need for new organizations in America. Though the Anglican church had been handed a serious setback, it didn’t completely evacuate the new Nation. William White and Samuel Seabury attempted to rebuild the Anglican church after the war under the new label of the Protestant Episcopal Church.Loosed from English Methodism, in 1784 Methodists organized as the Methodist Episcopal Church, under the leadership of Francis Asbury. That same year, American Roman Catholics ended their affiliation with the British Bishop. In 1789, John Carroll became the first Roman Catholic bishop, with Baltimore as his See. The Baptists formed a General Committee in 1784. And the Presbyterians in Philadelphia drew up a constitution for their church at the same time as the national Constitution was being formed in 1787.The Revolutionary War proved to be hard on religious life in America. Because most local churches supported the Revolution, when the British took an area, they often poured out their wrath on houses of worship. Churches were destroyed when they were used as barracks, hospitals, and storehouses of munitions. Pastors and congregations were absorbed in the cause of the Revolution rather than in building up the churches. French deism and its philosophical cousin atheism became fashionable among certain elements of American society because of the alliance with France. Rationalism took control of colleges and other intellectual centers. In some schools, there was hardly a student who’d admit to being a Christian.Conditions were so bad during the years when the Constitution was being forged, politicians and ministers alike virtually gave up hope for the role of religion in American society. Bishop Samuel Provost of the Episcopal Diocese of New York saw the situation as so hopeless, he ceased to function. A committee of Congress reported on the desperate state of lawlessness on the frontier. Of a population of five million, the United States had 300,000 drunkards, burying 15,000 a year. In 1796, George Washington agreed with a friend that national affairs were leading to a crisis he was unable to see the outcome of.The closing years of the 18^th C were dark. But its always darkest just before the dawn.

123-Awakening

This episode of CS is titled Awakening.The tide of Pietism that swept portions of Europe in the 17^th C, arrived in North America in the 18^th. Like the Charismatic Movement of the 1960s, Protestant denominations were split over how to respond to Pietism. Presbyterians were divided between those who insisted on strict adherence to the teachings of the Westminster Confession and those whose emphasis was on having an experience of saving grace. The two sides eventually reunited, but not before the contention became so sharp, it led to a rift. That reached its zenith, or nadir might be a better descriptive, during The Great Awakening.As we saw in our last episode, the Half-Way Covenant of New England allowed people to be members of the Church, without being saved; a formula for disaster. The Half-Way Covenant, along with the assault of the pseudo-intellectualism of the Enlightenment, resulted in a creeping spiritual lethargy among the churches of the English colonies. Jonathan Edwards, who became one of the main luminaries of The Great Awakening, remarked before it began that the spiritual condition of New England was abysmal.The first stirrings of revival began as movements in local churches five to ten years before the Great Awakening. There’d even been some minor revivals in Northampton during the time of Edwards’ grandfather, Solomon Stoddard in the 1720s.Theodore Frelinghuysen was a Dutch Reformed pastor who’d come to North America to pastor four churches in New Jersey. Frelinghuysen was what’s called a Precisionist, a Dutch version of an English Puritan. Puritanism was exported to Holland by William Ames where it was referred to as Precisionism.Pastor Frelinghuysen discerned a general spiritual malaise in all four of his congregations there in New Jersey; an appalling lack of practical piety. So he decided to embark on a program of reform. He started visiting people in their homes. He enforced church discipline and preached fervent evangelistic sermons. A few opposed these innovations, but he persevered and the churches began to grow with genuine conversions resulting in a warming up of the entire congregation in their fervency for the things of God. It was the first stirrings of revival, which spread to other Dutch Reformed churches. By 1726, Frelinghuysen was recognized as a leader of revival.The Presbyterians of New Jersey saw what was happening among their Dutch neighbors and soon joined the revival under the work of the father and son team, William and Gilbert Tennent.But when it comes to The Great Awakening, the name most closely associated with it is Jonathan Edwards.Edwards is considered by many to be one of the most brilliant minds in American history. He wasn’t just a great theologian. He was a top-rank philosopher and scientist. Edwards is sometimes presented as a fiery preacher in the Puritan vein. The popular notion of him is that he was a revivalist-preacher of a mien similar to George Whitefield. His most famous sermon was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The title alone gives one the impression of a wild-eyed and crazy-haired pulpit-pounder. But that image is far from what Edwards was really like. He was reserved and tended toward shyness. He was more at home in his study among his books than in a pulpit. Edwards spent ten hours a day studying. His messages were filled with theology and their delivery was not the kind of fire and brimstone preaching many assume. His style was to virtually read his messages. That’s not to say his delivery was wooden, but descriptions of it remarked on the lack of gestures or inflection of voice. Flamboyance was nowhere in sight when Edwards spoke. He trusted in the eloquence and logic of his message to persuade, rather than by affecting a dramatic persona. If there was grandeur in his message, it was due to WHAT he said, rather than in HOW he said it.Edwards was a PK; a pastor’s kid. His father Timothy was a minister in the town of East Windsor, Connecticut. By the age of thirteen, he’d master Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He wrote essays on scientific matters and penned one on the behavior of insects that became famous. As a teen, he read and consumed the ideas of Sir Isaac Newton. He graduated from Yale at seventeen.It was during his college years his relationship with God deepened into rich intimacy. All of that grew out of the time he spent studying the nature and character of God.Edwards added two more years of post-graduate studies then took a pastorate at a small church in New York for only a couple of months. That was followed by a stint as a tutor at Yale for another two years. In 1727, he became an assistant pastor to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard at Northampton, Mass. Also at that time, he married Sarah Pierpont.When Edwards took up his ministry at Northampton in 1727, he found the church to be spiritually dull, even though it had been the scene of earlier stirrings of the Spirit under Stoddard’s leadership. When Stoddard died in 1729, Edwards stepped into the role of senior pastor.He decided to address the spiritual apathy of the congregation by preaching a series of five sermons on justification by faith. He rightly diagnosed the real problem at Northampton wasn’t laziness or moral sloppiness; it was an absence of good theology. Instead of preaching the need for repentance and obedience, he focused on the glory of God in the Gospel of Christ. Sure enough, a season of renewal came as people recommitted themselves to follow Jesus. The messages weren’t calculated to elicit an emotional response, but they did. People responded with a remarkable moral and spiritual change, often with intense emotion.After several months, the movement spread thru out Massachusetts and into Connecticut. After three years it began to diminish. But the memory of revival endured, with many hoping for it to be renewed.In 1737, Edwards decided to pen a chronicle of what had happened over the previous three years. It was titled, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundreds of Souls in Northampton. That’s the title; not the actual text of the whole thing. The Narrative as it’s more conveniently referred to, is what established Jonathan Edwards as the main person associated with Revival.In 1739, George Whitefield visited New England. Though Edwards and Whitefield represented different flavors of the Faith, they were both deeply committed to the Preaching of the Gospel. Edwards helped arrange Whitefield’s campaign through the area of Boston then on to Northampton where Edwards turned his pulpit over to the great preacher. The winds of renewal that had waned a few years before strengthened once more.Then Edwards was invited to speak at the church in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. His message was titled, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Reading the text of the sermon today one might assume it was delivered in the ham-fisted, “fire and brimstone” manner of a fanatic. But as we’ve seen, that was not Edward’s style. Nor did he deliver it in the monotone some later reports suggest. He spoke as a man convinced of his topic; urging his listeners to make sure they’d embraced the Grace of God. The sermon paints a terrifying picture of eternal damnation; something Edwards aimed to make clear. Because as historian George Marsden says, Edwards didn’t preach anything new to his hearers. They were well acquainted with the Gospel as a remedy for sin. The problem was getting them to seek it.While revival was already building, Edwards’ sermon at that church in Enfield was a crystalizing moment in The Great Awakening. If the coals had been getting hot they now burst into flames that spread all over New England and to the other colonies, even across the Atlantic to settle in England and the Continent.As welcome as The Great Awakening might have seemed, some ministers opposed it. Their opposition stemmed from their resistance to the emotionalism that became a mark of the Revival. People wept in repentance then shouted for joy at being saved. Some were so emotionally wrought over the process of their conversion, they fainted. A few who were psychologically fragile exhibited what can only be called bizarre behavior.Such reactions led the enemies of the Great Awakening to accuse its leaders of undermining the solemnity of worship, and of substituting emotion for scholarship. Since it’s the tendency to stick labels on movements, supporters of the Awakening were called New Lights, while those who opposed it were called Old Lights.Edwards made clear in his writings that he believed emotion was important. But emotion, including the intense experience of conversion, should never eclipse doctrine and orderly worship.At first, Baptists opposed the Awakening, labeling it frivolous and superficial. But so many of the new converts were inclined to agree with Baptist positions that they ended up becoming Baptists. When the Baptists saw all these new members, their opinion of the Revival changed. Most notable was the conviction among the new converts that baptism ought to be of those who profess faith in Christ, not infants. Entire Congregationalists and Presbyterian congregations became Baptists.The Great Awakening sent Baptists and Methodists to the Western frontier. Settlers continually pushed the Frontier westward. It was Methodist and Baptist missionaries who took up the task of preaching to them and planting frontier churches. So those two groups became the most numerous out West.It’s difficult to estimate how many conversions took place during the Great Awakening but gauging by fairly accurate church records taken over that time indicate a conservative number of ten percent of Americans came to Faith. In some communities, it was much higher than that. Keep in mind that was in the midst of a society already considered thoroughly Christian.Besides the obvious spiritual effects of the Great Awakening, it had a notable political impact in the British colonies of North America. It was the first movement to include all thirteen colonies. A new sense of commonality developed in which the emerging unique identity as Americans, as opposed to British, took root alongside the idea that to be an American meant to be a Christian of Protestant stripe.The Great Awakening propelled a wave of missionary activity. David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards, and others preached to the Indians, and some effort was made to reach blacks with the gospel. Among the colleges birthed at that time were Princeton, Rutgers, Brown, and Dartmouth. Dartmouth trained Indians to serve as missionaries to their own people.Edwards continued in his role as pastor till 1750 when a controversy saw him removed.Edwards believed Communion ought to be given only to those church members who’d demonstrated a genuine conversion experience, as per the Pietistic belief. His grandfather, the previous pastor, had relaxed the traditional Puritan practice and allowed what we’ll call ‘unconverted church members’ to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Stoddard regarded Communion as a “converting experience.” He thought regular attendance at the Lord’s Table would be something the Holy Spirit could use to bring conviction and salvation to a needy soul. Edwards disagreed, viewing Communion as open only to those who were converted.By 1750, Edwards had come to this position though at odds with the tradition of the church he pastored. When he tried to implement a change in practice, they released him. Yep, they canned him. It was then that he embarked on his mission of taking the Gospel to the Indians at Stockbridge, Mass. It was while engaged in that work that he wrote his most famous work – Freedom of the Will.I want to share a little story from the life of Jonathan Edwards that may give us some insight into the man. After fourteen years of marriage, in January of 1742, something happened to his wife Sarah. She had an intense religious experience. Some historians think it was a nervous breakdown. Edward was away on a preaching tour. His pulpit was being filled by Samuel Buell who gave a series of sermons with profound impact on Sarah. She was overwhelmed to the point of fainting. Her condition was such that she was unable to take care of her children, who were sent to stay with neighbors till John returned a few weeks later.The town was abuzz with the nature of her condition. Was it some kind of spiritual ecstasy or an emotional breakdown? When John returned, he of course immediately went to her to see what was wrong. She related to him that she’d experienced God’s goodness as never before; as she didn’t even know was possible. She said the joy and security she now had was so intense it was at times debilitating.John’s reaction was interesting. He affirmed she’d had a visitation from God. Keep in mind we’re talking here about hard-core, strict Calvinist; not a Pentecostal or even a more mild Charismatic.After a few weeks, Sarah recovered and returned to the normal activities of life. But John said from then on Sarah maintained a peace and joy that transformed her. In writing about the effects of the revival, while Edwards doesn’t name his wife, it’s clear some of what he chronicled were things he witnessed in his own wife when she was filled with the Holy Spirit in 1742.In 1757, Edwards was appointed president of Princeton, known then as the College of New Jersey. A short time later, he volunteered to be a test subject for a smallpox vaccine. Which instead of inoculating him against the disease, claimed his life in 1758.One of my favorite teachers is J. Edwin Orr. When Orr died in 1987, he was recognized by many as the 20^th Century’s foremost expert on Revival. He spent his last years living a few miles from where I am now, in CA. My good friend and fellow pastor David Guzik befriended Orr’s widow, who passed many of Dr. Orr’s books, writings, and recordings on to him for posterity’s sake. David has faithfully made that material available online at jedwinorr.com .The eminent New Testament scholar FF Bruce said, “Some men read history, some write it, and others make it. So far as the history of religious revivals is concerned, J. Edwin Orr belongs to all three categories.”Orr tells remarkable stories of the impact of revival on society. The many revivals he chronicles don’t merely add a bunch of new church members; they have an astounding impact in moral revolution. Orr shares that during some revivals, because there was no crime, the Police organized singing groups to sing in churches because they had nothing else to do. There were a number of business failures; pubs and other enterprises that thrive on vice folded.One unforeseen effect during the Welsh Revival was that there was a work stoppage in the coal mines of Wales. For years, the mules that pulled the coal carts were used to hearing the miners curse at them. But when so many miners converted during the Revival, they refused to curse anymore and the mules no longer heard the profane commands telling them to move. Work in the mines stalled till the mules were retrained to respond to the now clean speech of the joyous miners.If you’re interested in more such interesting stories, I encourage you to head over to jedwinorr.com for more.And I want to also encourage you to check our David Guzik’s website at enduringword.com.David is one of the premier Bible expositors online today. His free commentary is used by many thousands of pastors, professors, Bible teachers and students all over the world.Donations of any size to CS are welcome. You can do so at sanctorum.us // Thanks.

122-Colonies

This episode is titled Colonies.The 16^th C saw the growth of the Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires. The Spanish Empire included Mexico, extending well into what is now the western half of North America. In the 17^th C, other Europeans began their own empire-building. The most successful of the new colonial powers was Great Britain. Among its first overseas enterprises were the thirteen colonies in North America. Though we’ve already talked about the settling of Plymouth and the Puritan settlements of Massachusetts, we’ll do a little review.The first British colonial ventures in North America failed. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a charter for colonization. He named the area Virginia, after the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. But his first two ventures failed. The first group of settlers returned to England, while the second disappeared.Then, in 1607 the first permanent colonization of Virginia began at Jamestown, named after the new British King James. There was a chaplain among them since the Virginia Company who sponsored the venture hoped to establish the Church of England in the new land and to offer its services both to the settlers and Indians. It also hoped the new colony would halt Spanish expansion, which was feared for its spread of the dreaded “popery,” as Puritans called Catholicism. But the colony’s main purpose was economic rather than religious. The Church of England never had a bishop in Virginia or in any of the other colonies. The stockholders of the Virginia Company simply hoped trade with the Indians, along with whatever crops the settlers grew, would bring a profit.The founding of Virginia took place at the high point of Puritan influence in the Church of England. // Several of the stockholders and settlers believed the colony should be ruled by Puritan principles. Its early laws required attendance at worship twice a day, strict observance of Sunday as a day of rest and worship, and the prohibition of profanity and immodesty. But King James detested Puritans, and would not allow his colony to be ruled by them. A war with the native Americans in 1622 became the excuse to bring Virginia under his direct rule. After that, Puritan influence waned. Later Charles I, following James’s anti-Puritan policy, carved out a large part of Virginia for a new colony called Maryland and placed it under the Catholic proprietor, Lord Baltimore. Maryland was intended to be a Roman Catholic enclave in the British North American colonies. While many Catholics did move there, Protestants outnumbered them.The Puritan Revolution in England made little impact on Virginia. The colonists were more interested in growing the new cash crop of tobacco and opening new lands for its cultivation than in the religious strife going on back in merry old England. Puritan zeal lost its vigor in the midst of economic prosperity. One of the things that led to this spiritual decline was the acceptance of slavery.Tobacco is a labor-intensive crop. The importation of cheap labor in the form of African slaves allowed the colonists to grow the tons of tobacco now all the rage in Europe. But the Protestant work ethic that lay at the heart of so much of the Puritan mindset was gutted by slavery. Simply put, Puritan colonists lost touch with why the Puritans back in England wanted to reform the government and Church of England.Prior to Abolition, the Church of England neglected evangelizing slaves. They did so because of an ancient principle prohibiting Christians from holding fellow believers in slavery. If a slave got saved, his owner was obliged to free her/him. Then, in 1667, a law was passed saying baptism didn’t change a slave’s legal status as the property of his owner.While the new and emerging American aristocracy of Virginia remained Anglican, many in the lower classes turned to dissident movements. When strict measures were taken against them, hundreds migrated to Catholic Maryland, where there was greater religious freedom. The Quakers and Methodists took turns making successful forays into Virginia’s church scene.Other colonies were founded south of Virginia. The Carolinas, granted by the crown to a group of aristocratic stockholders in 1663, developed slowly. To encourage immigration, the proprietors declared religious freedom, which attracted dissidents from Virginia and England. It didn’t take long before the people who settled in the new colonies claimed little to no religious affiliation other than a generic “Christian.”Georgia was founded for two over-arching reasons. The first was to halt Spanish expansion. The second was to serve as an alternative for England’s overcrowded debtors’ prisons. At the beginning of the 18^th C, there were many who wanted to help the sorry lot of those in England who’d fallen into poverty and couldn’t get out. One of the leaders of this campaign was a military hero named James Oglethorpe. He thought a colony ought to be founded in North America to serve as an alternative to the imprisonment of debtors. A royal charter was granted in 1732, and the first convicts arrived the next year. To these, others were soon added, along with a large group of religious refugees. Although Anglicanism was the official religion of Georgia, it made little impact on the colony. The failure of the Wesleys as Anglican pastors in the colony was typical of others. The Moravians had a measure of success, although their numbers were never large. The most significant religious movement in the early years of Georgia was the response to Whitefield’s preaching. By the time of his death in 1770, he’d left his stamp on much of Georgia’s religious life. Later, Methodists, Baptists, and others harvested what he’d sown.As we’ve seen in previous episodes, it was farther north, at Plymouth and around Boston that Puritanism made its greatest impact. When Roger Williams was banished, he settled Providence, around which the colony of Rhode Island eventually coalesced.The Hutchinsons and their supporters started Connecticut.The Puritans, who baptized their children, were influenced by the Pietistic belief in the necessity of a conversion experience in order to be a genuine Christian. The question then rose; “Why do we baptize children if people don’t become Christians till they are converted?” Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait till someone was converted, then dunk ‘em – like, BTW, the Baptists do in Rhode Island? Some wanted to follow this new course. But that clashed with the Puritan goal of founding a Christian society, one in covenant with God and guided by biblical principles. A Christian commonwealth is conceivable only if, as in ancient Israel, one becomes a member by birth, so that the civil and the religious communities are the same. So children HAD to be baptized because that’s how you become part of the Church, and the Church and society were one and the same, just as in ancient Israel they entered the covenant by circumcision as infants.To make matters even MORE complicated à If infants were baptized so as to make them “children of the covenant,” what was to be done with infants born of baptized parents who never had a conversion experience?Many came to the conclusion there needed to be a kind of “halfway covenant,” that included those who were baptized but had no personal conversion experience. The children of such people were to be baptized, for they were still members of the covenant community. But only those who had experienced a conversion were granted full membership in the church and were vested with the power to participate in the process of making decisions.This controversy engendered bitter arguments and monumental ill-will which turned the original optimism of the settlers into a dark foreboding. The tension over the Half-Way Covenant spilled over into new debates over how churches ought to be governed and over relations between local congregations who took different sides in the controversies that began to swirl. The majority settled on a form of church government called Congregationalism. They managed to maintain a grip on doctrinal orthodoxy by adhering to the Westminster Confession.As mentioned, the main center of Roman Catholicism in the North American British colonies was Maryland. In 1632, Charles I granted Cecil Calvert, whose noble title was Lord Baltimore, rights of colonization over a region claimed by Virginia. Calvert was Catholic, and the grant was made by Charles in an attempt to garner Catholic support. Catholics in England wanted a colony where they could live without the restrictions they faced at home. Since it was politically unwise to establish a purely Catholic colony, it was decided Maryland would be a realm of religious freedom.The first settlers arrived in 1634, with only a tenth being Catholic aristocrats. The other nine-tenths were their Protestant servants. Tobacco quickly became the colony’s economic mainstay, giving rise to large, prosperous plantations. Maryland was governed by Catholic landowners, but the majority of its residents were Protestants. Whenever the shifting political winds in Britain gave opportunity, Protestants sought to wrest power from the Catholic aristocracy. They succeeded when James II was overthrown. Anglicanism then became the official religion of Maryland and Catholic rights were restricted.Because of the religious liberty practiced as policy in Pennsylvania, a good number of Catholics settled there. Catholicism then made significant gains after the Stuarts were restored to the throne in England. But after the fall of James II, the growth of Catholicism in all thirteen colonies was restricted.The colonies of New York & New Jersey, weren’t, at first, religious refuges for any particular group. Pennsylvania was founded as a home for Quakers. But not solely so. William Penn envisioned the colony as a place of religious freedom for all. The same was true for Delaware, which Penn purchased from the Duke of York, and was part of Pennsylvania until 1701.The religious history of New Jersey is complex. East New Jersey leaned toward the strict Puritanism of New England, while the West favored the tolerance of the Quakers. Sadly, many Quakers in New Jersey became a slaveholding aristocracy whose relations with the more traditional abolitionist Quakers of Pennsylvania became strained.What became New York was first colonized by the Dutch, whose East India Company established headquarters in Manhattan, and whose Reformed Church came with them. In 1655, they conquered a rival colony the Swedes founded on the Delaware River, then they were in turn conquered by the British in 1664 in a minor contest. What had been New Netherland became New York. The Dutch who stayed, most of them it turned out, became British; which they happily consented to, since their homeland hadn’t given them support. The British replaced the Dutch Reformed Church with the Church of England, whose only members were the governor’s party until more British arrived and settled.We end this episode noting religious motivations played an important role in the founding of several of the British colonies in America. Although at first, some were intolerant of religious diversity, time softened that policy, and the colonies tended to emulate the example of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, where religious freedom existed from their inception. Such tolerance eased the natural tensions that rival colonies had as they vied for economic prosperity. The colonies also witnessed from afar the religious tensions ripping the mother country apart. That may have moved them to cool their intolerance in favor of a more liberal policy of religious freedom. But other factors were at work that combined to erode the religious fervor of the early settlers of the thirteen colonies. Slavery, the social inequality of a plantation-based economy, the exploitation of Indians and their lands, combined to work against the conscience of the English settlers. They found it difficult to follow the pattern of New Testament Christianity while engaging in practices they knew violated the Spirit of Christ. They entered a phase of national life where a desire for wealth eclipsed the conviction of the Spirit. The result was a spiritual malaise that deadened the religious fervor of the colonies.But as we’ve seen repeatedly in our study of Church History, a period of spiritual declension either resolves in widespread apostasy or spiritual renewal. What would it be for the British colonies in North America? We find out, in our next episode.A donation of any amount to keep CS up and running is appreciated. You can donate by going to the sanctorum.us page and following the link. Thanks.

121-Results

This episode of CS is titled Results.Now that we’ve taken a look at some of the movements and luminaries of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, it’s time for a review of the results and their impact on The Church.Once we embark in the next Era of Church History, we’ll find ourselves in the weeds of so many movements we’re going to have to back up and take it in an even more summary form than we have. Turns out, the warning Roman Catholics sounded when Protestants split off turned out to be true. They warned if Luther and other Reformers left the Mother Church, they’d commence a fragmenting that would never end. They foretold that anyone with their own idea of the way things ought to be would run off to start their own group, that would become another church, then a movement of churches and eventually a denomination. The hundreds of denominations and tens of thousands of independent churches today are testimony to that fragmenting.The problem for us here with CS is this – There’s no way we can chronicle all the many directions the Church went in that fragmenting. We’ll need to stand back to only mark the broad strokes.Though the Enlightenment heavyweight John Locke was an active advocate of religious tolerance, he made it clear tolerance didn’t apply to Catholics. The fear in England of a Catholic-Jacobite conspiracy, valid it turned out, moved Locke and the Anglican clergy to be wary of granting Catholics the full spectrum of civil rights. On the contrary, the English were at one point so paranoid of Rome’s attempt to seize the throne, a 1699 statute made the saying of a Latin mass a crime.Many Roman Church apologists were talented writers and challenged Anglican teachings. In 1665, Bishop Tillotson answered John Sergeant’s treatise titled Sure Footing in Christianity, or Rational Discourses on the Rule of Faith. Sergeant worried some Protestants might convert to Catholicism for political reasons. His anxiety grew in 1685 when the Roman Catholic Duke of York, James II, became king. King James’s Declaration of Indulgences removed restrictions blocking Catholics from serving in the government.The arrival of William III and the Glorious Revolution ended James’ efforts to return England to the Catholic fold. He was allowed to leave England for France at the end of 1688. Then in 1714, with the Peace of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession, France’s King Louis XIV, promised he’d no longer back the Stuart claim to England’s throne.During the 18^th C, Catholics in England were a minority. At the dawn of the century, there were only two convents in England, with a whopping 25 nuns. By 1770, the number of Catholics still only numbered some 80,000. They lacked civil and political rights and were considered social outsiders. The Marriage Act of 1753 disallowed any wedding not conducted according to the Anglican rite, excepting Quakers and Jews.This is not to say all English Protestants were intolerant of Roman Catholics. Some of the upper classes appreciated varied aspects of Roman culture. They owned art produced by Catholic artists and thought making the continental Grand Tour a vital part of proper education. One of the chief stops on that Tour was, of course, Rome.Still, anti-Catholic feelings on the part of the common people were seen in the Gordon Riots of 1780. When the 1699 statute banning the Mass was removed, a mob burned down Catholic homes and churches. Catholics didn’t receive full civil liberty until the Emancipation Act of 1829.While Anglicans, Baptists, and Catholics sniped at each other, they all agreed Deism represented a serious threat to the Christian Faith. England proved to be Deism's most fertile soil.In 1645, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Father of English Deism, proposed five articles as the basis of his rationalist religion.1) God exists;2) We are obliged to revere God;3) Worship consists of a practical morality;4) We should repent of sin;5) A future divine judgment awaits all people based on how they’ve lived.Charles Blount published several works that furthered the Deist cause in England. John Toland’s Christianity not Mysterious in 1696 opened the floodgates of Deistic literature. Contemporaries of John Locke viewed his The Reasonableness of Christianity as preparing the way for Toland’s explicitly Deist work. Locke tried to blunt the accusation by saying while Toland was a friend, his ideas were his own and had no connection to his own.The first half of the 18^th C saw an onslaught of literature from Deists that seemed to batter Anglicans into a corner and make the Gospel seem insipid. So much so that in 1722 Daniel Defoe complained that “no age, since the founding and forming the Christian Church was ever like, in openly avowed atheism, blasphemies, and heresies, to the age we now live in.” When Montesquieu visited England in 1729 he wrote “There is no religion, and the subject if mentioned, excites nothing but laughter.” The Baron certainly over-stated the case since other evidence indicates religious discussion was far from rare. But in his circle of contacts, the place theological discussion had once played was now greatly diminished.Eventually, in response to this wave of Deist literature, Christian apologists embarked on a campaign to address a number of -isms that had risen to silence the Faith. They dealt with Deism, Atheism, a resurgent Arianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism. Their task was complicated by the fact many of their Deist opponents claimed to be proponents of the “true” teachings of the Christian faith.Richard Bentley observed that the claims of Deists attacked the very heart of the Christian faith. He summarized Deist ideas like this – “They say that the soul is material, Christianity a cheat, Scripture a falsehood, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our life without providence, and our death without hope, such are the items of the glorious gospel of these Deist evangelists.”A number of Deists argued that God, Who they referred to as the Architect of the Universe, does not providentially involve Himself in His creation. Rather, He established fixed laws to govern the way the world runs. Since the laws are fixed, no biblical miracles could have taken place. So, the Bible is filled with errors and nonsense, a premise deists like Anthony Collins claimed was confirmed by critics like Spinoza. Prophetic pointers to a Messiah in the Old Testament could not have been fulfilled by Christ since prophecy would violate the fixed law of time.Deists maintained that salvation is NOT an issue of believing the Gospel. Rather, God requires all peoples to follow rationally construed moral laws regarding what’s right and wrong. Since a measure of reason is given to everyone, God is fair, they contended, in holding everyone accountable to the same rational, moral standards.The astute listener may note that that sounds close to what some scientists advocate today. We hear much about the growing number of once atheist scientists coming to a faith in God. That report is true, but we need to qualify the “god” many of them are coming to faith in. It’s a god of the small ‘g’, not a capital “G” as in the God of the Bible. The god of many recent scientist converts is more akin to the Watchmaker deity of the Deists than the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and The Apostle Paul.Deists believed what they called “natural religion” underlying all religion. We learn of this religion, not from the special revelation of Scripture. We learn it from, as Immanuel Kant would say “the starry heavens above, and the moral law within.”Christian apologists unleashed scores of books in an anti-deist counterattack. One of the most effective was Jacques Abbadie’s Treatise on the Truth of the Christian Religion. Published in 1684, it was one of the earliest and most widely circulated apologetics for the truthfulness of the Christian faith based on “facts.” Abbadie was a Protestant pastor in London. He countered Deist arguments against the resurrection and alleged discrepancies in Scripture. The points he made remain some of the most potent apologetics today. He pointed out the public nature of Christ’s appearances after the resurrection. The change in the disciples’ attitudes, from trembling in fear to confidence in the truthfulness and power of The Gospel as evidenced by their preaching and willingness to die for the Faith. In the 18^th C, Abbadie’s work was found in the libraries of more French nobles than the best-selling works of Bossuet or Pascal.You may remember a couple of episodes back, our brief coverage of the work of the skeptic David Hume. Hume attacked the concept of “cause and effect,” claiming it was only an unsubstantiated presupposition allowing for it that made cause and effect a rule. Hume’s criticism turned those who bought his ideas into inveterate critics unable to come to conclusions about anything. John Wesley described Hume as “the most insolent despiser of truth and virtue that ever appeared in the world, an avowed enemy to God and man, and to all that is sacred and valuable upon earth.”The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid developed an erudite response to Hume’s skepticism. In his An Essay on Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, published in 1764, Reid critiqued Hume’s theory: “The theory of ideas, like the Trojan horse, had a specious appearance both of innocence and beauty; but if those philosophers had known, that it carried in its belly death and destruction to all science and common sense, they would not have broken down their walls to give it admittance.” Hume’s principles, Reid showed, led to absurd conclusions.While Skepticism and Deism gained many adherents early on, and Christianity struggled for a while as it adjusted to the new challenge, it eventually produced a plethora of responses that regained a good measure of the intellectual ground. This period can be said to be the breeding ground for today’s apologetic culture and the core of its philosophical stream.In 1790, Edmund Burke rejoiced that Christian apologists had largely won out over the Deists.At the dawning of the 18^th C, the Scottish clans with their rough and tumble culture and the warlike tradition continued to reign over a good part of the Scottish Highlands, which accounts for about a third of the total area. In contrast, the capital of Edinburgh was a small city of no more than 35,000 crowded into dirty tenements, stacked one above another.By the Act of Union of 1707, Scotland and England became one. The Scottish Parliament was dissolved and merged with the English. Scots were given 45 members in the House of Commons. But tension remained between north and south.In the Patronage Act of 1712, the English Crown claimed the right to choose Scottish pastors; an apparent end-run by the Anglican Church of England around the rights of Presbyterian Scotland. Seceder Presbyterians refused to honor the pastors appointed by England. They started their own independent churches.Then, in 1742 the Cambuslang Revival swept Scotland. For four months, the church in Cambuslang, a few miles from Glasgow, witnessed large numbers of people attending prayer meetings and showing great fervency in their devotion to God. In June, George Whitefield visited and preached several times. In August, meetings saw as many as 40,000. The pastor of the church wrote, “People sat unwearied till two in the morning to hear sermons, disregarding the weather. You could scarcely walk a yard, but you must tread upon some, either rejoicing in God for mercies received, or crying out for more. Thousands and thousands have I seen, melted down under the word and power of God.”Whitefield then preached to large crowds in Edinburgh and other cities. Other centers of revival popped up.In the second half of the 18^th C, Scotland gained a reputation as a center for the Enlightenment under such men as David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and Francis Hutchison. Voltaire wrote that “today it is from Scotland that we get rules of taste in all the arts, from epic poetry to gardening.”An interesting development took place in Scotland at that time, maybe born by a weariness of the internecine conflict endemic to Scottish history. A cultured “literati” in Edinburgh participated in different clubs, but all aimed at striking some kind of balance where people of different persuasions could hold discourse without feeling the need to come to blows. They sought enlightened ways to improve society and agriculture. In the inaugural edition of the Edinburgh Review, 1755, the editor encouraged Scots “to a more eager pursuit of learning themselves, and to do honor to their country.”Evangelicals like Edinburgh pastors John Erskine and Robert Walker hoped to reform society using some of the new ideas of Enlightenment thinkers. They embarked on a campaign to safeguard and expand civil liberties. But unlike more moderate members of the Church of Scotland, they believed conversion to personal faith in Christ was a prerequisite for reform. Erskine appreciated George Whitefield and edited and published a number of Jonathan Edwards’ works.In Ireland, the Glorious Revolution was not at all “glorious” for Catholics. On July 1, 1690, the armies of the Protestant King William III defeated the forces of the Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne and seized Dublin. In 1691, Jacobites in Ireland either fled or surrendered. The Banishment Act of 1697 ordered all Catholic clergy to leave Ireland or risk execution. Poverty and illiteracy made life miserable for large numbers of Irish Catholics.English restrictions on Ireland were brutal. Power resided in the hands of a small group of wealthy Anglican elite of the official Church of Ireland. Even Scottish Presbyterians who had settled in Ulster were excluded from civil and military roles. And the Irish had to pay the cost of quartering English troops to keep the peace.Not to be denied, some Catholic priests donned secular clothes so as to continue to minister to their spiritual charges without putting them in danger.In the last decades of the 18^th Century the Irish population grew rapidly. Methodists numbered some 14,000 in 1790 and allied with other Protestants who’d come over from England, settled the north of the Island. Protestants in Ireland, whatever their stripe, typically held fierce anti-Catholic sentiments, just as Catholics were hostile toward Protestants.In 1778 the Catholic Relief Act allowed Catholics to buy and inherit land. In 1782 the Irish Parliament gained independence, and laws against Catholics were changed. But the English monarchy managed to maintain its authority and put down the Irish Rebellion of 1798.The upshot is this à The Gospel faced a withering barrage from some of the most potent of Enlightenment critics, skeptics, and foes. The Church was slow to respond, which allowed the ideas of rationalism to poison the well of much Western philosophical thought. The challenge was eventually answered, not only with an eloquent reply but by the stirring of the Holy Spirit Who brought winds of revival for which the most elite skeptic had no comeback.Christianity was tested in the British Isles during the 18^th C, but it passed the test.

120-Kant

This episode is titled, Kant.At the conclusion of episode 115 –Part 2 of The Rationalist Option, I said we’d return later to the subject of the philosophy of the Enlightenment to consider its impact on theology and Church History. We do that now.We saw that John Locke placed a wedge between faith and reason when his system of Empiricism said the only genuine knowledge was that of experience. But repeated experiences generated a kind of knowledge he called probability. Because we experience the same thing again and again, we have reason to assume the likelihood of it continuing to happen. I used the example of a friend we’ll call “George.” We see and hear George at least weekly. So, even when George isn’t in our immediate presence, we have good reason to conclude he probably still exists.Using the rule of probability, Locke regarded the Christian Faith as reasonable. His repeated experience of the world logically required a sufficient cause for it. He found the Bible’s explanation of creation and the subsequent course of history to align with his experience of it. But, Locke maintained, Christianity provided no knowledge a reasoned examination of experience would discover on its own.Then along came the empiricist David Hume who wielded Doubt like a cudgel. If Locke placed a wedge between faith and reason, Hume is the one who wielded the sledge and broke them apart. His skepticism went so far as to claim the common-sense notion of cause and effect was an illusion. He had nothing but disdain for Locke’s idea of Probability.Hume said all we can know for certain is what we are experiencing at that moment, but we can’t know with certainty that one thing gives rise to another, no matter how many times it may be repeated. It may in fact at some time and place NOT repeat that pattern. So to draw universal laws from what we experience is forbidden. Hume didn’t just regard faith as irrational, his critique cast doubt on reason itself. Empiricists and Rationalists were set at odds with each other.Hume and his Empiricist buddies weren’t without their opponents. A Scot named James Reid published An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense in 1764. Reid argued for the value of self-evident knowledge or what he called “common sense.” His position came to be known as Common Sense Philosophy. It had many adherents among the growing number of Deists.In France, Baron de Montesquieu, applied the principles of reason to theories of government. He came to the conclusion a republic was the preferred form of government. Since power corrupts, Montesquieu said government ought to be exercised by three equal branches that would balance each other: the legislative, executive, and judicial. He proposed these ideas thirty years before either Americans or the French adopted them for their political systems.Shortly after Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau suggested what the rationalists called Progress, wasn’t! Enlightenment thinkers generally regarded human history as a record of advance from lesser to greater sophistication = Progress! Societies were moving on from backward barbarianism to advanced civilization. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on Reason was evidence humanity was emerging from the pre-scientific belief in religious superstition into a new era of rationalism. But Rousseau argued much of what people considered progress was in reality a departure from their natural state that was contrary to human flourishing. He called the modern world of his day “Artificial.” Rousseau advocated a return to the original order, whatever that was. He lauded the noble savage who lived in a pure state unfettered by the conventions and inventions of modernity. Whatever government there was ought to serve rather than rule. Religion ought to be a thing of the lowest common denominator with no one telling anyone else what to believe or how to worship. Rousseau defined that lowest common religious denominator as belief in God, the immortality of the soul, and moral norms. Which sounds a lot like Rousseau contradicted the very thing he said no one could do; tell others what to believe. It’s a classic case of “Believe whatever you want, as long as you agree with me.” An oft-repeated position of skeptics.At the close of the 18^th C, along came a German philosopher who blew everything up. Many consider Immanuel Kant the central figure of modern philosophy.Before we dive in, I need to pause and say I barely grasp Kant’s ideas. Seriously. Right about the time I think I’m getting a handle on his philosophy, he says something that makes it all slip away. I hope when I teach, I make things clearer, not more obscure. Kant tries to clarify but his thoughts move in a realm far beyond my minuscule capacity. I just can’t get Kant.The best I can do is seek to explain Kant’s ideas as others have expressed them.Kant was born in 1724 in the city of Konigsberg in Prussia to Pietist parents. He was a capable student but no standout. At 16, he began studies at the University of Konigsberg where he ended up spending his entire career. He studied the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff and the new mathematical physics of Englishman Isaac Newton. When his father had a stroke on 1746, Kant began tutoring in the villages around his hometown.Kant never married but had a rich social life. He was a popular author and teacher, even before publishing his best-known philosophical works.Kant was a firm believer in rationalism until he was awakened from his, as he called it, “dogmatic slumber” by reading David Hume.In the work for which Kant is best known, his 1781, Critique of Pure Reason, he proposed a radical alternative to both the skepticism of Hume and the rationalism of Descartes. According to Kant, there’s no such thing as innate ideas. But there are fundamental structures of the mind, and within those structures, we place whatever our senses perceive. Those first and most important structures are time and space; then follow what he called twelve categories; unity, plurality, quantity; quality; reality, negation, limitation, subsistence, causality, relation; possibility, and necessity. Did you get that? Don’t worry there won’t be a quiz.Kant said time, space, and the twelve categories aren’t something we perceive with our senses. Rather, they’re structures our minds use to organize our perceptions. In order to be able to USE or process a sensation, we have to put it into one of these mental structures. It’s only after the mind orders them within these categories that they become intelligible experiences.Kant claimed no one really knows a thing as it is in itself. What we know is only what’s going on in the activity of our minds. It’s our perception of a thing we know – not the thing ITSELF as it is.Let me say that again because it’s the key to understanding Kant’s contribution to Modern Philosophy, and in that, to a large part of how the modern world thinks. It’s our perception of a thing we know – not the thing ITSELF as it is.An illustration may help. We’ll make this pleasant too.Let’s say you and I are on the Big Island of Hawaii. We’re both looking at a black sand beach at sunset. The sun is a golden orb sinking into a blue ocean. A half dozen palm trees stand in dark silhouette against a multi-colored sky of deep blue, fading to indigo, and morphing to scarlet and orange.Now, I just gave names to several colors. But those are just labels that come from categories in my mind I sort what my eyes see into. You do the same. But how could we know if what I experience as “orange” is the same as what you know as “orange.” Maybe my orange is your blue. My black might be your white. But since we’ve always labeled what we perceive by those labels, that’s what they are to us. Maybe if what you and I perceive were to be somehow traded, we’d freak because of the messing with our categories it just played.Kant said that with knowledge, what we know isn’t things as they are in themselves, but rather what our minds interpret them as. So à There’s no such thing as purely objective knowledge, and the pure rationality of Cartesians, Empiricists, and Deists is an illusion.If true, Kant’s work meant many of the arguments used to support Christian doctrine no longer worked. If existence isn’t an objective reality, but just a category of our mind, there’s no way to prove the existence of God, the soul, or anything else. Descartes would be stuck at “I think, therefore I am.” He could go no further than that.Kant, like many Enlightenment thinkers, was loath to give up completely on the existence of God. They wanted to hang on to it. But with Kantian philosophy, faith and reason become utterly separated from each other. While many found Hume’s determined skepticism hard to accept, Kant’s redefinition of knowledge as merely a state of the mind was far more appealing.Kant dealt with religion in several of his works—particularly in his Critique of Practical Reason, published in 1788. There he argued that, although pure reason can’t prove the existence of God or the soul, there’s “practical reason” that has to do with the moral life, and whose procedure is different from that of pure reason. But this practical reason, becomes a concession, a nod to those who can’t operate by the higher pure reason. It didn’t take long for others to realize practical reason was like philosophical training wheels that had to come off if humanity was to move forward as rational creatures.Kant’s significance to religion and theology goes far beyond his uninspired attempts to ground religion in practical morality. His philosophical work dealt a death blow to the easy rationalism of his predecessors, and to the notion it’s possible to speak in purely rational and objective terms of matters like the existence of God and the soul. Following Kant, theologians tended to accept his divorce of faith and reason. Eventually, some questioned the universality and immutability of his categories of the mind, arguing that things like psychology, culture and even language shape the categories. Kant’s work, which in some ways was the high point of modern philosophy, set the stage for the post-modern critique of the insistence on objectivity and universality as signs of true knowledge.And, we’ll call it quits for this episode for two reasons.First - I’m on vacation and my wife is calling me to watch that sunset with her.Second - My head hurts. I can’t deal with Kant’s mental gymnastics.

119-Moravians & Wesley

The title of this episode is Moravians and Wesley.We took a look at Pietism in an earlier episode. Pietism was a reaction to the dry dogmatism of Protestant Scholasticism and the reductionist rationalism of Enlightenment philosophers. It aimed to renew a living faith in a living Christ.As a movement, it was led in the 17^th C by Philip Jakob Spener and August Francke.Spener’s godson was a German Count named Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who even as a child bore a deep devotion to God. His parents were devout Pietists and sent him to the University of Halle, where he studied under the Pietist leader Francke. Later he went to Wittenberg, a center of Lutheran orthodoxy, where he repeatedly clashed with his teachers. After travel and study at law, he married and entered the service of the Court of Dresden. There Zinzendorf first met a group of Moravians who changed the course of his life.Moravia lies in the southeast of what today is the Czech Republic. Moravians were Hussites; long-time adherents to the renewal begun by Jan Hus. They were forced by persecution to forsake their native lands. Zinzendorf offered them asylum. There they founded the community of Herrnhut. It so appealed to Zinzendorf he resigned his cushy post in Dresden and joined it. Under his direction, the Moravians became part of the local Lutheran parish. But the Lutherans were unwilling to trust foreigners who were also Pietists.In 1731, while visiting Denmark, Zinzendorf met a group of Inuit believers brought to faith in Christ by the Lutheran missionary Hans Egede. This kindled in the Count an interest in missions that would dominate the rest of his life. Soon the community at Herrnhut was on fire with the same zeal, and in 1732 its first missionaries left for the Caribbean. A few years later there were Moravian missionaries in Africa, India, and the Americas. They founded the communities of Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, and Salem, North Carolina. In just twenty years a movement that began with two hundred refugees had more missionaries overseas than had been sent out by all Protestant churches since the Protestant Reformation a couple of centuries earlier.In the meantime, conflicts with Lutherans back home in Germany grew. Zinzendorf was banned from Saxony and traveled to North America, where in 1741 he was present at the founding of the Bethlehem township. Shortly after his return to home, peace was hammered out between Lutherans and Moravians. It failed to last. Zinzendorf agreed to become a bishop for the Moravians, from a spiritual line of ecclesiastical authority reaching back to Jan Hus. Lutherans didn’t recognize Hus; they wanted the Count’s authority to link to Luther. This is odd since Luther honored Hus as an influence in the development of his own ideas.A personal aside. What silly things Christians bicker over. Doesn’t a person’s spiritual authority rest in their being called by God, not man? What matter is it that it comes through this or that one-time leader? It’s the original source that matters.Zinzendorf died at Herrnhut in 1760, and shortly after, his followers broke with Lutheranism. Although the Moravian church never had a large membership and was unable to continue sending so many missionaries, its example contributed to the great missionary awakening of the 19^th C. Perhaps the greatest significance of the movement was its impact on John Wesley and, through him, the Methodist tradition.In late 1735, early ‘36, a group of Moravians sailed to North America hoping to preach to the Indians of Georgia. Onboard was a young Anglican priest, named John Wesley, whom the Georgia Governor Oglethorpe had invited to serve as a pastor in Savannah. The young Wesley accepted the offer and hoped to preach to Indians. The early part of the voyage was calm and Wesley learned enough German to communicate with the Moravians. Then the weather turned and the ship was soon in real danger. The mainmast split, and panic nearly ruined the crew. The Moravians, by contrast were utterly calm and sang hymns throughout the ordeal. Meanwhile, Wesley, chaplain of the vessel, came to the realization he was more concerned for himself than his shipmates. After the storm, the Moravians told him they were able to brave the storm and reality of death because of their conviction their lives were in God’s hands, and should they perish at sea, they would but pass into the Hands of their glorious King. Wesley simply couldn’t relate to that kind of peace born of faith in the God he served.Arriving in Savannah, Wesley asked one of the Moravians named Gottlieb Spangenberg for advice regarding his work as a pastor and missionary. He left a record in his diary of the conversation:Spangenberg asked, “My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God?”Wesley wrote, “I was surprised, and knew not what to answer. He observed it, and asked, ‘Do you know Jesus Christ?’ I paused, and said, ‘I know he is the Savior of the world.’ ‘True,’ replied he; ‘but do you know he has saved you?’ I answered, ‘I hope he has died to save me.’ He only added, ‘Do you know yourself ?’ I said, ‘I do.’Then Wesley adds, “But I fear they were vain words.”These experiences left Wesley both profoundly moved and confused. He’d always thought himself a good Christian. His father, Samuel, was an Anglican priest, and his mother Susanna the daughter of another. She’d been particularly careful in the religious instruction of her (get this) nineteen children. When John was five, fire broke out in their home. He was miraculously saved, and after that his mother thought of him as “a brand plucked from the burning.” There was little doubt in her mind God had a special plan for him.At Oxford, Wesley distinguished himself academically and in religious devotion. After helping his father’s parish work, he returned to Oxford, where he joined a religious society founded by his brother Charles and a group of friends. Its members made a covenant to lead a holy and sober life, to take communion weekly, to be faithful in private devotions, to visit prisons, and spend three hours every afternoon, studying scripture and reading devotionals together. Since John was the only ordained priest among them and since he possessed an aptitude to teach, he was the group’s leader. It didn’t take long before other students mocked the group, calling it the “holy club” because of their methodical lifestyle è Leading to them being called “Methodists.”All that preceded his trip to Georgia. But now, he began to doubt the depth of his faith. Adding to this was the fact he failed miserably as a pastor. He expected his parishioners to behave as his holy club back in England. For their part, his parishioners expected him to be content with their attendance in church. John’s brother Charles, also in Georgia serving under Governor Oglethorpe, was disappointed with his work as well and decided to return to England. John stayed on, only because he refused to give up. Then he was forced to leave under messy circumstances. A young woman he’d courted but broken up with married another. Wesley, judging her fickle, denied her communion. He was sued for defamation. Angry at this treatment, though mostly self-inflicted, he returned to England, to the rejoicing of the people of Georgia glad to be rid of their depressed and depressing minister.At a low point and not knowing what else to do, Wesley contacted the Moravians. Peter Boehler became Wesley’s counselor and confidant. He concluded while Wesley had the facts of theology down, he has yet to personally trust in Christ. He recommended that until John possessed the confidence he was indeed born again, he should stop preaching.Finally, on May 24, 1738, Wesley had the experience that changed his life. He wrote …In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.Wesley no longer had any doubt of his salvation. The obsession he’d had before about wondering if he was saved was replaced by a confidence that freed him to turn his considerable intellect to other things. Mostly, to the salvation of others. He went immediately to visit the Moravian community at Herrnhut. Although inspiring, the visit convinced him Moravian spirituality was ill-suited to his temperament and involvement in social issues. In spite of his gratitude at the role they played in leading him into saving faith, he decided to not become a Moravian.While all that was taking place, another former member of the “holy club,” George Whitefield, had become a famous preacher. A few years earlier Whitefield was moved by an experience similar to Wesley’s at Aldersgate. He now divided his time between his parish in Georgia and preaching in England, where he had remarkable success, especially at the industrial center of Bristol. Whitefield’s preaching was emotional, and when critics objected to the way he used the pulpit he began preaching in outdoors; in the open air, as he had in Georgia where the rules about when and where pastors could preach were less strict than back in England. When the work in Bristol multiplied and he knew he’d need to soon return to Georgia, Whitefield asked Wesley to help by taking charge during his absence.Wesley accepted Whitefield’s invitation. But Whitefield’s fiery preaching was not Wesley’s cup of tea. He objected to open-air preaching. Later he commented on those early days, declaring that at that time he was so convinced God wished everything to be done in order, that he assumed it a sin to save souls outside a church. Over time, in view of the incredible results and dramatic conversions, Wesley gave a reluctant nod to open-air work. He was also worried about the response to his preaching since it was so very different from Whitefield’s. But people often exhibited the same kind of response to his preaching they had to Whitefield’s. Some wept loudly and lamented their sins. Others collapsed in anguish. They’d then express great joy, declaring they were wonderfully cleansed. Wesley preferred more solemn proceedings but eventually decided what was taking place was a struggle between the devil and the Holy Spirit, and he ought not hinder God’s work. Over time, these emotion-filled reactions of new converts diminished.Wesley and Whitefield worked together for some time, although Wesley eventually became the leader of the movement. They eventually parted due of theological differences. Both were Calvinists in most matters; but, on the issue of predestination and free will, Wesley departed from orthodox Calvinism, preferring the Arminian position. After several debates, the friends decided each should follow his own path, and that they’d avoid controversies. That agreement was kept well by their followers. With the help of the Countess of Huntingdon, Whitefield organized the Calvinist Methodist Church, the strongest in Wales.Wesley had no interest in founding a new denomination. He was an Anglican, and throughout his life remained so. His goal was to cultivate the faith of the populace of England, much as Pietism was doing in Germany among Lutherans. He avoided scheduling his preaching in conflict with the services of the Church of England, and always took for granted that Methodist meetings would serve as preparation to attend Anglican worship and take communion there. For him, as for most of the Church through the centuries, the center of worship was communion. This he took and expected his followers to take as frequently as possible, in the official services of the Church of England.Although the movement had no intention of becoming a separate church, it did need some organization. In Bristol, the birthplace of the movement, Wesley’s followers organized into societies that at first met in private homes and later had their own buildings. When Methodist societies grew too large for the effective care of their members, Wesley followed a friend’s suggestion and divided them into classes, each with eleven members and a leader. These met weekly to read Scripture, pray, discuss religious matters, and collect funds. To be a class leader, it wasn’t necessary to be wealthy or educated. That gave significant participation to many who felt left out of the Church of England. It also opened the door to women who took a prominent place in Methodism.The movement grew rapidly, and Wesley traveled throughout the British Isles, preaching and organizing his followers. The movement needed more to share the task of preaching. A few Anglican priests joined. Most noteworthy among them was John’s brother Charles, famous for his hymns. But John Wesley carried the greatest burden, preaching several times a day and traveling thousands of miles on horseback every year, until the age of seventy.Conflicts in the movement weren’t lacking. In the early years, there were frequent acts of violence against Methodists. Some of the nobility and clergy resented the authority the new movement gave people from the lower classes. Meetings were frequently interrupted by thugs and toughs hired by the movement’s opponents. Wesley’s life was often threatened. As it became clear opposition did nothing to slow or stop it, they gave up.There were theological conflicts. Wesley grudgingly broke with the Moravians, whose inclination toward a contemplative Quietism he feared.But the most significant conflicts were with the Anglican Church, to which Wesley belonged and in which he hoped to remain. Until his last days, he reprimanded Methodists who wanted to break with the Church of England. They saw something he seemed unwilling to see, that a breach was unavoidable. Some Anglican authorities regarded the Methodist movement as an indication of their shortcomings and resented it. Others felt the Methodist practice of preaching any and everywhere, without regard for ecclesiastical boundaries, was a serious breach of protocol. Wesley saw and understood these concerns, but thought the needs of the lost trump all such concerns.A difficult legal decision made matters tenser. According to English law, non-Anglican worship services and church buildings were to be allowed, but they had to be officially registered. That put Methodists in a difficult place since the Church of England didn’t acknowledge their meetings and buildings. If they registered, it would be a declaration they weren’t Anglicans. If they didn’t, they’d be breaking the law. In 1787, after much hesitation, Wesley told his preachers to register, and the first legal step was taken toward the formation of a separate church. Three years earlier, Wesley took a step that had even more drastic implications, at least theologically. For a long time, as a scholar of Patristics, the study of the Church Fathers, Wesley was convinced that in the early church the term bishop was synonymous with elder and pastor. That led him to the conviction all ordained presbyters, including himself, had the power to ordain. But he refrained from employing it to avoid further alienating the Anglican leaders.The independence of the United States posed different difficulties. During the Revolutionary War, most Anglican clergy were Loyalists. After independence, most of them returned to England. That made it difficult, impossible even, for US citizens to partake of communion. The bishop of London, who still had jurisdiction over the former colonies, refused to ordain clergy for the United States. Wesley deplored what he took to be the unwarranted rebellion of Britain’s former colonies, both because he was a staunch supporter of the king’s authority and because he could not fathom how the rebels could claim that they were fighting for freedom while they themselves held slaves. But, convinced communion was the heart of Christian worship, Wesley felt that no matter what their political stance, US citizens ought not to be deprived of the Lords’ table.So in 1784, he ordained two lay preachers as presbyters for the new country and made Anglican priest Thomas Coke their bishop. Later, he ordained others to serve in Scotland and elsewhere. In spite of having taken these steps, Wesley continued insisting on the need to avoid breaking with the Church of England. Charles told him the ordination of ministers for the New World was a break. In 1786, the Methodist leaders decided that in those places where the Anglican church was neglecting its Gospel duties, it was permitted to hold Methodist meetings at the same time as Anglican services.Although Wesley refused to acknowledge it, by the time of his death in 1791, Methodism had become a separate church.

118-The Spiritualist Option

In this episode, we’ll take a brief look at what came to be called Spiritualism.Coming out of the 16^th C, the, what seemed to many at the time,

endless debates on doctrine and dogma,
the intolerance of Christians toward one another,
and the lack of any apparent movement toward resolving the mess,

moved many across Europe and the New World to seek refuge in more of an abstract religious sentiment than a rigid faith of set doctrines. Another factor encouraging this mindset was a burgeoning European middle-class. You see, it was only the wealthy nobility who possessed the resources for higher education need to foster an excessive emphasis on correct doctrine. Those who didn’t have that opportunity; who couldn’t wax eloquent on complicated matters of theology, were regarded as unsophisticates who depended on their betters to tell them what to believe.The Spiritualist Movement of the 17^th and 18^th Cs attracted people from all classes. From the cultured who’d tired of narrow-minded dogmatism, to uneducated commoners tired of having their lives turned over by endless religious tussles.The history of the Spiritualist movement is difficult to trace because it devolved into several streams that constantly mixed. Just as its beliefs were a hodge-podge, so is its history. We’ll examine it by taking a look at three of its leaders.Jakob Boehme was born in Silesia, Germany in 1575. His parents were strict Lutherans of humble means. By all accounts, the young Jakob had a real and rich faith.The sermons of that time were long dissertations on the theological debates of the day. These bored Jakob to tears and did nothing to spark a relationship with God.At fourteen, he was apprenticed to a shoe-maker. Shortly after, he began having visions. It might have been one thing if he’d kept these to himself, but he didn’t; he shared them. His master threw him out, saying he wanted an apprentice, not a prophet.Boehme became a traveling cobbler, moving here and there mending shoes. As he traveled and visited different churches, he came to the conclusion Church leaders had built a kind of confusing doctrinal Tower of Babel. He determined to set dogmatics aside and cultivate his inner spiritual life. He read everything he could lay his hands on that might help in that pursuit.His meditations led him to some conclusions on the nature of the world and man’s place in it. These were then “confirmed” by visions and other spiritual experiences. But he kept his new-found convictions to himself for a time as he plied his shoe-mending-trade.At twenty-five, Jakob ended his wanderings and set up shop in Goerlitz, on the border between Germany and Poland, where he made a comfortable living as a cobbler.Although Boehme didn’t see himself as a preacher, he was convinced God wanted him to record his visions. The result was a book titled Brilliant Dawn. In it, Boehme repeatedly asserts he’s writing what God dictated word for word, and that he’s no more than a pen in His hand. Boehme didn’t publish, but a manuscript reached a local pastor, who accused Boehme to the magistrates. Under threat of exile, Boehme promised to teach or write no more on religious matters. For five years he kept his promise. But in 1618, compelled by new visions and the encouragement of admirers, he wrote anew. Without permission, one of his followers published three of his works. These reached the same pastor, who again accused Boehme of heresy. He was forced to leave Goerlitz.He ended up in the court of the Elector of Saxony, where several theologians examined his teachings without reaching a conclusion. They confessed themselves unable to understand his meaning. They recommended Boehme be given time to clarify his ideas. Not long after, he fell ill and returned to Goerlitz to die among friends and followers. He passed at the age of fifty.The Saxony theologians’ response wasn’t just a dodge to avoid passing judgment on a likable guy. Boehme’s writings continue to be difficult to sort out. They’re a confusing mish-mash of this and that; which, to be frank, is a hallmark of much of what goes under the title “spiritualism.” Boehme’s tomes are a mixture of traditional Christian themes with others taken from magic, alchemy, occultism, and theosophy. At points, it looks like Boehme gives a metaphor to help explain his point, but it never does. You read it and say, “What does THAT have to do with anything?” So the metaphors, striking as they may be, only serve to add to the confusion. And THAT may very well be the overall point of his inkings. There may not BE a meaning to be parsed from it all. There’s every possibility Boehme used words to produce phrases that conveyed singular ideas that weren’t connected. He may have aimed for a state of mind that suspended rationality and logic; one that arises out of frustration at trying to make sense of what is senseless, so one gives up, lays reason down, and becomes hyper-suggestible.While the specifics of what Boehme aimed for aren’t clear, their basic direction is. He took aim at the lifeless dogmatism of theologians and the empty liturgy of the Church. Against these, Boehme exalted the freedom of the spirit with a belief in direct revelation from God to individuals. He declared that since “the letter kills,” believers ought not to be guided by Scripture, but by the Holy Spirit, who inspired the biblical writers and presently inspires believers. He said, “I have enough with the book that I am. If I have within me the Spirit of Christ, the entire Bible is in me. Why would I wish for more books? Why discuss what is outside, while not having learned what is within me?”Huh – ironic then that he wrote books.Boehme had few followers during his lifetime but later his writings gained admirers. In England, some formed a Boehmenist-movement. Some clashed with the Quakers who we’ll take a look at next. So, the Spiritualist Movement, born in part as a protest against the doctrinal debates of traditional theology, was eventually embroiled in similar controversies.George Fox was born in a small English village the same year Jakob Boehme died, 1624. Like Boehme, Fox was of humble origin and a cobbler’s apprentice. At 19, disgusted at the immorality of his fellow apprentices, he quit and began the life of an itinerant religious seeker. He attended meetings of all sorts, seeking spiritual illumination. He devoted himself to the study of Scripture until he’d committed most of it to memory.Fox’s pursuit of spiritual illumination was a roller coaster of highs and lows. There were times when he had a mystical experience that thrilled, followed by a season where he despaired of finding the path that would lead to what he sought. He came to the conviction all the various sects in England were wrong, and their worship was an abomination to God.Fox challenged much of traditional Christianity. He reasoned if God doesn’t dwell in houses made by human hands, as the Scripture said, how dare anyone call buildings where they gather “churches”? They are in truth no more than houses with bell towers.For Fox, pastors paid a salary aren’t real shepherds, but “priests” and “journeymen.” Hymns, orders of worship, sermons, sacraments, creeds, ministers—are all human hindrances to the freedom of the Spirit.Over against all these, Fox placed what he called the “inner light.” This was a seed that existed in all people, and was the true way to find God. Fox said the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity was a denial of God’s love. On the contrary, he maintained, there’s an inner light in all, no matter how dim it may be. Thanks to that light, pagans can be saved as well as Christians. This light, however, must not be confused with the intellect or conscience. It’s the capability all have to recognize and accept the presence of God. By it we’re able to believe and understand Scripture. So, communication with God thru the inner light is previous to and independent of, any communication by external means.Although those close to George Fox knew of the fire burning within him, for several years he abstained from proclaiming what he was convinced he’d discovered regarding the true meaning of faith and Christianity.At that time there were in England several religious sects, and Fox attended all without finding contentment in any. Finally, he felt called to speak out at a Baptist meeting, announcing what he now believed. From that point on, such urgings became more frequent. In gatherings of various religious groups, Fox declared he’d been commanded by the Spirit to announce his new vision of The Faith. He was often treated with contempt and hostility and was thrown out of meetings, beaten, and stoned. But all such didn’t stop him. Soon he was in another “house with a belfry,” interrupting the service and proclaiming his message.Fox’s followers grew rapidly. At first they called themselves “Children of Light” but Fox preferred the title Friends, which later become their official name. They were soon called Quakers by outsiders. The name came from their tendency to tremble with fervency as they prayed.In 1652, George Fox gained the support of Margaret Fell, a noble-woman widowed in 1658. She became a leader in the movement and used her position to lend it an air of credibility and protection. But political opposition grew and she was arrested for supporting the movement. Her property was confiscated and she was sentenced to life in prison. After being released by the king, she married Fox in 1669. The rest of their lives were spent teaching and in missions, which were repeatedly interrupted by rounds of imprisonment. Fox died in 1691, his wife Margaret a decade later.Since the Friends believed structure in worship was an obstacle to the Spirit, their services took place in silence. Any who felt called to speak or pray aloud were free to do so. When the Spirit moved them, women had the same right to speak as men. Fox himself did not prepare a message but simply allowed the Spirit to move him in the moment. There were times when many gathered, hoping to hear him speak, but he refused. Also, Quakers didn’t include the traditional sacraments of baptism and communion. They feared that physical water, bread, and wine would draw attention away from the spiritual.Fox was aware of the danger his emphasis on the freedom of the Spirit might lead to excessive individualism. Other movements with a similar emphasis hadn’t lasted long. The exercise of individual freedom inevitably leads to the dissolving of a group. Fox avoided this by underscoring the importance of community and love. In Friends’ meetings, decisions aren’t made by a majority. If a unanimous agreement was not reached, the decision was postponed, and the meeting continued in silence until the Spirit offered a solution. If one was not received, the matter was left pending for another occasion.Many disliked the teachings and practices of the Quakers. Religious leaders resented the way they interrupted their services to preach or read Scripture. Authorities saw the need to teach a lesson to these Friends, who refused to pay tithes, swear oaths, bow to their “betters,” or uncover their head before any but God. Quakers argued that, since God was addressed in the familiar “Thou,” no one else ought to be addressed by the more respectful “You.” To those used to the submission of their “inferiors,” that was intolerable insubordination.So Fox was repeatedly beaten and spent years in prison. He was sent to prison the first time for interrupting a preacher who declared the ultimate truth was to be found in Scripture. Fox said that wasn’t true; the ultimate truth was in the Spirit who inspired Scripture. On other occasions, he was accused of blasphemy and of conspiring against the government. When the authorities offered a pardon, he refused, declaring he wasn’t guilty. To accept a pardon for something he hadn’t done was to lie. On another occasion, when serving six months for blasphemy, he was offered freedom in exchange for service in the Army. He refused, declaring Christians ought not use weapons other than those the Spirit provided. His sentence was prolonged by an additional six months.When he wasn’t in prison, Fox spent his time in Margaret’s home, Swarthmoor Hall. It became the headquarters of the Friends. The rest of the time he traveled England and abroad, visiting Quaker meetings and taking his message to new areas. First, he went to Scotland, where he was accused of sedition; then to Ireland. He spent two years in the Caribbean and North America; and made two visits to the Continent. In all these places he gained converts, and by the time of his death, in 1691, his followers ran to the tens of thousands.Like Fox, they were persecuted. They were thrown in jail for vagrancy, blasphemy, inciting riots, and refusing to pay tithes. In 1664, Charles II issued an edict forbidding unlicensed religious assemblies. Many groups continued gathering in secret. But the Quakers declared it would be a lie to do so, and openly disobeyed the edict. Thousands were imprisoned, and by the time religious tolerance was granted in 1689, hundreds had died in prison.The most famous of Fox’s followers was William Penn, after whom the state of Pennsylvania was named. His father was a British admiral who tried to secure for him the best education available. While he was a student, William became a Puritan. Then, while studying in France, he came under the influence of the Huguenots. In 1667, back in England, he became a Quaker. His father, not knowing what to do with his “fanatical” son, threw him out of the house. Penn stayed true to his convictions and eventually spent seven months in the Tower of London. He sent word to the king that the Tower was the worst of arguments to convince him, so, no matter who was right, whoever uses force to seek religious assent is necessarily wrong. Finally, thanks to the intervention of his father and other well-placed friends, he was set free. He then spent several years raising a family, traveling throughout Europe, and writing in defense of the Friends.Penn then conceived the idea of what he called his “holy experiment.” Some friends had spoken to him about New Jersey, in North America. The crown owed Penn’s father a considerable amount of money. When William’s father died, that debt fell to the son. Since Charles wasn’t able to pay, Penn asked instead for a grant of land in the New World. It became known as Penns’ Wood – Pennsylvania. His purpose was to found a new colony in which there would be complete religious freedom. By then, other British colonies had been founded in North America. But, with the exception of Rhode Island, all were marked by religious intolerance. In Massachusetts, the most intolerant of the colonies, Quakers were persecuted, condemned to exile, mutilated, and executed. What Penn now proposed was a new colony in which all would be free to worship according to their own convictions. This seemed bad enough to an intolerant age. But even worse was Penn’s plan to buy from the Indians the land that the crown had granted him. He was convinced that the Indians, and not the crown, were the legitimate owners of the land. And he hoped to establish such cordial relations with them that the settlers would have no need to defend themselves by force of arms. The capital of this holy experiment would be called Philadelphia—the city of fraternal love.No matter how ill-conceived Penn’s experiment seemed to the more enlightened Brits, soon there were many, not only in England, but also in other parts of Europe, willing to take part in it. Many of them were Quakers, and therefore the Friends dominated the political life of the colony for some time. But there were also settlers of many different persuasions. Under the leadership of Penn, first governor of the colony, relations with the Indians were excellent, and for a long time his dream of a peaceful settlement was a reality.The last Spiritualist we’ll look at today is Emanuel Swedenborg.Born in 1688, three years before Fox’s death, Emmanuel Swedenborg was born to an aristocratic family in Sweden. He received an education at the University of Uppsala, and spent five years traveling England, the Netherlands, France, and Germany. The goal of these travels was the quest for knowledge. While Fox and Boehme pursued religious enlightenment, the young Swedenborg was after scientific knowledge.After many years of scientific inquiry, Swedenborg claimed he had a vision of being carried into the spiritual world where saw eternal truths. He wrote expansively on the true meaning of reality and Scripture. He said that all that exists is a reflection of the attributes of God. Therefore, the visible world “corresponds” with the invisible one. The same is true of Scripture, which reflects truths that can only be known by those who’ve entered the spiritual world.Swedenborg was convinced his writings would form the beginning of a new era in the history of the world and religion. He claimed what had taken place when he received his revelations was what the Bible meant when speaking of the 2^nd Coming of Christ. As expected, these ideas weren’t received well by his contemporaries. His circle of followers was small. He didn’t feel called to found a new movement, but to call the existing church to a new understanding of its nature and message.Since that didn’t work out so well, in 1784, twelve years after his death, his disciples founded the Church of the New Jerusalem, whose members were never many but which has survived to our time. In the 19^th C, the Swedenborgian Society was founded with the purpose of publishing and distributing Swedenborg’s writings.

117-Which Witch

This, the 117^th episode of CS is titled, “Which Witch?” and is a brief review of the well-known but poorly understood Salem Witch Trials.They’re often brought up by critics of Christianity as examples of religious intolerance and superstition. And while they did indeed carry a bit of that, they were far more a case of a breakdown in the judicial system. The phrase “witch-hunt” refers to an attempt to find something damning in an otherwise innocent victim. What’s rarely mentioned is that while there was a brief flurry of witch-hunting that went on in the New England colonies, it was a long practice in Europe from the mid-15^th thru mid-18^th Cs. It reached its peak in the about fifty-year span from between 1580 and 1630. It’s difficult to sort out how many were executed but scholars say it was from a low of 40,000 to as high as 60,000.In light of such large numbers, the twenty executed in the Salem Trials seems trivial. But that even a single person was executed on the charge of witchcraft was a travesty of justice.Witch hunts began in the 15^th C in southeast France and western Switzerland. The European witch craze was fueled by the publication of The Hammer of the Witches in 1486, by the inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.The trials included men and women of all ages and classes.In New England, there’d been three hangings for witchcraft prior to Salem. But the first sign of trouble in Salem Village occurred during the winter of 1692, when Elizabeth Parris the nine-year-old daughter of the village pastor and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams, began displaying bizarre behavior. The girls screamed uncontrollably, hurled items, groaned, and threw fits of wild contortions. Witchcraft immediately surfaced as a possible explanation.Suspicion quickly centered on three women living on the margins of village life. One was a homeless woman named Sarah Good. Another was an infrequent church-attender and so obviously suspicious woman named Sarah Osborne. The third was Tituba, a slave known for fortune-telling. These three were interrogated in March, 1692 and sentenced to jail.Tituba’s ethnic origins are difficult to sort out but she appears to have been an African slave brought from the Caribbean to serve in the home of Pastor Samuel Parris, Elizabeth’s father. She regaled the young girls with tales of the occult and indulged their desire to have their fortunes read. When the girls were caught gazing into a crystal ball, they tried to shift blame by affecting bizarre behavior that made them appear victims of spells cast on them by something malevolent or better, some-one.For anyone’s who’s worked with adolescent girls likely knows, it didn’t take long before others of their age saw all the attention this gained them. So they affected similar behavior to get a slice of the attention pie. They accused the soft targets of women already considered odd and suspicious. Tituba was the first to be accused, but soon Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were also implicated, questioned, and remanded to custody.Making matters more complicated was a long-running feud between the Putnam and Porter families. Charges and counter-charges of the damning charge of devil-worship flew on both sides. Pastor Parris used his pulpit to fan the flames of superstition that ANYONE in Salem might in fact be in league with Satan.In March, several more women were accused. Then, anyone who questioned the girl’s veracity was suspected. Sarah Good’s four-year-old daughter Dorothy was arrested and interrogated.Accusations began pouring in. More arrests made. But now many of those arrested weren’t just on the fringe of Salem village life. They were upstanding members of the community and church. As tension grew, Governor William Phips set up a special court to adjudicate the cases.The first to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop, who was accused of being a witch because her immoral lifestyle and affinity for darks clothes suggested she was in league with hell. She was found guilty and was executed by hanging in June, 1692. Five more women were executed in July, and then four men and one woman in August. The last executions took place in September when six women and three men were hung.Some of those arrested confessed they had practiced witchcraft, and accused others of being their mentors. But scholars now believe these confessions were made under duress and with the promise that by implicating others they might be allowed to go free.Giles Corey, an eighty-year-old farmer and husband of one of the accused, was also arrested in September. Corey refused to cooperate with the authorities and was subjected to a form of torture in which the subject is placed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones in an attempt to compel him to enter a plea. After two days, Corey died without confessing.The last trial occurred at the end of April, and all five accused were found not guilty, bringing an end to the episode. In the final count, twenty were hung, one was crushed to death, and four died in prison.Twenty years later, the Massachusetts court declared the entire ordeal had been a gross injustice and ordered indemnifications be paid to the victims’ families.At the time, two of New England’s most influential leaders were the father and son, Increase and Cotton Mather. Increase, who became president of Harvard, believed in the reality of witchcraft and has been blamed for much of what happened in Salem. But he severely criticized the proceedings and use of spectral evidence which was central to the case.Spectral evidence was the testimony of the young girls and their supporters who claimed they saw certain things that must mean the accused were in fact witches bent on the spiritual and social unraveling of the Salem community. They saw what they described as ghost-like images. Increase Mather decried the use of such spectral evidence as being inappropriate to condemn someone to death. His son Cotton took a similar position, first writing against witchcraft, then deploring the manner in which the trials were conducted.It was the two-fold whammy of the Mather’s condemnation of spectral evidence and that the girls apparently began to stretch out a bit to see just what they could get away with that moved people to begin to wonder what was going on in Salem. It’s one thing to accuse oddballs and misfits of being witches. But when some of the community’s most respected members and people known for their upstanding virtue were accused à Well, maybe we’ve been played by a handful of teens.While religious superstition fueled the panic that fired the Salem Witch Trials, it was in fact a failure of the judicial system that saw people hanged. And while Pastor Parris stirred the pot in Salem with his use of the pulpit to fuel suspicion, it was the work of two other pastors, Increase and Cotton Mather that moved the people of Salem and Massachusetts to calm down and end the trials.We turn now in the balance of this episode to tie off the Puritanism of New England.Within a single generation, the original Puritan vision of a City on a Hill was already dimming. A new cosmopolitanism from Europe had transformed cities like Boston. By the early 18^th C, American Puritanism had split into three factions.First there were Congregational churches, which down-played Calvinist doctrines and looked to the Enlightenment. These came to be called the “Old Lights.”Then there were those who continued to practice the rigid Calvinism of their forebears, referred to as the “Old Calvinists.”The third group emerged from the “Great Awakening” with its pietistic emphasis on a “new birth.” The “New Lights.”Puritanism wasn’t static on either side of the Atlantic. It couldn’t be since their political contexts were vastly different. English Puritans were engaged in a civil war, while New England Puritans were carving a life out of a new world. Despite minor variations like the New England Halfway Covenant, the Puritan theological core remained the same. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a solid guide in identifying the theological tenets of Puritanism.The Confession was the work of the Westminster Assembly which met from 1643-9.The Assembly was a committee appointed by Parliament. It was charged with drawing up a new liturgy to replace the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and for implementing a new plan for church government. It met in what’s called the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey for the first time on July 1, 1643. Parliament appointed 121 clergy and 30 laypeople to the assembly.It replaced the Book of Common Prayer with the Directory of Public Worship in 1645, and the 39 Articles of the Church of England were replaced by the Westminster Confession in 1646. The House of Commons returned the original draft of the Confession with instructions to add biblical proof texts. Revisions were made, and the Confession was ratified by Parliament. Two catechisms were added. The Larger Catechism (designed for instructing adults) and the Shorter Catechism (a bit easier for children) were approved in 1648.The Church of Scotland also adopted it without amendment, satisfying compliance with the Solemn League and Covenant. Its work completed, the Westminster Assembly dissolved in 1649.

116-A City on a Hill

This episode is titled, A City on a Hill, and returns to our look at the Propagation of the Christian Faith in the Americas.Back in Episodes 105 and 6, we breached the subject of Missions in the New World. We looked at the role the Jesuits played in the Western Hemisphere. While the post-modern view of this era tends to reduce all European missionaries in a monochromatic Euro-centrism that leveled native American cultures, that simply wasn’t the case. Yes, there were plenty of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants who conflated the Gospel with their mother culture. But there were not a few missionaries who understood the difference and valued the uniqueness that was native American cultures. They sought to incarnate the Christian message in those cultures and languages. That often got them in trouble with officials back home who wanted to exploit indigenous peoples. In other words, it isn’t just modern Liberation Theology advocates who sought to protect the peoples of the New World from the exploitive injustices of the Old. Many early missionaries did as well.So, we considered the work of men like Jean de Brébeuf and Madame de la Peltrie in the northeast of North America. We considered the work of the Russian Orthodox Church in the far northwest and down the west coast to California. They were met by the Spanish coming north out of Central America.Protestants were a bit late to the game. One of the first real attempts was near Rio de Janeiro when the French Huguenot Admiral Villegagnon established a short-lived Calvinist settlement in 1555. It folded when the French were expelled by the Portuguese. A more permanent settlement was made by the Dutch when they captured Pernambuco at the easternmost tip of Brazil. This settlement remained a Calvinist enclave for forty years.North America presented a very different scene for missions than Central and South America. The voyage of the Mayflower with its ‘Pilgrims’ in 1620 was a historical pointer to the strong influence of Calvinism in what would become New England. The states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were strongly Congregationalist or Presbyterian in terms of church polity and heavily influenced by English Puritanism. At least some of these pioneers felt a responsibility for spreading the Christian faith to native Americans.In episode 106, we talked about John Eliot, the Mayhews, William Carey, David Livingstone, David Brainerd, and, Jonathan Edwards. Besides Presbyterians and Congregationalists, Episcopalians achieved some success in evangelizing the Indians.And again, for those who missed my earlier comment … While it’s fashionable in some circles to eschew the use of the label “Indian” in favor of the assumed-moniker “Native American” for indigenous people of the New World, many of their modern day descendants have made clear their desire to be called “Indians” or referred to by their tribal identity, rather than “Native American.” So please, those of non-New World descent who take umbrage at the label “Indian” on behalf of others, assuming you’re defending People of Color, no nasty emails or snarky reviews because you speak that of which you know not.If some frustration came through in that >> Sorry, Not Sorry. It’s just tiresome dealing with the comments of those who want to apply fleeting social concepts that appeared two-seconds ago as a blanket over hundreds and even thousands of years of history. It’s simply unconscionable to apply contemporary values and untested, highly-questionable social theories on prior ages, as though just because we live now, we’re somehow more enlightened, more civilized, in a word better than those who are thus cast as “worse” only because they lived before this moment of grand-enlightenment. The arrogance of that perspective is stunning.Okay, end of my tirade of personal pique …Being that we’ve just come up to the age of the Puritans in England, now would be a good time to take a little closer look at Puritanism in the New World.During the reign of James I, some Puritans grew discouraged at the pace of reform in England and separated entirely from the Church of England. After a sojourn of about eleven years in the Netherlands, a group of these “separating Puritans,” known to us as “Pilgrims,” set sail for the New World. The Dutch were generally welcoming of these English dissenters because they shared the same faith and as the English were such hard workers, added to their booming economy. But the English grew distressed after a little more than a decade that their children were becoming more Dutch, than English. They couldn’t return to England where tension was thick between the Crown and Puritans. So they decided to set sail for the New World and try their fortune there. They established a colony at Plymouth in 1620 in what is now southeastern Massachusetts.While it struggled greatly, it eventually succeeded and became something of a model for other English settlements in the region.Back in England, when Archbishop Laud suppressed Puritans, emigration to the New World increased. As the Puritans’ relationship with the new king soured, a Puritan lawyer named John Winthrop began plans for a colony in New England. In March 1629, Winthrop obtained a royal charter to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A year later he was joined by 700 colonists on eleven ships and set sail.While aboard the Arbella, Winthrop preached a sermon declaring to his fellow travelers, “We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” Others were soon captivated by this vision of a Christian commonwealth, and from 1630 to the beginning of the English Civil War, well over 20,000 Puritans settled in New England. “The Great Migration” had begun.These later Puritans were different from the Separatists Pilgrims of Plymouth. They regarded themselves as loyal members of the Church of England, now established in NEW England. They had the chance to install the reforms they’d ached to achieve back in England. They may have separated geographically, but not in loyalty to The Church of England.The New England Puritans held a vision, not just of a pure church, but of a purified society, one committed to Biblical principles, not just in church affairs but in all facets of public life. The idea of “covenant” between God and his people was at the center of their enterprise. Following the pattern of God’s covenant with Israel, they promised to obey God and in turn, He’d bless them. This is why one often encounters the terminology that Massachusetts was a kind of New Israel. That required strict observance of the Sabbath. Families were structured as “little churches,” with the father bestowing blessing for obedience and vice-versa.This social structure required public piety. It prohibited what was called “secular entertainments”, like games of chance, dancing around maypoles, horse racing, bear-baiting, and the theater. Christmas celebrations were regarded as pagan rituals. Puritans adopted a rich view of piety that at times became excessive and became à What’s the word? Let’s just call it, odd.Following the Pietist tradition, New England Puritans required a genuine public declaration of conversion as a condition for church membership. Problems arose when children, who’d grown up in pious homes and had always counted themselves as Born Again, to give testimony to their dramatic conversion event. That led to many of them being excluded from membership in the Church, which was the heart and center of social life in the New England town. Divisions erupted, leading Puritan minister Richard Mather to developed the so-called “Half-Way Covenant” to solve the problem. The Half-Way Covenant gave a kind of quasi-membership that included baptism but not Communion to the children of church members. Puritan leaders hoped this would expose “halfway members” to an example that would see them having their own “born again” experience and usher them into full membership.Some historians assert the Puritans aimed for a theocracy. While Winthrop was governor, he certainly wanted to base the colony’s laws on biblical principles, but he didn’t permit clergy in civil governing. Church officials had no authority over civil magistrates. Winthrop and government officials sought the advice of ministers, but political authority rested in the hands of the laity. Theocratic tendencies certainly existed, but the colony’s congregationalism restrained them. New England never had enough unity to be a theocracy.While a minority in England, Puritans were the majority in New England. A less careful recounting of American history would say they fled the Old World for the New to obtain religious liberty. Not really. They left so they could establish a PURITAN system of Church and State. There was no religious liberty as we conceive it today. Puritan New England was quite IN-tolerant of dissenters; like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchison.Historian Ed Morgan describes Roger Williams as a “charming, sweet-tempered, winning man, courageous, selfless, God-intoxicated — and stubborn.” Arriving in Boston just a year after Winthrop, he was quickly asked to be pastor of the local congregation. Williams refused. He was a staunch Separatist who vehemently disagreed with the Puritan connection to the Church of England. It stunned his neighbors that a man would turn down the invitation to be a pastor. This and other behaviors so infuriated the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they expelled him.Five years later, Williams settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay on land purchased from the Indians. He named the settlement Providence and declared religious freedom — the first colony in the world in which religious liberty for all was genuine. Infant baptism was banned since Williams believed baptism was for those old enough to make a real profession of faith. He established the first Baptist Church in America in 1638.The Hutchinsons, William and Anne, arrived in Massachusetts in 1634. They’d followed their minister John Cotton, pastor of a Boston congregation. Like many Puritans, the Hutchinsons hosted a group in their home to discuss Pastor Cotton’s sermon from the previous week. Anne excelled at breaking down the message into topics that were engaging. The group grew to upwards of eighty adults.Then, controversy arose when Anne began to argue that all people are under either a covenant of works or grace. She was reacting against the public piety of the people of Boston who assumed good works proved the presence of salvation. She posited that works and grace were opposites and those who depended on works were lost.But Anne crossed the line in 1637 when she denounced some ministers as preaching a Gospel of Good Works. Critics accused her of antinomianism; that is the idea that the elect don’t have to obey God. It didn’t help her case that a woman was teaching the Bible to men.Anne was called to give an account before the General Court. She was anything but contrite. Sparks flew when she proved more adept at citing Scripture than her judges. The die was cast when she said that her knowledge of the issue had come “by revelation.” The magistrates, already suspicious of her orthodoxy, seized on this to banish her from the colony.We’ll pick it up at this point and the infamous Salem Witch Trials in the next episode.

115-The Rationalist Option Part 2

This is Part 2 of The Rationalist Option on Communio Sanctorum, History of the Christian Church.In our last episode, we took a look at the genesis of the Enlightenment in England and France. We’ll come back to France a bit later after taking a brief look at the Enlightenment in German and Russia.Germany took a bit longer to join the Enlightenment. That was due in part to the condition of the land following the Thirty Years War. It’s estimated the population shrank from twenty million to just seven after it. There’s also the issue of Germany not really being a country. It was at that time a collection of independent statelets, united by language and culture, but divided between Catholics and Lutherans.The low regard for contemporary culture at that time in Germany is illustrated by the fact that while Newton, Locke, and Voltaire were regarded as heroes in their realms, Germany’s equivalent, Gottfried von Leibniz, was never popular during his lifetime. Yet he was one of the most brilliant men, not just of his day, but of all time. Born in 1646 in Leipzig, Leibniz was the son of a professor of philosophy. He studied law before taking up with a disreputable group of alchemists and worked for the Elector of Mainz.Leibniz came to the attention of the world in 1672, when he was sent on an unofficial ambassadorial mission to Paris. The purpose of this trip was to present Louis XIV with a plan he’d worked out for the invasion of Egypt, by which he hoped to distract the Sun King from ambitions he might have toward Germany. Nothing came of Leibniz’s diplomacy, although Napoleon seems to have adopted his strategy a century later. In any case, while in Paris, Leibniz took the opportunity to meet with all the luminaries in the foremost city of culture in Europe. He studied mathematics, quickly becoming one of the foremost mathematicians in the world, and made a number of important discoveries, including differential calculus, for which tens of thousands of students have hated him ever since. He also proudly demonstrated an extraordinary mechanical calculator he had built.Leibniz’s interests were so wide-ranging he could never keep his mind on what he was doing. In 1676, he became Court Chancellor of Hanover and was put in charge of the library. But he was more interested in the mines at Harz and spent several years devising increasingly ingenious devices to solve the problem of draining them. He eventually worked for several German states, as well as the cities of Berlin and Vienna, for which he designed a number of civic improvements. In his spare time, he traveled extensively around Europe, meeting other rationalist luminaries, and carrying out his work in mathematics, chemistry, physics, metaphysics, and theology. He produced hardly any books of importance, but his vast correspondence, much of which is still in the process of being edited and published, dwarfed the output of most of his contemporaries; and there cannot have been any subject, however obscure, with which he did not deal, and on which he was not an authority. Leibniz died in 1716, an increasingly marginalized figure, defiantly wearing his long brocade coat and huge wig which had gone out of style decades before.Despite Leibniz’s virtual single-handed attempt to kick-start the German Enlightenment, it didn’t get rolling until the 18^th C. Prussia, the largest of the German states, took the lead, as its rulers sought to drag their country into the modern era. Frederick Wilhelm, who came to the throne in 1713, reformed the economy after staying with relatives in the Netherlands.Wilhelm, a careful Lutheran, had no love for Catholic France, but his son, Frederick II, known as Frederick the Great, was a quite different person than his father. Upon his accession to the throne in 1740, he set about building on his father’s practical reforms with a program of cultural renovation. Among his first acts as ruler was to recall from exile Christian Wolff, the leading German philosopher, and Leibniz’s heir. Frederick II’s enthusiasm for French culture meant the usual coldness between the two realms saw a remarkable thaw. French was even spoken in his court, and it was at his invitation Voltaire moved to Prussia in 1749. Frederick was also keen to bolster the position of Prussia in Europe, which he did by engaging in a series of wars between the 1740s and 60s.During the late 17^th C, the Russian Czar Peter the Great traveled all over Europe on a mission to learn all he could about the Enlightenment. He was eager to see what impact it had had on the realms of culture, economics, and engineering. His plan was to return to Mother Russia and drag it, if need be, into the modern world.Although Western Russia geographically is considered a part of Europe, it had for centuries been isolated. It was ruled by the Mongols for much of the late Middle Ages and was a bastion of Orthodox Christianity, a separate denomination from the Catholics and Protestants in the West. Westerners knew virtually nothing about Russian religion, and Russians cared virtually nothing for the West.It’s hardly surprising that, when Peter returned home, he had to enforce his reforms with an iron hand if he was going to make headway. Beards, a revered symbol of Orthodoxy, were banned in an attempt to get people to look more Western. Young men were happy to comply, as many women preferred. But most older men kept their beards in boxes, fearing they were bereft of salvation without them. Traditional Russian dress, which reached the ankle, was banned. Everyone had to dress like the French, and anyone who refused had their clothes force-tailored. English hairstyles were mandatory for women. Schools were built, the calendar reformed, military conscription introduced, and church hierarchy was placed firmly under State control. Like Louis XIV’s France, Peter’s Russia was an avowedly Christian country. As a symbol of the new, Westward-leaning Russia, Peter transferred the capital to a new city, St Petersburg, on the Baltic coast.But Peter was hardly a model of Enlightenment tolerance. In 1718, he had his son tortured to death for treason. Still, his reforms were extended and completed by Catherine the Great, a Prussian who became Empress of Russia in 1762. She organizing a coup against her own husband. Unlike Peter, Catherine grew up in Western Europe and had thoroughly imbibed Enlightenment principles. She corresponded with Voltaire and other leading cultural figures; patronized the arts, and founded the famous Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Catherine was also a skilled diplomat, and as the most powerful monarch in Europe, extended Russian influence throughout the continent.Okay, so, you’re wondering how this is church history. I thought it wise to spend a little time charting the broad outlines of the Enlightenment so we could see how the thinking it produced affected theology.That happens with the advent of Rationalism.Rationalism reached its apex in the 18^th and 19^th Cs. It’s characterized by an interest in the physical world and its confidence in the powers of reason. In Western Europe, there’d been a growing interest in Nature since the 13^th C. That was the era of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, who reintroduced Aristotelian philosophy as a tool for doing theology. One of the points of contrast between Aristotelianism and the earlier Platonism that dominated theological thought was precisely that the new philosophy emphasized the importance of the senses and perception. The later Middle Ages, with its distrust of speculation, continued in the same vein. The art of the Renaissance, with its appreciation for the beauty of the human body and the world, was an expression of this interest. By the 17^th C, many thought the goal of reason was understanding the world of nature.Parallel to that, there appeared growing confidence in the powers of reason. Often, these two trends were combined in an effort to show the degree to which the order of nature coincides with the order of reason. This can be seen, for instance, in the work of Galileo, who was convinced the entire natural world was a system of mathematical relations, and that the ideal of knowledge was the reduction of all phenomena to their quantitative expression. Every success of such efforts seemed to confirm the most optimistic expectations of the power of reason.This all led to the philosophy of René Descartes in the first half of the 17^th C. His system was based on great confidence in mathematical reasoning, joined to a profound distrust of all that is not absolutely certain. He compared his philosophical method to geometry, a discipline that accepts only what is an undeniable axiom or has been rationally proven.In applying his method, Descartes felt he ought to begin with an attitude of universal doubt, making sure that, once he found something he could not doubt, he would be certain of its truth. He then found that undeniable first truth in his own existence. He could doubt everything, but not that the doubting subject existed. “I think, therefore I am,” became the starting point for his philosophy. But this I whose existence cannot be doubted is only the subject as a thinker. The existence of his body wasn’t proven, so must be doubted.Before proving his existence as a body, Descartes felt he could, get this >> Prove the existence of God. He found in his mind the idea of a “more perfect being,” and since his mind could not produce such an idea, which was above itself, it must have been placed there by God. Therefore, Descartes’s second conclusion was that God exists. It was only then, on the basis of the existence of God, and of trust in the divine perfection, that Descartes felt free to move on to prove the existence of the world and of his own body.Descartes was a profoundly religious man who hoped his philosophy would be found useful by theologians. But not all agreed with him. Many theologians feared the challenge of Cartesianism—as his philosophy was called. The universal doubt Descartes proposed as his starting point seemed to some a kind of crass skepticism. The faculties of several universities declared Aristotelianism was the philosophical system best suited to Christian theology, and there were those who declared Cartesianism lead to heresy. Dismayed, Descartes decided to leave his native France. He moved to Sweden, where he lived the rest of his life.But he was not without supporters. In France, those intellectual circles where Jansenism had been popular embraced Cartesianism. Eventually, others among the more orthodox also took it up, and debates continued for a long time.The main point at which Cartesianism led to further theological and philosophical developments was the question of the relationship between spirit and matter, between soul and body. It’s at this point we could really get into a sticky wicket as we parse all the various ways theologians and philosophers offered ideas on the inter-relationship between the thinking self and the thing that occupies space in the form of a body. But we won’t go into the theories of Occasionalism, Monism, and Preestablished Harmony.Let me just say this became a realm of contentious debate between a Dutch Jew named Baruch de Spinoza and our friend Leibniz.While these philosophical developments took place on the Continent, in Britain, philosophy took a different route in what’s called Empiricism. It’s drawn from a Greek word meaning experience. Its leading figure was Oxford professor John Locke, we considered in the previous episode. In 1690, Locke published his Essay on Human Understanding. He read Descartes and agreed the order of the world corresponded to the order of the mind. But he didn’t believe there was such a thing as innate ideas to be discovered by looking inward. He contended that all knowledge is derived from experience; the experience of the senses, and the working of our minds. That meant the only genuine knowledge is based on three levels of experience: Experience of self, Experience of the world around us, and Experience of God, whose existence is manifest by the existence of ourselves and the world.To this Locke added another level of knowledge, that of probability. Probability works like this; You and I have repeatedly experienced someone’s existence; let’s call him George. We know George. He’s a friend we see a couple of times a week. When George isn’t standing in front of us, we still have reason to believe He exists, even though at that moment, we have no purely empirical basis to believe in his existence. Still, sound judgment gives us reason to discern the probability of George’s existence. Locke said that this judgment of probability allows us to get on with the practical affairs in life.Faith, Locke said, is assent to knowledge derived from revelation rather than reason. Therefore, although highly probable, knowledge derived by faith can’t be certain. Reason and judgment must be used in order to measure the degree of probability of what we believe by faith. For this reason, Locke opposed the “fanatical enthusiasm” of those who think that all they say is based on divine revelation. For the same reason, he defended religious toleration. Intolerance is born out of the muddled thinking that confuses the probable judgments of faith with the certainty of empirical reason. Besides, toleration is based on the very nature of society. The state does not have the authority to limit the freedom of its citizens in matters such as their personal religion.In 1695, Locke published a treatise, The Reasonableness of Christianity, in which he claimed Christianity is the most reasonable of religions. He said the core of Christianity is the existence of God and faith in Christ as Messiah. But Locke didn’t believe the Christian Faith had added anything of importance to what could, in any case, have been known by the proper use of reason and judgment. In the final analysis, Christianity was little more than a very clear expression of truths and laws that others could have known by their natural faculties.Others would come along later and drive a wedge between faith and reason, divorcing them into different camps. And in the settlement, Faith would be left impoverished while Reason drove off with all the goodies.One of those who drove the wagon was David Hume in the mid-18^th C. In my estimation, Hume can be blamed for the post-modern tendency of knee-jerk negativity toward absolutes. An illustration may best help to describe his philosophy, or better, his anti-philosophy. Hume was skeptical of reason, saying the only reason, reason seems to work is because of mental habits we’ve developed. In other words, In Hume’s system, Descartes’ doubt didn’t go far enough; he ought to have doubted his own ability to reason.Hume maintained, for instance, that no one has ever experienced what we call cause and effect. We’ve seen, for instance, when a pool ball collides with another ball, there’s a noise and the second ball moves off in some direction. If we repeat that several times, we see similar results. So we conclude by the power of reason that the movement of the first ball caused the movement of the other. But, Hume contended, we’ve not seen any such thing. All we’ve witnessed is a series of phenomena, and our mind has linked them by means of the notion of cause and effect. This last step, Hume claimed, taken by any who see a series of phenomena that are seemingly related, has no basis in empirical observation. It is rather the result of our mental habits. So, by an empiricists’ definition, that’s not rational knowledge.Hume’s uber-skepticism places such strict rules on interpreting what our senses tell us, there’s no room left for the working of logic and deduction. He cripples us and turns his followers into inveterate skeptics.It wasn’t long until some Enlightenment thinkers washed their hands of faith altogether and began to envision a world without God or religion.We’ll talk about later developments in Philosophy and their impact on theology in a later episode.

114-The Rationalist Option Part 1

The title of this episode is, The Rationalist Option Part 1. I want to give a brief comment at the outset that this episode doesn’t track much of church history per se. What we do over the next minutes is take a brief look at the European Enlightenment. We need to because the ideas that came out of the Enlightenment influenced theology and the modern world.The 30 Years War ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. But decades of bitter conflict left Europe a ravaged land. People were weary of conflict whatever its nature; political, religious, or martial. And though the War was over, the following decades were by no means peaceful. Among other things, they witnessed the English Civil War with its execution of Charles I, and yet more wars between European powers, albeit on a smaller scale. Against this turmoil-laden backdrop, a new spirit was brewing in Europe: one desperate to make a break with the past with its religious tension, dry scholasticism, incessant bickering and the numerous occult fetishes the Renaissance spun off. By the mid-17^th C, the seeds of the Enlightenment were well sown.A new breed of thinkers inhabited a Continent quite different from their ancestors. At the dawn of the 16^th C Europe was dominated by the resolute Catholic power of Spain. In 1492, Spain both ended the lingering presence of Islam and discovered the New World. Italy, while having little political power, exercised massive cultural influence due to its claim as the birthplace of the Renaissance.Fifty years later, everything had changed. Spain was exhausted by the 30 Years War and political hegemony had moved to France, finally free of the threat of its powerful neighbors, Spain and Germany. The Netherlands, previously under Spanish rule, won their freedom with the Treaty of Westphalia and almost overnight became the world’s leading trade nation. Amsterdam was the exchange capital of the world, and the Dutch merchant fleet was the largest on the planet.The threat once posed by Islam was uprooted. Though Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, 40 years later saw the Spanish remove the last Muslim strongholds from the Iberian Peninsula. In 1683, despite being outnumbered five to one, the Polish king Sobieski routed the Ottomans besieging Vienna.Europe was a land of independent nations: of trade and colonialism, and a rising middle-class. Instead of the hegemonies of the past, when a single power, whether emperor or pope, sought to govern the Continent, a new idea arose of a ‘balance of power’ between states—and between churches too. The Pope’s hand was declawed, even in Catholic countries, by the Treaty of Westphalia, which permitted every state to follow whatever religion it saw fit. Although France, the new dominant force in Europe, was mostly Catholic, it tended not to listen too closely to Rome. The Netherlands were strict Calvinists. It was a world in which the notions of nationhood, human rights, and law were going to play an increasingly important role, and they were going to be rethought along rationalist rather than religious lines.The most vaunted ideal of the Age of Reason was Reason itself: the human capacity, by means of investigation, rather than by relying on external authority, to, in a word = Understand. In the first half of the 17^th C, two philosophers, the Englishman Thomas Hobbes and the Frenchman René Descartes pioneered a new way of understanding the world and the mind. Instead of the Neoplatonic world of the Renaissance, dominated by occult forces, where objects exerted mysterious ‘influences’ on each other, they sought to understand the world in mechanistic terms. The universe was conceived as a complicated system of levers, pulleys, and bearings. Given enough time and the proper intellectual tools, the cosmos was comprehensible to almost anyone who took the time to study it.At the same time, there was a desire to forget the old divisions of the past and embrace what was common to all humanity. One important movement of the time we’ll talk about later was ‘syncretism’, which sought to reunite the churches of Europe. A leading figure in this was the Dutch Reformed thinker Hugo Grotius, who contended Christians of all denominations should come together on the basis of their common faith and heritage. Grotius was arrested in The Netherlands and spent some years in prison until he made a daring escape and fled the country.Despite his work as a theologian, Grotius is most remembered as a legal theorist. His On the Law of Peace and War of 1625 was the first major study of the theory of international law. In it, he sought to place binding human laws—transcending national boundaries—on a naturalistic and rational footing. This vein of thought was the result of the application to philosophy and theology of the laissez-faire principles which nations like the Netherlands applied to economics with such remarkable success.It took eighty years of on-and-off warfare before the Netherlands finally achieved its independence from Spain in 1648. The country had already become a great trading nation, and during the 17^th C entered a golden age, quickly becoming one of the most powerful nations in Europe. Culture, the arts, and science flourished, with the works of the 17^th C Dutch painters quickly becoming classics to rank alongside the best the Italian Renaissance had produced.The Netherlands was (not “were” I looked it up. So, The Netherlands was - the premier bastion of the Reformed faith in Europe. It was there Calvinists who’d suffered persecution elsewhere, emigrated. Dutch theologians defined and refined their faith, a process that led to the Arminian controversy. And while the persecution of Arminians was carried out in the Netherlands, it was nothing compared to what the French and English were dishing out to their religious dissidents. The rule of merchants meant the Netherlands were renowned for tolerance—racial, philosophical, and national. It was to the Netherlands a substantial Jewish community, fleeing the persecutions of Philip II in Spain, had come. Charles II of England sought refuge there after his father’s execution. It was there, too, fringy-ish philosophers and theologians like Descartes and his disciple Spinoza, found sanctuary and carried on their work. In providing an environment in which their ideas could develop, free of interference, the wealthy mercantile ruling class of the Netherlands played a key role in the evolution of the Enlightenment in the 17^th C.If one person could have claimed to be the most powerful man in the world in the late 17^th C, it would have to have been Louis XIV of France. The ‘Sun King’ of legend ascended to the throne at the age of four, in 1643. He remained there until his death in 1715. When Cardinal Mazarin, effectively the prime minister, died in 1661, the 23-year-old king decided not to appoint a successor to run the country and did it himself. Whether or not he really uttered the famous words, “I am the State,” under his personal rule, France was established as a leading force for culture and enlightenment. The magnificent palace of Versailles, completed in 1682 after twenty years of construction, symbolized the spirit of the age. It was an era of formalism, geometry, beauty, and intellect. And where France led, Europe followed. Fifty years earlier, scholars spoke Latin. Now, French became the language of scholarship.At the same time, Louis did everything he could to extend France’s political power, which he achieved by means of an aggressive foreign policy. The wealth of the Netherlands, so close at hand, tempted him into a series of wars with the Dutch. In 1689, he plunged the world into a conflict that threatened a level of devastation not seen for a half-century. This was the War of the Grand Alliance, during which the fighting covered Europe, Ireland, and North America. Barely had that finished, in 1697, before Louis launched the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–14, which left his grandson occupying the throne of Spain.The age over which Louis presided was an avowedly Catholic one. His favored slogan was “One faith. One law. One king.” The Catholicism of France at that time was nationalistic, rather than a papal. People were devoted to the Church more because of the ancient roots of Catholicism in France than out of a sense of duty to Rome. This came to be called ‘Gallicanism.’ One of its leading proponents in the court of the Sun King was Jacques Bossuet [BOO-sway], the Catholic bishop of Meaux [Muh].Despite the pacific influence of men like Bossuet, Louis XIV’s determination to unite his subjects under a single faith became heavily coercive. Of the roughly fifteen million inhabitants of France—the largest population of any European state—about a million were Protestants-Huguenots. Their freedom to worship was guaranteed by the Edict of Nantes of a half-century before Louis, but he saw to it that things were not easy for them. They suffered restrictions on where they could go, what professions they could take up, where they could worship, and what schools they could attend. In 1681, oppression became suppression, when the army was ordered to harass Huguenots until they converted. Four years later, the king revoked the Edict of Nantes.Little wonder, then, that a growing number of French intellectuals began to think religion didn’t seem to offer much of a basis for an enlightened modern society. It wouldn’t be long before some questioned the point of religion altogether. In the meantime, many were impressed by their Dutch neighbors who’d worked out a far more satisfactory social philosophy of reason and liberalism.England had a harder time than France. Politically, most of the 17^th C was something of a disaster, involving civil war, a short-lived republic, the overthrow of two monarchs—a Revolution and the eventual coronation of the Dutch William of Orange as King of England; who was invited to invade by a Parliament desperate to secure a Protestant monarch.As England finally established some political stability, it fostered major intellectual developments that would put the country on a cultural par with France. British thinkers pioneered new ideas about government, politics, ethics, and economics; ideas that aimed to avoid the extremes absolutist monarchs such as Charles I and despots like Cromwell had slipped into. While the nations of the Continent developed an ever-higher reverence for their monarchs, the political and military struggles of 17^th C England saw an erosion of the monarchy. The idea took hold that kings rule by consent of the governed, who retain the ability to judge and even remove him if they don’t approve of his policies.The process was started by Thomas Hobbes, who sought to create a new political theory that was rational and humanist, without any reliance on religion. In his famous Leviathan of 1651, Hobbes put forward the claim that government is based on natural law, not on divine sanction, and that a government exists only by the will of the people.The appearance of modern ‘liberalism’, is associated above all with John Locke, one of the most prominent British intellectuals at the turn of the 18^th C. Locke is most famous for his political ideas, and his values of tolerance and liberalism, which would have an enormous impact in both America and France. Like Hobbes before him, Locke was determined to develop a new understanding of how society and its members operate and interact. He was inspired in this by the advances in science over the preceding century—climaxing in the work of Isaac Newton, revered throughout England as a genius, a new Aristotle. If the exercise of cool mathematical reason could produce Newton’s Principia, regarded by many as the final word in the study of physics, who could say what it might produce in other spheres as well?Locke’s attempts to do this in philosophy, psychology, politics, and religion resulted in his starting the English Enlightenment virtually single-handedly. Locke believed human reason should be the final arbiter of what we believe, in politics, ethics, and religion alike; and he believed the values of tolerance and individual liberty, of education and freedom, would provide the proper environment for the exercise of reason. This was the philosophy of the Enlightenment in a nutshell. Yet despite his enormous prestige at home, Locke’s influence was greatest in Continental Europe. French intellectuals were impressed by the commonsense political philosophy coming from across the Channel. Between them, Britain and France were responsible for the most characteristic trends and movements of the Enlightenment.If Hobbes was the Enlightenment’s midwife and Locke birthed it, the man who epitomized its values and dreams was François Marie Arouet [Ah-roo-eh]; known by his pen name, Voltaire. He was the dominant cultural force of his day, and the smiling figure he presents in contemporary paintings, with a wicked glint in his eye, conveys the intellectual power, wit, and irreverence that characterized his version of the Enlightenment.Born in 1694 in Paris, Voltaire was educated by the Jesuits and quickly became known for his satirical poetry and biting wit. His penchant for attacking the aristocracy saw him holed up in the Bastille for almost a year. That wasn’t enough to teach him what the authorities hope and in 1726, we was sent into exile. He spent three years in England learning the values of liberalism, rationalism, and religious tolerance. On his return to France in 1729, Voltaire set out to enlighten France by extolling the virtues of the British philosophers, above all Locke and Newton. In his Philosophical Letters of 1734, which he called ‘the first bomb against the Old Regime’, he compared France’s government, science, and philosophy unfavorably to England’s. And as might be expected, he was expelled once again from Paris. Voltaire headed for the French countryside, where he immersed himself in the study of the natural sciences. In 1749, at the invitation of Frederick the Great, he moved to Prussia for a few years. He eventually ended up in Switzerland, where he devoted himself to writing plays, essays, novels, and articles. His success was so great, and his influence so enormous, his estate became a place of pilgrimage to writers, philosophers, and the celebrities of the time. So popular was his home he became known as ‘the innkeeper of Europe’. In 1778, in order to direct one of his own plays, Voltaire returned to Paris to enormous acclaim and died shortly after.Voltaire devoted his life and work to the principles of reason and tolerance that he saw exemplified in British philosophy. His slogan was ‘Crush infamy!’ and to Voltaire, the most infamous institution in France was the Roman Catholic Church, an organization which in his eyes demanded loyalty from its members, which forced on them a ridiculous and barbarous mythology, and which put down dissenters with the sword. Voltaire was not an irreligious man, and was one of the foremost proponents of ‘deism.’ Yet he was notorious as an arch-heretic and enemy of Christianity for the contempt with which he held what he regarded as the superstitious and authoritarian elements of the Faith. Voltaire attacked the doctrines and practices of Christianity as mercilessly as he lampooned the secular rulers of society.There is a story that his local bishop once ordered that under no circumstances was Voltaire to be admitted to Mass. Voltaire, who had no intention of letting a mere bishop exercise authority over him, therefore faked a terminal illness and forced a priest to give him the sacrament, which could not be denied to a man on his deathbed. The moment he had consumed it, Voltaire jumped out of bed and went for a walk. The notion that one could eat God was as blasphemous to him as it was ludicrous, and mockery seemed to him the only appropriate response.At the time of his death, Voltaire had produced some two thousand books and pamphlets. Probably the greatest was his Philosophical Dictionary of 1764, devoted primarily to ethical and religious subjects. The fact that this work was burnt throughout France showed that few in authority had heeded his Treatise on Tolerance of the previous year, in which Voltaire had condemned the atrocities that had been perpetrated throughout history in the name of religion and called for the freedom of each individual to practice whatever religion they chose.Because Voltaire was such a towering figure, his celebrity tends to diminish the many others who shared his views, though with less aplomb. He was no iconoclast, no lone voice in the wilderness. On the contrary, while he may have been the loudest voice, it was accompanied by a chorus of French critics, writers, and philosophers, all of whom extolled reason and human progress and critical of the traditional authorities and mores. The first and most famous of these philosophes, as they were known, was Baron Montesquieu. His Persian Letters, published in 1721, took the form of a series of letters by two fictitious Persians traveling Europe. Montesquieu bitterly satirized the Establishment of his day: the French king, government, society and, above all, the Catholic Church, which Montesquieu hated for much the same reasons as Voltaire. However, Montesquieu’s attitude to Christianity softened over the years, and he was much more sympathetic to it in his most famous work, The Spirit of the Laws of 1748, which attempted to set out legal principles.One philosophe who never moderated his views was Baron d’Holbach, another French aristocrat. D’Holbach wasn’t only an atheist, which was a much more daring position than the deism of Voltaire; he believed atheism was the only possible basis for a reasonable ethical system. Politically, he opposed all kinds of absolutism, including even the enlightened monarchies of the sort Louis XIV had tried. Here again, we see the influence of British thought. In his System of Nature of 1770, d’Holbach set forth a wholly materialistic and mechanistic understanding of the world. It’s hard to imagine a more different figure from Bossuet a century earlier: such was the radical turnaround, from supporting religion to undermining it, that the French Enlightenment had taken.Next on our stop will be the German Enlightenment. But we’ll have to leave that for next time.

113-Yep, Those English

This is the second episode in which we look at English Puritanism.We left off last time with King Charles I fleeing London after breaking into The House of Commons to arrest the Puritan members of Parliament he accused of treason. The men had been warned and had fled. What Charles had hoped would be a dramatic show of his defense of the realm against dangerous elements, ended up being an egregious violation of British rights. So in fear for his own life, he packed up his family and headed out of town.Back in London, John Pym, a leader of Parliament, ruled as a kind of king without a crown. The House of Commons proposed a law excluding the royalist faction of bishops in the House of Lords from Parliament. Other members of the House of Lords surprisingly agreed, so the clergy were expelled. This commenced a process that would eventually disbar anyone from Parliament who disagreed with the Puritans. The body took on an ever-increasing bent toward the radical. Feeling their oats, Parliament then ordered a militia be recruited. The king decided the time had come to respond with decisive action. He gathered loyal troops and prepared for battle against Parliament’s militia. Civil War had come to England.Both sides began by building forces. Charles’ support came from the nobility, while Parliament found it among those who’d suffered most in recent royal shenanigans. Parliament’s army came from the lower classes, to which were added some from the emerging merchant middle-class, as well as a handful of those nobles who’d not been in favor at Court. The king’s strength was the cavalry, which of course was traditionally the noble’s military specialty. The Parliamentary forces strength was in their infantry amd navy, which controlled trade.At the outset of the war, there were only minor skirmishes. Parliament sought help from the Scots, while Charles sought it from Irish Catholics. In its efforts to attract the Scots, Parliament enacted a series of measures leaning toward Presbyterianism. English Puritans didn’t agree with the Presbyterian plan for church government, but they certainly didn’t like the episcopacy of the Church of England’s royalist bishops. English Puritans ended up adopting the Presbyterian model, not only because it irked those Bishops, but because it made more Biblical sense at the time, and because confiscation of bishops’ property meant Parliament could fund the war without creating new taxes.Parliament also convened a groups of theologians to advise it on religious matters. The Westminster Assembly included 121 ministers, 30 laymen and 8 Scottish representatives. Being that the Scots had the strongest army in Great Britain, though they numbered only 5% of the total participants in the assembly, their influence was decisive. The Westminster Confession which they produced became one of the fundamental documents of Calvinist orthodoxy. Although some of the Assembly’s members were Independents who followed a congregational-form of government, and others still leaned toward an episcopacy, the Assembly settled on a Presbyterian church government, and urged Parliament to adopt it for the Church of England. In 1644, Parliament joined the Scots in a Solemn League and Covenant that committed them to Presbyterianism. The following year the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was executed on the order of Parliament.As Parliament built up its army, Oliver Cromwell came to the fore. A relatively wealthy man, he descended from one of Henry VIII’s advisors. Oliver was a devoted Puritan, convinced that every decision, both personal and political, ought to be based on the will of God as revealed in Scripture. Though he was often slow in coming to a decision, once set upon a course, he was determined to follow it through to its conclusion, believing it to be, in fact, God’s Will. Respected by fellow Puritans, until the Civil War he was simply known as a member of the House of Commons. But when he was convinced armed conflict was inevitable, Cromwell returned home where he recruited a cavalry corps. He knew cavalry was the king’s main weapon, and that Parliament would need their own. His zeal was contagious, and his small force accomplished great deeds. They charged into battle singing psalms, convinced they were engaged in a holy cause. That attitude spread to the rest of the Parliament’s army which crushed the royal army at the Battle of Naseby.That was the beginning of the end for the king. The rebels captured his camp, where they found proof he’d been asking foreign Catholic troops to invade England. Charles then tried to negotiate with the Scots, hoping to win them with promises. But the Scots took him prisoner and turned him over to Parliament. Having won the war, Parliament adopted a series of Puritan measures, including setting the precedent that Sunday was to be reserved for solemn religious observances rather than the frivolous pastimes increasingly being adopted by the English nobility and emerging middle-class.The Puritans, who’ had to unite due to war, now returned to what they best at, arguing among themselves. Most of Parliament supported a Presbyterian form of church govt, which made for a national church without bishops. But the Independents who made up the majority of the army leaned toward congregationalism. They feared a Presbyterian church would begin to limit their ability to pursue their faith the way their conscience demanded. Tension grew between Parliament and the army.In 1646, Parliament unsuccessfully tried to dissolve the army. Radical groups gained ground. A wave of apocalyptic fervor swept England, moving many to demand a transformation of the social order thru justice and equality. Parliament and the leaders of the Army began to square off with each other.Then è The king escaped. He opened negotiations with the Scots, the army, and Parliament, making contradictory promises to all three. Somehow he managed to gain support from the Scots by promising to install Presbyterianism in England. When the Scots invaded, the Puritan army defeated them, captured Charles I, and began a purge of those factions in Parliament they deemed inconsistent with the reforms they envisioned. Forty-five MPs were arrested. What remained was labeled by its enemies the Rump Parliament because all that was left was the posterior of a real parliament.The Rump Parliament began proceedings against Charles, accused of high treason and of having thrust England into a bloody civil war. The fourteen lords who appeared for the meeting of the House of Lords refused to agree to the proceedings. But the House of Commons carried on, and Charles, who refused to defend himself on the grounds his judges had no legal standing, was beheaded at the end of Jan, 1649.Now, I’m sure someone’s likely thinking, “Is this Communio Sanctorum or Revolutions?” Yeah, this doesn’t sound much like CHURCH history. It’s more English History. So what’s up? Well, it’s important we realize the roll Puritanism and Presbyterianism played in this period of English history. The Reformation had a huge impact on the course of events in the British Isles.Fearing the loss of their independence from England, the Scots quickly acknowledged Charles’ son Charles II, as their sovereign. And in the South, England descended into chaos among several factions all vying for powerThat’s when Cromwell took the reins. He commandeered the Rump Parliament, stamped out a rebellion in Ireland and the royalists in Scotland. Charles II fled to the Continent.When Parliament moved to pass a law perpetuating its power, Cromwell expelled the few remaining representatives, and locked the building. Seemingly against his will, Cromwell had become master of the nation. He tried to return some form of representative government, but eventually took the title Lord Protector. He was supposed to rule with the help of a Parliament that would include representatives from England, Scotland, and Ireland. In reality, the new Parliament was mostly English, and Cromwell was the real government.He set out to reform both church and state. Given the time, his policies were fairly tolerant. Although he was an Independent, he tried to develop a religious system with room for Presbyterians, Baptists, and even advocates of episcopacy. As a Puritan, he tried to reform English society through legislation. These laws were aimed at keeping the Lord’s Day devoted to sacred rites, ending horse races, cockfights, the theater, and so on. His economic policies favored the middle-class at the expense of the nobility. Among both the very wealthy and the very poor, opposition to his rule, which is called the Protectorate, grew.Cromwell retained control while he lived. But his dream of a stable republic failed. Like the monarchs before him, he was unable to get along with Parliament—though his supporters kept his opponents from taking their seats. Since the Protectorate was clearly temporary, Cromwell was offered the crown, but refused it, hoping to create a republic. In 1658, shortly before his death, in a move that seems politically schizophrenic, Cromwell named his son as his successor. But Richard was most definitely not his father. He resigned his post.Parliament then recalled Charles II to England’s throne. This brought about a reaction against the Puritans. Although Charles at first sought to find a place for Presbyterians within the Church of England, the new Parliament opposed it, preferring a return to the bishops’ episcopacy. The Book of Common Prayer was reinstalled after being out of favor for several years, and dissenters were banned. But such laws weren’t able to curb the several movements that had emerged during the previous unrest. They continued outside the law until, late in that 17^th C, toleration was decreed.In Scotland, the consequences of the restoration were more severe. With the episcopacy reinstalled in England, the staunch Presbyterianism of the North was challenged anew. Scotland erupted in riot. Archbishop James Sharp, prime prelate of Scotland, was murdered. This brought English intervention in support of Scottish royalists. The Presbyterians were drowned in blood.On his deathbed, Charles II declared himself a Catholic, confirming the suspicions of many that he’d been an agent of Rome all along and thus all the blood of Puritans and Presbyterians. His brother and successor, James II, moved to restore Roman Catholicism as the official religion of his kingdom. In England, he sought to gain the support of dissidents by decreeing religious tolerance. But the anti-Catholic sentiments among the dissidents ran so strong they preferred no tolerance to the risk of a return to Rome. Conditions in Scotland were worse, for James II placed Catholics in positions of power, and decreed death for any who attended unapproved worship.After three years under James II, the English rebelled and invited William, Prince of Orange, along with his wife Mary, James’s daughter, to take the throne. William landed in 1688, and James fled to France. In Scotland, his supporters held on for a few months, but by the next year, William and Mary were in possession of the Scottish crown as well. Their religious policy was tolerant. In England, tolerance was granted to any who subscribed to the thirty-nine Articles of 1562, and swore loyalty to the King and Queen. Those who refused, were granted tolerance as long as they didn’t conspire against the crown. In Scotland, Presbyterianism became the official religion of State, the Westminster Confession its doctrinal norm.But even after the Restoration, the Puritan ideal lingered and greatly influenced British ethics. Its two great literary figures, John Bunyan and John Milton, along with Shakespeare, long endured among the most read of English authors. Bunyan’s most famous work, known by its abbreviated title Pilgrim’s Progress, became a hugely popular, and the subject of much meditation and discussion for generations. Milton’s Paradise Lost determined the way in which the majority of the English-speaking world read and interpreted the Bible.

112-Those English

In this episode, we’ll take a look at English Puritanism.In Episode 96, English Candles, we considered the arrival of the Reformation in England and the career of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of the Anglican Church. When Catholic Queen Mary ascended the throne, she persecuted Protestants. But when Elizabeth became queen, a new day dawned for the Reformation there.Queen Elizabeth followed a median course between religious conservatives who sought to retain as much of the ancient practices and beliefs as possible, and Reformers who believed the entire life and structure of the church ought to adjust to what they saw as a Biblical norm. During Elizabeth’s reign, that delicate balance was maintained though tensions surfaced repeatedly. Her strength and decisiveness managed to restrained both sides, barely.Elizabeth left no heir when she died in 1603. But she’d made arrangements for the succession to pass to James, son of Mary Stuart, already serving as king of Scotland. The transition was fairly smooth, bringing the House of Stuart to reign over England. James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He didn’t find ruling his expanded realm an easy matter. The English regarded him a foreigner. His plan to unite both kingdoms earned him determined opponents on both sides.Elizabeth’s reforms of England’s economic policies were bearing fruit, especially among the growing merchant class, who resented the James’ royalist policies favoring the nobility. But James’s greatest troubles were with Reformers who wanted to see the English church purged of all Romanish influences. They regarded James as standing in the way. His native Scotland had moved further along that Reformation Road under the work of John Knox. English Calvinists felt the time was ripe for similar changes in their land.These Reformers didn’t comprise a single group, nor did they agree on all matters. So it’s difficult describing them in general terms. One of the most influential groups was given the name Puritans because they insisted on the need to purify the Church. They opposed many of the traditional aspects of worship the Church of England retained; things like the use of the Cross as a symbol, priestly garments, and the celebration of communion on an altar. They differed over whether there even ought to be an altar; wasn’t a simple table good enough? And if a table, should it be placed so as not to give anyone the idea it WAS an altar. Things like this led to bitter disputes They may have left behind the Scholastic argument of how many angels can dance ion the head of a pin, but they argued over now less inconsequential issues as how much lace their ought to be in a collar.Puritans insisted on the need for a sober life, guided by the commands of Scripture, and abstinence from luxury and ostentatious displays of wealth. Since a great deal of the worship of the Church of England appeared to them as needlessly elaborate, this caused further objection to such worship. Many insisted on the need to keep the Lord’s Day sacred, devoting it exclusively to religious exercises and charity. They also rejected the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the use of written prayers in general, declaring such led to insincerity, so that even the Lord’s Prayer, rather than a set of words to be repeated, was to be used as a model for prayer. They weren’t opposed to the use of alcohol, for most of them drank moderately, but they were quite critical of drunkenness. They were also critical of all they considered licentious; like the theater, because immorality was often depicted and because of the inherent duplicity required for acting. They considered it a kind of lying because someone pretended to be someone else.This tone of super-critical Puritanism would much later move HL Mencken to describe Puritanism as, “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.”A precise definition of Puritanism has been a matter much debate, due in part to its multifaceted influence in not only religious and theological matters but in its impact on England’s politics and society.Some of the difficulty in defining Puritanism comes from its caricatures that began in the 16^th C. As with so many of the labels that have been attributed to movements in Church History, the word “Puritan” was originally a slam applied by critics. They considered Puritans to be peevish, censorious, conceited hypocrites. That reputation, once applied, stuck to them all the way to our day.In truth, there was a surprising diversity among Puritans. They shared a common theological confession, while differing on how the Church ought to be organized. Some Puritans thought the existing Anglican hierarchy of bishops was fine while others wanted to restructure the Church along more Presbyterian lines. Still others embraced a congregational form of church government. Some advocated separation from the established church, while others remained. Some were royalist, others revolutionary, even to the point of regicide. While Puritans differed in worship styles and expressions of piety, they ALL wanted the English Church to more closely resemble the Reformed churches on the Continent.Many Puritans were opposed to bishops. They argued that the highly-structured church hierarchy of the Church of England was a late invention, not found in the Bible. They said the Church ought to look to Scripture as its constitution not only for doctrine, but also in its organization and governance. Moderate Puritans responded that the Bible didn’t actually give a prescription for a specific form of Church government. What it had were principles that could be applied in different ways. Others insisted that the New Testament Church was ruled by elders called “presbyters.” Then others claimed each congregation ought to be independent. They were creatively dubbed “Independents.”Baptists rose mostly among this last group. One of their early leaders was John Smyth, an Anglican priest who decided the Church of England had not reformed far enough. He established an independent, and at that time, illegal, congregation. As it grew, Smyth and his followers fled to Amsterdam. There he continued his study of the Bible, and came to the point of refusing to use translations of the Bible in worship, for only the original text had absolute authority. At church, he would read Scripture in Hebrew or Greek, and translate the text as he preached. Partly through his study of Scripture, and partly through contact with Mennonites—whose pacifism and refusal to take oaths, he adopted—e eventually becoming convinced infant baptism was wrong. He then re-baptized himself with a bucket and ladle and proceeded to baptized his followers.The move of Smyth and his flock to Holland was financed by a wealthy lawyer named Thomas Helwys, who eventually broke with the ever-reforming Smyth. The breaking point of contention was over the taking of vows. Smyth rejected any form of vow while, as a lawyer, Helwys considered them a necessary convention safeguarding social order. Helwys and his followers returned to England, where in 1611 they founded the first Baptist Church in England.Eventually, to really no one’s surprise, a disagreement arose among English Baptists over theological issues similar to those that had risen between Calvinists and Arminianists. Those who favored the Arminian-flavored path were called General Baptists while Calvinist-leaning Baptists were referred to as Particular Baptists.The balance Elizabeth maintained in the Church of England began to wobble under James. While its theology was moderately Calvinist, its worship and governance followed the older Roman order. Puritans feared a movement was under way to return to what they called “Romanism.”They didn’t trust the new king, whose mother was none other than the Catholic Mary Stuart, AKA Mary, Queen of Scots, who’d been executed by Elizabeth on the charge of treason in plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and take her throne. James didn’t, in fact, favor Catholicism though Puritans assumed he would and hoped to gain concessions. They were repeatedly disappointed. James’ goal was the same kind of absolutist monarchy then in place in France. In Scotland, his Presbyterian subjects hadn’t allowed him to reign as he wished. He thought his chances for absolutism were better in the South. To that end he strengthened the bishops of the English Church as a prop to his own power. He declared, “Without bishops, there is no king,” meaning monarchy is better supported by a hierarchical church structure.James’ religious policy was similar to Elizabeth’s. The Anabaptists were persecuted because James was offended by their egalitarianism that threatened to up-end the highly stratified English society. For goodness sake; we can’t have peasants thinking they’re as important as nobles. What a catastrophe if humble commoners mixed with blue bloods. So, the Anabaptists with their calling everyone “brother” and “sister” had to be repressed. They were; brutally. And Catholics, who thought James would be their guy, were regarded by him as agents of the Pope, who everyone knew wanted to get rid of James. James said if the pope acknowledged his right to rule and condemned regicide, which a few of the more extreme Catholics pushed for, James would tolerate the presence of Catholics in his realm. Presbyterians, whom the king had come to hate in Scotland, were barely tolerated in England. James did grant them minor concessions, but only to keep them from making trouble.Tension between Anglican bishops and Puritans grew to a boil during James’s reign. In 1604, Richard Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, had a series of canons approved offensive to Puritans. One affirmed that episcopal hierarchy was an institution of divine origin, and that without it there could be no true church. This ostracized the many Protestant churches in Europe that had no bishops. Puritans saw it as provoking a showdown between themselves and the Church of England. Some assumed it was all preparation by the Church of England to reunite with Rome.James called Parliament to sit for the approval of new taxes to complete some of England’s projects. The House of Commons included many Puritans who joined others in an appeal to the king against Bancroft’s canons. James convened a committee at Hampton Court to consider the canons, over which he presided. When one of the Puritans made reference to the church being governed by a “presbytery,” James announced there would be no closer connection between the monarchy and a presbytery than there COULD be between God and the Devil. All attempts at compromise failed. The only result of meeting was that a new translation of the Bible was approved. It appeared in 1611 and is known today as the KJV. Produced at a high-point in the development of the English language, along with the Book of Common Prayer—the King James Bible became a classic that profoundly influenced later English literature.But, this marks the beginning of a growing hostility between the House of Commons and the bishops of the Church of England.Late in 1605, what’s known as the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. A repressive law against Catholics was issued the previous year on the pretext they were loyal to the pope rather than the king. The real purpose of the law was to collect funds. Authorities used it to impose heavy fines and confiscate property. Catholics came to the conclusion the solution was to be rid of the king. A property was rented whose cellars extended below the room where Parliament met. Several wine barrels were filled with gunpowder and set under the room. The plan was to detonate them as the king opened Parliament. This would rid England of James and many Puritans leaders. But the plot was discovered; the conspirators executed. This unleashed a wave of anti-catholic sentiment in England that saw many arrested and imprisoned. James used the whole affair a way to lay heavy fines on Catholics and confiscate more property.After those first years of his reign, James tried to rule without Parliament. But English law stipulated it alone could approve new taxes. So in 1614, when his finances were desperate, James relented and again convened Parliament. New elections brought in a House of Commons even more stubborn than the previous. So James dissolved it and again tried to rule without it. He turned to the few tariffs he could levy without Parliament’s approval. He borrowed from bishops and nobility.Then the Thirty Years’ War broke out. Frederick, King of Bohemia, was James’s son-in-law. But James offered no support. English Protestants named James a traitor and coward. Je replied that he WANTED to help, but that the Puritans held the purse and war is expensive! Finally, in 1621, James re-convened Parliament, hoping the House of Commons would agree to new taxes with the proviso that some, at least, of the revenue would support German Protestants in the war. But it was discovered James planned to marry his son and the heir to England’s throne to a Spanish princess, a Catholic Hapsburg! Such an alliance was regarded by the Puritans as an abomination. So, James once again dissolved the House of Commons and arrested several of its leaders. The marriage plans were abandoned for other reasons, and in 1624 James once again called a meeting of Parliament, only to dissolve it anew without obtaining the funds he required. Shortly thereafter, he died, and was succeeded by his son Charles, who’d been a good student of his father’s routine with Parliament.English Puritans welcomed Charles I to his throne with less enthusiasm than they had his father. Charles said that kings are “little gods on Earth.” Puritans knew this didn’t bode well for their future relations. Nor did it help that Charles immediately married a Roman Catholic princess, Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon, raising the specter of a Catholic heir to the English throne.The relationship between the Crown and the mostly Puritan Parliament went from bad to worse. Puritan antagonism toward the King rose in 1633 when the King appointed William Laud as archbishop of Canterbury. Laud embarked on a policy of High Anglicanism with a strong sacramentalism and a theological slant toward Arminianism that tweaked the Calvinist Puritans.In what proved his undoing, Charles tried to impose on the Scottish Church the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1637, which one Scot called the “vomit of Romish superstition.” When a marketplace grocer named Jenny Geddes heard the dean of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh read from the new prayer book, she stood up and threw her stool at him, yelling, “Devil cause you colic in your stomach, false thief: dare you say the Mass in my ear?”Yep – them Scots! Peaceful lot they are. Which, I get to say, because I am one.Jenny’s reaction was a foretaste of a brewing rebellion. Riots broke out in Edinburgh, and in early 1638, the Scottish formalized their opposition to King Charles innovation by establishing the National Covenant. Many signed it in their own blood, making it clear they’d die before submitting to Laud’s Anglicanism. Charles led two military campaigns, known as the Bishops’ Wars (1639–40), in an effort to quell the Scottish rebellion. Both were turned back.The Scottish army then occupied northern England and threatened to march south. In November, 1640 King Charles HAD to once again convene Parliament. Never had there been a body more hostile to the monarch. They immediately passed a law forbidding him to dissolve it without its consent. This came to be known as the “Long Parliament,” since it stayed in session for 20 years.Archbishop Laud was charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London.The conflict between King and Parliament reached a boiling point. Charles was convinced Puritan members of Parliament had committed treason by conspiring with the Scots to invade England. Charles, accompanied by 400 soldiers, burst into the House of Commons in January 1642, planning to arrest them. But the men had been warned and fled. This attack on Parliament by armed troops was an egregious violation of British rights. Charles realized his error and a few days later, fearing now for his own safety, fled London.We pick it up at this point in our next Episode.

111-Looking Back to Look Ahead

Although it surely would have grieved him had he lived to see it, Martin Luther’s legacy in the years after his death a Century of war. This war didn’t only pit Catholics against Protestants. Various factions among the Protestants warred with each other. If the Reformers hoped to purify the Church of both theological error and political corruption, they may have succeeded in the first endeavor but failed miserably in the second. Those who want to use religion for personal ends don’t care what face the mask bears, so long as it gets the job done. Some of the more devastating wars included the French wars of religion, the Dutch revolt against Philip II of Spain, the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada, the 30 Years War in Germany, and the Puritan revolution in England.The 17^th C was a time of theological and political entrenchment. European Christendom was now divided into four groups: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and the Anabaptists. The first three became officially associated with regions and their governments, while Anabaptists, after their disastrous failure at Munster, learned their lesson and sought to live out their faith independently of entanglements with civil authority. During the 17^th C, Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed developed impenetrable confessional bulwarks against one another.As we saw in a previous episode, Catholic orthodoxy achieved its definitive shape with the Council of Trent in the mid-16^th C. The Jesuits played a major role at Trent, especially in answering the challenge presented by Luther’s view on justification and grace. The Council affirmed the importance of the sacraments and the Roman church’s theological position on the Eucharist. At Trent, the Jesuits affirmed the importance Thomism, that is, the work of Thomas Aquinas, in setting doctrine. The triumph of Thomism at Trent set the future trajectory of Catholic theology.In the last episode, we looked at the rise of Protestant Scholasticism in post-reformation Europe. While Protestant orthodoxy is concerned with correct theological content, Protestant Scholasticism had more to do with methodology.From the mid-16^th thru 17th C, Protestant orthodoxy clarified, codified, and defended the work of the early Reformers. Then, after the careers of the next generation of Reformers, it’s convenient to identify three phases orthodoxy moved through. Early orthodoxy runs from the mid-16^th to mid-17^th C. It was a time when Lutheran and Reformed groups developed their Confessions. High orthodoxy goes from the mid- to late 17^th C. This was a time of conflict when the Confessions hammered out earlier were used as a litmus test of faith and formed battlelines to fight over. Late orthodoxy covers the 18^th C, when the people of Europe began to ask why, if Protestant confessions were true, rather than leading to the Peace the Gospel promised, they lead instead to war, death, and widespread misery.In truth, people had been asking that question for a lot longer than that; ever since the Church and State became pals back in the 4^th C. But it wasn’t till the 18^th they felt the freedom to voice their concerns publicly without the certainty they’d be set on by the authorities.As Protestants and Catholics identified their differing theological positions, they became increasingly mindful of their methodology in refining their Confessions. Each appealed to the intellectual high ground, claiming a superior method for defining terms and reasoning. This was the age when there was a return by Christian theologians to Aristotelian logic.Once the Council of Trent concluded and the Roman Church fixed its position, the opportunity for theological dialogue between Protestants and Catholics came to a firm end. After that it was simply up to the various major groups to fine tune their Confessions, then fire salvos at any and everyone who differed. It was the Era of Polemics; of diatribes and discourses disparaging those who dared to disagree.In a previous episode we dealt with the career of Jacob Hermanzoon; AKA Jacobus Arminius. Arminius rejected the Calvinism promulgated by Calvin’s protégé Theodore Beza. Arminius’ followers developed what they called the Remonstrance, a five-part summary of what they understood Arminius’ positions to be on key issues of Reformed Theology. A theological and, wouldn’t you just know it, political controversy ensued that was addressed at the Synod of Dort. The Synod declared Arminius a heretic, the Remonstrance in error, and the five-petals of the Calvinist Tulip were framed in response to the five-points of the Remonstrance. A few Arminianist leaders were either executed or jailed while some two-hundred pastors were removed and replaced with Dort-aligned ministers. Despite this, the Arminianist-position endured and continued to hold sway over the conscience of many.A couple decades after the Synod of Dort, another controversy surfaced among Reformed churches in France. It centered on the work of the brilliant theologian Moses Amyraut, professor at the then famous School of Samur. Amyraut took issue with one of the articles of the Canons of Dort, the doctrine of limited atonement. He argued for unlimited atonement, believing that Christ’s atonement was sufficient for all humanity, but efficient only for the elect. His view is sometimes known as “Hypothetical Universalism” far more commonly as four-point Calvinism.In A Short Treatise on Predestination published in 1634, Amyraut proposed that God fore-ordained a universal salvation through the sacrifice of Christ for all but that salvation wouldn’t be effectual unless appropriated by personal faith.Amyraut’s modification of Calvinism came to be labeled as Amyraldism and led to recurring charges of heresy. Amyraut was exonerated, yet opposition endured in many churches of France, Holland, and Switzerland.Sadly, after Luther’s death, the movement that bore his name fell into disarray and in-fighting. Lutherans broke into 2 main camps. Those who claimed to stay strictly loyal to Martin, and those who followed his cheif assistant, Philip Melancthon. They remained at something of a theological stalemate until the Formula of Concord in 1577, the definitive statement of Lutheran orthodoxy. Much of the destruction of the Thirty-Years War took place on German soil. Agriculture collapsed, famine spread, and universities closed. By the end the war, there were at least 8 million fewer people in Germany.The Peace of Westphalia made room for Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, depending on the religious leaning of the ruler. Weary of bloodshed, the three communions withdrew behind polemic-firewalls. Instead of firing cannonballs at each other, they lobbed theological word-bombs.Pietism was a kind of war-weary reaction to the new scholasticism the theology of Lutheranism settled into. Pietists viewed what was happening in the retrenchment in Lutheran theology as a “deadening orthodoxy” that stole the life out of faith. Pietism didn’t set out to establish a new church. It simply sought a renewal that would turn dead orthodoxy in a living faith. Pietism saw itself as an Ecclesiola in Ecclesia, that is, “a little church within the larger church.”It seems Pietism has been loaded with a lot of emotional baggage and negative connotation of late. Critics today regard Pietists as aiming to privatize their faith, to withdraw from the public square and divorce faith from the wider world. To use Jesus’ term, they see pietism as an attempt to hide you light under a basket, to put the city, not just in a valley, but in a cave. While some Pietists did privatize faith, that wasn’t the goal of Pietism.It was a movement that simply sought to keep piety, the practice of godliness, as a vital and integral part of daily life. It was understood that godliness wasn’t the result of rules and regulations but of a genuine relationship with God. Pietism was a reaction to the dead orthodoxy of the State-approved Lutheranism of the early 17^th C.This is not to say scholastic theologians were all lifeless profs. Some of them produced moving hymns and stirring devotional writings. But, if we’re honest, we’d have to say the practical faith of a large portion of Protestant scholastics had indeed become moribund.Philipp Jakob Spener is known as the “Father of German Pietism.” Born at Rappoltsweiler in 1635, Spener was raised by his godmother and her chaplain, Joachim Stoll who became Spener’s mentor. Stoll introduced him to writings of the English Puritans.Spener went on to study theology at Strasbourg, where his main professor was Johann Dannhauer, a leading Lutheran theologian of 17^th C. Dannhauer deeply inspired the young Spener.When he entered his first pastorate in Frankfurt in 1666, Spener was convinced of the necessity of a reformation within Lutheranism. His sermons emphasized the necessity for a lively faith and holiness in daily life. His most significant innovation was the establishment in 1670 of what today we’d call small groups. These were gatherings of about a dozen church members in homes to discuss sermons, devotional reading, and mutual edification.In 1675, Spener was asked to write a preface for a collection of sermons by Johann Arndt. The result was the famous Pia Desideria (= Pious Wishes), which became an introduction to German Pietism.While this is a bit more detailed than our usual fare here on CS, I thought it might be interesting to hear the main points Spener made in the Pious Wishes.He enumerates 6 things as important for the Church to embrace. . .1) He called for “a more extensive use of the Word of God.” To that end, Spener advocated small groups to encourage greater study of the Bible.(2) He urged a renewed focus on the role of the laity in Christian ministry.(3) He placed an emphasis on the connection between doctrine and living.(4) He counseled restraint and charity in theological disputes.(5) He urged reform in the education of ministers. They ought to be trained in piety and devotion as well as academics.(6) He said preaching ought to edify and be understandable by common folk, rather than sermons being technical discourses only an educated few could understand.Spener’s Pious Wishes won him many followers, but aroused strong opposition among Lutheran theologians and not a few fellow pastors. Despite criticism, the movement grew rapidly.Pietism had the good fortune of seeing Spener succeeded by August Francke. Francke was born in Lübeck and graduated from the University of Leipzig, where he excelled in biblical languages. While a student in 1687, he experienced a dramatic and emotionally charged conversion, which he described as the “great change.” Francke’s conversion became something of a model for Pietism. In order for conversion to be considered legitumate, it needed to be preceded by a profound conviction of sin that’s a datable event to which one can point for confirmation.Returning to Leipzig, Francke led a revival in the college that spilled over into the town. It provoked conflict, and Francke was expelled from the city. At this point the term “Pietist” was first coined by a detractor, Joachim Feller, professor of rhetoric at the university. A Pietist, Feller asserted, was “someone who studies God’s Word and, in his own opinion, also leads a holy life.”By this time, Francke had become closely associated with Spener. It was due to Spener’s influence Francke was appointed to the chair of Greek and Oriental languages at the new University of Halle. Francke emerged as the natural successor to Spener. From his position at Halle he exercised enormous influence in preparing a generation of Pietist pastors and missionaries all over the world. Under his guidance, the university showed what Pietism could mean when put into practice. In rapid succession, Francke opened a school for poor children, an orphanage, a home for indigent widows, an institute for the training of teachers, a medical clinic, a home for street beggars, a publishing house for Christian literature, and the famous Paedagogium, a preparatory school for upper-class students.For 36 years his energetic endeavors established Halle as the center of German Pietism. Together, Spener and Francke created a true Ecclesiola in ecclesia.Spener and Francke inspired other groups of Pietism. Count Nikolas von Zinzendorf, was Spener’s godson and Francke’s pupil. Zinzendorf organized refugees from Moravia on his estate and later shepherded them in reviving the Bohemian Unity of the Brethren.The Moravians carried their concern for personal piety literally around the world. This was of huge significance for English Christianity when John Wesley found himself in their company during his voyage to Georgia in 1735. What he witnessed in their behavior and heard in their faith after returning to England led to his own spiritual awakening.

110-Faith in the Age of Reason – Part 2

The title of this episode is Faith in the Age of Reason, Part 2.In our last episode we briefly considered Jakob Hermanzoon, the Dutch theologian who’d sat under the tutelage of Theodore Beza, John Calvin’s successor at the Academy in Geneva. We know Hermanzoon better by his Latin name Jacobus Arminius. Arminius took exception to Beza’s views on predestination and when he became pastor of a church in Amsterdam, created a stir among his Calvinist colleagues. It was while teaching a series of sermons on the Book of Romans that Arminius became convinced Beza had several things wrong. The implication was that because Beza was Calvin’s successor and the standard-bearer for Calvinism, Arminius contradicted Calvin. Things came to a head when Arminius’ colleague Peter Planck began to publicly dispute with him.Arminius hated controversy, seeing it as a dangerous distraction to the cause of the Gospel and pressed for a synod to deal with the matter, believing once his views were set alongside Scripture, he’d be vindicated.In 1603, Arminius was called to the University at Leiden to teach when one of the faculty members died. The debate Arminius had been having with Planck was shifted to a new controversy with one of the other professors at Leiden, François Gomaer.This controversy lasted the next six yrs as the supporters of both Calvinism and Arminius grew in number and determination. The synod Arminius had pressed for was eventually held, but not till nine years after his death in 1609.In the meantime, just a year after his death, Arminius’ followers gathered his writings and views and issued what they regarded as a formal statement of his ideas. Called the Five Articles of the Remonstrants, or just the Remonstrance, it was a formal proposal to the government of Holland detailing the points of difference that had come to a head over the previous years in the debate between Arminius and Gomaer.Those 5 points were –

That the divine decree of predestination is conditioned on Faith, not absolute in Election.
That the intent of the Atonement is universal;
Man cannot of himself exercise a saving faith;
That though the grace of God is a necessary condition of human effort it does not act irresistibly in man; and finally -
By the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace.

In 1618, the Dutch Church called the Synod of Dort to answer the Remonstrance. The results of the Synod, called the Canons of Dort, strongly upheld Theodore Beza’s formulation of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and developed their own five-point response to the Remonstrance.It comes as a major surprise to most students of Church history to learn that TULIP, or the famous Five Points of Calvinism were a RESPONSE to the challenge of Arminianists; that they’d come up with their 5 points first. Most people who’ve heard of Calvinism and Arminianism have never even heard of the Remonstrance; yet it’s the thing that formalized the debate between the two camps; a debate that’s continued to today and has led to some prolific arguments and controversies among Christians.Put a Presbyterian elder and Methodist deacon in a room together and let the fun begin!Now, lest we think the Protestants fell out in the Calvinist-Arminianist brouhaha while the Catholics sat back, ate popcorn and watched the show, realize things were FAR from being all united and just one big happy family over in the Roman sector of the Church. Catholics were no monolithic entity at this time. It was a mixed bag of different groups and viewpoints with their own internal disagreements.In the late 16^th and early 17^th Cs there was a long dispute between the Jesuits and the Dominicans over how divine grace and human free-will interacted.In the late 17^th C, Pope Innocent XI, spent his reign playing a power game with Louis XIV and the Gallic theologians who believed in the authority of the Church, but not the Pope.More serious was the rise of Jansenism. This movement grew out of the work of Cornelius Jansen, a professor at Louvain University. Jansen published a book in 1640 titled Augustinus, in which he stated what he believed were the doctrines of Augustine. Jansen sounded a lot like Calvin and argued that divine grace can’t be resisted, meaning it overrides the human will. He fiercely opposed the doctrine of the Jesuits that salvation depended on cooperation between divine grace and human will. So, the Jansenists believed in predestination, which meant that although they were Catholics they were in some ways more like Calvinists.Jansenism proved a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church, and especially the Jesuits, for quite a while. Its leading exponent after Jansen himself was Antoine Arnauld, an intellectual and cultural giant of the 17^th C. Arnauld corresponded with such philosophical luminaries as Descartes and Leibniz. He possessed a penetrating critical faculty; and as a theologian he was no less brilliant.But back to our previous theme, stated at the beginning of the last episode – Protestant Scholasticism, or the Age of Confessionalism, in which the various branches of the Protestant church began to coalesce around distinctive statements of their theology.The Anglican Church of England occupied a curious position in the midst of all this. On the one hand it was a Protestant church, having been created in the 1530s when King Henry VIII took command of the existing Catholic Church in England. The Lutheran sympathies of his advisers, like Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, influenced the new church, but so too did the Catholic tendencies of later monarchs like Charles I and churchmen such as William Laud. Unlike other churches throughout Europe, the Church of England rarely had to struggle for the soul of its nation with another movement. So it had never been forced to define its beliefs and practices in the face of opposition to others. By the turn of the 18^thC, the one thing all Anglicans agreed on was a shared distrust of Roman Catholics.The doctrinal openness of the Church of England meant that it was in England that religious free-thinking had the greatest chance of taking root. In the late 16^th C it was still possible to be burnt at the stake in England for denying the Trinity, but a C later those who asserted such things had no need to fear anything more damaging than government censure and a deluge of refutations by the clergy. The Church of England prided itself on its doctrinal orthodoxy, understood in terms of common sense, and a middle way between what were regarded as the bizarre excesses of continental Protestants and Catholics. This middle way was based on what its followers felt was a healthy respect, but refusal to fawn, for tradition. This took shape in the principle of the apostolic succession, an ancient Christian notion we’ve examined in previous episodes. Apostolic succession claims that Christian doctrines can be known to be trustworthy because they are taught in churches which were founded by the apostles or their immediate followers. In other words, great trust was placed in the notion of an unbroken chain of tradition going back to the apostles themselves. It was this ‘apostolic succession’, together with the Scriptures, themselves handed down as part of this authoritative tradition, that mainstream Anglicans felt guaranteed the trustworthiness of their church. By contrast, many thought, the Catholics had added to that tradition over the centuries, while the more extreme Protestants had subtracted from it.There was considerable tension between the churches. The worst example was France, where after the Revocation of the Treaty of Nantes in 1685 Protestants were an actively persecuted minority: they felt especially threatened by surrounding Catholics, and all the more determined never to give in to them. Persecution only strengthened their resolve and inspired sympathy from Protestants throughout the Continent, who by the same token became increasingly hostile to Catholicism.In England, Catholicism was the minority faith: officially banned, its priests had to operate in secrecy.There’s a story from this time of a Catholic bishop who, functioning as a kind of religious spy, held Mass in an east London pub for a congregation of Irish workers disguised as beer-guzzling patrons.Many people were scared of Catholics, whom they regarded as tools of a foreign power; those sneaky French or the Pope. There was also great suspicion of ‘Dissenters’—members of any churches other than the Church of England. ‘Dissenters’ and Catholics alike, it was feared, were eating away at the social fabric of the country, and the policies of tolerance followed by the Whig party were opposed by many. Some Anglican churchmen formed a party with the slogan ‘Church in Danger’, which spent its time campaigning against Catholics, Dissenters, deists, the principle of toleration and, essentially, everything that the Enlightenment had produced.In 1778, the English Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act, which decriminalized Catholicism—to the enormous anger of a sizeable minority in the population. Two years later a Scottish aristocrat named Lord George Gordon led a huge mob to London, resulting in a week of riots in which Catholic churches were looted, foreign embassies burnt, and nearly 300 people were killed.But we ought not think it was all petty small-mindedness that ruled the day. There were some who worked tirelessly to effect peace between the warring camps of Christendom. In the 17^th C, a number of attempts were made to open a dialogue between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches with the aim of reuniting them.The godfather of this endeavor, sometimes known as ‘syncretism’, was a German Lutheran theologian named George Callixtus. He devoted huge effort in the early 17^th C to find common ground between the different groups. Like his contemporary Hugo Grotius in the Reformed Church, he believed it should be possible to use the Apostles’ Creed, and a belief in the authority of the Bible alone, as a basis for agreement among Christians.Callixtus made progress with Calvinists but the Catholics were less receptive. The Conference of Thorn, called by King Vladislav IV of Poland in 1645, attempted to put these ideas into practice, but after several weeks of discussions the Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist theologians were unable to pull anything substantive together.Sadly, Callixtus’s efforts met with the greatest opposition from his fellow Lutherans.Let’s turn now from the acrimony and controversy that marked Protestant Scholasticism for a moment to take a look at a guy more like the rest of us; at least we probably hope so.He was an obscure, uneducated Frenchman of the late 17^th C.Nicolas Herman, a manservant from Lorraine, tried to live his life around what he called ‘the practice of the presence of God’. He was not a very good manservant, having a pronounced limp from his army days and appallingly clumsy; but he performed his duties diligently until 1651, when, at the age of 40, he went to Paris and became a Carmelite monk. His monk’s name was Lawrence of the Resurrection.Brother Lawrence was put to work in the monastery’s kitchen—a task he hated, but which he did anyway because it was God’s will. To the surprise of the other monks, he not only did his work calmly and methodically, but spoke to God the entire time. Brother Lawrence declared that, to him, there was no difference between the time for work and the time for prayer: wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, he tried to perceive the presence of God. As he wrote to one of his friends:“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God: the only ones who can understand it are those who practice and experience it. But I do not advise you to do it from that motive. It is not pleasure which we ought to seek in this exercise, but let us do it from a principle of love, and because God would have us. If I were a preacher, I would, above all other things, preach the practice of the presence of God. And if I were a spiritual director, I would advise all the world to do it. That is how necessary I think it is—and how easy, too.”Brother Lawrence became a minor celebrity among the hierarchy of the French Catholic Church, and he was visited by more than one archbishop, anxious to see if the reports of his humility and holiness were true. Lawrence’s sixteen Letters and Spiritual Maxims testify of his sincere belief in God’s presence in all things and his trust in God to see him through all things. They also testify to the way in which holy men and women continued to devote themselves to God’s will, both in and out of monasteries, even as the intellectual revolutions of the Enlightenment were at their height.It’s easy when considering the Age of Reason, to suppose theology was increasingly being seduced by philosophy, and that the simple, heartfelt faith of the commoners of the Middle Ages and the Reformation was being replaced by rationalism. That was true in some quarters, but the 17^th and 18^th centuries had their share of sincere and pious saints, as well as heretics, as much as any age; and there were some important movements that recalled the faithful to a living and wholehearted religion. As the theologians bickered, ordinary Christians were getting on with things, as they always had.As we bring this episode to a close, I want to end with a look at Blaise Pascal. That’s a great name, isn’t it? Blaise. Sounds like a professional skateboarder.Pascal was a Jansenist, that is, a member of the Roman Catholic reform movement we took a look at a moment ago. While the Jansenists began as a movement that sought to return the Roman Church to the teachings of Augustine, since Augustine’s doctrines were considered as being based in Scripture, the Jansenists were a Roman Catholic kind of back to the Bible movement.A few days after Blaise Pascal’s death, one of his servants noticed a curious bulge in the great scientist’s jacket. Opening the lining, he withdrew a folded parchment written by Pascal with these words . . .The year of grace 1654. Monday, November 23rd.,… from about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. >> Certainty, certainty, feeling, joy, peace. >> God of Jesus Christ, I have separated myself from Him. I have fled from Him, Renounced Him, crucified Him. May I never be separated from Him. Renunciation, total and sweet.For eight years Pascal had hid those words in his coat, withdrawing them now and again to read them and be reminded of the moment when grace seized his soul.Pascal’s mother died when he was only three. His father, Stephen Pascal, began the education of his children, Gilbert, Blaise, and Jacqueline. Occasionally he took the young Blaise with him to meetings of the Academy of Science. The youth’s scientific curiosity was aroused.Before he reached the age of 27 Pascal had gained the admiration of mathematicians in Paris; had invented the calculating machine for his father who was a busy tax-collector; and had discovered the basic principles of atmospheric and hydraulic pressures. He belonged to the age of the Scientific Greats.Blaise’s initial contact with the Jansenists came as the result of an accident his father had. On an icy day in January, 1646, Stephen tried to prevent a duel. He fell on the hard frozen ground and dislocated a hip. The physicians who treated him were devoted Jansenists. They succeeded not only in curing their patient but in winning his son to their doctrines.They told the Pascals physical suffering was an illustration of a basic religious truth: man is helpless; a miserable creature. Blaise had seldom enjoyed a day without pain. He knew how helpless physicians could be, so the argument struck him with unusual force. It deepened his sense of the tragic mystery of life.He also learned from these Jansenist physicians how profoundly the Bible speaks to the human condition. He became an avid student of Scripture, pondering its pages as he had atmospheric pressures. He came to see the Bible as a way to a transformed heart.In 1651, Pascal’s personal tragedy deepened with the death of his father. The loss brought him to a crisis. His sister, Jacqueline, renounced the world by entering the Port-Royal convent, and Blaise was left alone in Paris.He now gave himself to worldly interests. He took a richly furnished home, staffed it with servants, and drove about town in a coach drawn by four horses; an extravagance. He pursued the ways of elite but decadent Parisian society. After a year of pleasure he found only a “great disgust with the world,” and he plunged into quiet desperation. He felt abandoned by God.Blaise turned again to the Bible, to the 17^th ch of the Gospel of John, where Jesus prepares for His sacrifice on the cross. It was then that Pascal felt a new blaze of the Spirit. As he wrote, “Certainty, certainty, feeling, joy, peace.”Pascal’s new faith drew him magnetically into the orbit of the Jansenists. Late in 1654, he joined his sister, Jacqueline, as a member of the Port-Royal community. He was then asked by one of the Jansenist leaders for assistance in his defense against the attack of the Jesuits.Pascal responded brilliantly. He penned eighteen Public Letters exposing Jesuit errors in flashes of eloquence and sarcastic wit. As each letter appeared, the public snatched them up. They were instant best-sellers. Port-Royal was no longer an obscure Jansenist monastery; it was a center of public interest. The Pope condemned the Letters, but all educated French read them, as succeeding generations did for the next two centuries.Upon completing the Letters in March, 1657, Pascal planned a book on the evidences for Christianity. He was never able to complete it. In June, ‘62, he was seized with a violent illness and, after lingering a couple months, died on August 19 at the age of just 39.Friends found portions of his writing on faith and reason, and eight years after his death they published these notes under the title Thoughts (Pensées-Pahn’-sees). In the Pensées, Pascal is a religious genius who cuts across doctrine and pierces to the heart of man’s moral problem. He appeals to the intellect by his passion for truth and arouses the emotions by his merciless descriptions of the plight of man without God.Man, Pascal said, is part angel and part beast; a Chimera. In Greek mythology the chimera was a she-goat with a lion’s head and a serpent’s tail. Pascal wrote, “What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! The glory and refuse of the universe. Who shall unravel this confusion?”Reason, as great a faculty as it is, is no sure guide, Pascal warns. If we trust reason alone, we will doubt everything except pain and death. But our hearts tell us this cannot be true. That would be the greatest of all blasphemies to think that life and the universe have no meaning. God and the meaning of life must be felt by the heart, rather than by reason. It was Pascal who said, “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.”He saw the human condition so deeply yet so clearly that men and women in our own time, after three centuries, still gain perspective from him for their own spiritual pilgrimage.

109-Faith in the Age of Reason – Part 1

The title of this episode, is Faith in the Age of Reason. Part 01After the first flush of Reformation excitement died down, the Protestant churches of Europe went into a long period of retrenchment, of digging in both doctrinally and culturally. This period lasted from the late 16^th to the later 17^thC and is referred to by church historians as the Age of Confessionalism. But “confession” here isn’t the personal practice of piety in which someone admits error. Confessionalism is the term applied to how the various Protestant groups were increasingly concerned with defining their own beliefs, their confessions, in contrast to everyone else. It resulted in what is sometimes referred to as Protestant Scholasticism, called this because the churches developed technical jargon to describe their doctrinal positions ever more accurately—just as medieval Roman Catholic scholastics had done three Cs before.Don’t forget; Roman Scholasticism helped spark the Reformation. It was the scholastics devotion to correct theology that highlighted the doctrinal and practical errors many in the Church began to call for reform over. But it was also the tendency of some Scholastics to forsake practical theology in favor of the purely hypothetical that fueled the Reformation’s drive to return the practice of faith to everyday life and made religion the sphere, not just of academics and sequestered clerics, but the common people.So, we might conclude Protestant churches were now headed down the same path with their own version of Scholasticism. And in some cases, that’s what happened. But instead of turning a theology back to Scripture as the Protestant Reformation had done in reaction to Roman Scholasticism, the reaction to Protestant Scholasticism was a decided turn away from Scripture to a decidedly irreligious philosophy.Many of the discussions of the Protestant Scholastics became dry and technical. Martin Luther sought to overturn centuries of medieval religious jargon and get back to the original message of the NT. John Calvin is often thought of as a more ‘systematic’ theologian, but his Institutes of the Christian Religion, though carefully arranged by topics, was intended to be no more than a faithful exposition of Scripture.Luther’s and Calvin’s heirs, however, went beyond their intended simplicity. They didn’t abandon the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura, but they sought answers to questions not found in the Bible. A prime example was the issue of predestination and the relation between grace and free will—which, at the start of the 17^th C was THE hot theological topic among Protestants and Catholics. A new kind of scholasticism was produced with some Protestant theologians happy to use the terminology of Aristotle and regarding the premier Roman Catholic Scholastic Thomas Aquinas as an authority.One of the key figures of this era was Theodore Beza, an aristocratic Frenchman who, although only ten yrs younger than Calvin, outlived him by forty and was widely regarded as Calvin’s successor. It was Beza, rather than Calvin, who was regarded by most Reformed theologians of the 17^th C as the theological authority. He was especially good at recasting the terminology of Aristotle and the medieval scholastics in disputing with his opponents, who were most often Lutherans and Catholics.Beza defined the doctrine of predestination and its role in Reformed theology. In doing so, he developed the doctrine of ‘double predestination’, the notion that God deliberately predestines the reprobate to damnation and the elect to salvation. He put forward the ‘prelapsarian’ position, which says God planned the Fall and the division of humanity into elect and reprobate before Adam sinned. These ideas were present in germ-form in Calvin, but weren’t the touchstones of Reformation orthodoxy they later become.Beza was an eloquent author. That can’t be said of all who took up their pens in the service of the Lutheran and Reformed cause. In place of Luther’s and Calvin’s attempts to simply expound what Scripture said about doctrine and theology, the Protestant Scholastics were all about logical consistency and adherence to a pre-established orthodoxy.The Age of Confessionalism is often thought of as a time when theologians conducted a war of words with sharp pens, rather than sharp swords. What comes as a surprise is how so much of their angry rhetoric was aimed, not at people far across the theological divide from themselves, but at their own, much closer colleagues.With the hardening of orthodoxy, there were inevitable splits within churches as some rebelled against what their colleagues were laying down as required doctrine. The greatest of these fractures occurred in the Reformed Church at the end of the 16^th C, after the preaching of Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch minister and professor taught by Beza himself. Arminius was initially a supporter of Beza’s views. But he rebelled against Beza’s distinctions regarding predestination and prelapsarianism, declaring them unjust. Arminius argued that if God condemns some and saves others, it must be on the basis of who has faith, not on the basis of some eternal decree God’s already worked out even before they’re born.Arminius died in 1609, but the controversy he started rumbled on thru the centuries and has continued right on down to today.His Dutch name was Jakob Hermanzoon – but as did many scholars of the day, he Latinized that to Jacobus Arminius; and it’s from that we get the theology derived from him – Arminianism – which as most listeners know, is usually posited as opposite to Reformed theology, or Calvinism. Now, before I get a pile of angry emails and comments – let me say what’s called Arminianism and Calvinism today would likely be disavowed by both John Calvin and Jakob Hermanszoon. If they attended a seminary class on these topics today they’d likely say, “What’ch you talkin’ about Willis?”Both Arminianism and Calvinism have taken on theological accretions and associations their authors likely never intended. And strictly speaking, we can’t equate Calvinism with what’s known as Reformed Theology.But, back to the story. è Arminius was born in the Netherlands near Utrecht. His father was a blacksmith and armorer who died shortly after Jakob was born. He was educated at the expense of family-friends who recognized his keen intellect. He’d just entered Marburg University in Germany at the age of 16 when news reached him of a tragedy back home in his hometown of Oudewater.The Roman Catholic Spanish had occupied a good part of Holland for some time but were expelled from Oudewater when the city became a Protestant enclave. When the Spanish returned, they over-ran the town and carried out a brutal massacre that killed Arminius’ mother and siblings. Jakob spent 2 weeks in inconsolable mourning.When the new University of Leiden opened nearby in 1576, he was the 12^th student enrolled. At Leiden he adopted the controversial theology of the French scholar Peter Ramus, a Protestant progressive killed during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Leaving Leiden, Jakob went to Geneva where he enrolled in the Academy, then headed by Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor.Arminius’s defense of Ramus angered the faculty of the Academy so he left for a trip to Basel where he declined the offer a doctorate, believing he’d not bring honor to the title.Returning to Geneva, Arminius seems to have been more prudent in his approach. In 1585, Beza wrote to the city magistrates of Amsterdam who’d sponsored Arminius’s education, highly commending his ability and diligence and encouraging a continuance of their support in his studies.After a short visit to Italy, Arminius returned home, was ordained, and in 1588 became one of the ministers of Amsterdam. His 1590 marriage to a merchant’s daughter gave him influential links.From the outset, Arminius’s sermons on Romans 7 drew a strong reaction from staunch Calvinists who disliked his views on grace and predestination. The Calvinists said that while God’s saving grace is unearned, He offers it only to those He predestines to salvation. Arminius disagreed, saying God gives grace to those who believe.In 1592, a colleague accused him of Pelagianism, a 5^th C heretical distortion of grace and free-will already condemned by the Church. Arminius was also accused of …1) An overdependence on the early church fathers,2) Deviation from two early Calvinist creeds, the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, and3) An errant views of predestination.When Arminius and his supporters challenged his critics, urging them to point out specifically WHERE he was in error, they were unable to do so. The city authorities ended up on his side. The question of predestination was not raised in any substantive form until Arminius became professor of theology at Leiden, where he served from 1603–9. The last six years of his life were spent in controversy over his views as they stood in opposition to those of his old mentor, Theodore Beza.In a 1606 message titled “On Reconciling Religious Dissensions among Christians,” Arminius argued that dissension damages people both intellectually and emotionally and creates doubt about religion that leads to despair. Left unchecked, it may ultimately lead to atheism. He proposed as a remedy to the controversy his ideas had stirred, the calling of a national synod. Arminius believed the proper arbiter between feuding clergy was a good and godly magistrate. The synod was eventually held at Dort in 1618, but Arminius had already been dead nine years.In assessing Arminius’ theological position, we could say that in his attempt to give the human will a more active role in salvation than Beza’s brand of Calvinism conceded, Arminius taught a conditional election in which a person’s free will might or might not affect the divine offer of salvation. It’s important to distinguish between Arminius’s teaching and what later became known as Arminianism, which was more liberal in its view of free will and of related doctrines than was its founder. Arminius’s views were never systematically worked out until the year after his death, when his followers issued a declaration called the Remonstrance, which dissented at several points from Beza’s description of Calvinism. It held, among other things, that God’s predestination was conditioned by human choice, that the Gospel could be freely accepted or rejected, and that a person who’d become a Christian could “fall from grace” or forsake salvation.Though he was mild–tempered, Arminius nevertheless spoke his mind in controversy and characteristically defended his position from Scripture.We’ll pick it up at this point in our next episode as we continue our look at Protestant Scholasticism. There’s a whole lot more for us to learn about this period, including the Calvinist reaction to the challenge of the Remonstrance, as well as the career of a couple of major lights in Christian history, Brother Lawrence and Blaise Pascal – as well as several others.

108-Overview 03

This episode of CS is the 3^rd Overview in the series so far.We’ve spent quite a bit of time tracking the Reformation and need now to give a brief overview and analysis of what we’ve seen as we prepare for launching into the next era of Church History.There’s a well-worn saying in English I’m not sure other languages duplicate. It says that “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” The idea is that details can obscure the bigger picture. You fail to see a forest because all you see is a lot of trees.As we’ve spent many episodes tracking the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, we may be so distracted by all the names, places, dates and movements, we miss the larger picture and the summary effect of all this on the people of 16^th C.Trends from the previous century came to fruition in the 16^th that made for a monumental shift in people’s idea of what The Church was. Consider a couple of the things that happened in the 15^th C.

Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.
The New World was opened to Europe at the close of the Century.

Till then, European Christians felt hemmed in by Muslims to the S and E, and by the Atlantic to the W. Missions were conceived of almost exclusively as the conversion of Muslims. Challenges to Christianity were pretty much limited to the threat of an aggressive Islam. That view seemed potent when news of the Fall of Constantinople washed over Western Europe.Yet in the hundred years of the 16^th C, the situation changed dramatically. To the E and S, Islam was countered by the Spanish Reconquista and the failure of the Turks to take Vienna. The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 saw the end of Muslim naval power in the Mediterranean. Muslims armies, which had seemed irresistible till then, began to roll back.Then, the Atlantic, once an impassable barrier, suddenly became a highway. New worlds opened with the discovery of The New World. Sailing W, Spanish conquistadors conquered a realm far larger than their homeland.The Portuguese sailed S around Africa, setting up trade centers and missions in the Far East. And Islam, which had appeared the greatest barrier to Christian expansion, saw its main territory surrounded by the growing economic and military power of Europe. North Africa and western Asia shifted from being Muslim realms to European colonies.In all these lands newly opened to Europeans, Christianity established a foothold. Some of them would centuries later become their own vibrant center of missionary outreach at a time when Europe was growing increasingly secular.But, few who lived in the 15^th C could comprehend the massive consequences of the events they witnessed. When Spain and Portugal came near to blows over who had the rights to what, the pope thought he could work a compromise by decreeing the W belonged to Spain while the E belonged to Portugal. But what about when sailing W leads to the E, and vice versa? The inevitable conflict was played out in the Philippines.King Ferdinand of Spain and his grandson, the famous Emperor Charles V, before whom Luther appeared at the Diet of Worms, were far more concerned with the politics of Europe than the promises of a New World. That would be like a company in the Year 2000 being more concerned with the telegraph than mobile cellphones.During the 16^th C, when these vast geopolitical changes were taking place, the towering edifice of medieval Christianity collapsed. The Council of Trent tried to salvage what it could and set the scene for what became modern Catholicism. Protestantism diffused into dozens of groups amid the ruins of the medieval Church. The long-held ideal of a single church, with the vicar of Christ as its visible head, never a view held by the Eastern Church, lost its power in the West as well. From then on, Western Christianity was divided among a plethora of groups divided up along cultural and doctrinal differences.In spite of corruption and the many voices calling for reform, there was agreement among Christians the Church was in essence one, and its unity ought to be manifest in its organization. Most chief figures of the Reformation at first held such an understanding of the Church. Only a few rejected it. Most Protestant leaders believed the unity of the Church was crucial to its nature, and that although it was temporarily necessary to break unity to be faithful to God’s Word, that faithfulness demanded all effort at regaining unity.As in the Middle Ages, people of the early 16^th C took for granted that the survival of a nation-state required religious agreement among its subjects. That notion, which Christians rejected when a minority in the old Roman Empire, became the prevailing view after the conversion of Constantine. All who lived in a Christian state must be Christian and faithful members of THE Church. A bare-few places allowed Jews and Muslims to live among them but only as a lower-class, disenfranchised and persecuted.This view of national and concomitant religious uniformity is what led to the many wars of religion of the 16^th and 17^th Cs. Then, in some areas sooner than others, a conclusion was reached that religious tolerance was preferable to the devastation these wars brought. So began the long process, as one after another the various European states adopted policies of religious tolerance. That produced the modern idea of the secular state.The 16^th C also witnessed the collapse of the ancient dream of political unity under an Empire. Charles V was the last emperor who would harbor such illusions. After him, the so-called emperors were little more than kings of Germany with limited power.The Conciliarist hope of reforming the Church was also shaken. For several decades, Protestant reformers hoped a universal council would set the pope’s house in order. But the opposite took place. The papacy achieved its own reformation without help from a council. By the time the Council of Trent met, it was obvious it wouldn’t be an ecumenical council so much as a papal tool.Sincere believers, both Protestant and Catholic, saw many of the old certainties crumble around them. Discoveries taking place in the New World posed questions unanswerable by the old guidelines. Medieval foundations like papacy, empire, and tradition, no longer held. As Galileo had demonstrated the Earth wasn’t a fixed point of reference, now it seemed there was NO fixed point to be trusted.Such were the times of Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the other great reformers. While the world was in chaos, they resolved to stand firm in Faith and the power of the Word of God. Luther and Calvin insisted that the power of the Word was such that, as long as the Roman Church continued reading, even though the pope and his advisors refused to listen, there was always in the Roman communion a “vestige of the church.” So they anticipated the day when the Church would once again cleave to the Word and set aside their differences to emerge in a united church once more.

107-Reform Around the Edges

This 107^th episode is titled, “Reform Around the Edges.”It’s difficult living in the Modern World to understand the Late Medieval norm that a State had to have a single religion all its subjects observed. You’d be hard pressed to find a European of the 16^th C who didn’t assume this to be the case. About the only group who didn’t see it that way were the Anabaptists. And even among them there were small groups, like the extremists who tried to set up the New Jerusalem at Munster, who did advocate a State Church. Mainstream Anabaptists advocated religious tolerance, but were persecuted for that stance.As we’ve seen in the story of the Church in Germany and as was hammered out in the Peace of Augsburg, peace was secured by deciding some regions would be Lutheran, others Catholic by the principle of cujus regis eius religio [coo-yoos regio / ay-oos rel-i-gio] meaning, “Whose realm, whose religion.” The religion of a region’s ruler determined that regions subjects’ religion. Under Augsburg, people were supposed to be free to relocate to another region if a ruler’s religion didn’t square with their convictions.Sounds simple enough >> for moderns who are highly mobile and have little sense of the historic connection between identity and place. Many think nothing today of packing up and moving to a new place across town, or across a state, nation, or even some other part of the globe. Not so most Europeans for most of their history. Personal identity was intimately connected to family. And Family was identified by location. That’s why long before people had surnames, they were identified by their town. John of Locksley. William of Orange. Fred of Fillsbury. Families built a house and lived in it for many generations. Losing that home to whatever cause was one of the great tragedies that could befall one. It was a betrayal of previous generations who’d handed down both a family name and home, as well as all those future generations who now would have no home to call their own.On the surface, the Peace of Augsburg sounded like a sound solution to the religious conflicts that raged after the Reformation. But it was in fact, a highly disruptive force that ultimately helped spark the Thirty Years War.The wars of religion that washed over Europe in general and France in particular is evidence that the rule a region could have but one religion wasn’t workable. Even the Edict of Nantes, passed by French King Henry IV after the bloody St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, only guaranteed the survival of French Protestantism by granting a number of Protestant cities as enclaves in an otherwise Roman Catholic realm.We’ve given a thumbnail sketch of the spread of the Reformation over Germany, France, England, Scotland, the Low Countries and in Scandinavian.Let’s take a look now at Spain.Before the Reformation reached the Iberian Peninsula, many hoped the Spanish Church would lead the way in long-overdue reform. Queen Isabella’s faith was earnest. She and Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros implemented a massive reform—including a renewal of biblical studies centered on the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. Today a polyglot is known as a parallel Bible, where multiple versions of the bible are arranged in side-by-side columns for comparison. But in parallel Biblr, these version are all the same language. A polyglot is the comparison of different languages. The Complutensian Polyglot had the Hebrew, Latin and Greek texts of the OT as well as the Aramaic of the Torah. The NT was both Greek and Latin. Spain also had many humanists scholars similar to Erasmus—some of them in high places—who longed for reform.The arrival of the Protestant Reformation saw attitudes in Spain changed. At Worms, the upstart monk Martin Luther defied Emperor Charles V, who just happened to be King Charles I of Spain. Charles became the champion of opposition to Protestantism. The Spanish Inquisition, previously aimed at Jews and occultists, turned its attention toward those calling for reform and anything that smacked of the now-dreaded Lutheranism. Several leading humanists fled to places like the Low Countries where they were welcomed. Others stayed in Spain and tried to lay low, devoting themselves to their studies and hoping the storm would pass them by.The Inquisition wasn’t able to halt the “Lutheran contagion,” as it was called. Valladolid and Seville became centers of Reformation despite frequent burnings at the stake by the Inquisition. A monastery in Santiponce near Seville was a reform center where Bibles and Protestant books were smuggled in barrels labeled as oil and wine. When one of the smugglers was captured and burned, a dozen of monks fled, agreeing to meet in a year in Geneva. One of them became pastor to a Spanish congregation there. Another, Casiodoro de Reina, spent the rest of his life translating the Bible into Spanish; a recognized masterpiece of Spanish literature released in 1569. A few years later, another of the 12, Cipriano de Valera, revised de Reina’s version, which is known as the Reina-Valera Bible. Back in their monastery in Santiponce and throughout the area around Seville, the Inquisition cleansed the Church of all trace of Protestantism.We hop over now to Italy.Among the inaccessible valleys of the Alps, some more reachable parts of Northern Italy and Southern France, the ancient community of the Waldensians continued a secluded but threatened existence. They were repeatedly attacked by armies hoping to suppress their supposed heresy. But they’d long stood firm in their mountain fastness. By the early 16^th C the movement lost steam as constant persecution suppressed them. Many among them felt that the price paid for disagreeing with Rome was too high, and increasing numbers returned to Catholicism.Then, strange rumors were heard. News of a great Reformation arrived. An emissary sent to inquire about these rumors returned in 1526 announcing they were true. In Germany, Switzerland, France, and even more distant regions dramatic change was afoot. Many of the doctrines of the Reformers matched what the Waldensians had held since the 12^th C. More delegations met with leading reformers like Martin Bucer, who warmly received them and affirmed most of their beliefs. They suggested some points where they differed and the Waldensians ought to consider revising their stand to bring it into closer alignment with Scripture. In 1532, the Waldensians convened a synod where they adopted the main tenets of the Protestant Reformation. By doing so, they became the oldest Protestant church—existing more than 3 Cs before the Reformation.Sadly, that didn’t make things any easier for the Waldensians. Their communities in Southern France, whose lands were more vulnerable than the secluded Alpine valleys, were invaded and virtually exterminated. The survivors fled to the Alps. Then a series of edicts ensued, forbidding attendance at Protestant churches and commanding attendance at Mass. Waldensian communities in southern Italy were also exterminated.Large armies raised by the Pope, the Duke of Savoy, and several other powerful nobles wanting to prove their loyalty to Rome repeatedly invaded the Waldensian mountain enclaves, only to be routed by the defenders. On one occasion, only six men with crude firearms held back an entire army at a narrow pass while others climbed the mountains above. When rocks began raining on them, the invaders were routed.Then, in what has to be a premier, “Can’t a guy catch a break?” moment, when the Waldensians had a prolonged respite from attack, a plague broke out decimating their population. Only two pastors survived. Their replacements came from the Reformed centers of Switzerland, bringing about closer ties between the Waldensians and the Reformed Church. In 1655, all Waldensians living in Northern Italy were commanded under penalty of death to forfeit their lands in three days as the lands were sold to Catholics, who then had the duty to go take them from recalcitrant rebel-Waldensians.In the same year, the Marquis of Pianeza was given the assignment of exterminating the Waldensians. But he was convinced if he invaded the Alps his army would suffer the same fate as earlier invaders. So he offered peace to the Waldensians. They’d always said they’d only fight a war of defense. So they made peace with the Marquis and welcomed the soldiers into their homes where they were fed and housed against the bitter cold. Lovely story huh? Well, wait; it’s not over yet. Two days later, at a prearranged time, the guests turned on their hosts, killing men, women and children. This “great victory” was then celebrated with a Te Deum; a short church service of thanksgiving to God.Yet still the Waldensians resisted, hoping their enemies would make peace with them. King Louis XIV of France, who ordered the expulsion of all Huguenots from France, demanded the Duke of Savoy do as the Marquis had done with his Waldensians. This proved too much for many of them who left the Alps to live in Geneva and other Protestant areas. A few insisted on remaining on their ancestral lands, where they were constantly menaced. It wasn’t until 1848 that the Waldensians and other groups were granted freedom of worship in Italy.Ah, time for a breather, we’d hope. But again, it was not to be. Because just two years later, famine broke out in the long exploited and now over-populated Alpine valleys. After much debate, the first of many Waldensian groups left for Uruguay and Argentina, where they flourished. In 1975, the two Waldensian communities, one on each side of the Atlantic, made it clear that they were still one church by deciding to be governed by a single synod with two sessions, one in the Americas in February, the other in Europe in August.The Waldensians weren’t the only Protestant presence in Italy. Among others, Juan de Valdés and Bernardino Ochino deserve mention.Valdés was a Spanish Protestant Humanist of the Erasmian mold. When it was clear Charles V was determined to wipe Protestantism out of Spain, he fled to in Italy in 1531 where we settled in Naples and gathered a group of colleagues who devoted themselves to Bible study. They didn’t seek to make their views public, and were moderate in their Protestant leanings. Among the members of this group was the historically fascinating Giulia Gonzaga, a woman of such immense beauty the Muslim ruler Suleiman the Great tried to have her kidnapped so he could make her the chief wife of his huge harem. Another member of the group, Bernardino Ochino, a famous and pious preacher, was twice elected leader of the Capuchins. Ochino openly promulgated Protestant principles. When the Inquisition threatened him, he fled to Geneva, then went to Basel, Augsburg, Strasbourg, London, and finally Zürich. Ochino’s journeys from city to city marked a concurrent journey from Biblical orthodox to heresy. He became ever more radical, eventually rejecting the Trinity and defending polygamy; another reason he moved around a lot. He kept getting kicked out of town. He died of the plague in 1564.Now we take the Communio Sanctorum train to HUNGARYAt the beginning of the Reformation, Hungary was ruled by the 10-year-old boy, King Louis II. A decade later, in 1526, the Ottoman Turks defeated the Hungarians and killed him. The Hungarian nobility elected Ferdinand of Hapsburg to take the throne while nationalists named John Sigismund as king. After complex negotiations, western Hungary was under Hapsburg rule while the East was Ottoman. Stuck between West Hungary ruled by devoted Catholic Hapsburgs and the East ruled by Muslim Ottomans, was Royal Hungary, known as Transylvania, where King Sigismund managed to carve out a small holding.Sigismund knew that religious division would weaken his already tenuous hold on the realm, so he granted four groups to have equal standing; Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism, which we’ll take a closer look at when we consider Poland.The Ottomans, ever seeking to weaken the powerful Hapsburgs, supported whichever one of these four was weakest, so that it would continue to cause trouble to the others and so weaken the entire realm. If that group then began to gain power and influence, the Ottomans switched their support to the new underdog.Lutheranism reached Hungary early. There’s evidence Luther’s 95 theses circulated in Hungary only a year after their original posting in Wittenberg. By 1523, the Hapsburgs ordered Lutherans to be burned to prevent their spread. A few years later, Zwingli’s teachings entered the scene, and similar measures were taken against them.Though Ottoman rule was harsh and atrocities were committed against all Christians, it was in the territories occupied by Ottomans that Protestantism grew most rapidly.Hungarians preferred the Reformed Tradition coming out of Switzerland to the church government advocated in Lutheranism. They already suffered under a highly centralized government. In the Swiss-Reformed tradition, pastors and laity shared authority. Also, this decentralized form of church government made it more difficult for Ottoman authorities to exert pressure on church leaders. Records make it clear that Ottoman authorities accepted the appointment of a parish priest on the condition the congregation pay if the priest was arrested for any reason. So, priests were often arrested, and freed only when a bribe was paid.Both Hapsburgs and Ottomans tried to prevent the spread of what they called heresy by means of the printing press. In 1483, long before the Reformation, the Sultan issued a decree condemning printers to have their hands cut off. Now the Hapsburg King Ferdinand I issued a similar ruling; except that, instead of having hands amputated, printers were drowned. But that didn’t stop the circulation of Protestant books. Those were usually printed in the vernacular, the language of the common people, climaxing in the publication of the Karoly Bible in 1590 and the Vizsoly Bible in 1607, which in Hungary played a role similar to that of Luther’s Bible in German. It’s estimated that by 1600 as many as 4 out of 5 Hungarians were Protestant.Then conditions changed. Early in the 17^th C, Ottoman power waned, and Transylvania, supported by Hungarian nationalists, clashed with the Hapsburgs. The conflict was settled by the Treaty of Vienna, granting equal rights to both Catholics and Protestants. But the Thirty Years’ War—in which Transylvania opposed the Hapsburgs and their allies—brought devastation to the country. Even after the end of the War, the conflict among the Hapsburgs, Royal Hungary and Ottomans continued. The Hapsburgs eventually gained the upper hand, and the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699 gave them control over all Hungary—a control they retained until 1918 and the end of WWI. In Hungary, as elsewhere, the Hapsburgs imposed virulent anti-Protestant measures, and eventually the country became Catholic.We end with a look at POLAND.When Luther posted his theses on that door in Wittenberg, there was already in western Poland a growing number of the followers of the Pre-Reformer, Jan Hus; Hussites who’d fled the difficulties in Bohemia. They were amped by the prolific work of the German monk. The Poles, however, had long been in conflict with Germans, and distrusted anything coming from such a source. So Lutheranism did spread, but slowly. When Calvinism made its way to Poland, Protestantism picked up steam.The king at the time was Sigismund I who vehemently opposed all Protestant doctrine. But by the middle of the 16^th C, Calvinism enjoyed a measure of support from Sigismund II, who even corresponded with Calvin.The leader of the Calvinist movement in Poland was Jan Laski, a nobleman with connections to a wide circle of people with Reformed leanings, including Melanchthon and Erasmus. He purchased Erasmus’ library. Exiled from Poland for being a Calvinist, he was called back by the nobility who’d come to favor the Reformed Faith. Laski translated the Bible into Polish, and worked for a meeting of the minds between Calvinists and Lutherans. His efforts led to the Synod of Sendomir in 1570, 10 years after Laski’s death.The Polish government followed a policy of greater religious tolerance than most of Europe. A large number of people, mostly Jews and Christians of various faiths, sought refuge there. Among them was Faustus Socinius, who denied the Doctrine of the Trinity, launching a group known as Unitarians. His views were expressed in the Racovian Catechism, authored not by Socinius, but by two of his followers. Published in 1605, this document affirms and argues that only the Father is God, that Jesus is not divine, but purely human, and that the Holy Spirit is just a way of referring to God’s power and presence.Throughout most of the 16^th C and well into the 17^th, Protestantism as affirmed at the Synod of Sendomir, had a growing number of Polish followers—as did Socinian Unitarianism. But as the national identity of Poland developed in opposition to Russian Orthodox Church to the East, and German Lutherans to the West, with both Russia and Germany repeatedly seeking to take Polish territory, that identity became increasingly Roman Catholic, so that by the 20^th C, Poland was one of the most Catholic nations in Europe.This brief review of the Reformation around the edges of Europe reveals that within just a few decades of Martin Luther’s time the ideas of Protestant theology had covered the continent and caused large scale upheaval. What we HAVEN’T considered yet, is the impact of the Reformation further East. In a later episode we’ll take a look at the impact it had on the Eastern Church.

106-Westward HoHo

Since last week’s episode was titled Westward Ho! As we track the expansion of the Faith into the New World with Spain and Portugal’s immersion, this week as we turn to the other Europeans we’ll title this week’s episode, Westward Ho-Ho, because I’m tired of saying Part 2. I know it’s lame, but hey, it’s my podcast so I’ll call it what I want.Before we dive into this week’s content, I wanted to say a huge thanks to all those who’ve left comments on iTunes and the CS FB page.Last week we ended the episode on the expansion of the Faith into the New World by speaking of the Spanish missions on the West Coast. The Spanish were urgent to press north from what would later be called Southern CA because the Russians were advancing south from their base in Alaska. And as any history buff knows, they’d already established a base at San Francisco.Russians weren’t the only Old World power feared by Spain. The French had New World possessions in Louisiana and French Jesuits were active in the Mississippi Valley. Some dreamed of a link between French Canada and the South down the Mississippi River. The gifted linguist Father Marquette, sailed south along the Mississippi and attempted a mission among the Illinois Indians. While in Quebec, he’d made himself master of 7 Algonquin languages and gained a mighty reputation as an Indian-style orator. He combined preacher, pastor, explorer and geographer in one. His writings contributed to local knowledge of Indian peoples, culture, and agriculture. As any high school student knows, the French were to lose New Orleans and Western Mississippi to Spain, while Eastern Mississippi went to the British. But French Carmelites, a 16^th C branch of the Franciscans known as the Recollects, and the Jesuits accomplished much in French possessions before the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1763. They’d attempted a failed mission to the Sioux. Nevertheless, French Roman Catholic influence remained strong in Canada.As I tell these ultra-bare sketches of mission work among New World Indians, it can easily become just a pedantic recounting of generalized info. A sort of, “Europeans came, Indians were preached to. Churches were planted. Movements happened, some guys died - blah, blah, blah.”Our goal here is to give the history of the Church in short doses. That means, if we’re to make any headway against the flow of it all, we have to summarize a LOT. But that works against real interest in the history and what makes the story exciting.It’s the individual stories of specific people that make the tale come alive. à Jesuit, Franciscan, and Protestant missionaries; and just ordinary colonists who weren’t set on a specific mission but were real-deal born again followers of Jesus who came to the New World to make a new life for themselves and their descendants, and just happened to share their faith with the Native Americans and they got saved and started a whole new chapter in the Jesus story. è THAT’S where the good stuff is.So, let me mention one of these Jesuit missionaries we’ve been talking about who brought the Gospel to Canadian Indians.Jean de Brébeuf was born to a family of the French nobility and entered the Jesuit order in 1617. He reached Canada 8 yrs later. He learned Algonquin and lived among the Huron for 3 yrs. After being captured by the British, he returned to France but renewed his mission in 1633. He founded an outpost called St Marie Among the Hurons in 1639. The Mission was destroyed by the Iroquois a decade later.Because De Brébeuf was tall and strongly built, he became known as the Gentle Giant. Like the Jesuits in Paraguay we looked at in the last episode, he could see ahead into how European colonists would bring an unstoppable challenge to the Indian way of life and advocated the Hurons withdraw into a secluded missionary settlement in order to preserve their culture. He’s an example of the heroic pioneer Jesuit, of which there were many, whose missionary life ended in martyrdom in the field.De Brébeuf stands as a little known, but ought to be lauded, example of the fact that not all Europeans who came to the New World, especially not all missionaries, conflated following Christ with European culture and lifestyle. That’s an assumption many moderns have; that it wasn’t until the modern era that missionaries figured out people could remain IN their culture and follow Jesus, that they didn’t have to become converts to Western Civilization BEFORE they could become Christians. While it has certainly been true that some missions and eras equated the Faith with a particular cultural milieu, throughout history, MOST believers have understood that the True Gospel is trans-cultural, even super-cultural.Many Jesuit missionaries in the New World like De Brébeuf tried to preserve the native American cultures – while filling them with the Gospel. They saw the emerging European colonies as a THREAT to the Indians and wanted to protect them.With the end of the 7 Years War, or as it’s known in the US, the French and Indian War, French Canada became a British possession. The Jesuits, on the verge of their being banned from the New World, expanded their work among the Indians to include the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas, as well as those Algonquins yet unreached in Quebec. While converts were made among the Iroquois tribes, the majority remained hostile. Among the converts, there was a huge problem with disease introduced by the missionaries themselves, and the influence of alcohol brought by Europeans. Indian physiological tolerance to hard alcohol was low and addiction quick. Jesuit missionaries reached the Hudson Bay area and baptized thousands. Even after the British won Canada and the Jesuit order was suppressed, some remained in Canada as late as 1789.In the far NW, Russians entered Alaska in 1741. Russian Orthodox Christianity had begun on Kodiak Island, just off Alaska, in 1794. By ‘96 thousands of Kodiaks and the population of the Aleutian Islands had been baptized. They met hostility from the Russian American Company but the mission received fresh invigoration by the arrival an Orthodox priest from Siberia named Innocent Veniaminoff. He reached the Aleutians in the 1820s and mastered the local dialect well enough to translate the Gospel of Matthew and write a devotional tract that became a classic, titled = An Indication of the Pathway into the Kingdom of Heaven. After working among the Aleutians for some years, Veniaminoff served among the Tlingit people. After his wife died, he was appointed bishop of a vast region stretching from Alaska to CA. Between 1840 and 68 he carried out a massive work. Although 40 yrs of missionary service, often in conditions of tremendous physical hardship, left him exhausted and longing to retire, he was appointed Metropolitan of Moscow, a position he used to found the Russian Missionary Society as a means of support for Orthodox missions. His outstanding service was recognized in 1977 by the Orthodox Church of America conferring on him the title of ‘Evangelizer of the Aleuts and Apostle to America.’Alaska was sold to the United States in the 1870s but the Orthodox Synod created an independent bishopric to include Alaska in 1872. By 1900 there were some 10,000 Orthodox Christians in the diocese. Of the 65,000 Alaskan and Aleutian people today, some 70% claim to be Christian and many of these belong to the Orthodox community.The Roman Catholic orders had a great advantage in missions due to their central organizing body called The Sacred Propaganda for the Faith. Today this structure is called the Congregation for the Evangelization of the Nations.In contrast to Roman monastic orders and their missionary zeal, Protestant churches had little missionary vision in the 16^th C. When they engaged in missions in the 17^th they had no organizing center.French Protestants, led by the Huguenot Admiral Coligny, attempted a short-lived experiment off Rio de Janeiro when Admiral Villegagnon established a Calvinist settlement in 1555. It folded when the French were expelled by the Portuguese. A more permanent Calvinist settlement was made by the Dutch when they captured Pernambuco, a region at the eastern tip of Brazil. This settlement remained a Calvinist enclave for 40 years.North America presented a very different scene for missions than Central and South America. The voyage of the Mayflower with its ‘Pilgrims’ in 1620 was a historical pointer to the strong influence of Calvinism in what would become New England. The states of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire were strongly Congregationalist or Presbyterian in church life and heavily influenced by English Puritanism. At least some of these pioneers felt a responsibility for spreading the Christian faith to the native Americans.John Eliot is regarded as the driving force behind the early evangelization of the Indians. He was the Presbyterian pastor at Roxby, a village near Boston in 1632. He learned the Iroquois language, and like the Jesuits in Paraguay, though surely with no knowledge of their methodology, founded ‘praying towns’ for the Indians. These were communities that, over a period of 40 yrs, came to include some 3,000 Christian Indians in Natick and other settlements. Eliot translated the entire Bible into Iroquois by 1663 and trained 24 native American pastors by the time of his death.A remarkable family called The Mayhews were pioneers in missionary work in Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands off Cape Cod. Thomas Mayhew bought the islands in 1641 with an Indian population of around 5,000. His son, Thomas Jr., began a mission and by 1651 200 Indians had come to faith. After the death of Thomas Sr. and Jr., John, youngest son of Thomas Jr., along with his son Experience Mayhew continued the mission. Experience had the advantage of fluency in the Indian language with the ability to write it. Zechariah, his son, carried on a tradition that lasted all the way to 1806 and produced many Indian clergy and a Harvard graduate. The ministry of the Mayhews spanned almost 2 centuries.Another New England figure who became a missionary icon to such great spreaders of the faith as William Carey and David Livingstone, was David Brainerd. Brainerd was born in the farming country of Haddam, Connecticut, and studied for the ministry at Yale College, from which he was wrongly expelled in 1741. He impressed the local leadership of the Scottish Society for the Propagation of the Gospel enough for them to employ him for missionary service in 1742. He worked among the Indians of Stockbridge and then, after ordination as a Presbyterian, he worked in western Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. There he experienced genuine religious revival among the Delaware Indians, which he recounted in detail in his journals.Brainerd died young but his diary and the account of his life by the great preacher, theologian, and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards, became immensely influential in the Protestant world. Edwards, also a student at Yale, was himself a missionary at Stockbridge among the Indians from 1750–58.While it’s risky to do a diagnosis on someone 270 years later, we glean from David Brainerd’s logs that he suffered from at least a mild case of a depression-disorder, and maybe not so mild. It’s his honesty in sharing with his journals his emotions that proved to be a tonic to mission-luminaries like Carey and Livingstone.New England Presbyterians and Congregationalists were matched by other Protestants in their efforts among Indians. Episcopalians and the missionary society of the Church of England achieved some success in evangelizing them.Work among the Iroquois of New York was initiated by Governor Lord Bellomont, and a converted Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, who helped establish a Mohawk church. Queen Anne of England even presented silver communion implements to 4 Mohawk Christians in London in 1704 for use in one of their chapels.In Virginia, the royal charter declared one of the aims of the colony was the conversion of Indians. The first minister of the village of Henrico, Alexander Whitaker, did significant missionary work and introduced the Indian princess, Pocahontas, to the faith.BTW: Pocahontas was her nickname – which translates roughly to “Little Hellion.” Her real name was Matoaka, but she was so precocious as a child her nickname became her favored label.Whitaker established a college at Henrico for the education of Indians and there were appeals for funding for Indian missions back in England by King James I and his archbishops so that 1 of 6 professorships at the College of William and Mary was set apart for teaching Indians.Methodists had the example of John and Charles Wesley when they were Anglican priests and missionaries for the Society of the Proclamation of the Gospel in Georgia from 1735. Though John’s primary assignment was a chaplain for the English settlers, he tried to reach out to the Choctaw and Chickasaw. He had little response from the Native Americans. No wonder, since he’d later say he was most likely unconverted at that point.After his break with the Church of England, Wesley’s chief lieutenant in the New World was Thomas Coke who became a driving force for Methodist missionary work, attempting a mission in Nova Scotia in 1786 before being re-directed to the West Indies by a storm. Methodist missions came into their own in the 19^th C after Coke’s death and took the form of frontier preachers and ‘circuit riders’ under the direction of Francis Asbury, who traveled some 300,000 miles on horseback in the cause of the Gospel and whose vision included both Indians and black slaves for Methodist outreach. By the time of Asbury’s death in 1816 Methodist membership had risen from just 13 to 200,000 over a 30-yr period.The 19^th C in North America saw the far north reached by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists.The 19^th C was a time of extraordinary development in North America, despite the ravages of the Civil War in the 1860’s. Great numbers of immigrants flooded into the country from Europe, estimated at 33 million between 1820 and 1950. Of British emigrants between 1815 and 1900, 65% found their way to the US. Of African-Americans, whereas only some 12% belonged to a church in 1860, by 1910 that number was 44%. Many joined the Baptist and Methodist congregations of the southern states after the abolition of slavery. In the Nation at large, the extraordinary achievement to any non-American was the blending into one nation of so many different peoples, so that their American citizenship was more prominent than their roots as Italian, Irish, Jewish, German, Scandinavian or English. This influx posed great challenges to the churches but Americans largely became a church-going people. And while differences over Religion had become the cause of so much misery and bloodshed in Post-Reformation Europe, Americans learned to live in civil harmony with people of other denominations.

105-Westward Ho!

In this episode of CS, we take a look at the Expansion of Christianity into the New World.Following Columbus’s voyages at the end of the 15^th C to the Caribbean, the expansion of Christianity into the New Word was chiefly dependent on the 2 great colonial powers, Portugal and Spain. From the outset of their adventures in the New World, a religious intention was central to the efforts of the explorers, however secondary it may have become to conquest and treasure-seeking of their royal patrons back in Europe.By means of a papal bull in 1493, Pope Alexander VI, divided the world between the 2 kingdoms. Although the line was later moved to allow Portugal to colonize Brazil, the original division was a line drawn from North to Southwest of the Azores [ah-zores] Islands. Spain was given the West Indies and the Americas; while Portugal, because it had already explored the west coast of Africa and moved towards India thru Vasco da Gama’s explorations, was given the right to colonize Africa, India and the East.It seems monumentally arrogant to us today that these Europeans assumed they were “discovering” lands that already had people living there for generations. And how do you plant a colony in a place indigenous people had called their home for centuries? Yet that was the attitude of many Europeans in the late 15^th C and as the scope of geography for the New World was understood, other Europeans joined the rush to grab as much territory as they could. è Because religion was a central and defining part of the European worldview, they took their Faith with them.Priests accompanied da Gama’s voyages as they were a central part of Spanish colonization, combining the roles of missionaries, explorers, secretaries and chroniclers. Often they belonged to religious orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans, then later, the Jesuits.It was with a sense of religious mission, as well as the longing to acquire wealth from indigenous peoples, that men like Cortez and Pizarro began their conquest of the Aztec and Incan empires. Modern students of history know that the Spanish conquistadors seemed not to think forced baptisms of native Americans was all that bad of an option. What we do well to remember was that these explorers didn’t originate the policy. Charlemagne had practiced a similar program of forced conversions. That doesn’t make it right, but it provides a little historical context.Cortez was born in Medellin, Spain. He attended the University of Salamanca and left Spain for Cuba in 1511. At the age of 33 he mounted an expedition against the Aztec capital in Mexico with only 700 fellow Spaniards, but equipped with canons and muskets, reinforced by thousands of Indian allies who’d been brutally dominated by the blood-thirsty Aztecs for generations.Although he experienced a serious reverse after a massacre of Aztec nobles and temporarily had to withdraw from the capital of Tenochtitlan, he returned to the city in August 1520 and systematically destroyed it. He founded and built Mexico City on the same site, then became governor of New Spain and captain-general of the forces in 1522, titles that were confirmed by Emperor Charles V, when Cortez returned to Europe in 1529. He was later replaced by a viceroy and died in 1547.His contemporary, Pizarro, directed his attention to the Inca Empire in what would later be the nation of Peru. He obtained authority from Spain for its conquest in 1528–29 and attacked the Incas in 1530. A massacre of native Americans assembled at Cajamarca was followed by the capture of the Inca capital of Cuzco in November 1530.You may remember from an earlier episode, one of the major debates between the Church and civil rulers of Europe was over who had the right to appoint bishops. While there were seasons when civil rulers took control of this, it was usually the Church that maintained control over church appointments. The New World presented a new challenge and opportunity. The Pope was already busy enough with internal affairs and the threat of the Reformers to be bothered with selecting hundreds of new bishops for lands that hadn’t even been properly mapped yet. So he granted the monarchs of Spain and Portugal the right to select church leaders in their new colonies.On the colonialist front, a system was developed called encomienda. By this method, a number of native Americans were assigned to a colonist-landlord. He was given rights to both tribute and labor but it was understood he was responsible for Christianizing those committed to his charge. As we’d suspect, the encomienda system became a by-word for oppression and cruelty and resulted in the virtual slavery of the Indians after its introduction in 1503. Brave Dominican priests denounced the system with one of the earliest protestors being Antonio de Montesinos on the island of Hispaniola in 1511.Bartholemew de las Casas was another Dominican, whose father accompanied Columbus on one of his voyages. When he witnessed the live burial of an Indian leader in 1514 in Cuba, he became a champion of Indian rights for the next 50 years.I pause at this point to speak to those offended by my use of the term “Indian” for the native Americans of the New World. There are those who believe it’s a slight to refer to inhabitants of the new World as “Indians” because it was a historical mistake on the part of previous generations of Europeans who labeled them as such. BUT! It turns out many native Americans want to be identified, NOT as Native Americans, but as Indians. While they know the errant origin of the term, they’ve embraced it as a self-designation and ask that others identify them as “Indians.”This is akin to today, to followers of Jesus being more than happy to be known as Christians, though the best evidence says the terms was originally a slur applied by opponents of the Faith to its adherents.In any case, De las Casas had to confront a widespread European mindset based on a philosophical position going all the way back to Aristotle, that viewed New World Indians as inherently “less human” and so fit to be slaves by nature, an inferior race intended for menial labor and to serve their betters. He worked tirelessly in America and Spain to change this attitude and to convince those in authority that the use of force was contrary to a Christian understanding of the Indians as worthy of respect for those created in God’s image. His efforts to lobby support at home in influential circles, received recognition from the Emperor, against the activities of the colonists. It included a debate in 1550 at Valladolid with the Aristotelian philosopher and scholar, Sepulveda. Before he died, de las Casas’s campaign for just laws for the Indians was responsible for what’s called “the New Laws” of 1542–3, which prohibited slavery and caused the Council for the Indies to be reorganized. After serving as bishop of Chiapas, de las Casas used his pen on behalf of the Indians, most famously in his Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, a hard-hitting critique of Spanish practices, in which some claimed he exaggerated abuses. But the work was widely read and proved influential in turning the tide in Europe toward a greater empathy toward the people of the New World.The Franciscans and Dominicans were the first in the field of the New World from 1510 onwards, but in the 2^nd phase of the mission the Jesuits were active.José de Anchieta was a great Jesuit missionary who gave 44 years of his life and became known as the ‘apostle of Brazil’. He was one of the founders of both the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro Jesuit missions. Another heroic figure and defender of Indian rights in Brazil was the Jesuit, Antonio Vieira, who in equal measure opposed both the Inquisition and colonists, was admired by King John IV of Portugal but almost lynched in 1661 after the king’s death.In the 17^th C, Jesuits were active in Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. In the early 1600s they created a missionary system known as the ‘Reductions.’ These were settlements of Indians that sought to protect them from European colonization while at the same time evangelizing them. In total, these communities comprised some 100,000 people. Each settlement had a church, school and workshops and led an ordered life. The colonists resented the removal of their labor pool but the Jesuits steadfastly defended the Indians against enslavement.General agitation against the Jesuit order in Europe and colonies of the New World led to their expulsion from Portuguese territory in 1759, then from Spanish possessions 8 yrs later. The Jesuits were suppressed in the New World in 1773. All this was a disastrous blow to the Reductions. It also exposed the weakness of a form of mission that was essentially paternalistic, with little or no authority passed over to the indigenous people or attempt to develop leaders among the Indians. With the removal of the Jesuit leaders, the Reductions collapsed and whole villages were engulfed by jungle after 150 years as oases of Christian community.The region of modern Venezuela was an area for further Jesuit exploits. They penetrated the jungles of the Amazon to reach large numbers of Indians. One early Jesuit pioneer, Rafael Ferrer, began a mission in 1599 that saw his martyrdom in 1611. Further Jesuit efforts achieved more and by 1661 many thousands were baptized in the region. The Jesuits found that these people were less easily led than the Guarani people who lived around Sao Paulo. There was opposition from the Portuguese; but with assistance from the Franciscans, half a million people were reached.Central America was pioneered by the Franciscans, Dominicans and a Catholic order we’ve not seen before; the Mercedarians.Founded by the Spaniard, Peter Nolasco in 1235, their original goal was to ransom captives and redeem properties that had fallen into Muslim hands during the Moorish occupation of Spain. The Mercedarians began as a lay order but by the 14^th C the clergy had taken control. Following the Reconquista, when the Moors were expelled from Spain, the Mercedarians continued their mission by traveling to Muslim lands to seek freedom for Christian captives. Gradually, academic, theological, and educational work was included in its work and an order of nuns was founded. They joined the Franciscans and Dominicans in taking the Gospel to Central America.The first church in Panama was built in 1510. Missionaries entered Guatemala in 1526. By 1600 there were 22 Franciscan and 14 Dominican bases in Guatemala.Mexico, after the era of Cortez, attracted the orders, so that Franciscans landed at Vera Cruz in 1524, Dominicans in 1526, Augustinians in ‘33, and later, Capuchins and Jesuits. The Franciscan, Juan de Zumarraga, became bishop of Mexico City in 1528 and proved to be a firm defender of Indian rights and a believer in an indigenous clergy. He became the archbishop of Mexico in 1546. The University of Mexico, founded in ‘53, reflected the church’s emphasis on education.In the north of the country a famous Jesuit missionary, Eusebio Kino, arrived in 1681 and did missionary work in Baja California, up into the modern state of Arizona, and reaching as far as Colorado. Described as a modest, gentle, humble man who was an upholder of the welfare of Indians, he traveled perpetually in the interest of the mission. He hoped to reach the fierce Apaches but died before he could in 1711. Before their formal removal from the region, the Jesuits achieved 37 bases in Baja by 1767.In the modern state of California, a string of Franciscan missions are still to be found between San Diego and San Francisco. Father Junipero Serra, born in Majorca, became the leader of the mission and founded the communities of Monterey, Carmel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and several others. While many of the original buildings are gone, Catholic churches continue on in several of these sites to this day. By 1800, some 100,000 Californian Indians, many from the Chumash people, had been reached by the mission and 18 Franciscan mission compounds were established. At least some of the thrust to the N was driven by Spanish fear of Russian incursion, moving S from Alaska. Father Serra also spent some years establishing a work in Texas.Regarding Junipero Serra, when I originally composed this episode, Pope Francis had recently arrived in the US where he addressed both the US Congress and the United Nations. While in the US, he canonized, that is, he conferred sainthood, on Serra. That had been an issue of some controversy for a while as Serra’s career came under fire from some historians and human rights advocates.Critics claim Serra’s methods ranged from harsh to brutal. Lashings of the Indians were used liberally in the missions for infractions as small as asking for more food. The friars kept meticulous records so historians are able to document this treatment. The problem comes in interpreting these records. The language isn’t the problem; it’s the cultural context that makes interpretation difficult.On one hand, Serra was devoted to protecting the Indians from exploitation by adventurers and settlers who wanted to reduce the native population to slavery. Serra understood people are led to faith by kindness and love rather than heavy-handedness. That he traveled so far, pioneering several missions proves he wasn’t driven by some kind of personal profit motive. So why the harsh treatment of the Indians at so many of the missions? Defenders of Serra say such treatment was necessary because of the nature of the cultures of the natives where the Missions were located.What we can say is that the Missions definitely went far to alter the tribal life of the Indians where they were based. If they began as attempts to Christianize Indians while allowing them to continue some of their native traditions, they ended up going much further in converting the Indians not just to the Faith, but to the Spanish culture. And it seems that more than anything raises the ire of at least some of Serra’s critics.As we end, just a quick reminder that CS is supported by the donations of subscribers.

104-A Needless Tragedy

The title of this episode is – A Needless Tragedy.We backtrack now a bit. We’re going back to that period of European history following the Reformation called the Wars of Religion. We do so to take a look at a single day; Aug 24, 1572 in Paris, and the infamous event that happened then and there = the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.We do this because while it’s a lot more detailed look at something than we usually get into, it illustrates the impact the Reformation had on Europe and, I think, the Modern World.John Calvin was French but his reforming work was centered in Geneva, Switzerland. It didn’t take long for his influence to spread back to his native homeland so that by 1555, Calvinism had firm roots there. French Calvinists were called Huguenots – a word of unknown origin but was meant as a mockery of Protestants. Calvinism spread rapidly and soon there were a couple thousand French Reformed churches with close to half the French switching from Catholic churches to Huguenot fellowships.What made things difficult for the French Monarchy, which remained firmly Catholic, was that many of the nobility were Huguenots. Bear in mind that at that time, religious affiliation and political alignment were regarded by most Europeans as one and the same. A showdown between French Catholics and Protestants seemed inevitable.Enter the scheming Queen Mother of France, Catherine de Medici; a die-hard Roman Catholic. She arranged for her daughter, Margaret of Valois, to be married on August 18^th of 1572 to the Protestant King, Henry of Navarre. The hope in Paris was that this marriage would bring peace between warring Catholics and Protestants. Nobles who’d fought each other the previous decade turned out for the celebration. Thousands of Protestants came to Paris for the wedding, and the festivities lasted for days.But while Catherine de Médici planned her daughter’s wedding, she was also plotted the assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny [koh-LEE-nee], one of the main leaders of the Huguenots.On Aug. 22^nd, the assassination attempt failed. The plot, so soon after the royal wedding, threatened to badly embarrass the royal family. Near midnight the following day, Charles IX, the 22 yr-old French king and brother of the bride, in a fit of rage, screamed at his mother, “If you’re going to kill Coligny, why don’t you kill all the Huguenots in France, so there’ll be none left to hate me.”Catherine wasn’t one to put up with the pique of her petulant son and decided to follow up on his suggestion. She ordered the murder of all Huguenot leaders still in Paris, including those who’d attended the wedding. The massacre began on Aug 24, 1572, St. Bartholomew’s Day. Admiral Coligny was murdered first as he knelt in prayer.Many of the Huguenot nobles were lodged at the Louvre. They were called into the courtyard and shot one by one as they appeared. During the night, the homes of Paris Huguenots were each marked with white crosses. Before daybreak, messengers were sent throughout the city crying out, “Kill! Kill! The King commands it.” A murdering frenzy fell on the whole city. Entire Huguenot families were taken into the streets and murdered. The dawn of St. Bartholomew’s Day revealed many thousands of martyred Huguenots.The craze spread to the provinces in the following days and weeks, the death toll somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand. Admiral Coligny’s head was embalmed and sent to Rome as a gift to Pope Gregory XIII. When it reached Rome, the Pope and his cardinals staged a Mass of Thanksgiving.The massacre was not without cost to Charles IX. He began having horrific nightmares. In less than two years, he lay dying at the age of only 24. His last days were plagued with visions of his victims. He cried to his nurse, “What bloodshed, what murders! What evil counsel have I followed? O my God, forgive me!. . . I am lost!”That’s the short version of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Now for a little more depth.The massacre marked a turning point in the French Wars of Religion. The Huguenot political movement was crippled by the loss of many of its most prominent leaders, as well as many re-conversions by commoners back to Catholicism while those who remained Protestant were increasingly radicalized.Though by no means unique, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was the worst of the century's religious atrocities. Throughout Europe, it impressed on Protestants the firm conviction Catholics were bloody and treacherous. But some of those Protestants ought to have seen how they treated other Protestants of a different flavor, as well as Catholics, with the same kind of brutality when they had the chance.While the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre seems a violent but quickly burnt-out fit of hatred, it was in truth the culmination of a series of events.1^st – The Peace of Saint-Germain in 1570 put an end to 3 years of terrible civil war between French Catholics and Protestants. But the peace was precarious since many Catholics refused to accept it. The famous Guise [gice] family led this faction and so fell out of favor at the French court. Meanwhile, the Huguenot political and military leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny was readmitted to the king's council in September of 1571.Catholics were shocked by the return of Protestants to the court, but the king and queen mother, the afore-mentioned Charles IX and Catherine de Medici were determined not to let war break out again. Being were well aware of the kingdom's financial difficulties, they knew more war would bankrupt them so they were determined to stay friendly with Coligny. The Huguenots were in a strong defensive position as they controlled not a few of the fortified towns across France.To cement the peace between the two groups, Catherine offered to marry her daughter Margaret to the Protestant prince Henry of Navarre, the future King Henry IV. The royal marriage was arranged for 18 August 1572. But it was rejected by staunch Catholics. Both the Pope and King Philip II of Spain strongly condemned Catherine's plan.2^nd - The impending marriage led to the gathering of a large number of well-born Protestants in Paris, who’d come to escort their prince. But Paris was a violently anti-Huguenot city, and Parisians, who tended to be extreme Catholics, found their presence unacceptable. Encouraged by Catholic preachers, they were horrified at the marriage of a Catholic princess to a Protestant. The French Parliament snubbed the marriage ceremony altogether.3^rd - Compounding this bad feeling was the fact that recent harvests were poor and taxes had risen to pay for civil wars. The rise in food prices, set against the backdrop of the obscene luxury displayed by the nobles on the occasion of the royal wedding increased tension among the people. A particular point of complaint was a cross erected on the site of the house of Philippe de Gastines, a Huguenot martyred a couple yrs before. A mob tore down his house and erected a large wooden cross in its place. Under the terms of the Peace of Saint-Germain, the cross was removed in Dec. 1571. That led to riots that killed fifty and saw massive property damage. In the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, relatives of the Gastines family were among the first to be killed by the mob.4^th - The royal court itself was divided. Catherine hadn’t obtained the Pope’s permission for the royal marriage; so the French clergy hesitated about what to do. It took all Catherine’s considerable skill to convince Cardinal de Bourbon to officiate the wedding ceremony. And note who were’ talking about here. This is Catherine DE MEDICI, of the eminently famous and powerful Italian banking family.5^th - In the years leading up to the massacre, Huguenot political rhetoric had for the first time taken a tone against, not just the policies of the monarchy, but following the trend of Protestant thought, toward monarchy in principle. This trend would grow greatly after the Massacre as the Huguenots laid blame for it at the foot of the throne.6^th - Tensions were further raised in May, 1572 when news reached Paris that a French Huguenot army under Louis of Nassau crossed into a Dutch province and captured a couple of Catholic strongholds. This was all so Louis could assist his brother William in his political ambitions. French Catholics were furious that all of France was being dragged into a war with the Netherlands and Spain they had nothing to do with.All these ingredients mixed in the pot to produce a tension just waiting for a spark to ignite.After the wedding on August 18, Coligny and leading Huguenots remained in Paris to discuss some grievances about the Peace of St. Germain with the king.On the 22^nd, an attempt was made on Coligny's life as he made his way home from the Louvre. He was shot from the upstairs window of a home owned by the Guises and seriously wounded. The would-be assassin escaped in the confusion that followed.The attempted assassination of Coligny triggered the crisis that led to the massacre. Coligny was the most respected Huguenot leader and enjoyed a close relationship with the king. Aware of the danger of reprisals from the Protestants, the king and his court visited Coligny on his sickbed and promised the culprits would be punished.While Catherine was eating dinner, Protestants burst in to demand justice, some going so far as to threaten her. The fears of Huguenot reprisals grew in the palace. Coligny's brother-in-law led a 4,000-strong army that was at that moment camped just outside the city, and though there’s no evidence it was planning to attack, Catholics feared it might take revenge on the Guises or the general populace of the city.So that evening, Catherine held a meeting with her Italian advisers. On the evening of the 23^rd, Catherine went to see the king to discuss the crisis. Though no details of the meeting survive, it seems Charles and his mother decided to eliminate the Protestant leaders, meaning between 2 and 3 dozen of the noblemen still in Paris. They thought this would gut the Huguenots of their leadership and leave the Protestants powerless. They hoped it would squelch any real attempts at attacking the royals.Shortly after this decision, municipal authorities of Paris were summoned. They were ordered to shut the city gates and arm the citizenry in order to prevent any attempt at a Protestant uprising. The king's Swiss Guard was given the task of killing a list of leading Protestants. It’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of events and know the moment the killing began. It seems a signal was given by ringing bells at a church near the Louvre. The Swiss guards expelled the Protestant nobles from the Louvre castle, then slaughtered them in the streets.A group led by the Duke of Guise dragged Admiral Coligny from his bed, killed him, and threw his body out a window. And all the tension building since the Peace of St. Germain exploded in a wave of popular mob violence. Commoners hunted Protestants throughout the city, including women and children. Chains were used to block streets so Protestants couldn’t escape from their houses. The bodies of the dead were collected in carts and thrown into the Seine. The massacre in Paris lasted 3 days despite the king's attempts to stop it.The leading Huguenot prince, Henry of Navarre just 19 and newly married to Catherine’s daughter, was spared and pledged to convert to Catholicism. He later renounced his feigned conversion when he escaped the madhouse that was Paris.On Aug 26^th, the king fabricated an “official” version of events—saying that he ordered the massacre to thwart a Huguenot plot against the royal family. A celebration and parade were held, while the killings continued in parts of the city.Although King Charles dispatched orders to the provincial governors on Aug. 24th to prevent violence and maintain the terms of the Peace of Saint-Germain, from August to October, massacres of Huguenots took place in a dozen French cities. In most of them, the killings swiftly followed the arrival of the news of the Paris massacre, but in some places there was a delay of a month.In many cities across France, the loss to the Huguenot communities after the massacres was far larger than those actually killed. Because in the following weeks there were mass conversions to Catholicism. For instance, in Rouen [ruin], where a few hundred were killed, the Huguenot community shrank from over 16 thousand to fewer than 3 thousand as a result of conversions and emigration to safer cities and countries.Soon afterward, both sides prepared for a fourth civil war, which began before the end of the year.The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre with the ensuing turmoil that fell out from the Reformation in all Europe went far in shaping the mindset of succeeding generations. You can make a good case for the emergence of the Enlightenment’s suspicion of religion because of the horrendous bad behavior of people in the name of God during the Wars of Religion. Of course, as we’ve said in previous episodes, it was often politicians and power-hungry prelates who hid behind religion and used the name of God in a bald grab for temporal power. They knew the common people could be manipulated by a religious argument more easily than by admitting they just wanted more land or power. Today, politicians seek to dispatch their opponents by saying they’re wrong on this or that political issue. In 16^thand 17^th C Europe, they did so by accusing their opponents of heresy.As we finish this episode, I again want to say thanks to all who’ve visited the CS FB page and given us a like. If you haven’t done that yet, let me encourage you to do so.And if you use iTunes as your portal to CS, giving the podcast a review there goes a long way in getting the word out.CS is sustained by your donation of any amount.Thanks.

103-Back in the East Part 2

This episode of CS is titled, Back in the East – Part 2Last time we took a brief look at the Jesuit missions to the Far East; namely Japan, China, Vietnam and India.We encountered the revolutionary approach to mission work of Alessandro Valignano and his spiritual heirs, Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. Their accomodationist approach to evangelism, where the Gospel was communicated by seeking to build a cultural bridge with the high civilizations of the Far East, was officially suppressed by Rome, even though it had amazing success in planting a healthy and vibrant church. So healthy was the Church in Japan it came under fire from a fierce resurgence in Japanese nationalism that expelled the Jesuits and persecuted the Church, driving it underground.From the dawn of the 17^th C, both Dutch and English trading interests moved into Asia. Their commercial and military navies dominated those of other European nations.The Dutch established bases in Indonesia and created a center at Jakarta. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602, and carried the Dutch Reformed Church to the East Indies. But don’t think this means the Dutch conducted missionary work among indigenous peoples. It merely means they carried their religious institution with them and built chapels so Dutch nationals had a place to worship when doing business there. Any converts from among the native population was by accident, not any kind of planned outreach. Dutch interests in the Far East were exclusively commercial.The English equivalent of the Dutch East India Company was, the creatively named à English East India Company. Though the directors of the Company were suspicious of missionaries, they appointed chaplains to their trading communities. This provided an opening for those with missionary vision in England and India, such as Parliamentarian William Wilberforce and Charles Grant, an employee of the company.Two outstanding East India Company chaplains were Henry Martyn and Claudius Buchanan. Martyn was a leading Cambridge intellect and winner of numerous academic prizes. He and other Cambridge students were influenced by the long ministry of Charles Simeon, whose preaching urged that the Gospel be taken to All Peoples. Martyn was a brilliant linguist and translator. He was appointed a chaplain in 1805, translated the NT into Urdu and Persian and prepared an Arabic version before his early death from tuberculosis at 31. His Indian assistant, Abdul Masih, converted from Islam to become a Christian missionary and advocate of the Faith. He was ordained in 1825 as the first Indian Anglican clergyman. Many others were inspired by Martyn’s life of scholarship and devotion.William Carey, often regarded as the father of Protestant English missions, was both a shoemaker and Baptist preacher in Northamptonshire. He arrived in India in 1793. He was soon joined by 2 other Baptist giants, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, making what came to be known as the ‘Serampore Trio.’ Serampore being the region where they lived and worked. The trio greatly admired the Moravians and shaped their community on the Moravian model.Carey’s passage to India had been denied by the East India Company, the de facto government of English holdings in India, with their own hired army enforcing their will on the regions they operated. That would be like Amazon being the City Council and Law Enforcement for Seattle. Later British colonies and India came under control of the Crown. The East India Company opposed Carey’s plan to take the Gospel to the Indians. Chaplains for the British in India was fine, but they didn’t want to foment hostility with the faiths of their trading partners. Carey had ONE goal in going to India; to evangelize the lost. His passion to raise support in England for foreign missions led to his being derided by critics like Sydney Smith, a clergyman and author of satire who wrote for the Edinburgh Review.But by steady perseverance, monumental labor at biblical translation, longsuffering through family tragedies and the loss of precious manuscripts by fire, Carey faced down all critics, became Professor of Sanskrit at Fort William College and earned the accolade from Bishop Stephen Neill, himself a missionary in India: “In the whole history of the Church, no nobler man has ever given himself to the service of the Redeemer.”For North Americans, an equivalent figure to Carey as a pioneer was the great missionary to Burma, Adoniram Judson. Judson received his inspiration to become a missionary from reading the sermons of Claudius Buchanan in 1809. After ordination as a Congregationalist minister, he applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. On his voyage to India, he and his wife adopted a Baptist statement of Faith. On arrival in India he was baptized, having made his change of mind known to William Carey. He was refused permission to work by the East India Co as a Baptist missionary in India but began work in Rangoon in 1813. His work among the Karen people met with rousing success. The first Karen to be baptized was Ko Tha Byu, who came from a background of violent crime. Byu became a notable evangelist. The Karen became the largest Christian group of the region. In modern Myanmar they number 200,000 Christians in over 1,000 churches. Judson himself became a missionary icon and hero in mid-19^th C North America.China closed its doors to foreigners of all kinds after imperial edicts against Christian preaching in 1720. Robert Morrison was the lone Protestant missionary from 1807, often at risk of his life. Although the East India Co was hostile to his mission, in 1809 he was employed by them as an interpreter so he could remain on Chinese soil. With the help of William Milne, he translated the entire Bible into Chinese and created a Chinese dictionary, which became a standard work for language studies. He and Milne founded an Anglo-Chinese school in Malacca.But any missionary incursion into wider China was impossible until the treaties of the mid-19^th C opened the country by slow degrees.First, the so-called ‘treaty ports’ became accessible in 1842 in the Treaty of Nanking, forced on China by British commercial interests. The Chinese were desperate for opium from India, supplied by the British, a major source of revenue.A bit later, the Treaty of Tientsin opened the interior to missionaries, preparing the way for the China Inland Mission.James Hudson Taylor was born in Yorkshire, England to a devout Methodist family. He trained as a doctor, but, before he qualified, offered himself as a missionary to the China Evangelization Society. Because of the political conditions in China during the pro-Christian Taiping Rebellion, he was sent to Shanghai in 1853.Hudson Taylor was inspired by Karl Gutzlaff, who’d travelled to the Chinese interior between 1833-9 as a freelance missionary.Gutzlaff was a German educated at a Moravian school. Drawn to the Far East by the urge to see China won to Christ, he began with the Netherlands Missionary Society in 1824 by serving in Thailand where he translated the Bible into Thai in just 3 years.In 1828 he broke with Netherlands Missionary Society because they wouldn’t send him to China. From his perspective, that’s why he was in the Far East. So, he became a freelance missionary, distributing Christian literature along the coast. He became an interpreter for the East India Co in Shanghai and helped negotiate the Treaty of Nanjing. He recruited Chinese nationals as evangelists to the interior and raised funds for their support through his writings in Europe, only to find that many of his recruits had deceived him and taken the money for other purposes. Although discredited in the eyes of some, Gutzlaff’s strategy of using nationals as Christian workers was sound. No one doubted his missionary zeal. Hudson Taylor looked on him as the ‘grandfather’ of the China Inland Mission and its work in the interior provinces.Hearkening back to the accomodationist policy of Valignano, Taylor experimented with identification in Chinese dress and the ‘queue’; that is, the pigtail hairstyle worn by Chinese men. But Taylor caught grief from other members of the missionary community, by his “going native” as it was called. In 1857, he resigned from the China Evangelization Society he’d been working with. Stirred deeply by the needs of the Chinese of the interior, Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in 1865, aiming to put 2 missionaries in each province, recently open to foreigners after the Treaty of Tientsin. He was now a fully qualified doctor and married to Maria Dyer, daughter of a missionary and a leader in her own right, he set out with a party of 16 from London to Shanghai in 1866, narrowly avoiding total loss by shipwreck.From the beginning the CIM was to be a so-called ‘faith mission’, with no public appeals for funds; and its missionaries accepted the absolute, if gently applied, authority of Hudson Taylor, described by some as the ‘Ignatius Loyola of Protestant missions.’The CIM came to number over 800 missionaries, including Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians and others. It planted churches that had a membership of some 80,000 by 1897. The public profile of the CIM was greatly enhanced in the 1880s by the arrival of the “Cambridge 7”, 2 of whom were well-known sports heroes and popularized as making great sacrifices for the Cause of Christ. CT Studd was 1 of these, later to found of the World Evangelization Crusade and the Heart of Africa Mission, which worked in the Belgian Congo.Hudson Taylor’s publication, China’s Millions, achieved a circulation of 50,000 and helped put the mission in front of the public. The society suffered heavily in the nationalist Boxer Rebellion of 1898 to 1900. A total of 200 missionaries, many of them Roman Catholic, and 30,000 Chinese Christians lost their lives. CIM lost 58 missionaries and several children. Even with this tragic set-back, the CIM continued to be an influential group under its 2^nd director, Dixon Hoste, 1 of the Cambridge 7. In 1949 all missionary personnel were expelled by the Communists.Hudson Taylor is described by the eminent Church Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette as “1 of the 4 or 5 most influential foreigners who came to China in the 19^th C for any purpose, religious or secular.”

102-Back in the East – Part 1

This episode of CS is titled, Back in the East – Part 1In our last foray into the Church in the East, we stopped our review with the Mongols. You may remember while the Mongols started out generally favorable to Christianity, when later Mongol Khans became Muslims, they embarked on a campaign to eradicate the Gospel from their lands. That rang the death knell to The Church in the East, which for centuries boasted far more members and covered a wider area than the Western Church.And again, let me be clear to define our terms, when I speak of the Church in the East, I’m not referring to the Eastern Orthodox Church HQ’d in Constantinople; not the Greek Orthodox Church or it’s close cousin, the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church in the East was also known as the Nestorian Church and looked to the one-time Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius who was officially labeled a heretic, but who became the patriarch of a wide-ranging church movement that reached all the way to Japan.While today, Nestorianism is officially labelled a heresy in its view of the nature of Christ, it’s doubtful Nestorius taught that. Nor did The Church in the East believe it. The Nestorianism that bears the label “Heresy” is more a thing found in books than in the hearts and minds of the people who made up The Church in the East.In any case, the once vibrant Church in the East came to a virtual end with the Mongols. It wasn’t till the 16^th C that the Faith began a renewed mission to the East, and this time it was by a concerted effort of Europeans. It came because of the expansion of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the 16^th and 17^th Cs, then to Dutch, English, French and Danish traders in the 18^th and 19^th.Even before the Jesuit order was recognized by Rome, Ignatius Loyola was aware of the need for an able overseer of missions to the East. Though loath to lose his assistant, in 1540 Loyola sent his ablest lieutenant and close friend, Francis Xavier to the Portuguese colony of Goa in India. Xavier remains one of the greatest of all Christian missionaries. He possessed an immensely attractive personality and a Paul-like determination to preach the Gospel where Christ had not been named.Xavier moved from Goa to the fishermen of the Coromandel coast of India, where he baptized thousands and engaged in discipleship, though by his own admission his command of the language was marginal. He visited Sri Lanka from 1541–45, and Indonesia for 2 years before entering Japan in 1549. He established a Jesuit mission there and had a couple Christian books translated into the language. Exposure to Japan, with its, at that time, deep respect for all things Chinese, convinced him to do whatever it took to enter China. He was poised to do so when he died in 1552.Allesandro Valignano was born to Italian nobility and obtained a Doctor of Law degree at the University of Padua. But a profound religious experience we’d have to call a dramatic and genuine conversion, hijacked his previous career path and set him on mission. He became a Jesuit in 1566 because they were about the only ones doing missions at the time. He was appointed Visitor to Eastern Missions in 1573 and sailed to Goa from Lisbon in 1574.After a period of study in Macau, he came to the conclusion the Church was going about the task of spreading the faith to new people all wrong. He was determined to take the Gospel into China, but realized that meant he’d need to learn the language and customs. The Chinese were an ancient and proud race. They weren’t going to be wowed by relatively uneducated and backward Europeans, regardless of how superior they might think they were. Valignano knew learning Chinese would open a door for the Gospel.He vehemently opposed the conquistador approach to China and Japan both Portugal and Spain used in their conquest of the Philippines. He made 3 trips to Japan from 1578 to 1603. Like Francis Xavier, Valignano was convinced of China’s importance as a mission field but failed to make it there.That would be left for 2 other Jesuits who carefully followed his missions philosophy - Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci [Richie].Ricci and Ruggieri entered China in 1583. They and their successors earned the deep respect of the Chinese, not least for their mathematical and astronomical abilities but because of their high regard for Chinese culture.Ruggieri, a lawyer from Italy, worked with Ricci in Portuguese Macau before moving to the mainland. Together, they produced a Portuguese—Chinese dictionary, and Ruggieri later composed the first Chinese-Catholic catechism. He was proficient enough in the language to compose Chinese poetry.Ricci, an outstanding intellectual, mastered the Confucian classics and came to believe that the kind of grounding he’d received in the works of Thomas Aquinas and his use of Aristotle was compatible with the moral ideals set out by Confucius. Ricci’s work of 1603, titled The Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, adopted this approach in reaching the Chinese literati, among whom he was deeply admired. Ricci believed participation by Chinese Christians in ancestor rites did not compromise their faith.And yes: We’d probably disagree with him on that one.From 1600, Ricci was allowed to live in Beijing. His successors, like Ferdinand Verbiest and Schall von Bell, were also greatly admired by the Chinese and were given official positions by the first Q’ing emperor in the late 17^th C. They carried such influence, they were able to secure positions of honor for other missionaries.It’s a tragedy that after the influence of Valignano’s policy was followed through with such success by Ruggieri, Ricci and their fellow Jesuits, it was eventually overturned in Rome. The so-called Rites Controversy at the opening of the 18^th C, hinged on how far the honoring of ancestors was a civil versus a religious act. Rome ruled against Valignano’s position, saying Chinese Christians were engaging in superstitious and unbiblical acts. This led immediately to an alienation of the Jesuits and the loss of all the good-will they’d earned. Christianity became viewed as a religion of foreigners.The issues raised by the Rites dispute weren’t laid to rest until 1939, when Catholics were finally allowed to take part in ancestral veneration and the rites were accepted as mere civil demonstrations of honor, which had lost any of their earlier pagan associations.In India, another Jesuit apostle of accommodation, Robert de Nobili immersed himself in the philosophy and culture of Hinduism as a way to first understand, then build a bridge to the people of India to share the Gospel. Like Valignano, the Italian de Nobili was determined to detach himself from European models of Christianity and incarnationally manifest the Gospel in India. He succeeded and was able to see several high-caste Brahmins become Christians. But his methods raised controversy among his superiors and for a time he was forbidden to baptize.In Vietnam of the 17^th C, Jesuit pioneer Alexandre de Rhodes followed the same accomodationist policy and advocated ordaining national clergy to carry on the work of evangelism and church-planting. This was unheard of and got him into trouble with his superiors.The idea of the religious superiors was “You can lead people to faith all day long. But you can’t make them priests! Priests come from Europe, for goodness sake. Everyone knows that. I mean, just imagine what a nightmare you’re making if you start ordaining Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese as priests. I mean come on! Let’s not get carried away.”De Rhodes knew it was right to ordain nationals and disregarded the ban placed on him, eventually leading to his expulsion from the Jesuits. Nevertheless, by 1640, there were some 100,000 Vietnamese Christians.After Francis Xavier left Japan, it enjoyed a period of great progress. Valignano was deeply impressed with the quality of Christianity found there. By 1583 there were 200 churches and 150,000 Christians. In one town south of Kyoto, 8,000 were baptized in 1579.But there was a sharp change in attitude by Japanese political authorities later in the 16^th C due to a fiercely-resurgent nationalism. In 1614, all Jesuits were expelled. Persecution broke out for the 300,000 Japanese Christians in a population of 20 million. Christians were crucified in Nagasaki and there were more mass executions in 1622. The policy was pursued with great savagery between 1627-34 and resulted in many, what came to be known as ‘hidden Christians’, whom 19^th C missionaries found retained their knowledge of many of the symbols of the Christian faith, when Japan opened 2 Cs later. Despite the eventual persecution of Christians in Japan in the later 16^th and early 17^th Cs, Andrew Ross, a Protestant, judged the Jesuit mission in Japan to be the most successful approach to a sophisticated society since the conversion of the Roman Empire.We’ll continue our look at the Eastward Expansion of Christianity in the 16^th and 17^th Cs next time as we consider how the Dutch and English began to reach the East.

101-And to the South

This episode of CS is titled, “And to the South . . . ” -- We move aside now from our review of the Reformation in Europe to get caught up with what’s happening in Africa.In many, maybe most, popular treatments of Church history, the emphasis is on what’s going on in Europe. That’s what most church-based Christian history courses and many western colleges and seminaries focus on. We’ve already devoted several podcasts to the Church in Asia, both the Eastern or Greek Orthodox church, as well as what’s called “THE Church IN the East,” AKA the Syrian, sometimes and the Nestorian Church.We’ll soon jump the Atlantic to take a look at the Church in the New World. But before we do, we shift our attention south, to Africa.As we’ve seen, North Africa was one of the formative cradles of Christianity. That’s where Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, 3 of the great Latin Fathers of the Faith kicked it. The Church at Alexandria was 1 of the 4 main churches in the early centuries. Egypt was highly influential in defining what the Faith looked like throughout much of Christendom because of men like Antony and Pachomius; the “desert fathers.” Their strict asceticism is credited with forming the early picture of what popular, but not necessarily Biblical, holiness looked like and which framed the thinking of Christians for hundreds of years. It led in large part to monasticism.In this episode, we’ll track the course of Christianity as it made its way across the African continent.The genesis of Ethiopian Christianity rests in Acts 8 where a deacon in the Jerusalem church named Philip was used by God to lead an Ethiopian eunuch and royal treasurer to Faith in Christ. There’s no record of what impact this man had when he returned home, but the fact he made a special trip to Jerusalem in the 1^st C reinforces the idea that there was already a Jewish-influenced community in Ethiopia. Like so many of the Jews scattered around the world, meeting in local synagogues, these were prime candidates for the preaching of the Gospel because Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah. The Book of Acts shows us it was among God-fearing Gentiles who attended synagogues that the Gospel found it most receptive audience. So it’s likely when the Ethiopian eunuch returned home, he shared what he’d learned and a church was birthed. But not nurtured by apostolic leadership in Jerusalem, it went into decline. Before doing so, it may have left some seeds behind waiting for a later watering.The best record we have attaches the planting of the church in Ethiopia to a slave named Frumentius around ad 300. Frumentius was on a trading voyage when he was captured by pirates and sold to the king of Axum. He proved of such service to the king, he was granted his freedom 40 years later. He immediately went to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, telling him of Ethiopia’s need of missionary activity. Athanasius consecrated Frumentius as bishop of Axum. Thus began a long tradition, in which Ethiopian Orthodoxy looked to Alexandria and later, the Egyptian Coptic church to appoint its leaders. This continued all the up to 1959.Frumentius’s pioneering work was furthered by what are known as the Nine Saints from Syria who arrived about 150 years after Frumentius. Their work saw Ethiopia become a Christian kingdom. The government remained focused on a Christian monarch in several periods of upheaval thru the centuries, till the reign of Haile Selassie in the 20^th C.There are characteristics of Ethiopian Christianity that deserve notice. It was an extremely Jewish form of Christian tradition and for long periods observed a Saturday-Sabbath rather than Sunday as the day of worship. It shared with the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia a great respect for the history of King Solomon and his visitor, the Queen of Sheba. They bore a tenacious legend that, after their meeting, the Ark of the Covenant was removed from Jerusalem and taken to Ethiopia where it was stored in secret. Various reasons were given for this; most notably that as Solomon began his slide into apostasy, a faithful priest recognized the day would come when foreigners would destroy the temple. To preserve the ark, a duplicate was made, switched out with the real ark, which was then packed off for safe-keeping to Ethiopia. This led to the production of multitudes of miniature ‘arks’, called ‘tabot’, displayed in places of Christian worship. The Ethiopian account of the royal meeting between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is a document called the Kebra Nagast, which dates to the early 6^th C. Ethiopian Christians considered themselves Christian-Jews. They retain the practice of circumcision alongside baptism. Monarchs regard their dynasty as from Solomon. One of Haile Selassie’s titles was ‘Lion of Judah’.Like the Egyptian church it’s derived from, the Ethiopian church has a strong monastic tradition. The Nine Saints founded a number of communities around Axum; places like Dabra Damo, which lasted 1,000 years. Around 1270, the famous monastery Dabra Libanos became a center of renewal. Axum had a large, 5-aisled cathedral destroyed by Muslims in the 16^th C. At that point, the whole kingdom would have become permanently Muslim had it not been for Portuguese military assistance in a decisive battle of 1543.Much credit for the survival of the Ethiopian church goes to their ancient translation of the Bible into Ge’ez [Gee-ehz]; a musical worship tradition practiced by the laity. Over the centuries different Christian groups have rallied to their aid to assist them against oppressors. Despite their appreciation, the Ethiopian church has resisted attempts to align themselves with any outside group. Estimates are that the Ethiopian Orthodox church has about 45 million members today and is the majority religious group. The 12^th and 13^th C rock-cut churches of the Lalibela region still delight tourists with the uniqueness of their architecture and the improbability of their construction.The survival of the church in Ethiopia underlines the tragic fate of the Church next door in ancient Nubia, or what today we know as the Sudan. Nubia possessed a flourishing Christian kingdom from the 8^th to 12^th C. Centered at the capital of Khartoum, Nubian bishops, like their Ethiopian peers, were consecrated by the patriarch of Alexandria. When a Muslim king ascended the throne, it spelled the end of Nubian Christianity. Best evidence suggests the church in Nubia began as a mission sent out by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora in 543. By 580 the entire population were followers of Jesus. But by 1500, the entire region was Muslim and what had been a flourishing church disappeared. In the 1960s, prior to the flooding of northern Sudan for the Aswan dam, excavations revealed the rich remains of Nubian churches.Remember now back to your world history class in your freshman or sophomore year of High School à What ethnic and national group sailed down the west coast of Africa, looking for a way to get to the rich trading ports of the Indian Ocean?Right. The Portuguese. Their progress down the west coast of Africa resulted in trading centers at Elmina on the Gold Coast, modern day Ghana, in 1482 and expeditions up the River Zaire in 1483-7. An expedition in 1491 saw a local king named Mbanza Congo, baptized and renamed as Joao I [joe-ow], after the reigning Portuguese king Joao II; Joao is Portuguese for John.Following King Congo’s conversion, the Christianization of the region continued under his successor, King Mvemba Nzinga, renamed Afonso. He made Christianity the religion of the nobility, taking titles like ‘marquise’ from the Portuguese aristocracy. Afonso’s son, Henrique, was sent to Lisbon for education and was made a bishop in 1521. Unfortunately, he died not long after his return to Africa in 1530.King Afonso made regular appeals to the Portuguese for assistance in establishing the Christian faith from 1514 onwards. A Portuguese priest of the time left a vivid portrait of Afonso, still regarded in the Congo as the ‘Apostle of the Congo’. He was a skillful preacher who established a tradition of royal preaching. By all reports, this Congolese king was a genuine Billy Graham to his time and people.Now that’s a very Western-centric way to put it, isn’t it? IT would be just as accurate to say Billy Graham was an American King Afonso, or even better, an American Mvemba Nzinga.After Afonso’s death in 1543, the story of the Congo is one of missed opportunities. Though he made frequent appeals for missionaries to come and work in Africa, the contest between Spain and Portugal stalled their efforts. Since the Jesuits were international, they arrived in the capital of Sao Salvador and opened a seminary in 1624. A Congolese ambassador visited Pope Paul V in 1608, an event commemorated in a Vatican fresco.A minor order of the Franciscans called the Capuchins tried to carry on outreach to the Congo, but conditions were brutal and many died. By 1700, Christianity was fading from the region. It wasn’t until Baptist missionaries arrived in the 19^th C that things picked up once more.By the late 18^th C, the slave-trade from West Africa to the New World ran into the thousands. After the successful campaign for abolition led by William Wilberforce, with the help of a remarkable African in England, Olaudah Equiano, a British naval squadron patrolled the coast from 1807 searching for slavers. But the Portuguese still exported thousands across the Atlantic to the slave fields of Brazil, as the English had done to the sugar plantations of the West Indies by the notorious ‘middle passage.’Sierra Leone became a dumping ground for the British Navy’s spoils from captured slavers. The Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799, set to work providing relief and evangelism for ex-slaves. By 1860, 60,000 freed slaves were dropped off at Freetown. But uprooted from their tribal structures and unable to return to their homes, they were gradually settled in what in many cases became model Christian villages.Among the arrivals in Sierra Leone was a group of 1200 freed American slaves. These had organized themselves into 15 ships at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and arrived singing hymns as they came ashore with their Baptist, Methodist, and other pastors. In time, Methodist life was greatly strengthened by the arrival from England of Thomas Birch Freeman, the son of an African father and English mother. Being of African descent, Freeman was able to survive the West African climate, fatal for European missionaries, and gave long service in West Africa.Eventually, some of the repatriated Africans of Sierra Leone caught the vision of returning to their tribes with the Gospel. Among them was Samuel Crowther. Crowther had been liberated from a Portuguese slaver in 1821. He was one of the first students at the new missionary college at Fourah Bay. He became a missionary to his branch of the Yoruba tribe in the 1830s, at the same time translating books of the NT. Crowther was part of a growing trend in missions; that of planting indigenous churches that were self-supporting, self-governing ,and self-extending.Johannes van der Kemp helped found the Netherlands Missionary Society. A retired soldier, he became a doctor before arriving in Cape Town, South Africa in 1799. His arrival among the Boers was like a match lit to a powder-keg. The Boers were Dutch farmers of South Africa who tried to maintain their distance from the British and constant conflict with local tribes.Van der Kemp was brilliant and upset the conservative-minded Boers with his marriage to a Malagasy slave girl, to say nothing of his virulent opposition to slavery and the oppression of Africans. He immediately went to work bringing the Gospel to South Africans and showed a special care for those displaced by armed conflict.Arriving in Cape Town from England at this time was Robert Moffatt whose style of mission work was very different from that of the indigenous designs of Crowther and his European friends. Moffat’s philosophy of missions was more old-school. He built a mission compound which sought to preserve a little slice of England inside its fence. Africans were then invited to come TO the missionaries for preaching and teaching of a European-brand of Christianity. He gave 50 years to the mission north of the Orange River.This was where the famous Scottish missionary David Livingstone spent his first years after arriving in Africa. Livingstone married Moffat’s daughter Mary; and Moffatt guided Livingstone in his early years in the field.Livingstone became a physician in Glasgow in 1840 and arrived in Cape Town in 1841. His and Mary’s first child died in 1846. They lost another 4 years later. In 1852, Mary took their other children back to Scotland, but this proved a bad move. She moved in with David’s parents. >> In-laws, you know how it goes! Well, things didn’t go well and Mary began tipping the bottle in her loneliness. After Livingstone’s epic journeys of 1853–56 thru the interior of Africa and his triumphant reception back home, they were reunited. Mary accompanied him on his Zambezi expedition of 1858, but died. Livingstone’s eldest son, Robert, also died in 1864 as a soldier in the Union cause of the American Civil War. Though Scottish, Robert Livingstone joined the Union Army to help the cause of abolition; a value he learned from his courageous and monumentally giving father. As you know, David Livingstone was found by the explorer H.M. Stanley in 1871 and died in May 1873. His funeral, paid for by the British government, was held in Westminster Abbey on April 18, 1874, with 2 royal carriages for the family, who included Moffatt, 2 of Livingstone’s sons, and his daughter, to whom he’d been particularly close in his last years.Livingstone spent his first 11 years at the Moffatt mission-station but felt that style of mission work wasn’t effective. He conceived his plan of exploration, which took him west to the Loanda coast of Angola, then east to the mouth of the Zambezi.You’ve likely heard the story, true it turns out, that the Africans came to love Livingstone so intensely, because they knew he loved them so much, that when he died, they consented to allow his body to return to his native Scotland, but claimed his heart for Africa.While there were scattered attempts to take the Gospel into East Africa throughout the centuries, nothing ever really took hold. It wasn’t till Protestant missionaries of the 19^th C arrived that a consistent work began. Then the church began to grow in Kenya and Uganda. But Protestants weren’t the only ones bringing the Gospel to East Africa. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Algiers, Charles Lavigerie founded the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa, known as the White Fathers. A group arrived in Uganda in 1878. This brought a wave of conversions and an outbreak of violence between competing groups of Muslims, Catholics, and Anglicans. Infrequent but brutal atrocities moved the British to send in troops to quell the disturbances and the region became a British protectorate in 1893. The colonial period that followed was a time of mass response to Christianity in the country.

100-CS Anniversary

This is the 100^th episode of CS.Because this is something of a milestone for the podcast, we’re taking a break from our usual episodic fare for something different.For those listeners who subscribe only for the historical narrative, you’ll want to skip this one altogether because we won’t be looking at Church History at all in this episode. This Century mark for CS will be about the podcast itself.I need to make comment at this point. This recording is a revision of an original made some years ago. While the content is essentially the same, the original series used a sound bed under the material I decided after a while I didn’t like. There was also a lot of time-sensitive material and news in the original that no longer applied. So I began this revision of the podcast, cutting out all that.I thought about just cutting this episode altogether but remembered how many listeners said they appreciated the original.At one point on the CS Facebook page, I posted a question, asking who’d be interested in an episode that was a personal look at CS & the host. There were enough positive replies that made doing it reasonable.I remember listening to my first podcast years ago now; Mike Duncan’s stellar podcast, The History of Rome. About a dozen episodes in, I began to look for Duncan’s cryptic personal comments, rare as they were. Then as the series progressed, he’d share a few more details about himself. Though the content on Rome was sterling, it was those personal comments & his dry wit that kept me interested à & in an odd way, seemed to personalize the information so that it wasn’t just a dry academic pursuit. I suppose some prefer the personal element of a podcast be left out. But I suspect that’s the exception rather than the rule.So, this being a 100^th episode of CS, I thought we’d do a kind of history of Communio Sanctorum-History of the Christian Church.As I just said, my introduction to the amazing world of podcasting was listening to The History of Rome by Mike Duncan. I’m a bit of a nut for all things Roman and found his podcast on iTunes without much of a search. I even have a full set of Roman armor in my office. No – I do not dress up and do re-enactments.When I finished listening to The History of Rome, I wanted more, so I subscribed to Lars Brownworth’s Twelve Byzantine Emperors; another outstanding podcast. Next I decided to find something similar to Duncan’s podcast on Church History. By similar, I mean, short episodes of about 15 to 20 mins in length. That had proven perfect for listening while working out, doing yardwork, going for a run and so on. But my search for something in the Church History genre was unfruitful. What I found were long lectures delivered in college & seminary classrooms. And while the content was, I’m sure, solid, they tended to be rather dry and tedious.So, drawing inspiration from Duncan, who really did sound like a guy with a computer, a mic, and a love for his subject, I decided to give it a shot and do my own church history podcast. What it meant was that I was going to need to do what Duncan had done, and that was - read a lot and seek to cull the material from trusted sources.So, I got started and over the next couple years churned out a hundred episodes. It didn’t take long before I realized the early episodes were of poor audio quality. And as the narrative progressed, the timeline got jumbled and confused. That was probably inevitable for a noob like myself since the history of Christianity means following the Faith where ever it went. But I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the number of times the narrative jumped around. So I decided to stop at a hundred episodes and go back to redo the series to that point. As we slowed down a bit, the first version’s about 80 episodes became version 2’s 100. Not including a dozen episodes in the first version on the difference the Christian faith has made in World History & Modern Civilization. Those episodes became the upcoming “The Change” series.Some subscribers asked how far we’ll go in CS. The plan is to track Church History up to the dawn of the 21^st C. Then I’d like to go back and do some far more in-depth studies in certain moments, places, trends, and figures in the History of the Faith. These will be spotlight episodes that will drill down into a lot more depth on key chapters in the story.Here’s a little about your host for CS.As of this recording in February of 2021, I’m 65, blissfully married to Lynn for 41 years. We have 3 adult children and 4 grandchildren.My favorite era of history is the Roman Era, everything from the later Republic through Constantine. I’ve read a few dozen books on the subject and as I said, have a complete set of Roman armor. I once wore it while presenting the story of the resurrection from the perspective of the Centurion assigned the task of guarding Jesus’ tomb.I love backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains of CA, word-working in the garage, vacationing in Maui, working out at the gym, and reading in the backyard under the usually clear Southern CA skies.I’m lead pastor at Calvary Chapel in Oxnard, CA, a church I founded in 1982 along with David Guzik. Some of you may know David. He’s one of the finest Bible expositors on the planet. His Enduring Word online commentaries are featured in the Blue Letter Bible. Hundreds of thousands of pastors & Bible teachers all over the world refer to David’s commentaries in their sermon and study preparation. Look it up at EnduringWord.com.David and I co-pastored CC for 6 years, then he and his wife planted a CC church in a nearby community. They then moved to Siegen, German where they lead a Bible college for several years, returned to Santa Barbara to lead the CC there for several years. David now leads the Enduring Word ministry full-time.Calvary Chapel Oxnard, where I serve as lead pastor, is part of a voluntary association of like-minded churches that began in the late 60’s and the counter-cultural hippie movement in Southern California. Calvary Chapel is technically a non-denominational movement that unites churches around a core set of doctrinal and practical distinctives. If you’re interested, you can find us at calvaryoxnard.org.Our fellowship has about 1200 adults and a swarm of children. We have 3 Sunday services and a mid-week Bible study. The hallmark of CC is that we teach expositionally through the entire Bible, verse by verse. We’re now on our 5^th journey through. The pattern of teaching we follow is that I teach 1 to as many as 5 chs on Wednesday night, then on Sunday, we take a closer look at just a few verses from that same passage in more of a sermon format. We cover 2 OT books, then a NT book, then rotate back to the OT. And go through the entire Bible that way.For those interested in my education, I have a Masters in Ministry & 1 in Biblical Studies. My education in the realm of church history is, as I’ve shared in previous episodes, not something gleaned from formal education in a classroom. It’s born from a lot of reading and personal study. I’ve loved history since I was in junior high.The people of CCO know my passion for history because I use it a lot in teaching.Now for some more technical details that no one but maybe other podcasters, or those considering podcasting will find interesting. I’ll keep this brief so as not to boor the bejeebers out of 99% of you.I record in my office at church using a Blue Snowball USB microphone. The software is Audacity on a PC running Windows 10.I write the script, usually a little more than 4 pgs of 12 point Font means about a 15 min episode. Then I record into Audacity, go back and edit out the gaffs, then run a Compressor and Normalize effect. Once that’s done, I slap on the intro & outro. Export it as an MP3, then post it to the site.Some time back Lem Dees, a subscriber who’d become a friend, told me he does professional voice work and offered to assist any way he could. I asked him to record an intro and outro, which he graciously did. Thanks, Lem!The sanctorum.us website is hosted at Win at Web where webmaster Dade Ronan does an absolutely stellar job helping with all the tech stuff that I’m clueless about. Thanks, Dade!If you need a solid WordPress based web-service, check out Win At Web.comCS is a member of the History Podcasters Network. There are some excellent podcasts on the Network & I encourage anyone who loves history to check it out.CS is being translated into Spanish by Roberto Aguayo, pastor of CC Merida Centro. Many thanks to Roberto for the excellent job he’s doing.At its peak, when CS was posting regularly, we had about 45k subscribers. Not shabby for such an amateur effort. That’s dropped way off now since no new content’s been posted for a while.While CS began as a labor of love and was able to run without a request for support, things changed a while back when I had to move to a paid site. So we started a donation feature. All the content is still free to subscribers, but donations do help defray the cost of the service.Okay. Back to our regular fare next time.

99-In the Low Countries

This episode is titled “In the Low Countries.”Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxemburg are referred to as “the Low Countries.” The get this name because laying along the coast NW of Germany and NE of France, they are at or slightly below sea level. That and there’s not really much in the way of mountains. There are some low hills, but for the most part the region today called Benelux is pretty flat.During the Reformation, as in most of northern Europe, Protestantism in the low countries gained adherents early on. In 1523, in Antwerp, the first two Protestant martyrs were burned. From that point on, there’s solid evidence Protestantism made headway across the region. But the political situation there hitched the advance of Protestantism to a long and bitter struggle for independence.Near the mouth of the Rhine River, there was a region known as the Seventeen Provinces, in what today is the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. These territories were part of the holdings of the Hapsburgs. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was born and raised there. So he was well-liked by the people, and under his rule the Seventeen Provinces grew close -er. That is,c loser than they’d been before, but not in fact, close.Their political unity was fragile since each province had a unique identity, traditions, and ruling nobles. Cultural unity was lacking since the French-speaking south and Dutch-speaking north were at ever at odds. Then there was the problem of ecclesiastical complexity with bishops vying with one another other over who’s domain was the most prestigious.In 1555, Charles placed the Seventeen Provinces under the rule of his son Philip. He assumed the young man would continue his rule of slow-paced unification. But it was under Philip that what little unity there was cam apart. The low countries honored Charles because of his Flemish roots. Flemish was his mother-tongue. But Philip was raised in Spain. Both his language and outlook were Spanish. In 1556, having received the crown of Spain, he became Philip II, and made it clear his most important possession was the Iberian Peninsula. The Low Countries were put at the service of Spain and her interests. This provoked the resentment of the Seventeen Provinces, who resisted Philip’s efforts to complete their unification, and to treat it as part of the hereditary possessions of the Spanish crown.Even before the Reformation broke out in the Low Countries, there’d been a strong movement toward reform. This was the birthplace of the Brethren of the Common Life, and of the greatest of humanist reformers, Erasmus of Rotterdam. One of the major themes of the Brethren was the reading of Scripture in the native language of the people. So the Protestant Reformation found fertile ground in the Low Countries.It wasn’t long before Lutheran preachers entered the area, gaining large numbers of converts. Then the Anabaptists made headway. Last, there was an influx of Calvinist preachers from Geneva, France, and southern Germany. Eventually, these Calvinist preachers were most successful, and Calvinism became the main brand of Protestantism.That’s not to say the advance of the movement went without opposition. Charles V took strong measures against the spread of Protestantism there. He issued edicts against it, in particular against Anabaptists. The frequency with which these edicts followed one another is proof of their failure to stem the tide of Protestant conversions. Tens of thousands died for their faith. Leaders were burned, their followers beheaded, and many women were buried alive. But, in spite of such punishments, the Reformation continued its advance. Toward the end of Charles’s reign there was growing opposition to his religious policies. But Charles was a popular ruler, and many in Central Europe were convinced Protestants were heretics who deserved their punishment.Philip, on the other hand, never popular in the Low Countries, prompted even greater ill will through a combination of folly, stubbornness, and hypocrisy. When he returned to Spain and left the Provinces under the regency of his half-sister Margaret of Parma, he sought to strengthen her authority by quartering Spanish troops in the Low Countries. These troops were sustained financially by the locals. Clashes soon developed between the Spanish soldiers and the natives, who chafed under the presence of foreign troops. Since there was no war requiring their presence, the only possible explanation was that Philip doubted their loyalty. And if they were going to be assumed to be disloyal, why not actually BE disloyal?To this was added the appointment of new bishops given inquisitorial powers. But the locals said, “Wait! What? We’ve heard about the Spanish Inquisition. We do NOT want that here! NO way, NO How! Our King isn’t treating us like citizens; He’s treating us like the worst kind of enemy.”Philip and his regent Margaret paid no attention to their most loyal subjects. William, Prince of Orange, a close friend of Philip’s father, and the Count of Egmont, who’d given outstanding military service to Charles, were made members of the Council of State. But they were mere figureheads who were never consulted. Philip and Margaret took advice instead from a foreign advisor named Bishop Granvelle, whom the people of the Low Countries blamed for every injustice and humiliation they suffered. After repeated protests, the king recalled Granvelle. But it soon became clear Granvelle had really only carried out Philip’s instructions. Philip was to blame.The leaders of the Seventeen Provinces sent the Count of Egmont to Spain to carry their grievances to the King. Philip received him with honors and promised change. Egmont returned home, confident things would turn around. But when he opened the letter from the King to be read to the other leaders, it contradicted everything the king had promised. Philip had already sent Regent Margaret the decrees of the Counter Reformation Council of Trent. Protestantism was to be rejected. All who opposed them were to be executed.These orders caused massive unrest. The magistrates of the Seventeen Provinces had no mind to execute the vast number of their fellow citizens the king decreed should die. In response to Philip’s commands, hundreds of the nobility and joined in a petition to Margaret that such policies not be implemented. Margaret received them, and when she evidenced signs of an agitation so great her attendants feared she might have a seizure, one of her courtiers calmed her by calling the nobles “beggars.”That label captured the imagination of local patriots. If their oppressors thought them beggars, they’d bear that name proudly. The leather bag of a beggar became the symbol of rebellion. Under it the movement, until then limited to the nobility and merchant class, took root among the entire populace.Before coming to outright warfare, the movement took on a religious overtone. There were frequent outdoor meetings in which Protestantism and opposition to the authorities were preached under the protection of armed Beggars. In fear of greater disturbances if they didn’t allow them, Regent Margaret’s troops allowed these meetings. Then roving bands of iconoclasts invaded churches, overturned altars, and destroyed images and symbols of the Roman Church.Finally, the magistrates appealed to William of Orange. Thanks to his pleas, and those of his supporters, the violence dimmed, and the iconoclasts ceased their attacks. The Inquisition was suspended and a limited freedom of worship was permitted.But Philip was not the kind of ruler to be swayed by his subjects’ opposition. He loudly declared he had no desire to be a “lord of heretics.” Appealing to the old principle that there was no need to keep faith with the unfaithful he set about to re-assert control of those troublesome low countries. While promising to abide by the agreements reached in the Provinces and pardon the rebels, he raised an army with which to force his will on the Low Countries. William of Orange, aware of the king’s duplicity, advised his friends to join in armed resistance. They foolishly put their trust in the king’s promises while William followed his own advice and withdrew to Germany.The storm arrived quickly. Early in 1567, the duke of Alba invaded the low countries with an army of Spanish and Italian troops. The king gave him powers similar to Regent Margaret who became a figurehead. Alba was the true ruler. His mission was to obliterate all rebellion and heresy.Protestants were condemned for their heresy, and Catholics for not having been sufficiently firm in resisting heresy. Even to express doubt as to Alba’s authority was high treason. The same charge was brought against any who opposed the reorganization of the church, or declared the provinces had rights and privileges the king couldn’t overturn. So numerous were those put to death under these ordinances chroniclers of the time speak of the stench in the air, and of hundreds of bodies hanging from trees along the roads. The counts of Egmont and Horn were arrested and brought to trial. Since William of Orange was not available, Alba captured his 15-year-old son and sent him to Spain. William responded by investing all his financial resources in raising an army, mostly German, with which he invaded the Low Countries. But Alba defeated him repeatedly and, in retaliation, ordered the execution of Egmont and Horn.Alba was in full command of the situation when the rebels received support from an unexpected quarter. Orange granted licenses to privateers, in the hope they’d harass Alba’s communication and supply lines back to Spain. These pirate Beggars of the Sea achieved a measure of organization Philip’s naval forces couldn’t contain. Queen Elizabeth of England gave them support by allowing them to sell their booty in English ports. In a brilliant maneuver, the Sea-Beggars captured the city of Brill and, after that, their ongoing success made them a legend that inspired the patriots who resisted on land. Several cities declared themselves in favor of William of Orange, who once again invaded the provinces, this time with French support. But the French also were dealing in treachery, and William was approaching Brussels when he learned of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. That put an end to collaboration between Protestants and the French crown. Lacking funds and military support, William was forced to disband his mercenary troops.Alba’s vengeance was terrible. His armies took city after city, and repeatedly broke the terms of surrender. Prisoners were killed for no other reason than revenge, and several cities that had resisted were put to the torch. Women, children, and the elderly were indiscriminately killed along with the rebels. Soon every rebel stronghold was in Alba’s hands.It was only on the sea that the rebels remained strong. The Sea Beggars continually defeated the Spanish, at one point capturing their admiral. This made it difficult for Alba to receive supplies and funds. The Spanish troops began showing signs of mutiny. Tired of the long struggle, and bitter because Spain didn’t send the resources he required, Alba asked to be appointed elsewhere.The new Spanish general, Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens, had the wisdom to exploit the religious differences among the rebels. He sought a separate peace with the Catholics of the southern provinces, driving a wedge between them and the Protestants, who were more numerous in the north. Up to that point, the religious question was just a minor one among many in what was really a national rebellion against foreign rule. William of Orange, the leader of the uprising, was a liberal Catholic until his exile in Germany. Then in 1573 he declared himself a Calvinist. But Requesens’s policies underscored the religious element of the struggle, neutralizing the Catholic provinces of the south.The Protestant cause was desperate as its armies were repeatedly defeated. Its only hope was the Beggars of the Sea. The main crisis came at the Siege of Leiden. The important trade center declared itself for Protestantism. The Spanish surrounded it. An army sent by William of Orange to break the siege was defeated, and 2 of William’s brothers were killed. All was lost when William, whose enemies called him William the Sly, suggested that the dikes be opened, flooding the land around Leiden. This meant the destruction of many years of hard work, and the loss of a great deal of farmable land. But the citizens agreed. In spite of a shortage of food, the besieged continued their resistance during the four months it took the sea to reach Leiden. Riding in on the flood, the Sea Beggars also arrived, shouting they’d rather be Turkish than Popish. Lacking naval support, the Spanish were forced to abandon the siege.At that moment, Requesens died. His troops, having neither leader nor pay, mutinied, and set about sacking the cities of the Catholic south, which were easier prey than those of the Protestant north. This served to reunite the inhabitants of the Seventeen Provinces, who, in 1576, agreed to the Pacification of Ghent. This alliance among the provinces made it clear what was at stake was national freedom, not religious differences. The agreement was hailed by William of Orange, who’d repeatedly argued religious dogmatism and sectarian intolerance were an obstacle to the unity and freedom of the low countries.The next governor was Don Juan de Austria, an illegitimate son of Charles V, so half-brother of Philip II. Although he was one of the most admired military heroes in Christendom for his defeat of the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto, he was not allowed to enter Brussels until he’d agreed to the stipulations of the Pacification of Ghent. But Philip II would not give up the struggle. A new army was sent into the region, and once again the southern provinces abandoned the struggle. Then the northern provinces, against the advice of William of Orange, formed a separate league for the defense of their faith and freedom.The struggle dragged on for years. Though they were firmly in control of the south, the Spanish could not conquer the north. In 1580, Philip Il issued a proclamation promising a reward of 25,000 crowns and a title of nobility to anyone who would kill William the Sly. William and his supporters responded with a formal declaration of independence. Three years later, after several unsuccessful attempts, an assassin on a quest for the reward was able to kill William. And once again, Philip proved untrue to his promise, at first refusing to pay the reward, then paying only a portion of it.Philip hoped William’s death would put an end to the rebellion. But William’s nineteen year old son Maurice, proved to be a better general than his father, and led his troops in several victorious campaigns.In 1607, almost a decade after the death of Philip II, Spain decided her losses in the struggle weren’t worth the effort and cost of continuing the war, and a truce was signed. By then, the majority of the people in the northern provinces were Calvinist, and many in the north equated their faith with their nationalist loyalty, while the southern provinces remained Catholic. Eventually, religious, economic, and cultural differences led to the formation of three countries; the Netherlands, which were Protestant, and Belgium and Luxembourg, both Catholic.

98-Cracks

This episode is titled “Cracks.”One of the great concerns of the Roman Church at the outset of the Reformation was just how far it would go, not so much in terms of variance in Doctrines, although that also was a concern. What Rome worried over was just how many different groups the Faith would split into. After all, division wasn’t new. There’d already been a major break between East and West a half century before. In the East, the Church was already fragmented into dozens of groups across Central Asia.But up till the Reformation, the Western Church had managed to keep new and reform movements from splitting off. Most had eventually been subsumed back into the larger reach of the Church structure.The Reformation brought an end to that as now there were groups that defined themselves, not by the Roman Church, but by more local and national churches and movements. It didn’t take long till even some of the early Reformers began to worry about how far the break from Rome would go. The cracks that formed in the Church kept spreading, like a nick on a car windshield sends out just a tiny crack at first, but keeps spreading.The Reformation ended up spinning out dozens of groups; some big, many small.There were Lutherans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Swiss Brethren, dozens of Anabaptist groups, Mennonites, Hutterites, etc. etc. etc..In Episode 90, we touched briefly on the tragedy that struck at Munster when the Anabaptist movement strayed from its moorings in God’s Word and replaced it with the lunacy of a couple of its leaders who went way off the rails in an apocalyptic frenzy that ended up destroying the town.Munster became a cautionary tale for other Anabaptists and Reformers. The explanation given for the tragedy was Munster’s abandonment of the pacifism preached and practiced by other Anabaptists. Anabaptists regarded the Sermon on the Mount as their guiding ethic and said it could only be followed by a Faith that was committed to the practice of a love that resigned consequences to God’s hands.A leading figure among the Anabaptists was Menno Simons, a Dutch Catholic priest.Simons was moved to reconsider the rightness of infant baptism when he witnessed the martyrdom of an Anabaptist in 1531. Five years later, the same year the leaders of Munster were executed, Simons left his position as a parish priest and embraced Anabaptism. He joined a Dutch fellowship, where his followers came to be known as Mennonites.Although persecution was fierce, Menno survived and spent his time traveling through Northern German and Holland, preaching and encouraging his followers. He also wrote a large number of essays of which Foundations of the Christian Doctrine in 1539, became the most important.Menno was convinced pacifism was an essential part of true Christianity, and refused to have anything to do with Anabaptists of a revolutionary flavor. He also held that Christians ought not offer any oaths, and shouldn’t take occupations requiring them. But he maintained Christians should obey civil authorities, as long as they weren’t required to disobey the Lord.Menno preferred to baptize by pouring water over the head of adults who confessed their faith publicly. He said neither baptism nor communion confer grace, but rather are outward signs of what takes place inwardly between God and the believer. Mennonites also practiced foot-washing as a reminder of their call to humility and a life of service.Even though the Mennonites were so manifestly harmless, they were classed as subversive by many governments simply because they wouldn’t take oaths and as pacifists refused to join the military. Persecution scattered them throughout Eastern Europe and Western Russia.Many Mennonites eventually left for the New World where they were offered religious tolerance. In both Russia and North America they ran into trouble when the authorities expected them to serve in the military and they declined yet again. Though the US and several other countries eventually granted Mennonites an exemption from military service, before that exemption came, many Mennonites moved to South America where there were still places they could live in isolation. By the 20^th C, Mennonites were the main branch of the old Anabaptist movement of the 16^th C, and now they are highly-regarded for their determined pacifist stance and on-going acts of social service for the public good.As the Reformation carved up Europe into a seemingly hopeless hodge-podge of political and religious factions, different attempts were made to resolve the tensions, either by war, by treaty, or alliance.I have to say, the history of 16^th C Europe is a tangled mess. If we dive into the details, what you’ll hear are a lot of names and dates that’s the very kind of history reporting we want to avoid here. A part of me feels like we’re leaving out important information. Another part gives an anticipatory yawn at all the historical minutiae we’d have to cover. Things like The Peace of Nuremberg, The League and War of Schmalkalden, Philip of Hesse, Duke George of Saxony, Henry of Brunswick, Emperor Charles V staunchest ally in northern Germany.Hey, I can already hear the yawns out there.But there’s some interesting tidbits and moments scattered all through this that move me to say maybe we should dive into it.Like the fact that Philip of Hesse, leader of the League of Schmalkalden, got permission from Martin Luther, his protégé Philip Melanchthon, and Martin Bucer, the Reformer of Strasbourg to commit polygamy! Yes, you heard me right.Philip of Hesse’s marriage was a mess. He and his wife had not been together for years, but were still married. Philip wanted companionship and asked these three Reformation giants if he could quietly take another wife. They agreed, saying the Bible didn’t forbid polygamy, and that Philip could take a second wife without setting the first aside. But, they said, he needed to do it in secret, because while polygamy wasn’t a sin in the eyes of God, it was a crime in the eyes of man. So Philip married another woman, but was unable to keep it secret. When it became public, the scandal toppled Philip from his place at the head of the League of Schmalkalden and put the three Reformers in hot water.And that’s just one little vignette from this time. è Fun stuff.While the Lutherans and Catholics wrestled over the territories of Germany, further North in neighboring Scandinavia, Lutheranism was making inroads. In Germany, it was the nobility that embraced Protestantism as a lever to use against the predominantly Catholic monarch. In Scandinavia it was the opposite. There, monarchs took up the Reformation cause. Its triumph was theirs.At that time, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were technically a united kingdom. I say technically, because the king ruled only where he resided, in Denmark. His power in Norway was limited, and Sweden was virtually independent due to the powerful house of Sture who acted as regents. But even in Denmark, royal authority was limited by the fact the king was appointed by electors who managed to gain ever more power by cutting deals with the next would-be monarch.When the Reformation began in Germany, the Scandinavian throne was held by Christian II, who was married to Isabella, Emperor Charles V’s sister. The Swedes refused King Christian’s control of their land, so he appealed to his brother-in-law and to other European princes for support. Time for a royal smack-down of those uppity Swedish Stures!With a sizeable foreign force, Christian II moved into Sweden and had himself crowned at Stockholm. Although he’d vowed to spare the lives of his Swedish opponents, a few days after his coronation he ordered what’s known now as The Massacre of Stockholm, in which Sweden’s leading nobles and clerics were murdered.This engendered deep resentment in Sweden, Norway; even back home in Denmark. Lesser rulers feared that after destroying the Swedish nobility, Christian would turn on them. He claimed he only sought to free the people of Sweden from oppression by its aristocracy. But the treacherous means by which he’d done it and the now intense religious propaganda against him, quickly lost him any support he might have won.King Christian then tried to use the Reformation as a tool to advance his own political ends. The first Lutheran preachers had already made their way into Denmark, and people gave them a ready ear. People were savvy enough to recognize the King’s embrace of Lutheranism as merely a political ploy and reacted strongly against him.Rebellion broke out, and Christian was forced to flee. He returned eight years later with the support of several Catholic rulers from other parts of Europe. He landed in Norway and declared himself the champion of Catholicism. But his uncle and successor, Frederick I, defeated and imprisoned him. He remained in prison for the rest of his 27 years.Frederick I was a Protestant and ruled over a people and nobility which had become largely Protestant. At the time of his election, Frederick promised he’d not attack Catholicism nor use his authority to favor Lutheranism. He knew it was better to be the de-facto king of a small kingdom than the wanna-be ruler of a large one. So he gave up all claim to the Swedish crown, and allowed Norway to elect its own king.The Norwegians promptly turned around and elected him. Frederick consolidated the power of the crown in the two kingdoms in a peaceful manner. He kept his promises regarding religious matters and refused to interfere in Church matters. Protestantism made rapid gains. In 1527, it was officially recognized and granted toleration, and by the time of Frederick’s death in 1533 most of his subjects were Protestants.Then came a plot to impose a Catholic king by means of foreign intervention. The pretender was defeated, and the new ruler was Christian III, a committed Lutheran who’d been present at the Diet of Worms and greatly admired Luther both for his doctrines and courage. He took quick measures in support of Protestantism and in limiting the power of bishops. He requested teachers from Luther to help him in the work of reformation. Eventually, the entire Danish church subscribed to the Confession of Augsburg.Events in Sweden followed a similar course. When Christian II imposed his authority, among his prisoners was a young Swede by the name of Gustavus Erikson, better known as Vasa. He escaped and, from an overseas refuge, resisted Christian II’s power grab. When he learned of the Massacre of Stockholm, in which several of his relatives were executed, he secretly returned. Working as a common laborer, living among the people, he recognized their hostility toward the Danish occupation and organized a resistance. Deeming the time had come to up the ante, he proclaimed a national rebellion, took up arms with a band of followers, and managed to secure one victory after another. In 1521, the rebels named him the new regent of the kingdom, and, two years later, crowned him king. A few months later, he entered Stockholm in triumph.But Vasa’s title carried little authority since the nobility and clergy demanded their ancient rights be recognized. Vasa wisely embarked on a subtle policy of dividing his enemies. He began by placing limits on corrupt bishops no one had sympathy for. Then, he began to carve off the support of the common people for nobles who resisted him. This was easy to do since he’d adopted the life of a commoner for some time,. He was a man of the people and they knew it. Vasa drove an effective wedge between the nobility and the people. Then he called a National Assembly and shocked everyone by inviting not just the usual nobles and clergy, but some of the merchant-class and peasantry. When the clergy and nobility banded together to thwart Vasa’s reforms, he resigned, declaring Sweden wasn’t ready for a true king. Three days later, threatened by chaos, the Assembly agreed to recall him and give assent to his program.The higher clergy lost its political power and from then on, Lutheranism was on the rise. Gustavus Vasa was not himself a man of deep religious conviction. But by the time he died in 1560, Sweden was a thoroughly Protestant realm.One of the lessons this period of history in Europe makes clear is how influential even the nominal faith of a ruler has on the political and religious environment of a nation.

97-Wars of Religion

This episode is titled, “Wars of Religion”In our review of the Reformation, we began with a look at its roots and the long cry for reform heard in the Roman church. We saw its genesis in Germany with Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, its impact on Switzerland with Zwingli and later with the Frenchman John Calvin. John Knox carried it to his native Scotland and Thomas Cranmer led it in England.We’ve taken a look at the Roman Catholic response in what’s called the Counter-Reformation, but probably ought to be labelled the Catholic Reformation. We briefly considered the Council of Trent where the Roman Church affirmed its perspective on many of the issues raised by Protestants and for the first time, a clear line was drawn, marking the differences in doctrine between the two groups. We saw the Jesuits, the learned shock-troops of the Roman Church sent out on both mission and to counter the impact of the Reformation in the regions of Europe being swung toward the Protestant camp.Let’s talk a little more about the Catholic Counter-Reformation because Europe is about to plunge into several decades of war due to the differing religious affiliations of its various kingdoms.There were at least four ingredients in the Counter-Reformation.The first concerned the religious orders of the Catholic Church. There was a spiritual renewal within older orders like the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Benedictines. Reform among the Franciscans led to the founding of the Capuchins in 1528. Their energetic work among the Italian peasantry kept them loyal to Rome.Second, new orders sprang up. Groups like the Theatines [Thee a teen] who called both clergy and laity to a godly lifestyle. The Ursulines [Ursa-leens] were an order for women who cared for the sick and poor. And then of course, there were the Jesuits.The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, were the most important of the new orders. Founded in Paris in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, the order required total obedience of its members for the furtherance of the interests of the Roman church. While there were good and godly Jesuits, men who worked tirelessly to expand the Kingdom of God, there were also some whose motives were less noble. Okay, let’s be frank; they were diabolical. Utterly unscrupulous in their methods, they believed it was permissible to do evil if good came of it. They resurrected the Inquisition in the 16^th C making it an effective tool in stomping out the Reformation in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium.Jesuits infiltrated government offices and used every means fair or foul to advance the cause of the Rome. Lest Catholic listeners take offense to this, understand that their power became so great and their methods so immoral, the Pope suppressed the order from 1773 to 1814.Also, it should be noted when Ignatius launched the Society, a counterattack on the Reformation was not in view. His ambition was missionary with a keen desire to convert Muslims. The three major goals of the Jesuits were to convert pagans, combat heresy, and promote education. It was their solemn oath to obey the Pope that led to their being used as a tool of the Counter-Reformation.A third aspect of the Counter-Reformation was the Council of Trent. The cardinals elected a Dutch theologian as a reform pope in 1522. He admitted that the problems Rome had with the Lutherans came because of the corruption of the Church, from the papal office down. As was saw a couple episodes ago, in 1536, Pope Paul III appointed a special panel of cardinals to prepare a report on the condition of the Church. That report gave Luther much ammunition for his critique of Rome. It conceded that Protestantism resulted from the “ambition, avarice, and cupidity” of Catholic bishops.The Roman Church realized it needed to address the issues raised by the Reformers. The Council of Trent was the answer. It met in three main sessions, under the terms of three different popes, from 1545 to 63. Participants came from Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. The Council decided a wide array of issues.In direct response to Lutheran challenges, the Council abolished indulgence-sellers, defined obligations of the clergy, regulated the use of relics, and ordered the restructuring of bishops.The doctrinal work of Trent is summarized in the Tridentine Profession of Faith, which championed Roman Catholic dogma and provided a theological response to Protestants. Trent rejected justification by faith alone and promoted the necessity of meritorious works as necessary for salvation. It validated the seven sacraments as bestowing merit on believers and their necessity for salvation. It affirmed the value of tradition as a basis of authority alongside the Bible. It approved the canonicity of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament; made official the existence of purgatory; the value of images, relics, indulgences, the invocation of saints; and the importance of confession to a priest. It also defined more specifically the sacrificial aspects of the mass and decided that only the bread should be distributed to the laity.The Tridentine statement made reconciliation with Protestantism impossible.The Council’s work constituted a statement of faith by which true Roman Catholics could determine their orthodoxy. No such comprehensive statement existed before. If it had, perhaps the force of the Reformation would have been blunted in some places. What the Council of Trent did, in effect, was to make official dogmas of the Church the various positions Luther had challenged in his break with Rome.A fourth aspect of the Counter-Reformation was a new and vigorous kind of spirituality that bloomed in a remarkable series of writings and movements. Some devotional books from this movement, such as the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’Kempis and the Spiritual Exercises by Loyola, have received proper attention, but most of have not.This new kind of devout life was characterized by a systemic examination of conscience, prayer, contemplation, and spiritual direction. Its roots lay in the Middle Ages with groups like the Carthusians, who put great emphasis on the contemplative life. It was these works that fueled the calls for reform in the Roman Church before Luther arrived on the scene. They were the reading material of groups like the Brethren of the Common Life and The Oratory of Divine Love which provided many of the best church leaders in the years leading up to the 16^th C.The Reformation sparked a series of religious wars across Europe. The last of these was the Thirty Years’ War, which last from 1618–48.As we saw in a previous episode, the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 put Lutheranism on a legal basis with Roman Catholicism in Germany. The prince of a region determined the religion in his territory; dissenters could immigrate to another territory if they wanted to.Now, that may seem obvious to highly mobile moderns like many listening to this, but it wasn’t for people at that time. Due to feudal rules, people weren’t allowed to move without consent of their ruler. The Peace of Augsburg marked a significant change in commoners’ mobility. To preserve Catholic domination of southern Germany, the agreement mandated that Catholic rulers who became Lutherans had to surrender rule. The agreement left out Calvinists, Anabaptists, and other Protestants. So for many, Augsburg solved nothing.Beginning in Bohemia, the Thirty Years’ War ravaged Central Europe and Germany and involved all the major European powers. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war in 1648, resulted from long and complicated negotiations. France and Sweden gained large amounts of territory, and German princes gained greater power and influence at the expense of the Emperor. The treaty finally recognized Calvinism, along with Lutheranism and Catholicism, as legal religions and permitted each ruler to determine the religion of his state.The effects of the War were devastating for Christianity as a whole. Religious issues were increasingly treated with indifference by political leaders. Secular, self-serving matters were now the chief concerns of the growing uber-worldly nation-states. The barbarity and brutality of the war left many questioning the Christian Message. How could a Faith that produced such atrocities be true? Doctrine took a backseat to doubt. Faith was met with skepticism. All this coming at the dawn of, and no doubt hastening, The Age of Reason.In reply to those who criticize Christianity for the wars fought at that time, it ought to be recognized that in every case; political, economic, and social considerations were as important as the religious, if not more. Much of the time, there was no real struggle between Roman Catholics and Protestants. And on some fronts of the war, BOTH Catholics and Protestants fought alongside each other as comrades because their conflict was political rather than religious. We call this period the “Wars of Religion,” but in truth it was rarely religion that sparked or drove the conflict; it was political and economic, hiding behind a mask of religion because that tends to stir the people actually doing the fighting better than some prince wanting more land.Nine times out of ten, if you want to know the real cause of something, follow the money.We turn now to the impact of the Reformation on France and one example of how tragic things can turn – ostensibly, because of religion, but really because of politics.As the 16^th C wore on, the Roman church in France fell into a progressively deplorable condition. The Concordat of Bologna in 1516 gave King Francis I the right to appoint the ten archbishops, thirty-eight bishops, and 527 heads of religious houses in France. That meant the Church became part of a vast patronage system, and individuals won positions in the Church not for ability or religious zeal but for service to the crown. Simony & bribery was de-rigor.Conditions became genuinely bad. Literacy among priests dropped to a mere ten-percent. Since the king was head of the French Church, and he depended on its patronage system for income, we see why Francis I and Henry II were so zealous in their persecution of French Protestants. They couldn’t afford to permit the system to crumble. They certainly weren’t zealous for Catholicism except as a tool to achieve their political ambitions.The French Protestant movement was stoked by what was happening in Geneva in Switzerland under Farel and Calvin. The French Bible, Calvin’s Institutes, and numerous other Protestant publications fueled the movement. So naturally, the most literate element of the population was won over. Converts were numerous at the universities and among lawyers and other professionals, the merchant class and artisans, lower clergy, friars, and the lesser nobility. The illiterate peasantry was hardly touched and remained firmly Catholic.Politics and economics played into the mix. The Middle-class and lower nobility of France were tired of King Francis’ imperial ambitions, funded on their backs. They were urged into the Protestant cause out of a desire to get rid of the King. It’s estimated that two-fifths of all nobles joined the French Protestant cause. Few of them were authentically converted but sought to use the Protestant movement to weaken the trend toward King Francis’ oppressive version of royal absolutism.In spite of persecution, Protestants increased rapidly. At the beginning of the reign of Henry II in 1547 they numbered over 400,000. By the end of his reign in 1561 they were known as Huguenots and numbered 2 million; ten-percent of the population. The Presbyterian system of church government gave organization and discipline to the Huguenot movement.In order to understand the course of events the French Reformation took and see why it became embroiled in civil war, it’s necessary to look at the political and social conditions of the times.First, that many of the younger nobility joined Protestant ranks is of great significance. Accustomed to carrying swords, they became protectors of Huguenot congregations during troubled times. They often protected church meetings against hostile bands of Catholic ruffians.Second, and this is key; there were four major groups of nobility vying for the rule in France.The ruling house with a tenuous grip on the throne was the Valois.The Bourbons of Western France were next in line should the Valois falter. Their leadership were decided Huguenots.The powerful Guises [Guy-zuhz], were equally committed Roman Catholics with extensive holdings in the East.The Montmorencys controlled the center of France; their leadership divided evenly between Huguenots and Catholics.Third, when Henry II died, he left three sons all dominated by his queen, Catherine de Medici. She was determined to maintain personal control and advance the power of her government. She was opposed by many of the nobility jealous of their rights and wanted to restrict the power of the monarchy.Fourth, as the likelihood of civil war in France percolated, the English and Spanish sent aid to their factions to serve their respective interests.Such animosities provided the tinder to ignite armed conflict. Eight wars were fought between Roman Catholics and Protestants in France. Leading the Protestants early in the conflict was Gaspard de Coligny. But he lost his life along with some 15 to 20,000 Huguenots in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, in August, 1572. After that, Henry of Navarre, of the Bourbon family, led the Protestants. His maneuvers were successful, and eventually, with the death of others in the royal line, he became heir to the French throne. Because he didn’t have enough strength to complete his conquest, he converted to Catholicism and won the crown as Henry IV. Judging from his conduct, Henry’s religious principles sat his shoulders rather lightly. His switch to the Roman Church was for purely political reasons. Most likely he simply sought to turn off the blood bath drenching France.In 1598, Henry published the Edict of Nantes, a grant of toleration for the Huguenots. It guaranteed them the right to hold public office, freedom of worship in most areas of France, the privilege of educating their children in other than Roman Catholic schools, and free access to universities and hospitals. The edict was the first significant recognition of the rights of a religious minority in an otherwise intolerant age. Though the Huguenots enjoyed a period of great prosperity after that, King Louis XIV revoked the edict in 1685. Thousands were driven into exile, to the benefit of England, Holland, Prussia, and America where they fled for refuge.

96-English Candles

This episode of CS is titled is titled “English Candles.”We’ve spent the last several episodes looking at the Reformation & Counter-Reformation in Europe. In this episode we’ll take a look at how the Reformation unfolded, specifically in England.The story of the Church in England is an interesting one. The famous, or infamous, Henry the VIII was king of England when Luther set fire to the kindling of the Reformation. Posturing as a bulwark of Catholic orthodoxy, Henry wrote a refutation of Luther’s position in 1521 titled “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” and was rewarded by Pope Leo X with the august title, Defender of the Faith. Ironic then that only about a decade later, Henry would hijack the church, officially ousting the Pope as head of the Church IN England and making himself head of the Church OF England.What makes the story of these years in England so interesting is the marital & political shenanigans Henry VIII played. The intrigues played out for the thrones of Spain, France & England all make for the best drama and most people don’t realize that so many of the famous names of history all lived right at this time and knew each other, at least by reputation. If the story was a movie dreamed up in Hollywood, most would consider it too far-fetched.Without getting into the minutiae of the details of Henry’s multiple marriages, it was his lust for power & desire to produce a son & heir that motivated him marry, divorce, re-marry and do it all over again. Henry persuaded the Pope to allow him to marry his sister-in-law, that is, his dead brother’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, herself the daughter of Queen Isabella & King Ferdinand of Spain, sponsors of Christopher Columbus. Catherine gave Henry a daughter named Mary but no sons. So Henry put her aside and married his mistress, the vivacious & opinionated Anne Boleyn.In order to set Catherine aside so he could wed Anne, Henry had to persuade the Pope, who had taken some persuading to allow him to marry Catherine in the first place, to annul that marriage, saying he ought never have been allowed to marry her in the first place. The archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was employed by Henry to put pressure on Rome to grant the annulment. But Pope Clement VII wouldn’t budge. So in 1531, Henry announced to the clergy they were from then on to look to him as the head of the Church in England. It’s at that point we may say that the Church IN England, became the Church OF England.For the next few years, there was effectively little difference between Roman Catholicism and what later came to be called Anglicanism. But under Thomas Cranmer’s guidance, the Church of England began a halting process of departure from its Roman past.It seems this departure can be assigned in part to Anne Boleyn. A woman of astute intellect & firm convictions, she found much merit in the Reformed position and had a hand in seeing Thomas Cranmer appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury.Cranmer is an interesting figure. He seems in his early years to vacillate in his opinions and comes off as being anything but the stalwart bulldog of protestant ideals, as a Luther or Calvin. Yet, he went to the stake at the end of his life rather than recant his most dearly held beliefs. And what he did in the Church of England was truly remarkable.Once the break with Rome came, Cranmer quietly set about to install the Reformation ideas of Calvin in England. He didn’t really do much while Henry VIII sat the throne but as soon as his reform-minded son Edward became king, he went to work in earnest.Cranmer was born in Nottinghamshire and attended Cambridge, where he was ordained a priest. He threw himself into his studies, becoming an outstanding theologian, a man of immense, though not original, learning. In 1520, he joined other scholars who met regularly to discuss Luther’s theological revolt in Europe.Cranmer’s theological leanings remained merely academic until he was drawn into the politics of the day. In August 1529, King Henry VIII happened to be in a neighborhood Cranmer was visiting, and he ended up conversing with the king. Henry was trying to figure out how to divorce Catherine so he could wed Anne Boleyn. Impressed with Cranmer’s reasoning, Henry commanded Cranmer to write a treatise backing the king’s right to divorce and then made Cranmer one of his European ambassadors.It was in this capacity that Cranmer made a trip to Germany, where he met the Lutheran reformer Andreas Osiander, and his niece, Margaret. Both Osiander’s theology and niece so appealed to Cranmer, despite his vow to celibacy, he married Margaret in 1532. Because of the complex political situation in England, he kept this a secret.In August 1532, the aged archbishop of Canterbury died, and by March of the next year, Cranmer was consecrated as the new archbishop. Cranmer immediately declared the king’s marriage to Catherine void & the king’s previously secret union w/Anne Boleyn valid.Cranmer advocated the policy of royal absolutism, or what is popularly known as The Divine Right of Kings. Cranmer said his primary duty was to obey the king, God’s chosen, to lead his nation and Church. Time and again in Henry’s rocky reign, Cranmer was ordered to support religious policies of which he personally disapproved, and he always obeyed the king. And for this, Cranmer has been labeled a vacillator, a waffler – a leader of uncertain loyalty and fidelity to the Lord. Let’s hold off judging that judgment till we see his end.In 1536, he became convinced, he said, by questionable evidence, that Anne had committed adultery, and he invalidated the marriage. In 1540, he ruled Henry’s proposed marriage to Anne of Cleves was lawful—and when Henry sought a divorce from her just 6 months later, Cranmer approved it on the grounds the original marriage was unlawful!We’d be wise to be careful of assigning the archbishop the title of lackey. Yes, his flip-flopping on Henry’s marital life is distressing, but given what we know about the King, what would have happened if he’d opposed his wishes? He’d have quickly been shorted by about 9 inches and Henry would have appointed a replacement bishop who gave him what he wanted. Cranmer had important work to do in reforming the Church of England and understood he was uniquely positioned to do it. Yeah, Henry VIII was a piece of work. But Cranmer was installing reforms in the Church that would make sure future kings couldn’t get away with what Henry was getting away with. Though he bent to the king’s will regarding his marital state, time and again, Cranmer alone of all Henry’s advisers pleaded for the lives of people who fell out of royal favor, like Sir Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, and Thomas Cromwell. He even publicly argued against Henry’s Six Articles, which were aimed at moving England back into the Roman Church. Then, in an apparent sign of weakness, when the Six Articles were approved by Parliament, he went along with the king’s policies. But again. What else could he do?Some would say he ought to have stood strong, like Luther at the Diet of Worms. But if he had, it’s debatable if the Church of England would have become the Anglican Church. And lest we assume that Henry was just an tyrannical spoiled brat who happened to be king, he intervened on Cranmer behalf when court politics threatened the archbishop’s position and life. It was Cranmer Henry asked for on his deathbed.With Henry’s death & his sons Edward VI ascension to the throne in 1547, Cranmer’s time arrived. The young king’s guardian, Edward Seymour, began to make the Church of England determinedly Protestant. Cranmer took the chief role in directing doctrinal matters. He published his Homilies In 1547, which required all clergy to preach sermons emphasizing Reformed doctrine. He composed the first Book of Common Prayer which was only moderately Protestant, in 1549, then followed it up in 1552 by a 2^nd edition that was more clearly Protestant. Cranmer also produced the Forty-Two Articles a year later. This was a set of doctrinal statements that moved the Church of England even further in a Reformed, and I mean Calvinist direction.These documents became critical to the formation of Anglicanism, and the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), though revised over the years, still retains Cranmer’s distinctive stamp and is used by millions of Anglicans worldwide.When Edward VI died in 1553, Cranmer supported his cousin, the Lady Jane Grey as the new sovereign. She was even more reform minded than Edward had been. While monarch, Edward had changed the rules of succession to ensure she’d receive the crown, and his older half-sister Mary Tudor, as the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, a staunch Roman Catholic, from gaining the throne. But Lady Jane Grey was deposed in only 9 days, and Mary triumphantly entered London.Parliament immediately repealed Henry VIII and Edward VI acts and reintroduced the pro-Catholic heresy laws. Mary’s government began a relentless campaign against Protestants. Cranmer was charged with treason and imprisoned in November 1553. After spending nearly 2 years in prison, Cranmer was subjected to a long, tedious trial. The foregone verdict was reached in February 1556, and in a ceremony carefully designed to humiliate him, Cranmer was degraded from his church offices and handed over to be burned at the stake. He was just one of thousands of Protestants to know Queen Mary’s fury, earning her the title Bloody Mary.Cranmer’s long imprisonment and harsh treatment combined to weaken his resolve. Hoping to avoid the stake, he became convinced he should submit to a Catholic ruler and repudiate his reforms. He signed a document that said, “I confess and believe in one, holy, catholic visible church; I recognize as its supreme head upon earth the bishop of Rome, pope and vicar of Christ, to whom all the faithful are bound subject.”Even with this confession in hand, the Royal Court & Parliament believed Cranmer had to be punished for the havoc he’d wreaked on the Church. The plan was still to burn him at the stake—but he’d be allowed to make one more profession of his Catholic faith and so redeem his soul though his body would perish in the flames.On the night before his execution, Thomas Cranmer was seated in an Oxford cell before a plain wooden desk, weary from months of trial, interrogation, and imprisonment, trying to make sense of his life. Before him lay the speech he was to give the next morning, a speech that repudiated his writings that had denied Catholic teaching. Also before him was another speech, in which he declared the pope “Christ’s enemy and antichrist.”Which would he give on the morrow?The next morning he was led into a church, and when it was his turn to speak, he drew out a piece of paper and began to read. He thanked the people for their prayers, then said, “I come to the great thing that troubles my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life.” Referring to the recantations he had signed, he blurted out, “All such bills which I have written or signed with my own hand are untrue.”Loud murmurs sped through the congregation, but Cranmer continued, “And as for the pope, I refuse him as Christ’s enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine. And as for the sacrament—” But no more words were heard by the crowd because Cranmer was dragged from the stage out to the stake. The fire was kindled and quickly the flame leapt up. Cranmer stretched out his right hand, the one who’d written the previous recantation, into the flame and held it there as he said, “This hand has offended.” He died with the words of many of the martyrs, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”Within just 2 years, Elizabeth I ascended the English throne and moved the church back in a Protestant direction, revising Cranmer’s 42 Articles to 39, and adopting his Book of Common Prayer as the guide to worship. Today Anglicanism & its New World counterpart in Episcopalianism, is the expression of faith for 50 million worldwide.^[1]As we end this episode, I want to mention 2 more who lost their lives in Bloody Mary’s purge; Nicolas Ridley & Hugh Latimer.Ridley was Thomas Cranmer’s chaplain when Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury. He eventually became the bishop of London. He helped Cranmer write the Book of Common Prayer. Ridley was instrumental in altering the interior of the churches of England. He replaced the stone altars with simple wooden tables for the serving of Communion. He shifted the work of priests from sacramental & sacerdotal work inside the church to pastoral work outside it.Hugh Latimer started out as a passionate preacher of Catholicism. When he received a degree in theology in 1524, he delivered a lecture assailing the German Lutheran heir to Luther’s legacy, Philip Melanchthon, for his high view of Scripture.Among Latimer’s listeners was Thomas Bilney, leader of the Protestants at Cambridge. After the lecture, Bilney asked Latimer to hear his confession. Believing his lecture had converted the evangelical, Latimer readily agreed. The “confession,” however, was a stealthily worded sermon on the comfort and confidence the Scriptures can bring. Latimer was moved to tears, and to Protestantism.Latimer’s sermons then targeted Catholicism and social injustice. He preached boldly, daring in 1530 to give a sermon before King Henry VIII that denounced violence as a means of protecting God’s Word. For this he won the king’s respect.He became one of Henry’s chief advisers after the king’s break with Rome. Appointed bishop of Worcester, he supported Henry’s dissolution of the monasteries. However, when he opposed the Henry’s retreat from Protestantism in the Six Articles, he was put under house arrest for 6 years.Freed during the reign of Edward VI, he flourished as one of the Church of England’s leading preachers. But with the ascension of Mary, he was again imprisoned, tried, and along with Ridley & Cranmer, condemned to death.According to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Ridley arrived at the field of execution first. When Latimer arrived, the 2 embraced and Ridley said, “Be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.” They both knelt and prayed before listening to an exhortation from a preacher, as was the custom before an execution for heresy.A blacksmith wrapped an iron chain around the waists of Ridley and Latimer. When the wood was lit, Latimer said, “Be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”As the fire rose Latimer cried out, “O Father of heaven, receive my soul!” and he died almost immediately. Ridley however, hung on, with most of his lower body having burned before he passed from this earth into Heaven’s waiti ng arms.^[2]^[1] Galli, M., & Olsen, T. (2000). 131 Christians everyone should know (372–374). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.^[2] ibid

95-Point Counter-Point

This episode is titled Point – Counter Point and details The Catholic Reformation.We’ve spent the last several episodes considering the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th C. The tendency is to assume the Roman Church just dug in its heels in obdurate opposition to the Protestants. While the 17^th C will indeed see much blood shed between the religious factions of Europe, it would be wrong to assume the Roman Church of the early decades of the Reformation was immediately adversarial. Don’t forget that all the early Reformers were members of and usually priests in the Roman Church. And reform was something many had called for a long time prior to Luther’s break. The Conciliar Movement we talked about some episodes back was an attempt at reform, at least of the hierarchy of the church, if not some of its doctrine. Spain was a center of the call for Reform within the church. But Luther’s rift with Rome, and the floodgate it opened put the Roman Church on the defensive and caused it to respond aggressively. That response was what’s called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. But that title can be misleading if one assumes the Catholic Church became only more hide-bound in reaction to the Protestants. Several important reforms were made in the way the Church was run. And Protestant theology urged Catholic theologians to tighten up some of theirs.I like the way one historian describes the 16^th C in Europe. If the 16^th C was likened to a football game, with every 25 years representing a quarter, by the end of the 1^st quarter, the Protestants were winning 7 to 0.By halftime, it was Protestants 35, Roman Catholics 7By the end of the 3^rd quarter its 42-35 in favor of the Protestants.But by the end of the game, it’s 42 to 45 in favor of the Catholics.I apologize to our European listeners who find American Football a mystery. Don’t worry, many Americans do as well.The point is—Protestants had some quick gains, but by the end of the 16^th C, largely because of the Jesuits, the Roman Church had recouped many of its losses and had gone on to a revitalized church and faith.When Rome realized the seriousness of the Protestant challenge, it mobilized its spiritual warriors = The Society of Jesus, better knowns as the Jesuits. They convened a new and militant council and reformed the machinery of Church Hierarchy. Faced with the rebellion of half of Europe, Catholicism rolled back the tide of Protestantism until by the end of the 16^th C it was limited to the northern third of Europe.Well before Luther posted his theses on Wittenberg’s castle-church door, an aristocratic group at Rome had formed a pious brotherhood called the Oratory of Divine Love. They had a vision for reformation of both Church and Society but one that began within the individual soul.The Oratory was never larger than fifty members, yet had huge influence. It provoked reform in the old monastic orders and contributed leaders to the Church of Rome as it laid plans for a general council to deal with internal reform and the emerging Protestant movement. Among the members of the Oratory who later emerged as significant figures were Sadoleto, who debated with Calvin; Reginald Pole, who tried under Bloody Mary to turn England back to Rome; and Pietro Caraffa, who became Pope Paul IV.But throughout the 1520s and 30s, when the Protestants were making their most rapid advancements, the Catholic Church took no real steps toward reform. The reason was political. The changes that needed to be made had to be settled in a Council and Emperor Charles V and popes fought a running battle over the calling of that Council. The feud lasted twenty years. They couldn’t agree on where it was to be held, who would be invited, nor what the agenda would be. All these had far-reaching consequence. So the Council was never called; and the reforms it might have adopted were delayed.There were all kinds of other intrigues between the Emperor and Popes as Charles waged war with what were supposed to be Catholic kings and rulers beholden to the Pope. At one point, Charles ordered his troops to march on Rome. In May 1527, when their commanders were killed, Spanish and German mercenaries stormed Rome and pillaged, plundered, and murdered for weeks. The pope took refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo, but finally had to surrender and endure half a year of imprisonment. Many saw this sack of Rome as evidence of how out of hand things had gotten. They took it as a manifestation of divine judgment, enhancing the need and call for reform.Reform came with the arrival of Pope Paul III in 1534. He was a most unlikely candidate for spiritual leadership. He had four children. But the sack of Rome sobered him. He realized time had come for reform to begin in the House of God. He started where he felt a change of heart was most urgently needed, in the College of Cardinals. He appointed a number of advocates for reform. Among them, leaders of the Oratory of Divine Love. Pope Paul then appointed nine of the new cardinals to a commission on reform. The head of the commission promoted an agenda that included reconciliation with the Protestants and a return to the faith of the Apostles; radical ideas indeed!In 1537, after a wide-ranging study of conditions in the Church of Rome, the commission issued its official report. Titled, Advice … Concerning the Reform of the Church, it said disorder in the Church could be traced directly to the need for reform. The papal office was far too worldly. Both popes and cardinals needed to give more attention to spiritual matters and stop dabbling in secular pursuits. Bribery in high places, abuses of indulgences, evasion of church law, prostitution in Rome, these and other offenses must cease.Pope Paul took action on several of the recommendations in the report, but his most significant response was a call for a General Council of the Church. After intense negotiations he agreed with Emperor Charles V on a location for the assembly, a town in northern Italy under imperial control called Trent.Even then, however, no Council assembled for years, because King Francis I of France did everything he could to prevent it. In his lust for control of Europe, Francis feared a council would strengthen Charles’s hand. He even incited the Turks against the Emperor. Two wars between Francis and Charles delayed the opening of a Council until 1545, almost three decades after Luther’s hammer sounded on Wittenberg’s door.By 1545, reform at Rome was on the rise. Pope Paul’s new rigor was apparent in the institution of the Roman Inquisition and an official Index of Prohibited Books—works that any Catholic risked eternal damnation by reading. All the books of the Reformers were listed, as well as Protestant Bibles. For many years in Spain, merely possessing one of the banned books was punishable by death. The Index was kept up to date until 1959 and was finally abolished by Pope Paul VI.In Catholic Spain, reform preceded the arrival of Martin Luther in Germany. The euphoria at evicting the Muslims in the Reconquista, coupled with devotion to medieval piety and mysticism fueled reform. When Queen Isabella began her rule in 1474, she brought a heart to reform Spanish Catholicism and quickly gained papal approval for her plan. Cardinal Francisco Jimenez, archbishop of Toledo, was Isabella’s main supporter in reorganizingthe Church. Jimenez and Isabella embarked on a campaign to cleanse corruption and immorality from the monasteries and convents of Spain. They required renewal of monastic vows, enforced poverty among clergy, and emphasized the necessity of an educated priesthood.Believing the key to effective leadership was high standards for scholarship, they founded the University of Alcala, outside Madrid, which became a center of Spanish religious and literary life. The University was instrumental in publishing a new multilingual edition of the Bible, which included Hebrew, Greek, and the Latin Vulgate—in parallel columns.The Spanish Reformation, like the Protestants who formed break away groups all over Europe during the 16^th C, knew little of the idea we enjoy today of religious toleration. We’ll talk more about his in an upcoming episode as we look at the European Wars of Religion. The Pope gave Isabella and her husband, King Ferdinand, authority to use the Inquisition to enforce compliance with church doctrine and practices. The Jews were special victims of Spanish intolerance. In 1492, the Spanish crown decreed all Jews must either accept Christian baptism or leave Spanish territories. Over 200,000 Jews fled Spain as a result, losing land, possessions, and in some cases, lives. The crown passed similar laws aimed at Muslim Moors. Jimenez, now the Grand Inquisitor, ruthlessly pursued their forced conversion.In 1521, the year Luther stood before the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, a Spanish nobleman was fighting in the Emperor’s army against the French. A cannon-ball shattered one of his legs. During a long and painful recovery, bored to tears, he picked up a couple inspirational books popular at the time. One was on the lives of the saints and the other a life of Christ. The long process toward his conversion had begun.Weary of the army, he entered the Benedictine abbey of Montserrat, where he exchanged his nobleman’s clothes for a simple pilgrim’s smock and turned in his sword and dagger. For nearly a year, in the little town of Manresa, thirty miles north of Barcelona, he gave himself to an austere life of begging door to door, wearing a barbed girdle, and fasting for days at a time. A dark depression settled over his soul. He considered suicide. Then he had what many a mystic has known—a spiritual breakthrough so intense it felt like an incandescent illumination. A wave of ecstasy engulfed him and Ignatius Loyola, became, in his own words, “another man.”In an attempt to hang on to what he’d gained, Loyola produced a plan for spiritual discipline, a kind of spiritual military manual for Christian storm-troopers dedicated to the Pope. The result was the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, the greatest force in Catholicism’s campaign to recapture the territory, both literal and spiritual, lost to the Protestants.It was the reforming Pope Paul III, who approved Loyola’s new Society of Jesus. The daring soldiers of Christ promised the Pope they’d go wherever he sent them; whether that was to the Turks, the New World, or the Lutherans.While a youth, Ignatius left his home in the castle of Loyola near the Pyrenees and entered the court of a noble family friend. There he grew into something of a “playboy” who spent his days playing military games, reading popular romances, and his nights pursuing the local girls. Then he went off to war, and everything changed.After his recovery and time at Manresa, Ignatius came to a very different conclusion about man’s spiritual condition to that arrived at by Martin Luther. Luther was convinced the human will is enslaved; man cannot save himself. Only God can deliver him. Loyola came to the belief man has the power to choose between God and satan. By the disciplined use of his imagination man can strengthen his will to choose God and his ways. That strengthening comes through the spiritual disciplines Loyola devised.One of his spiritual exercises aimed to make the horrors of hell real. Loyola wrote - “Hear in your imagination the shrieks and groans and blasphemous shouts against Christ our Lord and all the saints. Smell the fumes of sulfur and the stench of filth and corruption. Taste all the bitterness of tears and melancholy and growing conscience. Feel the heat of the flames that play on and burn the souls.” The same technique, of course, could be used to represent the beauties of the Nativity or the glories of heaven. By proper discipline, Ignatius said, the imagination could strengthen the will and teach it to cooperate with God’s grace.Ignatius concluded that fully surrendering to God meant more education. He entered a school in Barcelona to sit with students half his age to study Latin, then threw himself into a year of courses at the University of Alcala. Out of it came his conviction learning must be organized to be useful. The idea eventually grew into the Jesuits’ famed plan of studies, which measured out heavy but manageable doses of the classics, humanities, and sciences.Ignatius became such a fervent advocate for his views, the Inquisition examined him more than once about his theology. Disturbed they’d question his devotion, he left for Paris, where he spent seven years at the university, and became “Master Ignatius.” He gathered around him the first of his companions: including the young Spanish nobleman, Francis Xavier; not the leader of the X-Men. This guy was a lot older and not a mutant.Ignatius shared with these men his program for sainthood, called the Spiritual Exercises. A review of his religious experiences following his conversion, the Exercises prescribe several periods or phases of intense meditation on various aspects of Faith and Practice.Ignatius charted a path to spiritual perfection that included,

Rigorous examination of the conscience
Penance, and
A rejection of guilt once God’s forgiveness was given.

The Exercises became the basis of every Jesuit’s spirituality. Later popes prescribed them for candidates for ordination, and Catholic retreats applied them to lay groups.In 1540, Pope Paul III approved the, at-that-time, small Society of Jesus as a new religious order. Following Ignatius’ metaphor, they were chivalrous spiritual soldiers of Jesus. Adopting the military theme, they were mobile, versatile, ready to go anywhere and perform any task the Pope assigned. As a recognized order, they added to their earlier vows of poverty and chastity the traditional vow of obedience to their superiors and a fourth vow of special loyalty to the pope. They were governed by a Superior General elected for life. Their choice for the first General was of course, Ignatius.The aim of the order was simple: To restore the Roman Catholic Church to the position of spiritual power and influence it had held three centuries before under Innocent III. Everything was subordinated to the Church of Rome because Ignatius believed firmly that the living Christ resided in the institutional church exclusively.One of the most fascinating feature of the Jesuits was their attempt to live in the world without being of it. Loyola wanted them to be all things to all men. They almost succeeded.That first generation under Loyola’s leadership rode at a full gallop into their new assignments which were to convert the heathen and re-convert Protestants. Francis Xavier went to India, then Southeast Asia, and all the way to Japan. More than any others, the Society of Jesus stemmed, and at times reversed, the tide of Protestantism in Europe. When Ignatius died in 1556, his order was a thousand strong and had dispatched its apostles to four continents. By anyone’s reckoning, that’s an amazing feat.No mission of that first generation of Jesuits proved more decisive than the part they played in the Council of Trent from 1545 to 63. Only thirty-one council fathers led by three papal legates were present for the opening ceremonies of the council. None of them could have guessed their modest beginning would lead to the most important Council between Nicea in 325 and Vatican II in 1962. Under the influence of two Jesuits, Trent developed into a powerful weapon of the Counter-Reformation.The council fathers met in three main sessions.

The 1^st was from 1545–47,
The 2^nd from 1551–52, and
The last from 1562–63.

During the second series of sessions several Protestants were present, but nothing came of it. From start to finish the Council reflected the new militant stance of Rome.While there are points of agreement between Catholic and Protestant theology on many issues, the distinctive doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, things like sola scriptura and sola fide were vigorously rejected at Trent.While the Reformers stressed salvation by grace alone; the Council of Trent emphasized grace AND human cooperation with God to avoid, in Loyola’s terms, “the poison that destroys freedom.” Ignatius advised, “Pray as though everything depended on God alone but act as though it depended on you alone whether you will be saved.”Protestants taught the religious authority of Scripture alone. Trent insisted on the supreme teaching office of the Roman popes and bishops, as essential-interpreters of the Bible and sole-arbiters on what constitute Biblical Orthodoxy.Trent guaranteed Roman Catholicism would be governed by a collaboration between God and man. The Pope remained, seven sacraments were retained, and the doctrine of transubstantiation was affirmed. Saints, confessions, and indulgences all stayed.After four centuries, we look back to the Reformation Era and see the unity of Western Christendom was permanently shattered. Men and women in Loyola’s lifetime did not see that truth. The fact dawned on Europe slowly. It would paint the Continent red in the following Century.

94-The Ultimate Fighter: Reformation Edition

This episode is titled, The Ultimate Fighter; Reformation Edition.The pioneer of Protestantism in western Switzerland was William Farel. Some pronounce it FAIR-el, but we’ll go with the more traditional Fuh–REL.He began as an itinerate evangelist; always in motion, tireless, full of faith and fire. He was bold as Luther but more radical. He also lacked Luther’s genius.He’s called the Elijah of the French Reformation and “the scourge of priests.”Once a devoted Roman Catholic who studied under pro-reform professors at the University of Paris, Farel became a loyal Protestant, able only to see only what was wrong with the Catholicism of his past. He loathed the pope, branding him antichrist, as did many Protestants of the time. Of course, the popes returned the favor and labeled Reformation leaders with the same title. Farel declared that all the statues, pictures and relics found in Roman churches were heathen idols which ought be destroyed.While Farel was never officially ordained, he thought himself divinely called, like a prophet of old, to break down idolatry and clear the way for the worship of God according to God’s Word. He was a born fighter and echoing Jesus, said he came, not to bring peace, but a sword. He contended with priests who carried firearms and clubs under their frocks, and fought them with the spiritual sword of the Scriptures. Once he was fired at, but the gun blew up. Turning to the man who’d shot at him, he said, “I’m not afraid of your shots.” He never used violence himself, except in the verbal salvos he was fond of firing at critics.Farel was never discouraged or dissuaded by opposition. On the contrary, persecution stimulated him to even greater labor. His outward appearance gave no hint to his indomitable will: he was of short stature and looked frail. His pale complexion was oft sunburnt. His red beard was left to grow wild.What his appearance lacked, his voice made up for. When he spoke, he used both gestures and language that commanded attention and produced conviction. His contemporaries referred to the thunder of his eloquence and of his earnest and moving prayers.His sermons were extemporaneous but sadly weren’t preserved. Their power lay in their delivery. Farel was the George Whitefield of the 16^th C.His strength ended up a weakness. His lack of moderation and discretion unburdened him from second guessing himself, so he would speak his mind without the need to put a fine point on everything for fear of breaking a few eggs, so to speak. But his outspokenness got him into trouble again and again, not only with Roman Catholics but with his Protestant peers.He was an iconoclast. His verbal violence provoked unnecessary opposition, and often did more harm than good. One Reformation leader of the time wrote Farel saying, “Your mission is to evangelize, not curse. Prove yourself to be an evangelist, not a tyrannical legislator. Men want to be led, not driven.” Shortly before his death, Zwingli exhorted Farel not to be so rash.That may be a good way to see Farel’s contribution to the Reformation. His work was destructive rather than constructive. He could pull down, but not build up. He was a conqueror, not an organizer of his conquests; a man of action, not a man of letters; a preacher, not a theologian. In a large construction company, the first team that comes in is the demolition crew. They’re job is to clear away the old and prepare for the new.Farel was a one-man demo squad; a religious wrecking-crew.The thing is, he knew it, and handed his work over to the genius of his younger friend John Calvin. You’ll remember it was William Farel who persuaded Calvin to help out in Geneva. In the spirit of genuine humility and self-denial, he was willing to decrease that Calvin might increase. This is the finest trait in his character.William Farel, the oldest of seven children of a noble but poor family, was born in 1489 at Gap. No, he wasn’t born in the changing room of a clothing store in the mall. Gap was a small town in the Alps of SE France, where the Waldensians once lived. He inherited the Roman Catholic faith of his parents. While still young, he made a pilgrimage with them to a supposed piece of miracle-working wood believed to be taken from the original cross. He shared in the superstitious veneration of pictures and relics, and bowed before the authority of monks and priests. He was, as he later said of that period of his life, more popish than the Pope.At the same time he had a great thirst for knowledge, and was sent to Paris to further his education. There he studied ancient languages, philosophy, and theology. His main teacher, was Jacques LeFèvre, pioneer of the French Reformation and translator of the Scriptures who introduced Farel to Paul’s Epistles and the doctrine of justification by faith. LeFèvre told Farel in in 1512: “My son, God will renew the world, and you will witness it.” Farel acquired a Master of Arts in 1517 and was appointed teacher at the college of Cardinal Le Moine.The influence of LeFèvre and the study of the Bible brought Farel to the conviction salvation can be found only in Christ, that the Word of God is the only rule of faith. He was amazed he could find in the NT no trace of the pope, a church hierarchy, indulgences, purgatory, the mass, seven rather than two sacraments, a sacerdotal celibacy, or the worship of Mary and saints.When LeFèvre, was charged with heresy in 1521, he retired but remained an advocate for reformation within the Catholic Church, without separation from Rome. We’ll talk about the Catholic Counter-Reformation in a later episode.In retirement, LeFèvre translated the NT into French, and published it in 1523. This was virtually simultaneous with Luther’s German NT. Farel and several others of LeFèvre’s students followed him and began preaching a Reformation message under his influence. But Farel proved too radical and was forbidden to preach.He returned to his hometown and made some converts, including four of his brothers; but the people found his doctrine strange and drove him away. France became dangerous as the persecution of Protestants had begun there as in already had in other places.Farel fled to Basel, Switzerland. Since Reformation ideas were tolerated there, he held a public disputation in Latin on thirteen issues, in which he affirmed the inspiration of the Scriptures, Christian liberty, the duty of pastors to preach the Gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith, and denounced images and celibacy. This speech led to the conversion of a Franciscan monk named Pellican, a distinguished Greek and Hebrew scholar, who became a professor at Zurich. Farel delivered more public lectures and sermons. But as his popularity grew, so did his bombast, and Erasmus persuaded the town council to brand him a disturber of the peace and expel him.After bouncing around for a few years as an itinerate preacher, he arrived in Neuchâtel in December, 1529 where he was instrumental in bringing the Reformation to the city.Farel stopped at Geneva in early Oct. 1532. The day after he arrived he was visited by a number of distinguished citizens of the Protestant French Huguenots. Farel explained to them from an open Bible the Protestant doctrines that would complete and consolidate the political freedom they’d recently achieved. But rather than receive this with joy, they were troubled and demanded Farel and his friends leave! Farel refused. He said he wasn’t trying to create trouble; he was simply a preacher of truth, for which he was ready to die. He showed them letters of reference from several Reformation leaders which made quite an impression.When the Roman clergy in Geneva began to harass Farel, this only further ingratiated him with the Protestants there. But the Catholics became so angry at Farel’s refusal to budge, the entire city was set on edge. The Council demanded he leave immediately.He barely escaped as the priests pursued him with clubs. He left covered with spit and bruises. Some of the Huguenots came to his defense, and accompanied him across Lake Geneva.Since the Reformation in Geneva was gaining ground and the city was seen as key, the Catholics called Guy Furbity, a Dominican doctor of Theology, to come refute the Protestants. He stirred the Catholics of Geneva into a violent mob. All preaching in the City had to be approved by him. You can imagine how Farel felt about that. He returned with a guarantee of protection from the city of Bern, and held another public disputation with Furbity at the end of January of 1534, in the presence of both the Great and Small Councils of Geneva and delegates from Bern. He was unable to answer all Furbity’s objections, but he denied the right of the Church to impose ordinances which were not authorized by Scripture, and defended the position that Christ was the only head of the Church. He used the occasion to explain Protestant doctrines, and to attack Roman church hierarchy. Christ and the Holy Spirit, he said, are not with the pope, but with those whom he persecutes. The disputation lasted several days, and ended in a partial victory for Farel. Unable to argue from the Scriptures, Furbity confessed: “What I preach I cannot prove from the Bible; I have learned it from the Summa of St. Thomas,” meaning of course, Thomas Aquinas.Farel continued to preach in private homes aa tension grew between Protestants and Catholics. He was the eye of the storm. As more and more Genevans embraced Reformation ideas, priests, monks, and nuns left, and the bishop transferred his See to another city.In Aug. 27 1535, the Genevan Council issued an edict of the Reformation. That was followed several months later with an even more thorough embrace of Reformation ideals. The mass was abolished, images and relics removed from churches. Citizens pledged themselves by an oath to live according to the precepts of the Gospel. A school was established for the education of the young. Out of it grew the academy of John Calvin. All shops were closed on Sunday. A strict discipline, which extended even to the head-dress of brides was introduced.This was the first act in the history of the Reformation at Geneva. It was the work of Farel, but only preparatory to the more important work of Calvin. The people were anxious to get rid of the Catholic rule of the Duke of Savoy and the bishop, but had no conception of evangelical religion, and would not submit to discipline. They mistook freedom for license. They were in danger of falling into the opposite extreme of disorder and confusion.This was the state of things when Calvin arrived at Geneva in the summer of 1536, and was urged by Farel to assume the great task of building a new Church on the ruins of the old. Though 20 years his senior, Farel willingly took a subordinate position to Calvin. He labored for a while as Calvin’s colleague, but was banished from Geneva with him when their reforms were deemed by the City Council as too ambitious and narrow. Calvin then went to Strasburg while Farel accepted a call as pastor at Neuchâtel where he’d worked before.The remaining twenty-seven years of his life, Farel remained the lead pastor there.

93-Knox Knox; Who’s There?

This Episode is titled, Knox, Knox, Who’s There?John Knox was born in 1514 in the small burgh of Haddington, south of Edinburgh. At the age of 15 he entered the University of St. Andrews to study, not golf, but theology. After 7 yrs he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and became a notary since his studies specialized in the Law. Being a gifted speaker, he was employed as a tutor for the sons of some local lairds, a term referring to lower rung of Scottish nobility.Dramatic events unfolded in Scotland during Knox’s youth. Many were angry with the Roman church which owned more than half the land and gathered an annual income of almost 20 times that of the crown. Bishops and priests were more often than not political appointments, and many so morally corrupt, they didn’t even try to hide their debaucheries. Cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, openly consorted with concubines, fathering ten children.The constant traffic between Scotland and Europe saw much Protestant literature smuggled into the country. Church authorities were alarmed by the pernicious German “heresy” as they labeled it and tried to suppress it. Patrick Hamilton, an outspoken Protestant convert, was burned at the stake in 1528.In the early 1540s, while tutoring the sons of Protestant families, Knox came under their influence, and at the preaching of Thomas Guilliame, joined them. Knox then became a bodyguard for the firebrand Protestant preacher George Wishart, at that time touring Scotland.In 1546, Cardinal Beaton had Wishart arrested, tried, strangled, and just to make sure everyone knew how mad he was, Wishart’s body was burned. The Protestants decided such outrage would not go unanswered. So sixteen Protestant nobles stormed the castle, assassinated Beaton, and mutilated his body in retribution for what he’d done to Wishart, who posthumously could wonder where they’d been earlier. Might have been a little smarter for them to take the castle when he was still a prisoner. Oh well.With the castle now in Protestant hands, a fleet of French ships arrived and laid in a siege. Catholic France was an ally to Catholic Scotland. Though Knox was not party to the Cardinal’s murder, he did approve of the action, and during a break in the siege, joined the besieged inside the castle to show solidarity.This siege wasn’t your typical surrounding of a castle where the attackers try to starve the besieged into submission. It was a half-hearted, partial siege, more about appearances than an earnest attempt to bring the Cardinal’s killers to justice. So, life wasn’t disrupted for the people in the castle all that much. Things went on pretty much as normal.Then, during a church service one Sunday, Protestant preacher John Rough spoke on the election of ministers, turned to John Knox and asked if he’d please take on the office of resident preacher. When the congregation confirmed the call, Knox was overwhelmed and reduced to tears. At first he declined, thinking himself unqualified, but eventually submitted to what he quickly realized was the call of God. It was a short-lived ministry. In 1547, the siege of St. Andrews Castle was laid on in earnest and the Protestants had to surrender. Some were imprisoned while others like Knox were made galley-slaves. Which, if you know anything about that, sends a shiver up your spine. You’d be hard pressed to find a lower lot for a man to sink to. An ironic post for a man who’d just wept in humility at being called to pastor a church.A year and a half passed before Knox and his fellow galley-slaves were released. That they lived a year and a half is a miracle in itself. Knox spent the next five yrs in England, and his reputation for preaching boomed. When the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor inherited the throne from her brother Edward VI in Oct 1553, Knox fled to France. Smart move, since Mary did her best to reverse the path toward Protestantism her brother had followed. She executed so many she’s known to history as “Bloody Mary.”Knox’s choice of France as a place of refuge seems odd, since things were little better there than in England. He soon realized that as well and made his way to Geneva, where he met John Calvin. Calvin described Knox as a “brother … laboring energetically for the faith.” Knox was so impressed with Calvin’s Geneva, he called it, “the most perfect school of Christ that was ever on earth since the days of the apostles.”Knox was then sent by Calvin to the German city of Frankfurt to pastor a church of Protestant English refugees. There, he quickly became embroiled in controversy. The Protestants couldn’t agree on an order of worship. Arguments became so heated one group stormed out, refusing to worship in the same building as Knox.I mention this little moment in Knox’s life because it becomes sadly indicative of what begins to happen all across Europe as the Reformation spread. Once people split off from the Roman Church, they kept splitting off from each other. While it’s difficult for us to understand this in our age of pluralism, the people of Europe in the 16^th C assumed you had to be a part of some church. And that group was either allied with the State, or wanted to be. There just wasn’t a large block of people who were unaligned religiously. Atheism was simply not tolerated. So once the monolithic hegemony of the Roman Catholic church was broken, the cracks that formed in religious faith kept going, like a windshield. And the various groups thought they needed to grab some kind of power or they’d end up the victim of someone else’s. This helps explain why the usually pacifist Anabaptists became militant in Munster, as we saw in an earlier episode.My point here is that the rift that formed in Frankfurt over whether or not to use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and whether or not people ought to kneel while taking Communion was typical of the battles the Protestant church faced at this time. Looking back, we might shake our heads at such pettiness. But let’s be careful. Do not our churches sometimes split over issues just as petty? We might think they aren’t, but would believers 500 years from now call them so?While Knox was in Germany, Protestants in Scotland redoubled their efforts, and congregations formed all over the country. A group called “The Lords of the Congregation” vowed to make Protestantism the religion of the land. In 1555, they invited Knox to return to Scotland to inspire the reforming task. Knox spent nine months preaching all over Scotland before he was forced to return to Geneva.There in Geneva he published some of his most controversial tracts. In his Admonition to England he attacked leaders who allowed Catholicism back into England. In The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women he argued that a female ruler, like the English Queen Bloody Mary was “most odious in the presence of God” and that she was “a traitoress and rebel against God.” In another broadside he extended to ordinary people the right—indeed the duty—to rebel against unjust rulers. As he later told Mary, Queen of Scots, “The sword of justice is God’s, and if princes and rulers fail to use it, others may.”Not really sure where Knox got that idea from Scripture, since Romans 13 does say it IS the duty of the civil government to wield the sword and citizens are to submit to that authority. It also says Vengeance belongs to the Lord – HE will repay. In any case, Knox made a case for rebellion against unjust government many found to their liking.Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, and again deployed his formidable preaching skills to increase Protestant militancy. Within days of his arrival, he preached a rousing sermon at Perth against Catholic “idolatry” which caused a riot. Altars were demolished, images smashed, and churches destroyed.In June, Knox was elected the Minister of St. Giles Church in Edinburgh, where he continued to exhort and inspire. In his sermons, Knox typically spent half an hour calmly exegeting a biblical passage. Then as he applied the text to the situation in Scotland, he vigorously pounded the pulpit, calling for people to immediately install the application.The English, now under the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, came to the aid of the Protestant Scots while the French aided the Catholics. Fired up by Knox’s preaching, The Lords of the Congregation armed themselves and occupied several cities. In 1560 at the Treaty of Berwick, the English and French agreed to leave Scotland. The future of Protestantism in Scotland was assured.The Scottish Parliament then asked Knox and five colleagues to write a Confession of Faith, the First Book of Discipline, and The Book of Common Order—all of which cast the Protestant faith of Scotland in a distinctly Calvinist and Presbyterian mode.Knox finished out his years as preacher at St. Giles, helping shape the developing Protestantism in Scotland. During this time, he wrote his History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland.Though he remains a paradox to many, Knox was clearly a man of great courage: one man standing before Knox’s open grave said, “Here lies a man who neither flattered nor feared any flesh.” Knox’s legacy is large: his spiritual progeny includes some 750,000 Presbyterians in Scotland, 3 million in the US, and many millions more worldwide.When visiting Edinburgh some years ago, I had a chance to visit St. Giles. It’s an impressive cathedral church. You can definitely see the difference from a classic Roman Catholic Cathedral, which it was before the Reformation. But long Protestant occupation has removed many of the ritual furnishings of a Catholic church.Down the street from St. Giles is Knox’s house where he lived before being elected Minister at St. Giles. He lived there when Catholics ruled and he was banned from preaching in public. His multi-storied house juts out into the street, forming a little corner traffic has to flow around. So it was something of a bottleneck. Knox couldn’t obtain a license for public preaching, but no one could stop him from saying whatever he wanted in his own home. So Knox would open his window overlooking the street and preach fine messages, knowing large crowds gathered outside to listen. He even engraved scriptures in his window and door frames.What’s sad is that Knox’s grave lies right next to St. Giles. But being some of the most prime real estate in all Scotland, just a few yards of the Royal Mile, today it lies under a parking space. Seriously! There’s an asphalt parking lot with white lines for cars to park. And smack dab in the middle of one parking spaces is a little plaque marking that this is the burial place of John Knox.Hardly anyone knows it’s there. When people are shown it, the response of many is, “Who’s John Knox?”

92-The School of Christ

This 92^nd episode of CS is titled “The School of Christ” and is part 2 in our look at the Reformer, John Calvin.We left off with Calvin back in Geneva after being banished for a few years following a run in with the City Council. They realized how much they needed him to design the reforms they felt they had to make so they asked him to return and accommodated themselves to being the agents by which his plans could be implemented.While Calvin designed the policies enacted by the city government, he kept himself to his role as a minister in the church. Besides preaching and teaching almost daily, he served as a professor of Old Testament studies three times a week. He was a busy pastor, offering guidance in church matters and assisting the deacons in the administration of their task by offering sage counsel.While later nay-sayers cast Calvin as a kind of dictator in Geneva, that’s certainly NOT what he was. He was appointed and paid by the city council as an advisor. He could have been dismissed by them at any time, as he in fact was in 1538 for a year and a half. Don’t forget that he was a Frenchman, living in Switzerland. He didn’t even become a citizen till his last years.Calvin’s authority was more due to his moral and spiritual gravitas than anything else. His influence was the result of other’s acceptance of an authority gained from God’s call. It stemmed from his conviction he was simply the agent of God’s Word and will. While there’ve been many throughout history who got drunk on the power-potion and became abusive, Calvin was humbled that such influence had been given him and labored to wield it in a manner that brought glory to God alone and would work genuine and long-lasting good among others.As listeners to CS know, I attempt to present as unbiased a presentation of church history as I can. But I will occasionally insert my personal perspective. When I do, I mark it off with a verbal parenthesis. One follows now …I’m not an adherent of Calvinism and Reformed Theology. While an Evangelical Protestant, I’m more of the Traditionalist camp in regards to my theological position. So while I disagree with several points of Calvin’s theology, especially in regard to the doctrines of Election and Determinism, I recognize Calvin himself was apparently a man of unimpeachable character. God alone sees the heart, but from what history tells us, John Calvin was someone who consistently practiced what he preached. A good and humble man committed to God’s glory and love of his fellow man.Later critics who fault him for some of what happened in Geneva during his time there make the all-too-common mistake of applying modern sensibilities to the past. They lack historical perspective. It is no more right to condemn Calvin for the failures in Geneva than it is to blame doctors during the Black Death for not knowing about germs and viruses. Like it or not, we are all the product of our time. It’s the height of arrogance for today’s 20 year old, sitting in the comfort of a college classroom, to condemn those of the 16^th Century because they failed to live by standards and a moral code that didn’t even emerge till many years later.The evidence tells us Calvin was a moral and spiritual standout whose sole flaw was that he could have been less intense, less severe. è So! It’s at this point we must speak to a tragic moment in Geneva’s history and Calvin’s part in it.Michael Servetus arrived in Geneva in 1553 after having fled from Catholic authorities seeking to arrest him as a heretic. Servetus denied the Trinity, a position considered blasphemous throughout Europe in the 16^th C. Servetus probably thought the Reformation center of Geneva would be more tolerant of his ideas. After all, the Catholics hated the Genevans too. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?Well, not in this case.Geneva was no more inclined to allow heresy than Rome. The brilliant but erratic Spanish physician was arrested but refused to recant. Everyone knew a heretic’s fate; immolation = burned at the stake. Calvin wanted a less severe punishment for Servetus, but this was a moment when certain elements on the Geneva city council were at odds with him. If Calvin had pushed his point and demanded a lightening of Servetus’ punishment, Calvin’s opponents would have had ammo to use against him. So Calvin failed to push for the lesser sentence his conscience told him was just. Servetus was burned at the stake, as were so many at this time in Europe.Let’s pause here and take the time to dig down a little on this execution. As I said, a common fate for those found guilty of heresy. It all seem ludicrous to us today – that someone could be executed as an act of official state policy simply because they dared to announce a belief in something others didn’t agree with. After all, freedom of speech is a treasured value of modern democratic societies. Radicals are allowed to say all kinds of things, and as long as they take no harmful action or plot to carry out violence, they can shout all day long. So it’s difficult for us to understand a society that would kill someone simply because they held an idea others found offensive.Well, heretics were put to death, not because what they said was offensive – but because what they said was considered DANGEROUS. I’ll explain it this way >>What happened to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg when found guilty of selling nuclear secrets to the Soviets? They were executed. Why? All they did was talk. All they did was pass some pieces of paper and film to others? How is that a problem?Well, that material contained information that allowed the Communists to build an atomic bomb a lot quicker than they could have on their own. This was at a time of the Red Scare, when millions of Americans believed Communists were eager to attack the Free World and take over with their evil brand of atheistic socialism. What the Rosenbergs did made most Americans feel profoundly less safe. They imperiled the lives of millions – or so the thought went. When they were executed, not many wept tears of regret at how narrow-minded and intolerant the Federal government was being.Now: It was be too late for what the Rosenbergs had done. The secrets were out and in the hands of the Soviets. So why execute them? Simple: A message had to be sent to any other would-be traitors and spies: This is what happens when if you spy on the US.Take that mentality to the execution of heretics in Europe during the Middle Ages and later. Michael Servetus didn’t sell States secrets to enemies. But what he did so was deemed just as dangerous. He espoused beliefs that if picked up by others could, and most likely would, lead to a break-down of society and all kinds of social problems. And all because: Ideas have consequences. It was this realization that moved civil governments to hearken to the advice of religious authorities, apprehend heretics, try them, then sentence them to torture and execution. It told the populace at large, “Mess with what we believe and you’ll pay.”Now, I’m obviously not advocating death for heretics.But, and this is important as students of history, it’s crucial we be cautious about our tendency to have a knee-jerk reaction to the perceived stupidities of the past. Turns out in most cases, once we understand ALL the complexities that bear on a people’s practice, the what and why of their behavior becomes a lot more clear. We may not agree with them, but we can at least understand how they arrived at their position.Knowing what we do about John Calvin, he likely wanted a less severe punishment for Servetus because he hoped to convince him to turn from his err regarding the Trinity to a more orthodox and Biblical view. Persuasion is better than persecution. But the Genevan council was determined to make an example of Servetus. They didn’t want to become a refuge for heretics.Proof of Calvin’s humility and devotion to the Reformation cause was that he drove himself beyond his body’s limits. When he was no longer able to walk the couple hundred yards to church, they carried him in a chair. When the doctor forbade him going out into the cold air, his students crowded into his bedroom. When friends urged him to rest, he asked, “Would you have the Lord find me idle when He comes?”I don’t want to give the impression, one easily gleaned from some of the biographies of Calvin and his tenure at Geneva, that everyone loved him. He had plenty of opponents and his popularity was a roller-coaster. Some tried to drown out his voice by loud coughing while he preached. Others fired guns outside the church. Dogs were set on him. There were anonymous threats against his life.All this took a toll on the aging Calvin, whose patience gradually wore away. He became unsympathetic and curt. It’s said Martin Luther also became cantankerous in his later years. It had to be difficult getting old during this time. Hey, it’s hard enough now! In Calvin’s later years he showed little attempt to understanding the views of others with whom he disagreed, even less kindness, and definitely less humor, which was always in short supply.While he finally wore out in 1564, his influence didn’t. If anything, it’s grown massively. Calvin’s ideas have been both blamed for and credited with the rise of capitalism, individualism, and western democracy. He was a major influence on people like George Whitefield and Karl Barth, as well as entire movements, such as Puritanism and today’s neo-Reformed Resurgence.Calvin’s central belief and the core of his theological work was the absolute sovereignty of God. Calvin said that God was the “Governor of all things.” He contended that, from the remotest eternity, God in His wisdom has decreed what He would do, and by His own power, executes what He’s decreed.This sovereignty is much more than a general guidance. Calvin held that the Bible teaches God’s particular direction in individual lives. Not a sparrow falls to the ground unknown to the Father. He gives babies to some and withholds them from others. This, Calvin said, wasn’t just a relentless fatalism in nature, but the personal decrees of Almighty God, who moves men to walk in His ways.If Luther’s core text was “the just shall live by faith,” Calvin’s was, “Thy will be done.” He saw the doctrine of predestination as a source of religious devotion. More than a problem of the mind, Calvin considered divine election to eternal life the deepest source of confidence, humility, and moral power.While Calvin did not profess to know in an absolute sense who God’s elect were, he taught that three tests constituted a measure by which to judge who might be elect:1) Participation in the sacraments of Baptism and Communion 2) An upright moral life --and-- 3) A public profession of the faith.Calvin maintained that genuine faith resulted in a lifestyle of strenuous effort to introduce the Kingdom of God on Earth. Though the Christian was no longer judged by the law of God, he/she finds the law to be a pattern for moral character. People aren’t justified by works, but no one who’s justified is without works. The desire to be holy is a mark of saving faith and evidence of being elect. This determined pursuit of moral righteousness was one of the main features of Calvinism and provides a core theme for the Puritans.Calvinism’s emphasis on God’s sovereignty also led to a special view of civil authority. Luther considered the State supreme and the German princes determined where and how the Gospel would be preached. Calvin said no man—whether king or bishop, had claim to absolute power. He encouraged representative assemblies and affirmed their right to resist tyranny. This resistance to arbitrary power by monarchs was a key factor in the development of modern constitutional governments.While the church, Calvin said, wasn’t subject to secular government except where church life intersected the secular sphere, the church was obligated to guide secular authorities in spiritual matters. Calvin’s followers went throughout Europe as a kind of informal spiritual conspiracy to overthrow false religion and oppressive governments.Geneva became a beachhead established by God. It seemed a foretaste of better things to come and zealous converts left there to carry the vision far and wide across Europe.Calvinism remained a minority in France but, thanks to some converts among the nobility, the movement gained an importance out of proportion to its numbers. Known as Huguenots, French Calvinists appeared about ready to seize control of the country. So thousands of them were massacred on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. They remained a significant minority but never again a serious challenge to the Catholic throne. We’ll come back to this sad chapter in a later episode.In the Netherlands, Calvinists united to oust the oppressive Spanish from their land.In Scotland, Calvinists created something unique in 16^th C Europe: a land of one religion ruled by a monarch of another. That ruler was Mary, Queen of Scots, an 18-year-old who lived abroad. She married into the French royal family, and the Scots as well as many Englishmen feared she’d deliver Scotland to the French. One man, however, preached everywhere the notion that the people of Scotland could challenge the rule of their queen. That man was John Knox who we’ll look at next time.As we conclude this episode, I again want to say “Thank you” to those who’ve visited the CS FB page and given us a like. And thanks to those who’ve rated and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. While people access the podcast though different feeds, iTunes in one of the most important because that’s how podcasts are evaluated in terms of popularity. The more 5-star ratings we get and written reviews, the more it bumps us up in the ratings.Every so often I remind listeners they can donate to help defray the expenses of associated with the podcast. CS got hammered a while back by fraudsters making bogus donations to the site that ended up costing several hundred dollars, so we had to install some safeguards. As you know, CS isn’t monetized. There are no sponsors or ads on the site. It’s funded purely by the kindness and generosity of listeners like you. You can donate by going to sanctorum.us. You’ll see the link there. That’s all I’ll say about that.

91-Thrust Into the Game

This episode is titled, Thrust Into the Game.So far we’ve marked the rise of 2 of the 3 major branches of the Reformation. We’ve considered Lutheranism and the Radical Reformers or Anabaptists. Over the next few episodes we’ll consider the 3^rd branch, called Calvinism, AKA, Reformed Christianity.I begin with a summary of the opening section of Bruce Shelley’s excellent, Church History in Plain Language and his chapter of John Calvin.Because the road to Strasbourg was closed by the war between France and Spain, the young French scholar had to pass thru Geneva. His plan was to spend a night. He ended up spending many.The city was in disarray. Immorality was rampant, the political situation a mess, and there was little prospect for help.The fiery reformer, William Farel had preached in Geneva for four years, and masses at the Catholic church were halted. But Geneva’s embrace of the Reformation was more out of political ambition than sincere allegiance to Protestant theology. No one had taken the lead in transforming the city’s institutions along Biblical lines. Geneva needed a manager; someone who could step into the political and spiritual vacuum and bring order. When Farel heard John Calvin was spending the night, he made it a point to call on him. He found Calvin to be a candidate to meet Geneva’s need, and urged him to stay and help establish the work.Calvin begged off, saying he had further studies he needed to pursue. Farel told him, “Bah! You’re only following your own wishes! If you don’t help us in this work of the Lord, He will punish you for seeking your own interest rather than His.” Calvin was terror–stricken. The last thing he wanted was to offend God. So he stayed and took up the cause of installing the principles of the Reformation in Geneva.Years later, Calvin remarked, “Being by nature a bit antisocial and shy, I always loved retirement and peace.… But God has so whirled me around by various events that He’s never let me rest anywhere, but in spite of my natural inclination, has thrust me into the limelight and made me ‘get into the game,’ as they say.”Thus >> the title of this week’s episode.John Calvin was born in the small town of Noyon, 60 miles NE of Paris. His father was a lawyer and eager to see John and his two brothers become priests. It was clear from an early age John was both intelligent and serious, so a local wealthy family sponsored his education. He entered the University of Paris at 14 and quickly mastered Latin. He then entered the school of philosophy where he showed brilliance in writing and skill in logical argument. People might not like what Calvin said but they couldn’t misunderstand what he meant. He left the University in 1528 with a Master of Arts degree. He was 19.John turned to the study of law at the University of Orleans, but after his father’s death in 1531, Calvin returned to Paris as a student of the classics, intent upon a career as a scholar. His studies brought him in contact with new and dangerous ideas circulating round Paris. The Reformation had arrived. It wasn’t long before Calvin was converted to faith in Christ and the task of Reformation. He gave up his career as a classical scholar and identified with the Protestant cause in France.In the Fall of 1533, Nicholas Cop, rector of the University of Paris gave a strong Protestant address. Many suspected it was Cop’s close friend, John Calvin, who’d written it. The University was thrown into such an uproar, Calvin had to flee the city. He took refuge in Basel, Switzerland, where in March, 1536, he published the first edition of his highly influential Institutes of the Christian Religion – the Reformation’s first systematic theology.A systematic theology is one that devotes chapters to specific doctrinal subjects. There’s a chapter on God …

another on Christology = the study of God the Son,
one on Pneumatology = the Holy Spirit,
Soteriology = Salvation,
Scripture,
Ecclesiology = The Church,
even a theology of Anthropology = Human Beings.
Many systematic theologies often conclude with a chapter on what’s called Eschatology = the Study of the End Times.

Calvin’s work was the most cogent, logical, and readable explanation of Protestant doctrine the Reformation produced. It gave its young author overnight fame. Calvin worked on the Institutes for the rest of his life, adding more volumes and editing the existing content. But 20 years later it was essentially the same work though much larger. His core ideas never changed. At first it was a slim volume but five revisions later saw the last in 1559 containing four books of 80 chapters.The preface to the Institutes was addressed to King Francis I of France. It defended the Protestants from the criticisms of their enemies, vindicating their rights to fair treatment. No one had spoken so effectively in their behalf, and with this letter Calvin was assigned the leadership of the Protestant cause after Martin Luther.Speaking of Luther, a comparison between he and Calvin would be proper here. Keep in mind that only about 20 years separated them. Calvin certainly knew of Luther and Luther heard of the young Frenchman in Geneva.While the cornerstone of Luther’s theology was the doctrine of justification by faith, Calvin’s was the sovereignty of God. They both had a massive sense of the majesty of God, but for Luther that all just added to the richness of the miracle of forgiveness. Calvin’s emphasis rested on the unassailability of God’s purpose.Calvin shared Luther’s four central Protestant beliefs, but he was born a generation after Luther in a different land and was a far different sort of person.Luther was a monk and university professor. Calvin was a scholar and city manager. While both men lived and worked during a time of great social turmoil, their realms of influence were different.Luther saw himself as the point man for an entire movement in the Church, calling it back to what God intended it to be. Calvin followed in Luther’s train but to a highly specialized work in it – to implement Biblical principles in the civil sphere.The differences between Calvin and Luther are reflected in their portraits. As Luther aged, he filled out and his face softened, though his tone became more acerbic. As Calvin aged, though thin to begin with, he lost weight. His face became angular and lined. He looks as if he’s cut from stone.Calvin’s exceptional administrative abilities enabled him to build on the work of Ulrich Zwingli. The reform he started at Zurich spread rapidly in German-speaking Eastern Switzerland. The Swiss Reformation spread to the important German city of Strasbourg where Martin Bucer was more sympathetic to Zwingli than Luther.When Zwingli died at the Battle of Kappel, the Reformation in Switzerland was left without a leader. Zwingli’s student Heinrich Bullinger did a fine job of leading the church in Zurich but that was pretty much the limit of his ability. The success of what Calvin was doing in Geneva shifted the focus away from Eastern Switzerland to the West, French-speaking Swiss city of Geneva.When Calvin fled Paris for Strasbourg in the Summer of 1536, his brother, sister and 2 friends went with him. They put up for a night at an inn in Geneva. But word spread quickly that the author of the Institutes was in town. Farel was ecstatic. Desperate for help, he rushed to the inn and pleaded with Calvin to stay. Upon his consent, Farel convinced the Geneva city council to appoint Calvin to lead the Reformation there. Interestingly, Calvin never held an official political post and didn’t even become a citizen until 1559.Calvin’s goal was to make Geneva a “holy commonwealth” where the Law of God became the laws of man. He preached daily and twice on Sunday. He started a school for training young people and arranged for the care of the poor and needy. Under Calvin’s direction, Geneva became a model of Reformation belief and practice.And by model, I mean EXAMPLE. Protestant refugees from all over Europe flooded into the City. They sat under Calvin’s teaching, and when they returned home, took his theology and Geneva’s example with them. This explains the dramatic spread of Calvinism throughout Western Europe.In addition to his strenuous preaching schedule, Calvin was a prodigious writer. He penned lectures, theological treatises, and commentaries on 33 books of the OT, along with the entire NT sans Revelation. Church historian Philip Schaff claims Calvin was the founder of the modern historical-grammatical method of studying the Bible.[1] Calvin also carried on a massive correspondence with people all over Europe.But, Calvin’s launch at Geneva got off to a rocky start. A mere 18 months into his new position both he and Farel were banished for disagreeing with the city council. Calvin resumed his prior journey to Strasbourg, where he settled down and pastored for 3 years, married the widow of an Anabaptist and became the adoptive father to her two children.By 1541 Calvin’s reputation had spread. He wrote three more books and revised his Institutes. He’d become good friends with leading Reformers Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon. He was asked to return to Geneva by the authorities, and spent the rest of his life establishing a theocratic society there.Calvin believed the Church should faithfully mirror the principles laid down in the Bible. He argued that the NT taught four orders of ministry: pastors, elders, deacons, and doctors, by which he meant ‘teachers.’ Geneva was organized around these four offices.Pastors conducted church services, preached, administered the sacraments of Communion and baptism, and cared for the spiritual welfare of parishioners. In each of the three parish churches, two Sunday services and a catechism class were offered. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated every three months.The Doctors or as we would call them, teachers, lectured in Latin on the Old and New Testaments; Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Their students were mostly older schoolboys and ministers, but anyone could attend.Elders kept an eye on spiritual affairs. If they saw someone was often snockered from too much ale, or that Mr. Smith beat his wife, or Mr. Jones and Mrs. Faraday were seeing a little too much of each other, they admonished them in a brotherly manner. If the behavior continued, they reported the matter to the church’s governing body, which would summon the offender for an inquiry. Excommunication was a last resort and remained in force until the guilty party repented.Finally, social welfare was the charge of the Deacons. They were the hospital-management board, social-security executives, and alms-house supervisors. The deacons were so effective, Geneva had no beggars.The system worked so well for so many years, when the Scotsman John Knox visited Geneva in 1554, he wrote a friend that the city “is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the Earth since the days of the Apostles.”We have a lot more to look at with Calvin and Geneva, but we’ll get too it in our next episodes.[1] Schaff, 8:118–119

90-Taking It Further

This episode is titled, Taking It Further.History, or I should say, the reporting of it, shows a penchant for identifying one person, a singular standout as the locus of change. This despite the recurring fact there were others who participated in or paralleled that change. Such is the case with Martin Luther and the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli. While Luther is the “historic bookmark” for the genesis of the Reformation, in some ways, Zwingli was ahead of him.Born in Switzerland in 1484, Ulrich Zwingli was educated in the best universities and ordained a priest. Possessing a keen mind, intense theological inquiry coupled to a keen spiritual struggle brought him to a genuine faith in 1516, a year before Luther tacked his 95 thesis to Wittenberg’s door. Two yrs later, Zwingli arrived in Zurich where he spent the rest of his life. By 1523, he was leading the Reformation in Switzerland.Zwingli’s preaching convinced Zurich’s city council to permit the clergy to marry. They abolished the Mass and banned images and statues in public worship. They dissolved the monasteries and severed ties with Rome. Recognizing the central place the Bible was to have in the Christian life, the Zurich reformers published the NT in their own vernacular in 1524 and the entire Bible 6 yrs later; 4 yrs before Luther’s German translation was available.Zwingli didn’t just preach a Reformation message, he lived it. He married Anna Reinhart in 1522.In one important respect, Zwingli followed the Bible more specifically than Luther. Martin allowed whatever the Bible did not prohibit. Zwingli rejected whatever the Bible did not prescribe. So the Reformation in Zurich tended to strip away more traditional symbols of the Roman church: the efficacy of lighting candles, the use of statues and pictures as objects of devotion, even church music was ended. Later, in England, these reforms would come to be called “Puritanism.”But more than the application of Reformation principles, Zwingli’s bookmark in history is pegged to the Eucharistic controversy his teaching stirred. He was at the center of a major theological debate concerning the Lord’s Table. Between 1525 and 8, a bitter war of words was waged between Zwingli and Luther. During this debate, Luther would write a tract and Zwingli would reply. Then Zwingli would pen a treatise and Luther would reply. This went back and forth for 3 yrs. It was a war fought with pamphlets as the ammunition.Both sides rejected the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation—that the prayer of a duly authorized priest transformed the elements into the literal body and blood of Christ. Their disagreement centered on Jesus’ words, “This is My body.” Luther and his followers adopted the position known consubstantiation, which says Jesus is present “in, with, and under” the elements and taking Communion spiritually strengthens the believer.Zwingli and his supporters regarded this as an unnecessary compromise with the doctrine of transubstantiation. They said Jesus’ words had to be understood symbolically. The elements represented Jesus’ blood and body, and Communion was merely a memorial. An important memorial to be sure, but the bread and wine were just symbols.The debate remains to this day.It should be noted that during his last years, Zwingli seems to have moved to a new position in regard to Communion. He came to recognize a spiritual presence of Christ in the elements, though reducing the idea to words is a proposition far beyond the capacity of this podcast to do. This later position of Zwingli was the position of Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s assistant and spiritual heir.Following hundreds of years of tradition, Zwingli, along with many other Reformers, believed the State and Church should reinforce one another in the work of God; there should be no separation. That’s why the Reformation became increasingly political and split Switzerland into Catholic and Protestant cantons, and eventually saw all of Europe carved up into differing religious regions. The terrible Wars of Religion were the result.Switzerland at that time was a network of 13 counties called cantons. These were loosely federated and basically democratic. Culturally, the north and east were German, while the west was French, and the south was Italian. The Reformation spread from Zurich, chief city of the capital canton, to the rest of German Switzerland, who were nevertheless reluctant to come under the politic al control of Zurich. Several cantons remained militantly Roman Catholic and resisted Zwingli’s influence for largely economic reasons.As political tensions grew, several Protestant cantons formed the Christian Civic League. Feeling pressed and threatened, the Catholic cantons also organized and allied themselves with the king of Austria. A desire to avoid war led to the First Peace of Kappel in 1529. But as often happens, once a treaty was hammered out, the only option left was war. Sure enough, two yrs later, five Roman Catholic cantons attacked Zurich, which was unprepared. Zwingli fought as a common soldier in the Battle of Kappel in 1531 and died in the field.The Second Peace of Kappel hammered out at the end of the year prohibited further spread of the Reformation in Switzerland. Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s son-in-law, took over leadership of the Protestant cause in Zurich and enjoyed great influence across Europe.An important aspect of Zwingli’s impact on the Reformation was that he cast it along civic lines, with a view to establishing a model Christian community. He persuaded the city council to legislate various details of the Reformation. He aimed at political reform as well as spiritual regeneration.The inter-canton struggles of this period led to the growing independence of the city of Geneva, which became the home of John Calvin, the other great Reformation luminary. The Swiss Reformation and Zwinglian movement ended up merging with Calvinism later in the 16^th C.Often overlooked in a review of the Reformation are those we might call the REAL reformers – better known as the radical reformers.Not all those who broke with Rome agreed with Zwingli, Luther, or Calvin. As early as 1523 in Zurich, there were those whose vision of Reform outstripped Zwingli’s. This movement coalesced around 2 leaders: Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz.On the 21^st of Jan, 1525, a little group met in the home of Felix Manz. The Zurich City Council had just ordered Grebel and Manz to stop teaching the Bible. Four days earlier the Council ordered parents to baptize their babies within eight days of birth or face exile. But a group of Zurich’s citizens questioned the practice of infant baptism. They met in Manz’s home to decide what to do. After a time of prayer, they agreed they’d obey what their conscience told them God’s Word said and trust Him to work things out. In an immediate application of that decision, a former priest named George Blaurock asked Conrad Grebel to baptism him in the fashion modeled in the Book of Acts. So, upon confession of His faith in Christ, Grebel baptized him, then Blaurock and Grebel together baptized the others.Anabaptism, another important expression of the Protestant Reformation, was born.As a term, anabaptist means “to baptize again.” The Anabaptists stressed believer’s baptism, as opposed to infant baptism. But the term “Anabaptist” refers to diverse groups of Reformers, many of whom embraced radical social, political, economic, and religious views. Some Anabaptist groups are known as the Swiss Brethren, the Mennonites, Hutterites, and the Amish. While those names may conjure up images of buggies, overalls, bonnets and long beards, it’s important to recognize that the Anabaptist tradition lies at the heart of a far larger slice of the Christian and Protestant world. Many modern groups and independent local churches could rightly be called Anabaptist in the bulk of their theology, though ignorant of their spiritual heritage.While the theology of the Anabaptist groups ended up being widely spread across the doctrinal spectrum, their main stream adhered to the sound, expository teaching of the Scriptures, the Trinity, justification by faith, and the atonement of Christ. What got them in trouble with some of their Reformation brethren was their rejection of infant baptism, which both Catholic and most other Protestant groups affirmed. They argued for a gathered, voluntary church concept as opposed to a State church. They advocated a separation of church and state and adopted pacifism and nonviolent resistance. They said Christians should live communally and share their material possessions. Counter-intuitively to all this, they preached and practiced a strict form of church discipline. Any one of these would mark them as distinct from other Reformation groups; but taken together, the Anabaptists were destined to run into trouble with Lutherans and Calvin’s followers.That’s what happened in Zurich. Zwingli’s reforming zeal produced an intolerance of his disciples Grebel and Manz who simply wanted to take the reforms further. They tried to convince Zwingli to follow thru into a genuine NT pattern, but all they did was provoke him to urge the City Council to fine, imprisoned, and eventually martyr them and their followers.The rise of Anabaptism ought to have been no surprise. Revolutions nearly always spin off a radical fringe that feels its destiny is to reform the reformation. Really, that’s what Anabaptism was; a voice calling moderate reformers to take it further; to go all the way into a genuine NT model.Like most such movements, the Anabaptists lacked cohesion. By lifting up the Bible as their sole authority, they resisted framing a cogent set of doctrinal distinctives. That meant the movement fragmented into several theological streams with no single body of doctrine and no unifying organization prevailing among them. Even the name “Anabaptist” was pinned on them by their enemies and was meant to class them as radicals at best and at worst, dangerous heretics. The campaign to slander them worked well.In reality, the Radical Reformers rejected the idea of “rebaptism” they were accused of because they never considered the ceremonial sprinkling of infants as valid. They preferred to be called simply “Baptists.” But the fundamental issue wasn’t baptism. It was the nature of the Church and its relation to civil government.The Radical Reformers came to their convictions as other Protestants had; by reading the Bible. Luther taught that common people had a right to read, understand and apply the Scriptures for themselves, they didn’t need some specially-trained church hierarchy to do all that for them. So, little groups of Anabaptists gathered around their Bibles.Picture a home Bible study. They discover in the pages of Scripture a very different world from the one the official church had concocted in their day. There was no state-church alliance in the Bible, no so-called “Christendom.” Rather, the Church was comprised of local, autonomous communities of believers drawn together by their faith in Jesus and nurtured by local pastors. And while that seems like a massive “Duh!” to many non-denominational Evangelicals today, it was a revolutionary idea in the 16^th C.You see, though Luther stressed a personal faith for each believer, Lutheran churches were understood as linked together to form THE Church of Germany. Clergy were ordained by a spiritual hierarchy and the entire population of a region were de-facto members of that region’s church. The Church looked to the State for salary and support. In those years, Protestantism differed little from Catholicism in terms of its relationship to the civil authority. If the State was society’s arm with the strength to enforce, the Church was its heart and mind with the insight to inspire and inform.Or, think of it this way, for 16^th C Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism, in society, the State was the body, the Church was the soul. They saw the Radical Reformers insistence that the Church and State were separate as creating a headless monster destined to do great harm.The Radical Reformers, as we’d suspect, responded with Scripture. Hadn’t Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world? Hadn’t he told Peter to put away his sword? And besides, hadn’t history amply proven that secular, civil power corrupts the Church? All true, but it seems reason and evidence didn’t endear the Radical Reformers to their opponents.The Anabaptists wanted to reinstall “apostolic Christianity” by which they meant, the Faith as practiced in the NT, where the only members of the Church were those who were genuinely born again, not everyone who happened to be born in a province with a Christian prince.The True Church, they insisted, is always and only a community of dedicated disciples seeking to live faithfully in the midst of a wicked world.So that little group that gathered in Manz’s home in January 1525 knew what they were doing was a violation of Zurich’s city council. Persecution was sure to follow. Shortly after the baptism they withdrew from Zurich to the nearby village of Zollikon. There, late in January, the first Anabaptist congregation, the first free church in modern times, was born.The authorities in Zurich couldn’t overlook what they deemed blatant rebellion. They sent police to Zollikon and arrested the newly baptized and imprisoned them for a time. But as soon as they were released the Anabaptists went to neighboring towns where they made more converts.Time and warnings passed and the Zurich council ran out of patience. A little over a year later they declared anyone found re-baptizing would be put to death by drowning. “If the heretics want water, they can have it.” Another year went by when the council followed thru on their threat and in Jan, 1527, Felix Manz was the 1^st Anabaptist martyr. The authorities drowned him in the Limmat. Just 4 yrs later, the Anabaptists in and around Zurich were virtually wiped out.Many fled to Germany and Austria where their prospects weren’t any better. In 1529, the Imperial Diet of Speyer declared Anabaptism a heresy and every region of Christendom was obliged to condemn them to death. Between 4 and 5 thousand were executed over the next several years.The Anabaptists had a simple demand: That a person have a right to his/her own beliefs. What we may not realize is that while that seems an imminently reasonable and assumed axiom for us—it was an idea bequeathed TO US by them! It’s not at all what MOST people thought in the 16^th C. No way! No how! The Radical Reformers seemed to Moderate Reformers like Luther and Zwingli to be destroying the very fabric of society. There was simply little conception of a society that wasn’t shaped by the Church’s influence on the State with the State’s enforcement of Church policy.We hear the Anabaptist voice in a letter written by a young mother, to her daughter only a few days old. è It’s 1573, and the father has already been executed. The mother, in jail, was reprieved long enough to give birth to her child. She writes to urge her daughter not to grow up ashamed of her parents: “My dearest child, the true love of God strengthen you in virtue, you who are yet so young, and whom I must leave in this wicked, evil, perverse world. à Oh, that it had pleased the Lord that I might have brought you up, but it seems that it is not the Lord’s will.… Be not ashamed of us; it is the way which the prophets and the apostles went. Your dear father demonstrated with his blood that it is the genuine faith, and I also hope to attest the same with my blood, though flesh and blood must remain on the posts and on the stake, well knowing that we shall meet hereafter.”Persecution forced the Anabaptists north. Many of them found refuge on the lands of a tolerant prince in Moravia. There they founded a Christian commune called the Bruderhof which lasted for many years.A tragic event happened among the Anabaptists in the mid-1530’s that’s another frequent historical trait. The very thing the Lutherans feared, happened.In 1532, the Reformation spread rapidly throughout the city of Munster. A conservative Lutheran group was the first form of the Reformation to take root there. Then immigrants arrived who were Anabaptist apostles of a shadowy figure named Jan Matthis. What we know about him was written by his critics so he’s cast as a fanatic who whipped the Munster officials into a fury of excitement that God was going to set up his kingdom on earth with Munster as the capital.The bishop of the region massed his troops to besiege the city and the Anabaptists uncharacteristically defended themselves. During the siege, the more extreme leaders gained control of the city. Then in the Summer of 1534 Jan of Leiden, seized control and declared himself sole ruler. He claimed to receive revelations from God for the city’s victory. He instituted the OT practice of polygamy and took the title “King David.”With his harem “King David” lived in splendor, but was able to maintain morale in the city in spite of massive hunger due to the siege. He kept the bishop’s army at bay until the end of June, 1535. The fall of the city brought an end to his and the Anabaptist’s rule. But for centuries after, many Europeans equated the word “Anabaptist” with the debacle of the Munster Rebellion. It stood for wild-eyed, religious fanaticism.Munster was to the Anabaptists what the televangelist scandals of the 80’s were to Evangelicalism; a serious black eye, that in no way reflected their real beliefs. In the aftermath of Munster, the dispirited Anabaptists of Western Germany were encouraged by the work of Menno Simons. A former priest, Menno visited the scattered Anabaptist groups of northern Europe, inspiring them with his preaching. He was unswerving in commanding pacifism. His name in time came to stand for the Mennonite repudiation of violence.As we end this episode, I want to recommend if anyone wants a much fuller treatment of the Munster Rebellion, let me suggest you visit the Hardcore History podcast titled Prophets of Doom. This podcast by Dan Carlin is an in-depth 4½ hr long investigation of this chapter of Munster’s story.

89-Luthers’ Legacy

This episode of CS is titled Luther’s Legacy.Long time subscribers to CS know that while the podcast isn’t bias free, I do strive to treat subjects fairly. However, being a pastor of a non-denominational, evangelical Christian church in SoCal, I do have my views and opinions on the material we cover. When I share those opinions, I try to mark them as such. So >> Warning; Blatant opinion now ensues …We live in the Era of the Instant. People expect to have things quickly and relatively easily. Technology has produced an array of labor-saving devices that reduce once arduous tasks to effortless, “push a button and voila” procedures. Sadly, many assume such instantifying applies to the acquisition of knowledge as well. The internet enhances this expectation with ready access to on-line information, not just thru a desktop computer, but via smartphones where ever we are.And of course, if it’s on the interwebs, it must be true.But knowledge and understanding are different things. Knowing a fact doesn’t equal understanding a concept, truth or principle. And many people now want their history in condensed form. They don’t really care to understand so much as to “get an A on the quiz” or, be able to answer trivia game questions. They can answer multiple choice but wouldn’t have a clue how to write an essay.I say all this as we fill in some of our gaps on Martin Luther for two reasons.First – The very nature of this podcast, short snippets on Church history, can easily foster a cavalier attitude toward our subject. So I need to make a MASSIVE qualifier and say that if all someone listens to is CS, they must never, ever assume they know Church History. My entire aim is to give those who listen reference points, a broad sweep of history with just enough detail to spark your embarking on your own journey of studying this fascinating subject. Pick one era, maybe just 1^st C, and one region, then study everything you can find about it. Become an expert on that one span of history. Press in past the dates and people and places, seeking to truly understand. Then use that to expand your study either backward or forward in time.Second – When we think of someone like Martin Luther, we tend to make him an index for a certain idea or movement. “Martin Luther: Father of the Reformation.” The problem with this is that we then tend to assume Luther was born with the intent of breaking away from the Roman church, as our last 2 episodes have shown was not at all the case. The evolution of Luther’s thoughts was an amazing microcosm of what was happening in at least hundreds, and probably thousands of people at that time. He just happened to be positioned as the lightening rod of change.In this episode, I want to fill in some of the gaps the previous couple episodes left because of our time-limited routine here on CS. What follows is a bit of a hodge-podge meant to provide a little more context for understanding Luther and how he came to the ideas he articulated and millions ended up embracing.Martin Luther ranks as one of the most influential figures of the last thousand years. While Marco Polo and Columbus opened new lands, Shakespeare and Michelangelo produced some of the most sublime art, and Napoleon and Stalin changed the political face of their times, Luther triggered a change in the human spirit that’s reached billions all around the world. The ideas announced in his sermons and written in books have affected virtually every realm and sphere of human activity, from politics to art, work to leisure. Truth be told, Luther’s main body of work was a conscious part of the early American character and continued to play a central role until recently. It was Luther who played wet-nurse to the Modern world’s emergence from Medievalism. We can neither credit nor blame Luther for the whole of what eventually became Protestantism, but as one who played a critical role in the emergence of a new movement and a new way of life for millions of people, the influence of his actions and beliefs on the past 500 years is beyond calculating. The modern world can barely be understood without Luther and the Reformation he sparked.Once Martin Luther was ordained a priest and settled into his ministry at Erfurt, his superiors in the Augustinian order decided he should continue with his theological studies. Having gained a Master of Arts, he was qualified to lecture on philosophy. But he knew he needed more study to qualify as a lecturer on the Bible.The first step toward that end was to lecture on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a standard theology textbook of the Middle Ages, which collected extracts from Scripture and the early church Fathers, arranged under topical headings to enhance discussion of theological issues. Under the guidance of Johann Nathin, a Professor of Theology and a senior member of Luther’s order, Luther set to work studying texts such as Gabriel Biel’s Dogmatics, a commentary on Lombard’s Sentences. Luther devoured Lombard’s theology.Meanwhile, Johann von Staupitz had been involved with the German Prince and Elector, Frederick the Wise, in establishing a new university in a small town called Wittenberg, 100 miles NW of Erfurt. In the Winter of 1508–9, he invited Luther to move and teach there. Staupitz was himself Lecturer in Biblical Studies in Wittenberg, so the idea was for Luther to help with the teaching of Aristotle’s Ethics. At the same time, he would work towards his doctorate, the ultimate qualification to teach theology in the church and university. After a single term, he was recalled to Erfurt for a further two years to fill a gap in the teaching program, but eventually returned to Wittenberg in 1512. Luther was placed in charge of teaching younger Augustinian friars in the order’s house in town. He received his doctorate in mid-October and enrolled as a full teaching member of the university.These years also saw the growth of Luther’s profile within the Augustinian Order. In 1510, he was sent with a fellow friar to Rome to try to sort out a complex internal matter connected with the order. They assumed his training as a lawyer positioned him as perfect for the job. The trip proved unsuccessful, but it was Luther’s only trip outside Germany.The Modern and mostly uninformed view of the Middle Ages is that it was a time when the people of Europe assumed they knew everything, and that the everything they knew was colossally wrong. But we Moderns NOW know è WE know everything. Ha!It does not take much investigation to realize this image of medieval thought is far from true. Erfurt, like most German universities of the time, was a place of wide theological variety. For several centuries, theology in the universities of Europe had been dominated by The Scholastics.By the time Luther came on the scene, there were three main types of Scholastic theology in operation. The first two, following the teaching of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus were by then known as the ‘old way’ or Realists. Alongside this was emerging a new kind of theology, called the ‘modern way’, o r Nominalists.One central question medieval theologians often pondered concerned the parts played by God and humans in salvation. The question of how we can come into a right relationship with God or, as the theologians called it, the doctrine of justification, was a hot topic. Contrary to what we might think, no one in late-medieval theological circles believed that a person could earn salvation purely by their own efforts. All agreed that God’s grace was necessary for salvation. The point at issue was how much and what kind of help was needed, and what part people played in the process. The Church’s teaching on this question was far from clear, and a number of different positions were held, not least among the Nominalist faction.One group took their cue from the great 5^th C Bishop of Hippo, St Augustine. When it came to the doctrine of justification, they held that humanity was helpless. Only God himself, by his sovereign mercy, could intervene and save people. Another group of Nominalists, the group that had an early influence on Luther, such as William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel, thought there was something which could be done to initiate the process of salvation.When Luther read Biel’s textbook, he was persuaded by the idea that God has entered into a covenant, or pact, with humanity. If the sinner did what lay within him, then God would not deny him grace. Within the framework of this agreement or covenant, sinners were capable of making a small moral effort on their own, without the help of God’s grace. This initial effort was required before God would respond. This might involve feeling a genuine sorrow for sin, or generating a sense of love for God. In response to this, God would give a supply (‘infusion’ was the technical term) of His grace to help fan this spark into a flame. But this initial gift of grace was not enough to access salvation on its own. The Christian then had to cooperate with God’s grace and, by the exercise of good works done with God’s help, perfect this contrition for sin and love for God, so that salvation could truly be attained.At the same time one group of Nominalists was scratching this out, another movement with its origins a Century earlier scorned all these movements within scholastic thought. The Renaissance, which had begun in Northern Italy, spread into Germany. It captured the allegiance of many younger scholars, with its exciting promise of returning to the sources of classical Greece and Rome as a model for literature, art, architecture, law and rhetoric.‘Humanism,’ as this program was known, isn’t to be confused with modern humanism, that is, secular humanism, which is atheistic. While it did have a high view of human dignity, the 16^th C version was religious in character, something most colleges and universities today neglect to mention. Renaissance humanism, or the study of the humanities wasn’t so much a set of ideas or philosophical opinions, as a yearning for all things classical. The great motivating desire was to acquire eloquence and skill with words and language. So, everything was devoted towards a new kind of education, which involved making the study of classical texts possible—as these were thought the best models of eloquence available. These texts could be Greek literature, Roman law, classical poetry or early Christian theology. So, the humanists promoted the study of Greek and Hebrew, alongside Latin, the language of all scholarly work in the Middle Ages, so that these texts could be read in the original, avoiding what they felt was the misleading filter of medieval translations.Humanists took particular exception to the methods and products of scholastic theology, of every stripe, Nominalist or Realist. They felt that the scholastic method encouraged the asking and answering of a series of irrelevant questions. They also objected to the method of using medieval commentaries, rather than the original texts themselves. For the humanist, lengthy medieval interpretations simply got in the way of the brilliance of the original authors. Humanists wanted a direct encounter with the original text of classical authors, the Bible and the Fathers, rather than have all that muddied by an extra layer of explanations made by lesser, more recent scholars, writing in crude and verbose medieval Latin.So, using the recent invention of the printing press, humanists reproduced of a whole series of ancient Christian texts, which made a new kind of scholarship possible. Three works in particular were important.First, in 1503, Erasmus published the Enchiridion or Handbook of the Christian Soldier. It laid out a program of reform for the Church.Second, in 1506, an 11-volume edition of the Works of Augustine appeared. For the first time in centuries, it was possible to read the greatest authority in Western theology in full, in context, and without the help of medieval commentators.Third, and most important was Erasmus’s greatest achievement, his Greek New Testament published in 1516. Although this edition was not as reliable as it might have been since Erasmus had a limited number of texts to work from—it became the first-ever printed edition of the Greek text, so that, for the first time, theologians all over Europe had the chance to compare the standard Latin Bible text with the original. A number of disturbing things emerged. For example, medieval theologians were unanimous in seeing marriage as a full sacrament of the church, alongside holy communion and baptism, on the basis of Jerome’s translation of Ephesians 5:32, which referred to it as a sacrament. When Erasmus’s edition appeared, it became clear that the original Greek word really meant ‘mystery’. The scriptural basis for regarding marriage as equal in value to baptism and Communion was shaken. So, the work of Erasmus and the other humanists played a major part in loosening the hold of the church’s authority in the minds of many educated laypeople.While they didn’t engage in outright warfare, scholasticism and humanism jostled in the lecture halls and universities across Germany in the early years of the 16^th C. Erfurt where Luther was, was no exception. The two schools of thought were both present in the university, although relationships between them were, on the whole, fairly amiable. Luther was known for his knowledge of classical writers. He likely attended lectures by humanist teachers.This was the theological landscape at the time Luther’s mind was being formed. Taught theology by nominalists, Luther believed as long as he did his best, God would give him grace to help him to become better. Humanist texts allowed him to study the great authorities of the Bible and the Fathers with fresh eyes. From 1509–10, he studied Augustine’s works and Lombard’s Sentences, and some of the notes he made in the margins of these works have survived to this day. They show him to be a not particularly original adherent of the theology of the Modern Way. He’d followed his teachers well, and there was little sign at this stage of departure from them.Luther was often plagued by bouts of depression. He wondered whether God really did hold good intentions towards him, sensing rather the stern stare of Christ as judge, demanding from him an impossible level of purity. He wondered whether these feelings were evidence he wasn’t chosen at all, but that he was among those destined to be damned to eternal suffering.On the shelves of the library of the Augustinian friary in Erfurt were copies of several works by Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard was something of a hero to monks like Luther, having developed a rich spiritual theology in the 12^th C, and lots of advice on the spiritual life. Luther read these and heard them read over meals. He noticed Bernard’s close attention to Scripture, and a piety which kept returning to the sufferings and humility of Jesus. Bernard advised his readers to meditate on the cross of Christ, especially when anxious or depressed. One of the virtues gained from such meditation was humility, a virtue greatly valued by God. Bernard said humility’s abiding image was the crucified Christ, and how God used the experience of suffering, even seasons of doubt, to bring humility to the human soul. à This was a tonic to the oft-tormented Luther.This emphasis on the Scriptures and pondering the cross, passed on by earlier scholars like Bernard and Augustine plowed and planted the field of Luther’s mind for the fruit it would later produce in the central doctrine of the Reformation – Justification by Faith Alone.A recent biographer called Martin Luther “A catastrophe in the history of Western civilization.” If we look only at the religious wars which were part of the Reformation, that verdict seems fair. But if we widen the criteria of our evaluation to Luther’s role in calling the church to a simpler, more just and communal vision, in puncturing the conceited abuse of power and hierarchical oppression of a moribund institution which nearly all admit was grotesquely corrupt, not to mention the inspiration which his theology has been to countless people over the centuries since, that judgment isn’t fair.Luther was a man of immense personal courage, fierce intelligence, and furious stubbornness. A mind steeped in the theology of his time, an ability to see quickly to the heart of an issue, and an eloquence that enabled him to express his ideas with clarity, was a powerful mixture. He inspired deep loyalty, even ardent love on the part of his supporters. He had a capacity to enjoy life in a huge way. He could be both tender and sharp, and his absence left an irreplaceable gap. As Melanchthon put it at Luther’s funeral, now they were ‘entirely poor, wretched, forsaken, orphans who had lost a dear noble man as our father’. At the same time, Luther was a man with deep flaws, who made enemies as quickly as friends, and whose brilliant language could be used to hurt as much as to heal.As we end this episode, I wanted to share something I found that I thought was really good in regards to Luther’s Enduring Legacy. It has to do with his doctrine of Justification by Faith. These thoughts are sparked by Graham Tomlin’s Luther and His World.Our Postmodern culture isn’t concerned with the same questions that dominated the 16^th C. People today don’t agonize, as Luther did, over where to find a gracious God. Modern men and women aren’t in the least bit concerned about the demands of a whole series of religious rules. But they do experience the constant demand to live up to standards of beauty set by the glamour industry; to levels of achievement set by business targets, or to standards of talent set by entertainment and sports. How to understand the self is a persistent and difficult problem modern psychotherapy aims to ameliorate.While Luther obviously worked before the development psychology, his doctrine of justification by faith has something to say to modern man. It says that human worth lies not in any ability or quality we possess, but in the simple fact that we are loved by our Creator.At the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, Luther claimed: “Sinners are attractive because they are loved, not loved because they are attractive.” He used to say that our value lies not inside us, but outside us; in Christ himself. The righteousness of the Christian, in which he/she stands before God, is not their own righteousness, but is Christ’s own righteousness, received by faith. They can know their true value is found not in any good quality in themselves, nor any good actions they’ve performed, but in the fact they’re loved by God. Luther’s location of value entirely ‘outside ourselves’, in God’s love manifested in Christ, safeguards a sense that our worth is unshakeable. Whether in work or unemployed, able-bodied or disabled; red or yellow, black or white we’re ALL precious in God’s sight. Even if we experience doubt over our worth through despair at our own capabilities, virtue or reputation, this sense of ultimate value cannot be taken away and can become the foundation of a secure and steady self-image because it’s received rather than achieved.But there’s more and this is where the doctrine of justification by faith can touch and heal our shattered world. The doctrine reverses the way in which we tend to evaluate other people. If a person’s value lies in a quality or feature which they possess, such as a particular skill or ability or ethnicity, it can make distinctions between people. Some people are more valuable and some are less; and we’re back to Apartheid, slavery, and the Holocaust. If, however, as justification by faith insists, a person’s true value lies not in anything they possess but in something ‘outside themselves’; that they are loved by God—then we can’t make such distinctions. Each person has dignity and value, and deserves equal treatment, regardless of age, skills, social utility or earning capacity.The Biblical Doctrine of Justification by Faith utterly upends Critical Theory which carves people into groups and sets worth solely by their identity IN that group. For the Biblical truth of Salvation by Grace through Faith resets human identity in only two groups; the lost and saved = Both of which are loved eternally by God, a love made manifest in the Cross of Christ.There is, however, at the same time a sobering honesty about Luther’s doctrine of justification. He insists that the first step to wisdom, to a rock-solid, immovable sense of self-worth, is to take a good look into the depths of one’s own soul. It means to face up honestly to the self-centeredness, lack of love for one’s neighbor, cowardice and indifference towards those who are suffering that lurks there. This is no easy doctrine which glosses over the reality of sin and evil in the human heart, the capacity to inflict pain and injustice which lies in everyone. For Luther, God has to help us to look into this abyss before we can go any further. This is far from that pleasant middle-class religion which assumes that everyone is good and nice, and which refuses to look beneath the surface. Luther’s God insists on facing up to the dark secrets inside, the selfish motivations and hidden desires.But this is only preliminary. Some forms of religion have implied that this is the sum of religion—making us feel bad about ourselves. Luther insists this is merely a necessary first step—a means to an end, but not an end in itself. God breaks up the fragile foundations of a sense of self-worth based in our own virtues, in order to establish a much firmer rock upon which to build. Luther would have been wary of psychological techniques which try to build self-worth by positive thinking and self-talk.Justification by faith is a reminder to Christians that they approach God not on the basis of who they are, but on the basis of who Christ is. Self-worth, value and forgiveness are gifts, not rights. It’s nothing to do with achieving an elusive goal of becoming the idealized person they might like to be in their most hopeful moments. It is a reminder that it is only when they stop trying to be someone else, and start being honest about who they really are, that they can begin to receive God’s acceptance of them à In Christ.It doesn’t get any more Biblical than that!

88-Luther’s Struggle

This episode of CS is titled, Luther’s Struggle.As we saw last time, Luther’s situation after appearing before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms didn’t look hopeful. The majority of officials there decided to apply the papal bull excommunicating Luther and removing his protection. Some of the nobles knew they could incur the Pope’s favor by taking matters into their own hands and assassinating the troublesome priest. But the German prince Frederick the Wise, one of the Emperor’s most important supporters, arranged to air-quotes à “kidnap" Luther on his way back to Wittenberg. He secreted Luther to his castle at Wartburg under an assumed identity. Now in hiding, Luther used the time to translate the NT from Greek into a superbly simple German Bible. He finished it in the Fall of 1522 and followed it up with an OT translation from Hebrew. This took longer and wasn’t finished till 1534. The completed Bible proved to be no less a force in the German-speaking world than the King James Version was later to be in the English sphere, and it’s considered one of Luther’s most valuable contributions.The revolt against Rome sparked by Luther’s list tacked to the castle church door at Wittenberg began to spread. In town after town, priests and town councils removed statues from churches and abandoned the Mass. More priests and monks stepped forward, adding their voice to the call for reform, many more radical than Luther. More importantly, an increasing number of civil officials decided to back Luther in defiance of the Emperor and Pope.By 1522, it was clear to Luther he could safety return to Wittenberg and put into practice the reforms he was convinced the Church needed to install. What he did there became the model for a good part of Germany. He abolished the office of bishop because he couldn’t find it in Scripture. Local churches needed pastors who were servants, not a religious royalty.During his time at the Wartburg, Luther gave much thought to the issue of celibacy. He wrote a tract called On Monastic Vows where he expounded on the idea that a sequestered life wasn’t really Biblical. When he returned to Wittenberg, he dissolved the monasteries and ended clerical celibacy. The resources of the monasteries were used to relieve the poor, and marriages between former celibates became the order of the day. Erasmus noted that the tragedy of the break with Rome looked like it would finish as a comedy; with everyone married and living happily ever after.Luther himself took a wife in 1525, the former nun, Katherine von Bora. The story goes she was an eminently practical woman but not all that attractive. When her fellow sisters got married, she was left single and approached Luther, saying it was his fault she was now alone and without support. She suggested it was his duty to remedy her situation. When he asked how he as supposed to do that, she replied marrying her was his best option. So he did.A new image of full-time ministry appeared in western Christianity—the married pastor living like any other man with his own family. Luther later wrote, “There is a lot to get used to in the first year of marriage. One wakes up in the morning and finds a pair of pigtails on the pillow which were not there before.” By all accounts, while Martin and Katherine’s marriage began as a purely pragmatic arrangement, the love between them grew into a rich joy. Luther was deeply affectionate to his wife, who often was instrumental in keeping Luther’s frequent dark moods from overwhelming him. They had six children.Martin and Katherine lived in what had been the Augustinian convent. Their house was nearly always full of guests who enjoyed sitting at their table. Some of his students the Luthers had in for meals took down their conversation, now published in a work called Table Talk.Luther understood if Reform was to take root and grow, it had to be fueled by the study of the Bible. Studying Scripture required the ability to read it and to reason logically. So he placed a great emphasis on education and urged parents to send their children to school. To assist in the education of youth, he composed a Large Catechism in 1528, then a more popular Small Catechism a year later. In the Small Catechism, Luther gave a simple exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the two sacraments. He offered forms for confession, morning and evening prayers, and grace at meals.Keep in mind Luther hadn’t begun in 1517 with a fully developed theological position and a plan to Reform the Roman church or break away and start a separate religious franchise. That was nowhere on the horizon. When he tacked his list on Wittenberg’s church door, it was simply a reflection of his desire that church officials begin examining both long-held traditions and more recent innovations by holding them up to the light of Scripture. As things progressed, Luther realized he had to follow his own advice.Many Protestants have heard of Luther’s 95 Theses but they’ve not read them. It’s surprising to see what he calls for people to examine there. Turns out, there’s little in Luther’s List that ended up in the core doctrines of the Reformation. But once Luther embraced the principle of reviewing everything in the light of God’s Word, a far more complete doctrinal picture began to take shape. He saw his way clear in the matter of justification by grace thru faith. When he applied this to the issue of indulgences is when he popped up on Rome’s radar. His emerging understanding of the priesthood of all believers was a threat Rome couldn’t ignore because it threatened their religious hegemony. Soon, everything was being scrutinized in the light of Scripture.Luther translated the Latin liturgy into German. People began receiving Communion in both bread and wine. The emphasis in church services switched from the celebration of the Mass to the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.In 1524, Germany got a taste of how far reaching Luther’s call for reforms could reach. His insistence that church and society follow the commands of Scripture led to an uprising of the peasants against the nobility. The people applied the concept of the freedom of the Christian to the economic and social spheres. Long kept under the domineering thumb of the nobility, the peasants revolted against their feudal lords. They demanded an end to medieval serfdom, unless it could be justified from the Bible, and relief from the excessive services demanded of them which kept them in virtual slavery.At the beginning of their protest, Luther agreed with the peasants and recognized the justice of their complaints. What he stridently warned against was the use of violence to enforce their will on a recalcitrant nobility. When violence did break out, he lashed out against the peasants. Since the printing press was already a major part of his work, he employed it again and wrote a pamphlet titled, Against the Thievish and Murderous Hordes of Peasants. In it, Luther called on the princes to “knock down, strangle, stab … and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, or Satanic as an insurgent.”In 1525, the nobles crushed the revolt at a cost of some 100,000 lives. The survivors now called Luther a false prophet. Many of them returned to Catholicism or turned to more radical forms of the Reformation.Luther’s conservative political and economic views devolved from his belief that the equality of all men before God applied to spiritual rather than secular matters. Though these views alienated the common people, they proved a boon to Luther’s influence with the German princes, many of whom became Lutheran in part because Luther’s views allowed them to control the Church in their territories, thereby strengthening their power and wealth.In 1530, a conference of Reformation leaders convened in Augsburg to draw up a common Statement of Faith. The leadership of the movement had already begun to move beyond Luther. He was still an outlaw and unable to attend. So the task of presenting Luther’s ideas fell to his colleague, a young professor of Greek at Wittenberg, Philip Melanchthon. The young scholar drafted the Augsburg Confession signed by Lutheran princes and theologians. And though a growing movement of the German nobility now threw their weight behind the Reform, Emperor Charles V, who depended on their support, was no more inclined to join the movement than he’d been a Worms.After 1530, Charles made clear his intention to crush the growing heresy. The Lutheran princes banded together in 1531 in the Schmalkald League, and between 1546 and 55 there was scattered, on-and-off-again civil war. The combatants reached a compromise in the Peace of Augsburg, which allowed each prince to decide the religion of his subjects, with the only acceptable options being Lutheran or Catholic, and ordered all Catholic bishops to give up their property if they turned Lutheran.The effects of this treaty were profound. Lutheranism became a State religion in large portions of the Empire. It spread north to Scandinavia. Religious opinions became the private property of princes, and individuals had to believe what their prince chose.Luther remained engaged in unending debate with the Roman Church. And it wasn’t long before he found himself embroiled in disagreements with other reformers. Outspoken and combative, he often collided with equally fierce opponents. These controversies took on a bitter edge that saw Luther hurling vicious epithets at his opponents. The insults he’d once used for the Pope were turned on fellow Reformers. All this greatly hampered reform.For example, Luther became entangled in a controversy with the humanist scholar and reformer Erasmus. The two had much in common, sharing concerns for scholarship, for opening up the Scriptures, and for doctrinal and practical reform. Still, they differed sharply in character and theological approach. Under pressure to declare himself either for Luther or against him, Erasmus turned to the important issue of the freedom of the will and published a work titled, Diatribe on Free Will in 1524. To this Luther made a scornfully sharp reply a year later in his Bondage of the Will. This work is a powerful statement of the Augustinian position that in matters of righteousness and salvation human will has no power to act apart from God’s enabling grace. Erasmus replied to Luther’s reply, but Luther ignored it. Erasmus then aligned himself with opponents of the Reformation, although still urging reform and maintaining friendly relations with other reformers.The Lutherans themselves experienced a split over how to understand Communion. Like a bulldog, Luther clung to the words of Jesus "This is my body" as supporting his belief that Jesus was present in the elements. When the Southern Germans and Swiss broke away saying that the elements were meant ot be understood as symbolic, Luther published a couple of scathing responses in 1526 and 7. There’s a coarseness to his style in the second of these that may indicate Luther had no desire to win his opponents, only to insult them.Since this is a history and not theology podcast, I’m not going to go into all the nuances of the Eucharistic debate that ensued between the Lutherans and other Reformers. Suffice it to say, it became one of the major issues of controversy between them.Luther ran into other difficulties, too.He hoped at first that the renewing of the Gospel would open the way for the conversion of the Jews. When that didn’t pan out, he made virulent attacks on them, planting a deep stain on his record. Philip of Hesse, a champion of the Reformation, became an embarrassment to Luther when he gave assent to Philip’s bigamous marriage in 1540. The development of armed religious alliances in the empire worried Luther, for while he accepted the divine authorization of princes and valued their help in practical reformation, he struggled hard for the principle that the Gospel does not need to be advanced or defended by military power. He was spared the conflict that came so soon after his death.Even his sympathetic biographers have found it hard to justify some of Luther’s actions in his declining years. By the time of his death in 1546, says biographer Roland Bainton, Luther was “an irascible old man, petulant, peevish, unrestrained, and at times positively coarse.” As chance would have it, his schedule brought him to Eisleben, the town of his birth, where he died on Feb. 18, 1546.Fortunately, the personal defects of an aging rebel don’t in any way detract from the greatness of Luther’s achievements, which transformed not only Christianity but Western civilization. He took four basic concerns and offered vital new answers.To the question - How is a person saved, Luther replied: not by works but by faith alone.To the question - Where does religious authority lie, he answered: not in the visible institution called the Roman church but in the Word of God found in the Bible.To the question—What is the church?—he responded: the whole community of Christian believers, since all are priests before God.And last, to the question—What is the center of the Christian life?—he replied: serving God in any useful calling, whether ordained or not.

87-Luther’s List

This episode of CS is titled, Martin’s List.In the summer of 1520, a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. It began, “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.”The document was what’s called a papal bull—named after that impressive seal, or bulla bearing the Pope’s insignia. It took 3 months to reach the wild boar it referred to, a German monk named Martin Luther who’d created quite a stir in Germany. But well before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther taught, he knew its contents. 41 of the things he’d been announcing were condemned as à “heretical, scandalous, false, and offensive to pious ears; seducing simple minds and repugnant to Catholic truth.” The papal bull called on Luther to repent and publicly repudiate his errors or face dreadful consequences.Luther received his copy on the 10^th of October. At the end of his 60-day grace period in which he was supposed to surrrender, he led a crowd of eager students outside Wittenberg and burned copies of the Canon Law and works of several medieval theologians. Included in the paper that fed the flames was a copy of the bull condemning him. That was his answer. He said, “They’ve burned my books. So I burn theirs.” That fire outside Wittenberg in December of 1520 was a fitting symbol of the defiance toward the Roman Church raging throughout Germany.Born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony to a miner, Luther attended school at Magdeburg under the Brethren of the Common Life. He then went to university at Erfurt where he learned Greek, graduating w/an MA in 1505. His plan was to become a lawyer, but the story goes that one day he was caught in a thunderstorm; a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Terrified, he cried out to the patron saint of miners: “St. Anne, save me! And I’ll become a monk.” To his parents’ dismay, Luther kept the vow. 2 weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a dedicated brother. Some years later he said about his being a monk, “I kept the rule so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by sheer monkery, it was I. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work.” Luther pushed his body to health–cracking rigors of austerity. He sometimes engaged in a total fast; no food OR water, for 3 days and slept without a blanket in winter.In the Erfurt monastery he did further theological study and was made a priest in 1507. When he transferred to Wittenberg in 1508, he began teaching moral theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and the Scriptures. A visit to Rome on Augustinian business in 1510 opened Luther’s eyes to the corruption so prevalent among the higher clergy there. When he returned to Wittenberg in 1512 he earned his Doctorate in Theology and was appointed to the Chair of Biblical studies which he occupied for the rest of his life.But throughout this time, Luther was consumed by guilt and the sense his sinfulness. While the majesty and glory of God inspired most, it tormented Luther because he saw himself as a wretched sinner, alienated from an unapproachably holy God.While performing his first Mass, Luther later reported, “I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘Who am I that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine majesty? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin, à and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God?’” No amount of penance nor counsel from his peers could still Luther’s conviction he was a miserable, doomed sinner. Although his confessor counseled him to love God, Luther one day burst out, “Love God? I do not love Him - I hate him!”Luther found the love he sought in studying the Word of God. Assigned to the chair of biblical studies at the recently opened Wittenberg University, he became fascinated with the words of Christ from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Luther found an odd solace in the idea that that Christ was forsaken. Luther was a sinner. Christ wasn’t. The answer had to lie in Christ’s identification with sinful humans. Luther began to ponder the possibility that Jesus endured estrangement from God for us.A new and revolutionary picture of God began to develop in Luther’s restless soul. Finally, in 1515, while pondering Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Luther came upon the words of Ch1v17 “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”This was the key that turned the lock and opened the door to everything else that would follow. He said, “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”Luther saw it clearly now. Man is saved only by his faith in the merit of Christ’s sacrifice. The cross alone removes sin and save from the grasp of the devil. Luther had come to his famous doctrine of justification by faith alone. He saw how sharply it clashed with the Roman church’s doctrine of justification by faith and good works—the demonstration of faith through virtuous acts, acceptance of church dogma, and participation in the sacraments.The implications of Luther’s discovery were enormous. If salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, the intercession of priests was unnecessary. Faith formed and nurtured by the Word of God, written and preached, requires neither monks, masses, nor prayers to the saints. The mediation of a Church magisterium crumbles.At first, Luther had no idea where his spiritual discovery would lead. It took a flagrant abuse of church finances to move him to the center of rebellion in Germany, and into a revolutionary position regarding papal authority.The sale of indulgences, introduced during the Crusades, remained a major source of church income, especially that destined for Rome. The theology behind indulgences is rather complex and a subject we could spend considerable time on, but the upshot is this: Jesus and the saints have done far more good than they need for themselves and have lived lives that produce an excess of righteousness others can draw upon. The Church hierarchy, specifically the Pope and his agents, are able to open what’s called the “Treasury of Merit” all this excess goodness has gone in to, and assign it to less worthy individuals. So, in exchange for a meritorious work—like, making a pilgrimage, going on a Crusade, or making a financial contribution—the Church offered the sinner exemption from acts of penance.All too often, the peddlers of indulgences made them seem a sort of magic—as though a contribution automatically earned the one seeking it a reward, regardless of the condition of their soul. Sorrow for sin was conveniently overlooked. And some even implied you could buy permission to sin before committing it. All this deeply troubled Luther.So, armed with his new understanding of faith, he began to criticize the theology of indulgences in his sermons. He ramped things up in 1517 when the Dominican John Tetzel was preaching throughout Germany on behalf of a Vatican fund–raising campaign to complete the construction of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. In exchange for a contribution, Tetzel boasted, he would provide donors with an indulgence that would even apply beyond the grave and free souls from purgatory. Tetzel was a clever sloganeer who understood the power of marketing. He came up with the catchy ditty - “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”To Luther, Tetzel’s preaching was more than bad theology, it bordered on blasphemy. Irked by Tetzel’s fleecing of the common people and provoked by his studies in Scripture, Luther drew up 95 propositions for theological debate and on October 31^st of 1517, following university custom, posted them on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg, the place people put public notices. Among other things, Luther’s list argued that indulgences can’t remove guilt, do not apply to purgatory, and are harmful because they create a false sense of security. Little did anyone know that the spark had just been lit that fired the Reformation.Within a short time, Tetzel’s fellow Dominicans in Germany denounced Luther to Rome as guilty of preaching dangerous doctrines. A Vatican theologian issued a series of counter-theses to Luther’s list, claiming that anyone who criticized indulgences was guilty of heresy.At first, Luther was willing to accept a final verdict from Rome. But he quickly shifted to the position that his critics show him in Scripture that he was wrong. As his appeal to the Bible grew, he began to question the doctrine of purgatory. During an 8–day debate in 1519 with Church theologian John Eck at Leipzig, Luther said, “A council may sometimes err. Neither the Church nor the Pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from Scripture.”Luther had moved from his first conviction—that salvation was by faith in Christ alone to a second. Scripture, not popes or councils, is the standard for Christian faith and behavior.John Eck didn’t miss Luther’s spiritual resemblance to Jan Hus. After the Leipzig debate, he asked Rome to declare Luther a heretic. Luther put his case before the German people by publishing a series of pamphlets. In his Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, Martin called on the princes to correct abuses within the Church, to strip bishops and abbots of their wealth and worldly power, and to create a national, German Church.In his work titled, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Luther spoke not to the Papal Schism of a century and a half before but how the doctrine of justification by faith had reformed, get this, his doctrine of the Church. He argued that Rome’s sacramental system held Christians “captive.” He attacked the papacy for depriving individual Christians of their freedom to approach God directly by faith, without the mediation of priests. He said that in order for a sacrament to be valid, it had to be instituted by Christ and exclusively Christian. By these tests Luther could find no justification for five of the Roman Catholic sacraments. He retained only Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and placed even these within a community of believing Christians, rather than in the hands of an exclusive priesthood.All this had sweeping ramifications for the Church. It brushed aside the traditional view of the church as a sacred hierarchy headed by the pope and returned to the early Christian view of a community of Christian believers in which all believers are priests called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God.In his 3^rd pamphlet published in 1520, The Freedom of a Christian Man, Luther set forth in a conciliatory but firm voice his views on Christian behavior and salvation. This work is probably the best introduction to his central ideas. He wrote. “Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works.”On the eve of his excommunication from the Roman Church, Luther removed the necessity of monasticism by stressing that the essence of Christian living lies in serving God in one’s calling whether secular or religious. All useful callings, he said, are equally sacred in God’s eyes.In June of 1520, Pope Leo X issued his bull condemning Luther, giving him 60 days to turn from his heretical course. The bonfire at Wittenberg made clear Luther’s intent, so his excommunication followed. In January of 1521 the pope declared him a heretic.The problem now fell into the hands of the young emperor, Charles V, who was under oath to defend the Church and remove heresy from the empire. Remember that all Church hierarchy can do is examine those suspected of heresy and declare them innocent or guilty. Punishment was not the duty of priests or monks. That was for the civil magistrate to carry out. So when Luther was declared a dangerous heretic and booted from the Church, it fell to the Emperor to carry out his execution. He summoned Luther to the imperial assembly at Worms, called a Diet, to give an account of his writings. Charles V understood how highly charged the political situation around Luther was since he’d become the hero for a good part of the German nobility Charles desperately needed in his contest with France and the Turks. The emperor wanted to make sure Luther was a verifiable heretic and not just someone Rome wanted to be rid of.While the exact record of the Diet at Worm s is a little cloudy, it seems one day, as Luther was shown a table full of books purported to be his, wherein his radical ideas were expressed, when asked if they were indeed his, and if he stood by all that he had written in them, he hesitated and showed some uncertainty. Whether his hesitation was due to his concern that maybe there were books there he’d NOT authored, or that some of his earlier writings may not have been as accurate in reflection of his present views – or that with the Emperor watching him he was being faced with a potentially life-ending challenge – we don’t know. In any case he was allowed to retire for the day where he reflected on what he was really being challenged by and emerged to stand before the assembly on the morrow were he once again insisted that only Biblical authority would sway him. In a famous and oft quoted line he stated, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”Bold. Courageous. But Charles V was not impressed. He declared Luther an outlaw. He pronounced, “This devil in the habit of a monk has brought together ancient errors into one stinking puddle, and has invented new ones.” Luther had 21 days for safe passage to Saxony before the sentence fell. It never came. Luther was saved from arrest and death by Duke Frederick the Wise, the prince of Saxony whose domains included Wittenberg. The Duke gave Luther sanctuary at his lonely Wartburg Castle. Disguised as a minor nobleman, and given the alias Junker George, Luther stayed for a year. He used the time to translate the New Testament into German, an important first step toward reshaping public and private worship in Germany.

86-Erasmus

This episode of CS is titled Erasmus.As we begin, I once again want to do a brief, and I promise it will be brief, summary of the threads that conspired to weave the tapestry of the Reformation. Others might refer to them less as threads that weaved a tapestry as those that frayed in the unravelling of the Church caused by a pack of trouble-makers. The reason I’m compelled to do all this summarizing is because of the massive sea-change coming in our study and the need to understand it wasn’t just some malcontents who woke up one day and decided to bail on a healthy church. Things had been bad for a long time and the call for reform had been heard for a couple hundred years.The Western European Church of the 14^th and 15^th C’s experienced a major crisis of authority. This crisis came from challenges both within and without. They combined to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of many about the credibility and legitimacy of Church leaders. Let’s review some of the things they’d done, and that happened to the Church, to create the crisis.Due to the politics of late medieval Europe, Pope Clement V moved the papal seat to Avignon, France, in 1309 in what’s called the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church” because the Pope came under the influence of the French throne. When another Pope was elected in Rome, the Church was faced with 2 men who claimed the title of “Vicar of Christ.” This Papal Schism confused the people of Europe and stirred strong feelings that the office of Pope was more a political fixture than a spiritual office. At the insistence of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Council of Constance ended the schism. But the solution raised serious questions about the authority of the papacy, further dividing church leaders and distressing the people of Europe.In addition to these political shenanigans, the Church was marked by widespread corruption and fraud. Simony, the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices, was common. Immorality among monks, priests, bishops and cardinals was at some times and places, not even hidden. The Church spent a fortune acquiring thousands of relics for its cathedrals and paying for them with the selling of indulgences, which we’ll talk about soon.The Inquisition had terrorized whole regions of Europe, especially in Spain and while the Church justified its actions saying it was rooting our dangerous heresy, many knew some victims of the Inquisition were innocent. The Church simply wanted their property and wealth and had used the Inquisition as a means of enriching itself.With the birth of the Renaissance and a new open-mindedness about thinking outside the realm of official authority, the Church became an object of ridicule and satire in pamphlets and books that were readily available with the invention of the printing press.Let me be clear. Some of the harshest criticism of the Church came, not from outsiders, but from faithful priests and monks disgusted with the corruption and error they saw among their peers.As a reaction to the stultifying academic pursuits of Scholasticism, there was a popular movement all across Europe known as Mysticism, in which people simply wanted to “feel” their faith and sought make contact with the divine through meditation and a more personal link to God than going through the official priesthood.Most significant was the movement known as The Brethren of Common Life. Their most famous spokesman was Thomas à Kempis whose little book On the Imitation of Christ continues to be a widely read devotional classic. The Brethren stood in opposition to the monastic orders which for the most part had become centers of corruption. The Brethren breathed new spiritual life into the church. They stressed personal devotion to Jesus through meditative study, confession of sin, and imitating Christ. They emphasized holiness and simplicity in lifestyle. In many ways, the Brethren prefigured the Reformers of the 16^th C.With the Bible being translated into the common tongue, no longer did people have to rely on a priest telling them what it said.The 16^th C world was one of astonishing change. Medieval civilization, dominated by an institutional Church was disappearing. Modern nation-states challenged the Church for political and economic supremacy, and the voyages of discovery made the world seem smaller at the same time new worlds were opening. The Renaissance of Northern Italy saw many turn from a hide-bound and superstitious Catholicism to the romanticized glories of ancient Greece and Rome.Into this changing world stepped one à Desiderius Erasmus.Taking the pulse of the times, Erasmus ridiculed the Catholic church with biting satire. His works were wildly popular. In his most famous, Praise of Folly written in 1509, Erasmus took jabs at the church’s immorality, corruption, and decadence. He ridiculed such superstitions as fanatical devotion to relics, stories of bleeding Communion bread, and the cult of the saints. In another work, he depicted Saint Peter railing against Pope Julius II for his luxurious and opulent lifestyle and military conquests.But it was in 1516 that Erasmus published his most important and influential work—a Greek edition of the NT. He examined and compared the available NT manuscripts and citations from the Church Fathers. The result was an accurate NT Greek text that became the NT of the Reformation.One epigram regarding the Reformation states, “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”The illegitimate son of a Dutch priest, Erasmus lived in search of knowledge, in pursuit of piety, in love with books, and oppressed by the fear of poverty. Along the way, his writings and scholarship started a theological earthquake that didn’t stop until European Christendom was torn in two.Born in Rotterdam and orphaned by the plague, Erasmus was sent from the school of St. Lebuin’s—which taught classical learning and the humanities—to a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life. There he learned an emphasis on a personal relationship with God but detested the strict rules of monastic life and intolerant theologians. They intended to teach humility, he later recalled, by breaking the students’ spirits.Being poor with no prospects, Erasmus joined the Augustinians. He wanted to travel, gain some academic elbow room, and leave behind the, as he called them, “barbarians” who discouraged him from classical studies. As soon as he was ordained a priest in 1492, he became secretary to the bishop of Cambrai, who sent him to Paris to study theology.He hated it there too. The dorms stank of urine, the food was atrocious, studies mechanical, and the discipline brutal. He began a career in writing and traveling that took him to most of the countries of Europe. Though his health was often poor, Erasmus was driven by a desire to seek out the best theologians of his day. On a trip to England in 1499, he complained of bad beer, the uncouth nature of the English, and terrible weather, but >> he met Thomas More, who became a friend for life.On that same trip he heard John Colet teach from the Scriptures, not just quote from the commentaries he’d studied in Paris. Colet, who later became dean of St. Paul’s, encouraged Erasmus to become a “primitive theologian”- that is, someone who studied Scripture like the church Fathers, not like the argumentative scholastics who’d dominated theology for the last hundred years.So, Erasmus devoted himself to learning the Koine or Common Greek in which the NT was written. The result was his most significant work: an edition of the NT in original Greek, published in 1516. Accompanying it were study notes as well as his own Latin translation, correcting over 600 errors in Jerome’s Vulgate.Two of the most noteworthy praises of Erasmus’s work came from Pope Leo X and from a German monk named Martin Luther—who, a year later, launched the Reformation.Before that turning point however, which would eventually consume Erasmus, he became famous for his other writings. There were plenty of them to be famous for. By the 1530s, some 15% of all the books sold were written by Erasmus.Historians refer to Erasmus as a humanist, but that label has a very different meaning than it does in today. A humanist in the 15^th C referred to someone who studied the humanities, that is, the social sciences of language, history, art and other subjects concerned with culture and society. But Erasmus was too brilliant a mind to simply study the humanities; he felt an obligation to better society. So he wrote to confront and correct the errors he felt had crept into the Church, an institution he knew had by the far the biggest influence in shaping culture. He found he had great skill in the use of satire to make his point and people enjoyed reading his books and tracts.Those books brought him fame, as did his Greek NT. This and his attacks on the church caught Martin Luther’s attention, who wrote asking for support.The two never met, but their fates were entwined. Erasmus’s enemies accused him of inspiring Luther who was accused of breaking up God’s Church. Erasmus found much he liked in Luther’s writings, describing him to Pope Leo X as “a mighty trumpet of Gospel truth.” At the same time, he privately told his printer to stop printing Luther’s writings because he didn’t want his own efforts to be identified with Luther’s.For 4 years, Erasmus pleaded for moderation on both sides of the divide Luther’s work caused. When pressed, he sided with the Pope. Still, he hated the bickering and intolerance on both sides; saying, “I detest dissension because it goes both against the teachings of Christ and against a secret inclination of nature. I doubt that either side in the dispute can be suppressed without grave loss. It is clear that many of the reforms for which Luther calls are urgently needed.”His mediating position satisfied neither side. He said, “My only wish is that now that I am old, I be allowed to enjoy the results of my efforts. But both sides reproach me and seek to coerce me. Some claim that since I do not attack Luther I agree with him, while the Lutherans declare that I am a coward who has forsaken the Gospel.”Indeed, Luther attacked him as a Moses who would die in the wilderness without entering the Promised Land. And the Roman Church banned his writings.

85-Dawn

This 85^th episode of CS, is titled, Dawn.I want to take a brief moment here at the start to say “Thank you” to all those who’ve spread the word about CS to their friends and family. We’ve had a significant bump in subscribers and lots of new likes on the FB page. So—Kudos to all who’ve spread the word.As most of you know, iTunes is by far the major portal for podcasts. So, if you use iTunes, a review of CS is a great way to boost our rating – and ratings usually translate into new subscribers. Why do we want more subscribers since there’s no commercial interest in CS? Because information and knowledge about history are crucial to a well-rounded worldview. I’m convinced an accurate view of history is crucial to overcoming prejudice, to tearing down the walls that divide people. That is when we discover not just WHAT people believe but WHY – it helps puts things in perspective and disabuses us of errant opinions.Anyway, that’s my hope.As I’ve learned about different groups, I’ve revised my opinions. Traditions almost always have some origin in history, in some ground that at the time seemed perfectly reasonable to the people who created them. We may not agree with them today, hundreds and even thousands of years later, but at least we can respect those who originally framed them; and if not respect, gain a modicum of understanding for the complexities they wrestled with.Okay, back to it …We’ve come now to one of the most significant moments in Church History; the Reformation. Since it’s considered by many the point at which the Protestant church arose, it’s important to realize a couple of things.First – The student of history must remember almost all those who are today counted as the first Protestants were Roman Catholics. When they began the movement that would later be called the Reformation, they didn’t call themselves anything other than Christians of the Western, Roman church. They began as an attempt to bring what they considered to be much-needed reform to the Church, not to start something new, but to return to something true. When the Roman hierarchy excommunicated them, the Reformers considered it less as THEY who were being thrust forth out of the Church as it was those who did the thrusting, pushed them out of the true church which was invisible and not to be equated with the visible religious institution HQ’d in Rome, presided over by the Pope. It’s difficult to say for certain, but you get the sense from the writing of some of the Reformers that they hoped the day would come when the Roman church would recognize in their movement the true Gospel and come to embrace it. Little did they envision how deep and wide the break between them would become, and how their movement would shatter and scatter into so many different sects, just as the Roman hierarchy worried and warned.Second - There’d been groups that diverged from Roman Catholicism and its Eastern cousin the Orthodox Church, for a long time. We’ve already considered the Nestorian Church which dominated the Church in the Far East for hundreds of years and didn’t lose its place of prominence until the Mongol invasions of the 13^th C. There were little communities of what can be called non-aligned Christians scattered throughout Europe. And we’ll consider some of those as we turn now to the Reformation.Long before Luther nailed his list of 95 topics for discussion to the chapel door at Wittenberg, others had sniped at the theological position of the Roman church. There’d always had been some who didn’t agree with its teaching, and many had broken off into separate religious communities.By way of review …Peter Waldo was one of the most effective of the pre-Reformers. A wealthy merchant of Lyons, France, moved by Matthew 19:21, he was convinced that poverty in the service to Christ was the path to heaven. So three centuries before Martin Luther, he sold his estate and gave the proceeds to the poor. Within a year, he was joined by others, both men and women, who called themselves the “Poor Men of Lyons,” and took on an itinerant ministry of preaching repentance and living from handouts. These were an early form of what came to be the mendicant monks.Thinking themselves to be good Roman Catholics, they appealed to the Third Lateran Council in 1179 for permission to preach but were refused because they were considered ignorant and unlearned laymen. But they were convinced they were like the first followers of Jesus and should obey God rather than men. So, Peter and his followers continued to preach.In 1184, Pope Lucius III excommunicated them for their disobedience. Contrary to what we might expect, this brought numerous supporters, and the movement spread into southern France, Italy, Spain, the Rhine Valley, and Bohemia. That they gained such support after being drop-kicked by Rome leaves the impression the Church’s reputation wasn’t so grand, at least in the regions where the Waldensians lived and worked.It’s hard to know if all those called “Waldensian” were really followers of Peter Waldo or if contemporary opponents just used that term as a blanket description for the many disaffected individuals who opposed the Church. It’s possible as well that many smaller groups of non-aligned Christians emerged from hiding to join the Waldensians.Whatever the case, they took the New Testament as a rule of life and used it in what we might call a legalistic sense. They went about 2 by 2, wearing simple clothing, preaching repentance, frequent fasting, and living from the gifts of others. They rejected the doctrine of purgatory, masses and prayers for the dead, and promoted the necessity for translations of Scripture in people’s native language. They insisted on the right of anyone to preach, man or woman—but they did have some organization among their clergy, with bishops, priests, and deacons.While Peter Waldo never embraced the doctrines we’d call genuinely evangelical, his emphasis on Scripture as the basis of faith and practice opened the door for his followers to become so.The Waldensians were persecuted harshly for centuries. Part of the reason for their widespread distribution in Europe was that they were driven from their homeland. In Bohemia, they ultimately became part of the followers of Jan Hus. In their mountain retreat of the Alps between France and Italy, their homeland by the time of the Reformation, they met with representatives of the Swiss Reformation in 1532 and adopted the theology and government of the Swiss Reformers. Then, in 1545, about 4000 were massacred in Provence, France. It wasn’t until 1848 that they won recognition. Today they number about 20,000, the only medieval separatist group to survive to the present.That brings us to the next pre-reformer, the Englishman JOHN WYCLIFFE, who we’ve already looked at.John Wycliffe lived about 200 yrs after Peter Waldo. Like Waldo, Wycliffe was determined to derive his theology, both theoretical and practical, from Scripture. Like the Waldensians, Wycliffe encouraged the translation of the Bible into the common language and that anyone ought to be able to preach, not just sanctioned and licensed clergy.Though he personally translated or supervised the translation of parts of the Bible, the version given his name wasn’t completed until after his death. Its widespread use had an influence on the development of the English language. Wycliffe was educated at Oxford and later became a master of Balliol College there. For a while chaplain to the king, with access to Parliament, he was able to reach some of the upper-class English. But he also sought to reach the common people, sending out lay evangelists to instruct them.After 1375, Wycliffe’s reforming views developed rapidly. Pope Gregory XI condemned him in 1377 for his efforts, but he was protected by some of the nobles and the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and son of Edward III. These were the days of the Hundred Years War between England and France, when it was unthinkable an Englishmen would surrender one of their most outstanding countrymen to a pope at Avignon, under the domination of England’s French foes.To Wycliffe, Scripture, which he interpreted literally, was the sole authority for the believer. Decrees of the pope were not infallible except as based on Scripture. The clergy were not to rule, but to serve and help people. He concluded that Christ and not the pope was the head of the church; in fact, the pope, if he were too eager for worldly power, might even be regarded as the Antichrist. Ultimately, Wycliffe repudiated the entire papal system. He also attacked transubstantiation, the Roman doctrine that the bread and wine of Communion become the actual body and blood of Christ in the Mass. Wycliffe condemned the doctrine of purgatory, the use of relics, pilgrimages, and indulgences. For all this, he’s called the Morningstar of the Reformation.Wycliffe’s followers were forcefully suppressed in 1401. Those who held his views went underground and helped to prepare the way for the British Reformation a century later. Bohemians studying at Oxford in Wycliffe’s day carried his ideas to their homeland, where they influenced the teachings of Jan Hus, another pre-reformer we’ve already looked at, but whom we’ll consider again now in this set up for the Reformation.Hus was the professor of philosophy at the University of Prague and lead preacher at Bethlehem Chapel. Historians used to think Hus transported Wycliffe’s views to Prague but it seems clear now that while Hus was later influenced by Wycliffe’s views, his reforms ran tandem to what was happening in England.Hus’s approach was similar to Wycliffe’s but his influence in Europe was greater than that of the Englishman’s. Luther was greatly impressed with the work of Jan Hus. His greatest work was titled On the Church. He said that all the elect are members of Christ’s church, of which Christ, rather than the pope, is head. He argued against simony, indulgences, and abuses of the mass. He demanded a reform in the lives of clergy, and the right of laymen to take both the bread and wine in Communion.Hus became the leader of a reform movement that spread across Bohemia. Almost the entire realm supported him, in spite of being excommunicated by the pope. After Hus’s death the reform carried on, and in the middle of the 15^th Century the Bohemian Brethren rose out of the embers of the fire Hus lit. They still exist as the Moravians.The 4^th pre-Reformer was Savonarola who lived in Florence, Italy in the late 15^th C. He was a fiery preacher against the worldliness and corruption of church and society. A Dominican, he was transferred to the priory of San Marco in 1482 and rose in influence and power in the city. His studies in the OT prophets and the book of Revelation made him a powerful preacher against the evils of a decadent society.Savonarola served as the spiritual leader of the political party that came to power in Florence when the Medicis fled the city in 1494. Exercising a virtual dictatorship, he tried to reform both the church and state. But over time, the people of Florence found his rule too strict and used his criticism of the Roman Church as the excuse to remove him from office. Pope Alexander VI’s excommunication of Savonarola in 1497 was all the Florentines needed to arrest and try him for sedition and heresy. He was cruelly tortured then hanged in the piazza before the city hall, not far from where Michelangelo’s David would stand just 5 years later.Although Savonarola demanded reform in the church, he never took the more advanced position of Wycliffe and Hus. He had no quarrel with the teachings or the organization of the church but seems to have believed in justification by faith.At the same time, Wycliffe and Hus were leading their attempts at reform, a mystical movement flowered in northern Europe. Known as The Brethren of the Common Life, they emphasized Bible reading, meditation, prayer, personal piety, and religious education. The main aim of the Brethren was to secure a revival of practical religion. They gathered in homes rather than monasteries, held property in common, worked to support themselves, and avoided the ill-will of the communities in which they lived by not seeking tax-exempt status or begging. They had good relations with the townspeople but sometimes incurred the suspicion and opposition of the clergy and monks. They attended parish churches and had no peculiar doctrinal positions.The Brethren were committed to education. They established several schools in the Netherlands and Germany that were outstanding for scholarship and piety. Four of their best-known students were Nicholas of Cusa, Erasmus, Luther, and Thomas à Kempis, who’s credited with writing the widely distributed Imitation of Christ.Europe was a seething kettle by 1500, ready to boil over. In the realms of economics, politics, education, and religion, the time had come for change. All that was needed was someone who could mold these explosive elements into a single movement. Such a movement could, and eventually would cover Europe.There are a couple of reasons that need to be stated for why the Reformation succeeded—besides the obvious one many Protestant Christians would note first > It was God’s Will.The more pedantic reasons are two-fold:First – The Great Papal Schism had left a bad taste in the mouth of many Christians in Europe. How could the Pope, the Vicar of Christ not be able to keep the Church together? And how could the Pope become such an obvious tool in the hand of secular rulers? The corruption of the Church was so obvious, so blatant, even the most devoted churchmen were embarrassed and wrote impassioned pleas for reform.And that leads us to the second reason the Reformation occurred; this was the age when the nation-states of Europe were emerging. Kings and regional governors were coming out from under the thumb of the Church hierarchy. Instead of Popes being king-makers, kings made popes. And some kings decided they didn’t want to play Rome’s game at all. They wanted to take their ball and go home to start their own game. If only someone would write some new rules.Enter: Martin Luther.In central Europe, the Holy Roman Empire which was essentially a German entity, had an emperor check-mated by numerous states with only slight allegiance to him. Muslim armies knocked at the doors of the empire not long after Luther tacked his theses to the church door at Wittenberg. After toppling Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks strolled across Eastern Europe until they stood at the gates of Vienna in 1529.What really happened was this. Charles, a Hapsburg with holdings in central Europe and king of the Netherlands and Spain, was elected in 1519 as Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Francis I of France, surrounded by Charles’ territory and defeated by him in 1525, made an alliance with the Ottomans in 1526 to apply a pincer movement against Charles. The Emperor needed the help of all his German vassals to defeat the Muslims. When some of the German princes became supporters of Luther, Charles was no longer able to put religious pressure on them. If he did, they’d withhold aiding him politically and militarily. So Charles wasn’t able to force Luther’s political covering, the powerful Frederick of Saxony, to surrender Luther when the Pope demanded his head on a pike.This is all very fun, isn’t it?Now consider this à Just a few years after Luther’s birth, Columbus reached the New World in 1492 and launched the Spanish Empire in the West. Shortly after Luther posted his theses, Magellan’s expedition sailed around the world. At the same time, the Portuguese were establishing outposts of empire in Brazil, Africa, India, and the Far East.Did you know Columbus and Luther were contemporaries?Let’s not forget as well that a whole new world of thought had come in with the tide of the Renaissance. Rediscovering the literature and thoughts of the classical age, contributed to a greater secularization of life.Humanism was one of the main features of the Renaissance, involving a new emphasis on man and his culture and an effort to make the world a better place in which human beings might live. The pull of the future life was not so great for the true child of the Renaissance as it had been for his ancestors during the Middle Ages. As has been said, the Renaissance man would rather eat his pie now than have it in the sky by and by.In harkening back to the literature of the Classical Age, humanists put renewed emphasis on the study of Greek and Hebrew in an effort to read the classics in the original languages. The greatest of all ancient documents was the Bible, and the renewed emphasis on ancient languages led many to the Scripture.The literary humanists included a good deal of biblical study in their academic diet, and it was in the north that the Reformation gained the most headway, among scholars like Zwingli, Calvin, Melanchthon, and Erasmus.Erasmus was a great satirist of the evils of the institutional church and society. That he got away with it and was so popular proves that criticism of Romanism by Renaissance leaders contributed to the success of the Reformation.Adding to the effectiveness of the Reformation was the Renaissance spirit of individualism, which paved the way for Luther’s emphasis on the priesthood of the believer and its attendant ideas of the right of believers to go directly to God and to interpret the Scriptures for themselves.Another important ingredient of the intellectual development of Europe on the eve of the Reformation was the invention of movable type and the spread of printing. Without it the Reformers would not have had the same impact. The tremendous literary activity of the Reformers was largely responsible for building the printing trade.Lastly, an important phenomenon of the period was the rapid growth of universities, which provided education for a larger number of people, fostered a critical spirit, and provided a means for leaders of the emerging generation to be reached with Reformation principles.As we end this episode, I wanted to let you know that the donation feature is once more active on the CS site. We had to block it for a while because fraud did a lot of damage. You’ve heard reports of identity theft. It seems once crooks snag a bunch of credit accounts, they check to see if they’re still valid by using sites like CS to post a bogus donation of 1 to $5. If it goes through, they know the accounts good and make real charges. Problem is, EVERY time my account gets one of these bogus donations, the bank charges me a transaction fee. Let’s just say, 10K bogus donations made for a hefty cost to the CS account. So we had to block the donation feature until the proper security could be installed. That’s done now thanks to the excellent work of Dade Ronan at Win at Web. Thanks, Dade. You’re a genius!So, if you’d be so kind, a donation to keep the site up would be marvelous.

84-Lost

This 84^th Episode of CS is titled Lost & is a brief review of The Church in the East.I encourage you to go back and listen again to episode 72 – Meanwhile Back in the East, which conveyed a lot of detail about the Eastern Church & how it fared under the Mongols and Muslim Expansion in the Middle Ages.Until that time, Christianity was widespread across a good part of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, & across Central Asia – reaching all the way to China. The reaction of Muslim rulers to the incipient Mongol affiliation with Christianity meant a systemic persecution of believers in Muslim lands, especially in Egypt, where Christians were regarded as a 5^th Column. Then, when the Mongols embraced Islam, entire regions of Christians were eradicated.Still, even with these deprivations, Christianity continued to live on in vast portions of across the East. (more…)

83-Easter

This special episode of CS posts to the sanctorum.us website on Easter Sunday, 2015. I realize many subscribers will hear it at a later time, but since each week’s episode posts early Sunday morning, and this is Resurrection Sunday, a special podcast seemed appropriate. This week, we’ll be taking a look at the place of the celebration of Easter in the Early Church.There’s considerable controversy over the origin of the word Easter as the label that’s come to be attached to the Christian commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ. It’s best to see the word coming from the Germanic languages & the Teutonic goddess of Spring, Eastre. Her festival marked the vernal equinox, & with the arrival of Christianity the holiday morphed to be the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ.Today you’ll occasionally hear someone connect the word Easter to the Canaanite goddess Astarte, the Babylonian Ishtar, or some such other ancient deity. While there may be some etymological connection between the Teutonic Eastre & the Mesopotamian Ishtar, it’s submerged under the mists of time. (more…)

82-The Long Road to Reform 07

This is the 7^th and last episode in our series The Long Road to Reform.In Italy, the Renaissance was a time of both prosperity and upheaval.Moderns of the 21^st C are so accustomed to thinking of Italy as one large unified nation it’s difficult to conceive of it as it was throughout MOST of its history; a patchwork of various regions at odds with each other. During the Middle Ages and a good part of the Renaissance, Italy was composed of powerful city states like Florence and Venice who vied endlessly with each other. Exacerbating the turmoil, was the interference of France and Germany who influenced affairs to their advantage.It was within this mix of prosperity, intrigue, and emerging Renaissance ideals the papacy carried on during the last decades of the 15^th Century.I need to insert a cautionary footnote at this point. As this is the last of our series laying out the history for WHY the Reformation occurred, we need to deal with something that may be a bit unsettling for some of our listeners; the string of popes who were, how shall I describe them? Less than holy, less than the men of God others were. Even many loyal Roman Catholics acknowledge the men who’ve ridden Peter’s chair haven’t always been of sterling reputation. Not a few have been a ragged blight on the Holy See. That there was a string of them in the 15^th Century helped set the stage for the Reformation.And I hope this mini-series in CS has made it clear that Reform only became something OUTSIDE the Church when the decades old movement for it WITHIN the Church was forced to exit. Never forget Luther began a Roman monk and priest who was forced out.During his reign in the mid-15^th C, Pope Eugene IV sought to decorate Rome with the new artistic styles of the early Renaissance. He recruited Fra Angelico and Donatello. This began a trend among the Popes to imbibe the ideas of the Renaissance, especially in regard to art. They sought to adorn the city with palaces, churches, and monuments worthy of its place as the capital of Christendom. Some of the popes moved to greatly enlarge the papal library.All this construction wasn’t cheap, especially the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica. So the popes came up with new ways to raise funds. A subject we’ll come back to later.Not all Renaissance popes focused on the arts. Some were warlords who led military campaigns. Others took delight in playing the high-stakes game of political intrigue.Eugene IV was succeeded by Nicholas V, who spent his term from 1447 to 55 trying to gain political dominance over the Italian states. His goal was to turn Rome into the intellectual center of Europe. He recruited the best authors and artists. His personal library was said to be the best. But, being a scholar didn’t preclude him being brutal. He ruthlessly pursued and executed any who opposed him. During his reign, Constantinople fell to the Turks. He called for a great Crusade to retake the City, but everyone knew he only wanted it to increase his own prestige, so they ignored him.His successor was Calixtus III, who served only 3 years. Calixtus was the first pope of the Spanish family of Borgia. Under the guise of standing against an invasion by the Turks, Calixtus embarked on a campaign to unite Italy by military conquest. Nepotism reach a new height during his reign. One of the many relatives Calixtus elevated was his grandson Rodrigo, whom he appointed as a cardinal. This Rodrigo would later become the infamous Alexander VI.The next pope was Pius II who served from 1458 to 64. Pius was the last of the Renaissance popes who took his office seriously. He tried to bring about the much-needed Reformation of the Church but his plan was stalled by powerful cardinals. Pius was a true scholar who began work on a vast Cosmography. Unable to complete the work before he died, it was instrumental in shaping the ideas of a certain Genoese ship’s captain named Cristofor Columbo.Pius II was followed by Pope Paul II, an opportunist who, upon learning that his uncle, Eugene IV, had been made pope, decided a career as a churchman was more promising than his occupation as a tradesman. His main interest was collecting jewelry. His lust for luxury was proverbial, his concubines acknowledged by the papal court. Pope Paul wanted to recover the architectural glory of pagan Rome and devoted vast sums to the work. He died of internal bleeding, brought on by his debauchery.Sixtus IV served from 1471 to 84 and came to power by literally buying the papacy. Corruption and nepotism reached new heights. His sole goal was to enrich his family, one of whom would become Pope Julius II. Under Sixtus, the church became a family business, and all Italy was involved in a series of wars and conspiracies whose sole purpose was to enrich the pope’s nephews. His favorite was Pietro who at the age of 26 he made a cardinal, the patriarch of Constantinople, and archbishop of Florence. Another nephew plotted the murder of one of the Medicis in Florence who was stabbed to death before the altar while saying mass. When the dead man’s relatives took revenge by hanging the priest who murdered him, the pope excommunicated the entire city of Florence and declared war.Despite all these groteque shenanigans, history remembers Sixtus for something else entirely; the Sistine Chapel, which was named after him.Before his election in 1484, Innocent VIII made a solemn vow to quit the nepotism that had become endemic to the Papacy. But as soon as he was pope he declared, since papal power was supreme, he wasn’t bound by the prior oath.What’s the old phrase? “It’s good to be King.” I guess we could also say, “It’s great to be Pope.”Innocent VIII wasn’t! Innocent that is. He was the first pope to acknowledge several of his illegitimate children, on whom he heaped honors and wealth. Under the management of his son, the sale of indulgences became a shameless business proposition. Pope Innocent ordered Christendom to be cleared of all witches. Hundreds of innocent women were executed.After Innocent’s death, Rodrigo Borgia bought the cardinals’ votes and became pope under the name of Alexander VI. He ruled from 1492 to 1503. Under Alexander, papal corruption reached its all-time zenith, or we should say, it’s nadir.I hope Roman Catholic listeners don’t hear this and assume I’m just Catholic bashing. It’s Catholic scholars who chronicle all this. It’s simply a sad chapter in Church History.Pope Alexander was a moral wretch who publicly committed all the capital sins, save for gluttony because of a persistent case of heartburn. The people of Rome, well-acquainted with Alexander’s excesses, said of him, “Alexander is ready to sell the keys, the altars, and even Christ himself. But, he’s within his rights, since he bought them.”Alexander had numerous affairs with the wives of the men of court. These women gave him several children he openly acknowledged. The most famous of these were the infamous pair, Cesare and Lucrezia. Italy was besmirched by blood because of his many plots and wars. His court was so corrupt many fabricated tales were hatched. Sad, since there was no need to embellish the list of sins attached to his reign, which for long after hurt the reputation of the papacy.Alexander VI died unexpectedly. The suspicion is that he mistakenly took a poison meant for another. His son Cesare had hoped to inherit the Holy See but was struck by the same ailment. So the cardinals elected Pius III, a reformer. He lasted 26 days before dying mysteriously. Can anyone say “Conspiracy?”This brought Julius II to the papal seat, a worthy successor to Alexander.When Popes are elected, they pick a name they want to take for their tenure as the head of the Church. The papal name gives us a hint how he sees his role; what he hopes to accomplish.Julius was only the second to take that name, which exists as a harbinger for what he aimed to do. Appointed a cardinal by his uncle Sixtus IV, Julius modeled himself more after Julius Caesar than any saint. Like many of the popes of that era, Julius was a patron of the arts.During his pontificate, Michelangelo finished the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael’s frescoes decorated the Vatican.But this pope’s favorite pastime was war.Visitors to the Vatican today are struck by the bright colors of the Swiss papal guard. The only way they could be called camouflage is if they were trying to hide in a Jason Pollock painting. It was Julius who reorganized the papal guard, dressing them in uniforms said to have been designed by none other than Michelangelo.We might expect a Pope to make a poor general, but he was in fact so successful in his military and diplomatic exploits, it was rumored he might finally achieve the unification of Italy. Of course, France and Germany opposed these plans, but Julius defeated them both in diplomacy and on the battlefield. He died in 1513, earning the epithet, Julius the Terrible by his contemporaries.He was succeeded by Giovanni, son of Lorenzo de Medici. Giovanni took the name of Leo X. Like his famous father, Leo was a patron of the arts. He failed to consolidate Julius’ military and political gains and in 1516 was forced to sign an agreement with Francis I of France that gave the king enormous authority in church affairs.Leo’s immersion in the world of the arts overshadowed his pastoral concerns. He was determined to complete St. Peter’s in Rome. The financing of that project was the main purpose for the sale of indulgences that provoked the protests of a German monk named Martin Luther.In our next episode, since we’ve now come right up to the Reformation in Europe, we’ll get caught up with our narrative of the Church in the East.Martin, John, and Philip – that is Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon are just chomping at the bit to jump in.

81-The Long Road to Reform 06

This is the 6^th episode in our podcast mini-series The Long Road to Reform.Much of the reform energy in the European Church of the Late Middle Ages was among the poor. Being poor meant being illiterate. The poor and illiterate don’t, as a rule, write books about their hopes and dreams. So it’s often from sources hostile to the reforming movements of this era we learn of them. That hostility colors the picture of them much of history since has regarded them by.Wycliffe’s ideas lived on, not so much among scholars or nobles who initially endorsed them, as among the poverty-committed Lollards who went from village to village, carrying his reforms like torches, continually setting new places ablaze with reforming zeal. The Lollards preached a simple Gospel that contradicted a great deal of what commoners heard from local priests.In Bohemia, the ideas of Jan Hus, at first so popular among the gentry, ended up being embodied by an Apocalyptic sect called the Taborites, made up largely of the illiterate poor.Another movement took place in the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance that rarely seems mention. We’ve already talked about how some women were drawn to the monastic life and lived in sequestered communities affiliated with a men’s compound. There were orders for women in both the Franciscans and Dominicans. But in the late Middle Ages, the number of women seeking inclusion in these orders swelled dramatically. So many applied, the orders had to limit their intake of new sisters. Those rejected didn’t just shrug their shoulders and go home; back to the default of being a wife and mother. Many of them decided—if the established orders wouldn’t take them, they’d form their own communities. Though not sanctioned by the Church, they devoted themselves to corporate lives of prayer, devotion, and poverty. Called beguines, [beg-geenz] their communities were usually large houses they converted into beguinages. Just what the word ‘beguine’ means is unclear; most likely a less than complimentary label assigned these women by critics. Because they lived outside the church sanction, they were suspected of being aberrant at best and probably downright heretical, if tested.The Low Countries had many lay-Beguine orders from the 13^th thru 16^th Cs. While they lived in semi-monastic communities, they didn’t take formal religious vows. They promised not to marry, but only so long as they remained a Beguine, something they could step out of at any time. In a practical sense, the Beguines were an attempt to re-connect with the simplicity of the Gospel as it altered one’s relationship with God and others. So Beguines focused on personal devotion to God and the care of one’s fellow man. Their charitable works were well-known across Northern Europe.Though the Church in many places passed rules banning these unofficial monastic communities, their popularity grew and soon men formed their own version. Such men where called “beg-hards” a word which eventually morphs into today’s “beggar.”Another popular movement first appeared in 1260; the flagellants. They got off to a slow start, but by the 14^th C, their numbers swelled.While the personal discipline of flagellants took many forms, the primary method, the one yielding their name, was to whip themselves with the flagellum. Self-flagellation as penance for sin wasn’t new. It was a practice common to many monastic houses. Now it was a popular craze. Thousands of people from all levels of society lashed themselves till bloody, convinced by current events and the fiery preaching of Apocalyptic Announcers the end was near; that God was about to destroy the world for its failure to repent.But don’t think this was all just a bunch of emotionally-worked up illiterates who’d been stoked into some kind of mass hysteria. No: Flagellants followed a specific rite of self-flagellation and other forms of personal mortification. The movement held to a rigid discipline. While the specific details altered over time and place, typically, those who wished to join the Flagellants did so for 33½ days. During that time they owed total obedience to their spiritual overseers.Twice a day, Flagellants marched two by two while singing hymns to the local church. After praying to Mary, they went, still singing, to the public square. They formed a circle and knelt in prayer with bared backs. Then, as they prayed or sang, they commenced the lashes until their backs poured blood. Occasionally, one of their leaders would preach to them on the sufferings of Christ. Then they’d rise, cover their bleeding back and again, withdraw in an ordered procession. Besides these two daily public self-flagellations, they were committed to a private third.As I said, they did this for 33½ days. But for ever after, they were supposed to renew the scourging annually on Good Friday.At first, Church officials saw little danger in the movement. But flagellants soon began to refer to what they were doing as penance and a “second baptism;” a term the Early Church had used for martyrdom. This talk of self-induced penance concerned church officials because it threatened their hegemony. The Flagellants were accused of seeking to usurp the “power of the keys,” given only to St. Peter and his successors, the officially sanctioned church hierarchy who alone could prescribe proper penance.In several countries, Flagellants were persecuted and eventually, the practice of public flagellation was abandoned. Despite this, the movement continued for generations. You can still find lingering echoes of the flagellants in the American Southwest.There were individual instances of attempts at reform that took place all over Europe in the Late Middle Ages. I’ll give just one of those many tales. It centers on a man named Hans Böhm [Boohm] and the village of Nicklashausen, in Wurzburg, Germany.During the Lenten Season of 1476, Hans, a young shepherd and street entertainer, claimed to have a vision of the Virgin Mary calling him to preach a message of radical reform. He burned the drum that was the means of his entertaining income in one of those Bonfires of the Vanities that had becomes popular across Europe.Times were bad in the region of Wurzburg. Many crops had failed, yet the bishop oppressed the poor with ever higher taxes.At first, Böhm preached on the need for repentance and a return to classic, Christian virtue. But being moved by the poverty of so many of the pilgrims that flocked to hear him, his message took on a more strident note. He began calling out the contrast between the commands of the Gospel and the greed and corruption of a corpulent clergy. As his popularity grew, he announced a day was coming when all would be equal, and all would work for a living; including those indolent, rich fat-cats who at that time were living of the labor of the good, honest, hard-working folk of Wurzburg.He urged his nearly 50,000 followers to act in advance of that great day by refusing to pay taxes and tithes. He set a date when all would march together to claim their rights.On the eve of the appointed day, the bishop’s soldiers seized him and dispersed his followers. Böhm was tried and convicted of being a heretic and burned.That didn’t dissuade his followers who continued gathering at Nicklashausen. The bishop put the entire village under an interdict. Still they came. The archbishop of Mainz [Minez] ordered the Nicklashausen Church destroyed. So, now with no leader and no headquarters, Böhm’s movement dissolved. Many scholars believe they fueled the Anabaptist movement of the 16^th C.This was just one of many similar movements in the late Middle Ages where calls for justice merged with the cry for reform in the church. These movements were often put down by force of arms, which only served to further alienate commoners against the nobility and clergy. It was only a matter of time until enough of the clergy would themselves recognize the need to reform a Church grown too cozy with secular power.Another factor fueling the call for Reform was the intellectual quagmire Scholasticism fell into in the Late Middle Ages. After reaching its zenith in Thomas Aquinas, scholastic theology morphed into the proverbial serpent that eats its own tail.Scholasticism began as an attempt to provide a reasonable base for the Christian Faith.John Duns Scotus used the tools developed BY Scholasticism to introduce a divide between faith and reason. William of Occam turned that divide in a great divorce and introduced a bifurcation between theology and philosophy that exists in the minds of many moderns today.Scholastic theologians began to ponder such complex, and pointless, issues as à 1) Can God make a rock so big even He can’t lift it? 2) How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? 3) Does God do good, because it is inherently and intrinsically good, or is it good because God does it?While these questions may cause us to pause and say, “Huh, interesting,” to the hundreds of thousands of commoners who were concerned with having enough bread for tonight’s dinner, that the Church which was supposed to guardian their souls, pre-occupation with such things seemed a terrible waste of time and resources. While clergy were concerned with angels and pin heads; the peasantry began to think the pin-heads were the clergy! They assumed there was a vast divide between religion and daily life. And THAT – was a totally new idea; one fostered by the excesses of a Scholasticism run-amok.This is not to say all priests were died-in-the-wool Scholastics of the Scotus or Occam variety. Many of the clergy reacted against the complexities of late-Middle Age Scholasticism by calling for a return to the simplicity of the Gospel. The best-known book voicing this reaction is the classic, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’Kempis. The book asks, and I paraphrase à What good is it if you’re able to discuss the Trinity with great profundity, but lack humility, and thereby offend the Trinity? For high sounding words do not make one holy and just. Only a life of virtue is acceptable to God. Were you to memorize the entire Bible and all the sayings of the philosophers, what good would this be without the love of God and His grace? Vanity of vanities. All is vanity, except loving God and serving Him.Now, much could be said at this point, as we trace the Road to Reform, which is the theme of this series within CS, about the Renaissance. And the fact is much HAS BEEN SAID about it. So I’m not going to. I certainly have nothing to add to what far more learned and erudite teachers have written and said on the subject. I suspect that not a few of our CS subscribers know a whole lot MORE about his subject than I.So let me sum it up by offering this . . .While we call it the Renaissance, Rebirth; it would be wrong to assume the Middle Ages were left behind, dropped like a cast-off doll. Yes, the people of Renaissance Europe knew their societies were going through a monumental shift and that new ideas were afoot. But the Renaissance was built on a foundation provided by the Middle Ages, it was not a clean break from it.As the Turks took over the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire folded, many scholars moved West, bringing their manuscript-treasures with them. These manuscripts were in Greek, a language that by the 13^th C had been nearly lost in Europe. These Eastern scholars revived it and presided over a reinvestment of study in the ancient classics of the Greco-Roman world. Those works fueled even more study as scholars realized the brilliance of writers like Cicero and Aristotle. This literary awakening began in Italy then spread beyond the Alps.This interest in antiquity was also seen in art. Sculptors, architects, and painters sought inspiration in pagan sources rather the Christian themes that had dominated their craft for hundreds of years. And though they imbibed, then emulated the styles of the Classical Era, they didn’t wholly abandoned the Gothic. Renaissance art is in many ways a fusion of Gothic and Classical as those who’ve been to Florence and Rome know.This interest in a return to the Classical Era coincided with Gutenberg’s invention of the movable-type printing press in 1439. Printing had long been done by inked woodcuts pressed on paper. Gutenberg’s invention had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, but it took a while – for a reason not often mentioned.It turns out that most early printing was difficult to read because it was in either Latin or Greek rather than the vernacular. And the typography of the day imitated, get this à handwritten script. So printed books looked LIKE they’d been hand-written rather than printed! Why was that? Because only the wealthy could afford books prior to the printing press. So it was the wealthy who bought books. The printing press was originally conceived of as a way to make expensive books more cheaply for rich people. Only later did printers work out the economics and realize they could make a lot more money by standardizing their type and printing lot of books at cheaper prices.Gutenberg didn’t even publicize his invention. His original aim was to produce a large numbers of books he could sell as expensive manuscripts. So, rather than simplifying the printed page, he made it as elaborate as any traditional hand-written manuscript. Take a look at a Gutenberg Bible if you get a chance – and you’ll see this laid out before you.Eventually though, printers realized how their presses could be used to mass produce books, and deep learning was made available for people who never thought it possible. Put in those books dangerous new ideas about reform, and who knows what might happen?We’ll conclude our series The Road to Reform next episode as we take a look at the Popes of the Renaissance and see why so many in Europe were so, so ready for Reform.

80-The Long Road to Reform 05

This is the 5^th episode in the podcast mini-series we’re calling “The Long Road to Reform.”What do you think of when I say “The Inquisition”?Many shudder. Some get a queasy feeling in their stomach because of the way the Inquisition has been cast in novels and movies. There’s a bit of truth in that portrayal, one-sided and stereo-typed as it may be.We’re backing up yet again in our timeline as we take a closer look at this sad chapter of Church History.The 4^th Lateran Council of 1215 was the high-water mark of the medieval papacy under Innocent III. The Council was little more than a rubber-stamp committee for Innocent’s reforms. Those brought much needed positive change to the morals of the clergy, but installed structures that worked against later reform. The 4^th Lateran Council established the doctrine of transubstantiation and the sacrament of penance. It also made official the Inquisition, which had begun as a commission of inquiry under Pope Alexander III a generation before, but now became a permanent feature.The major challenge Innocent III faced was from the Albigensians, AKA the Cathars, inhabiting Southern France. Since we covered this maybe-heretical group in an earlier episode, we’ll just say that, if the reports by their opponents about them are true, they were a dualistic pseudo-Christian cult-turned-movement that possessed a lot of energy during its relatively short life. Innocent sought to convert them by preaching and debates, but early efforts met with little success. So he approved a Crusade against them from 1209 that lasted the next 20 yrs. The Crusade crushed the Albigensians, devastating Southern France in the process. It was the Albigensians that so provoked Dominic, and propelled his efforts in launching the Dominicans.Though this heresy was eventually put down, their earlier success convinced Innocent the Church would be better served if it had a means to conduct official investigations into questions of doctrine. Earlier popes authorized bishops to investigate accused heretics based on rumor alone. It was up to the accused to prove their innocence. This became the foundational premise of the Inquisition.The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical institution whose aim was to search out and punish heretics. The punishment for heresy was death, since heresy was regarded on par with treason and witchcraft; crimes that stood to imperil the health and well-being of thousands. In 1199, Innocent III issued a decretal saying for the first time that heresy was treason under Roman law.In the late 12^th C, bishops turned confirmed heretics over to secular authorities for execution. The 4^th Lateran Council confirmed these regulations and threatened excommunication of temporal rulers who failed to rid their territory of heresy.In 1229, the Synod of Toulouse drew up the procedures for seeking out and punishing heresy. The Inquisitor was subject to no law outside the Pope’s authority and word. He was prosecutor and judge. The “trial” was secret, with the accused having to prove their innocence, as in all courts following Roman law, without the benefit of counsel or knowledge of the accusers.The final step came in 1252 when Pope Innocent IV authorized torture as a means of getting information and confessions from accused heretics.Till then, Church leaders and thinkers rejected with horror the very thought of using torture. But no such reserve remained after Innocent III ascended the papal throne and the Catholic Church achieved its majestic and powerful unity. Noteworthy among the tortures used by the Inquisition is that, while execution was still carried out by the civil government, it was priests who did the torturing, with fire, stretching on the rack, or beatings that allowed no blood-letting. Remember, good Christians can’t shed blood.It was an ugly business, but following the ideas of Augustine, almost everyone agreed that saving the body by amputating a rotten limb was the path of wisdom. The Church was the body; the heretic the rotten limb. One more abhorrent idea we can attribute to Augustine.The Inquisition developed a complex system for classifying heresy and heretics. There were heretics who simply added additional beliefs to the essentials; then there were those who denied those essentials. There were perfect and imperfect heretics. Those accused of heresy were categorized as lightly suspect, vehemently suspect, or violently suspect.Typically, the Inquisitor would arrive in a town and begin his work by preaching a sermon calling for people to bring forth charges against those they knew were guilty of something damnable, or confessing something in themselves they feared was aberrant. People were given a period of grace to make this initial confession. This was called the “General Inquisition.” When that period expired, the “Special Inquisition” began and the accused were summoned to trial.The Inquisitor then functioned as Prosecutor, Judge and Jury. The trial was held in secret, the testimony of only two witnesses enough to condemn. The accused most often wasn’t even aware of the charges against them. So they had no context for answering questions. Witnesses weren’t named but there was no defense attorney. Well, there might have been, except for the fact that any lawyer who rode defense was likely to then be brought up on charges himself.Trials could last years, while the accused was kept in prison. Once torture was applied, it was kept on until a confession was secured. All this because the Inquisition followed strict rules. One of them the repeating of torture. It could only be used ONCE; in one hearing, which might last months, even years. So, once torture was applied, it was with the understanding the victim would either die or confess. As I said, the Inquisition followed a strict set of rules, except when it didn’t; which as a rule, was often.Children, the elderly, and pregnant women were exempt from torture. Except when they weren’t.Those convicted of lighter charges then recanted their error were allowed to do penance and bore physical markers of their having fallen afoul of the Inquisition for the rest of their lives. The worst of the heretics were hauled to the stake. Their lands and possessions confiscated by the Inquisitor, who kept them, adding them to the Church’s treasury, or sold off. The heirs of heretics who’d lost lands were technically able to reclaim them, but were practicably rarely able to.The Inquisition met with varying success around Europe. In Spain, it was co-opted by the crown. The Spanish Inquisition then became a thing of abject terror; what most think of today when they hear the word “Inquisition.” The Spanish Inquisition was turned to both religious and political ends, with the accused often being convicted more for the acquisition of their property than for heresy.In Germany, the Inquisition was fierce under the zealous fanatic Conrad of Marburg, but when he was murdered, it fizzled out. France’s Inquisitorial campaign differed from North to South. In Southern France, Inquisitors continued to root out the Cathars, while in the North, trials were often a reflection of old feuds, with nobles accusing one another for political and economic ends. Italy, with its patchwork of provinces saw spotty application of the Inquisition. In England, it hardly appeared.Modern Christians find it nearly impossible to understand the medieval attitude toward heresy. We regard faith as a matter of personal choice and seldom think of religious beliefs as a matter of life and death. Why should anyone die for their faith, or kill another for theirs?In Medieval Europe, Christians would consider our modern view equally odd. Faith wasn’t a private and individual intellectual preserve. The Christian Faith was the cement of society. Denial of a single article of the Faith was understood as a kind of treason because it imperiled one’s neighbors. An apostate or heretic, if not punished by the civil authorities might incur God’s wrath. He might punish those who let the heretic get away with error.The heavy emphasis on the individual that’s such a prominent feature of the Modern Western world is very far from the collective community that dominated the thinking of Medieval Europe. There was no such thing as private religious faith. Society itself was thought to be a manifestation of the Christian faith. The Church was society’s soul. Under such a worldview, heresy was a spiritual malady that imperiled well à Everything!So the question follows: What is heresy? In the 12^th C, it was the denial by a Christian of any doctrine of the Christian faith. But the list of what were considered inviolable doctrines was a bit different from what Protestants hold as essentials today. The unity of the Church and the divine appointment of the Pope as head of the Church were part and parcel of the standard body of beliefs Christians were to hold. Variance from the beliefs of the official Church was considered heresy.In dealing with heretics, the church had 2 objectives:First was the return of the heretic to a position of approved faith. Second—The protection of Christian society.The central question was—How far can the Church go to protect the Faith and the Society that Faith sustained? Is it right to take a life in order to protect other lives, not just their physical lives, but their eternal souls?We won’t understand the Medieval world’s posture toward heresy until we understand it in these terms. The Church viewed itself as the moral and spiritual steward of European civilization.The challenge of heresy drove the Western Roman Church to its greatest internal conflict: The question of how the Church could employ violence as a safeguard to orthodoxy and a peaceful society? The tragic answer to that question was the Inquisition; a permanent blight on the Church’s reputation. The Inquisition demonstrates what happens when people substitute common sense, political expediency, and pure reason for Biblical fidelity. On the surface, it’s impossible to get from the crucified Christ who said “Follow Me,” to the horrors of the Inquisition. Yet à the prosecutors of the reign of terror known as the Inquisition saw themselves as the agents of Christ. The Inquisition not only executed heretics, it first subjected them to prolonged torture. In driving out one demon, the Church opened the door for 7 others. But, the absurdity of the entire thing wasn’t apparent at the time. Oh sure, there were a few who were uncomfortable with what was being done in God’s name, but they kept silent for fear of being the Inquisition’s next victim. Most went along with the Inquisition because the pace for killing in the name of God had already been set by the Crusades. A Church that sent crusading armies against infidels could certainly condemn and execute heretics. Everyone agreed a pure church was the will of God. The question was how to get there.While there were real threats to the doctrinal purity of the Church, many of the attacks the Church faced came from genuine believers who saw corruption in the clergy and wanted reform. It was easy for those church leaders being called out to use the power of their office to brand their critics as heretics and bring down the full weight of society on their sorry heads. Other critics didn’t attack corrupt clergy, but rather—beliefs that diverged from Scripture. While these doctrinal challenges occasionally did see a realignment with God’s Word, more often they were labeled as pernicious assaults by the forces of hell and the challenger was summarily done away with.One of the earliest voices against the worldliness of the Roman Church was Arnold, Abbot at Brescia, in northern Italy. In a sermons series, Arnold said the vices of the clergy were a result of the Church’s marriage to civil power. He urged the Church to surrender its property and secular influence back to the civil government and return to the poverty and simplicity of the early church. He said that the True Church’s mission was the Gospel.By 1139 Arnold managed to raise enough support that he turned the people against their bishop. Pope Innocent II banished Arnold from Italy. He went to Paris where he studied under Abelard, another thorn in the Church’s side.After 5 years in exile, Arnold returned to Rome and joined a movement to overthrow the Pope. The Romans, filled with dreams of the ancient Roman republic, seized power during the Pope’s absence and Arnold became the leader of a new, purely secular government. He announced that the clergy should live in apostolic poverty, and denounced the College of Cardinals as a den of thieves.Arnold and his group managed to retain power for 10 years before Pope Hadrian IV placed Rome under an interdict and persuaded the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to intervene. Arnold was captured and executed a year later in 1155 by being burnt. The final insult was having his ashes thrown in the Tiber River.People had barely forgotten Arnold when another voice for reform arose in eastern France, Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons. One day Waldo heard a wandering troubadour singing the virtues of the monastic life. The ballad was about young Alexis whose wealthy Roman parents pressed him into an arranged marriage. But the reluctant groom was dedicated to the ideal of chastity, so on his wedding night he made a pact of virgin purity with his bride and immediately left for the Holy Land. Alexis’ parents searched for him in vain. Years later he returned home a beggar, so emaciated from his lifestyle of self–denial no one recognized him. He lived in the courtyard on scraps from the family table. Only as he lay dying did he reveal his identity, too late for the grieving family to claim him.The moral of the Ballad was clear to Peter à A Christian must be willing to sacrifice everything in this life for the sake of the next. Struck to the heart by the story, he sought a priest to find out how to live like Christ. The priest turned him to the answer Jesus gave to the rich young ruler in Matt. 19:21: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” The same text 9 centuries before had launched the monastic movement with Anthony in Egypt, first of the Desert Fathers.Waldo determined to follow the same path. He provided an adequate income for his wife, placed his two daughters in a convent, and gave the rest of his estate to the poor. To launch his mission, Waldo enlisted a couple priests to translate portions of the Bible into French. After memorizing long passages, Waldo began teaching commoners how to imitate Christ by practicing voluntary poverty. His innovations lay in applying the life of poverty and discipleship to all believers , not just monks, as Francis soon would. As followers joined his growing ranks, Waldo sent them out 2 by 2, after the apostolic pattern, into villages and market places, to teach and explain the Scriptures. They called themselves the “Poor in Spirit.” We know them as Waldenses.But Waldo’s unauthorized preaching soon met the opposition by the Archbishop of Lyon, who ordered him to stop. Waldo refused, quoting Peter in Acts 5:29: “We must obey God rather than men”. The Archbishop excommunicated him.Waldo and his followers appealed to the Pope. They arrived in Rome and found it crowded with churchmen attending the 3^rd Lateran Council of 1179. They were able to gain a hearing before the Council but had the misfortune of being ridiculed by a smooth, fast–talking Englishman named Walter Map. Pope Alexander III found no evidence of heresy among them and was impressed by their poverty. They were mere laymen, however, so he ruled that they could preach only by the invitation of bishops, which of course was highly unlikely.Peter Waldo was convinced the Scriptures commanded him to preach to the poor with or without approval. Along with a growing bevy of followers, he continued to preach and practice apostolic poverty. The movement spread into southern France and across the Alps into Italy. By 1184, their disobedience compelled Pope Lucius III to excommunicate them.The conflict is understandable. The Waldenses wanted to purify the church by a return to the simple life of the apostles. This meant the surrender of worldly power. Their aim, like that of the Roman church, was salvation. But their means were radically different.The Pope couldn’t renounce the church’s right to give the sacraments; He couldn’t forfeit the priesthood, nor admit that faith in God might be something other than the mandates of Rome made it. From their side, the Waldenses came to feel more and more that no teaching except Christ’s was binding. The Scriptures must rule. But how could they find support for their cause if everyone lived in apostolic poverty? Slowly they came to accept—just as early monastic houses had—two levels of Christian commitment. The main members of the movement were bound by special vows and worshiped together in simple services. Another circle of “friends” remained in the main Catholic church but supplied new recruits and support for the movement.Even after their excommunication, the Waldenses gained so many members the Church launched an all-out assault on them, encouraging some of the Crusades to begin in Europe by practicing the skills they’d need to use on the Muslims, by slaughtering the Waldenses.The Waldenses were so clearly a back–to–the–Bible movement that over the years some have called them “reformers before the Reformation.” Compared to the Roman church’s doctrine of papal authority, the Waldensian call to return to the Bible does indeed sound like Luther or Calvin. But their view of salvation, a life of penance and poverty, lacks the clear note of God’s grace that sounded so powerfully in the Reformation.

79-The Long Road to Reform 04

This is the 4^th episode in a mini-series we’re calling “The Long Road to Reform.”It was late Spring of 1490 when a Dominican friar stood at the gates of Florence. This was not the first time the 33 year old Girolamo [ger-all-a-mo] had made the 160 KM / 100 miles trip from his native Ferrara to the city of the Medici’s. He’d lived for a spell in the city. The Florentines admired his scholarship but were put off by the vehemence of his preaching. They had a hard time adapting to his accent. But now he returned at the invitation of Lorenzo de Medici; Lorenzo the Magnificent, who virtually owned Florence, and to whom he’d been recommended by the famous philosopher Mirandola.Girolamo Savonarola joined the monastery of St. Mark and began a series of lectures for his fellow friars. Soon others joined the sessions causing them to relocate to the main hall. The lectures turned into sermons. By the Lenten Season of 1491, Savonarola’s growing fame saw him invited to preach at the main church in Florence. Short on tact, Savonarola lambasted the decadence of the city’s rich, of which there were not a few. Lorenzo de Medici was especially displeased. Who did this upstart think he was? He’d only come to Florence at Lorenzo’s invitation. This was no way for a guest in HIS city to act. Medici hired another preacher to attack Savonarola. It failed since the people sided with Savonarola. He’d become their champion in decrying the exorbitant luxuries of the wealthy.The mercenary preacher refused to accept defeat. He went to Rome to plot his revenge.Savonarola was then elected prior of St. Mark’s and within a short time, reformed the life of the community so thoroughly, the people of Florence all remarked on how holy the order had grown. Savonarola sold off some of the monastery’s estates and gave the proceeds to the poor.Savonarola’s reputation was unimpeachably. Though bitter enemies, when Lorenzo lay dying, he asked for the prior to come bless him. Lorenzo’s successor was Pietro de Medici, who promptly lost all respect from the Florentines. The French King, Charles VIII, was on his way to claim the rule of Naples. Instead of organizing the defense of Florence as he ought, Pietro tried to buy him off. The Florentines were furious and sent their own embassy under Savonarola. They expelled the now hated Pietro and settled with the French by becoming allies. Though Savonarola was technically just a monastic prior, he’d become the civil leader. The Florentines asked him to design a new government. He recommended a republic and installed reforms to heal the ailing economy. He gathered a good part of the gold and silver of the many city churches and sold it to feed the poor. This was the high-water mark of his term.History regards Savonarola as a religious fanatic & ignorant monk. He wasn’t. He was simply someone who understood that the Church and Italian society had gone far from the Biblical ideal. What Savonarola was, was an anti-politician. That is, he had little to no capacity for compromise; doom for anyone engaged in civil politics. Savonarola was unable to distinguish between rules and principles; between non-negotiables and his own opinions. As a result, he was on a collision course with the very people who’d put him in power.Savonarola believed study ought to be at the center of reformation. So the friars at St. Mark’s studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic. He railed against the luxuries of the wealthy, placing them all under the rubric “vanity.” These vanities, he railed, were a distraction that weakened the soul and made it prone to sin. So, at his urging the people of Florence regularly gathered to pile such vanities up and set them ablaze. First, a large pile of wood was erected in the main square. Under it was placed straw and kindling sprinkled with gunpowder. Onto of the pile people put their vanities; frilly dresses, jewelry, wigs, and ostentatious furniture. Amidst singing and ceremony, the thing was set on fire – a Bonfire of the Vanities. These bonfires replaced the traditional celebration of carnival just before Lent, something else Savonarola had banned.His reforms were echoed in surrounding cities. When Florence’s rival republic of Siena requested Savonarola’s assistance, he went with twenty fellow monks. They arrived in Siena and went to work with their reforms. First order of business was to clear house in the monastery there. When some of the expelled monks resisted the reforms, Savonarola decided if they weren’t going along with his plans, he’d leave. He had more luck at Pisa and the monasteries scattered round Tuscany.As we might expect, Savonarola’s downfall came about because of his inability to play the political game.Alexander VI, one of the worst of the popes, made an alliance against France that included a good part of Italy, Germany, and Spain. The smart move was to join the pope’s party. But Savonarola insisted on keeping his promise to the French. The pope responded with severe measures against Savonarola personally, then against all Florence. These measures were largely economic in nature. When the Florentines realized they’d lost a great deal of trade because their pastor was being stubborn, opposition grew. The City became increasingly fractured between supporters and opponents. On the opponent’s side were most of the wealthy. His supporters declared Savonarola a prophet and demanded he perform miracles. When something he foretold came to pass, they grew even more enthusiastic. But when he failed to perform the required miracles, they turned on him.A mob marched on St. Mark’s to apprehend him. Savonarola refused to defend himself. He forbade friends resisting the mob lest an innocent be harmed. He was hauled to the City Square where he was beaten and turned over to the authorities, some of whom had longed for this day for years.This was it; the civil showdown. The authorities had to find something damning to accuse him of. To elicit a confession, he was tortured for days. But the most they could make him confess to was something he’d never claimed to begin with; being a prophet.The pope sent legates to assist in the trial. These also tortured Savonarola. All they could obtain was an admission he’d planned to appeal to a church council. Savonarola admitted he’d been too proud in his call for reform, saying, “Lord, if even Peter, on whom you had bestowed so many gifts and graces, failed so thoroughly, what else could I do?”Despairing of finding charges severe enough to execute him, the judges condemned Savonarola and two friends as “heretics and schismatics,” without identifying what heresy they espoused. They were turned over to the civil authorities to be executed, for again, the Church must not kill. The only mercy Savonarola received was that he and his friends were hanged before being burned. Their ashes were then thrown into the Arno River flowing through Florence. This was considered the height of infamy. By scattering one’s ashes, there was nothing left of them to remember; no place people could mark a memorial and keep their name alive. In spite of this, there were many of Savonarola’s supporters who kept his relics.I’ve been to Florence and stood at his little memorial on the paving stones of the Main Square.Years after his death, when Rome was sacked by the Germans, some saw it as the fulfillment of Savonarola’s prophecy. To this day, there are those in the Roman Church who argue Savonarola was a saint, and that his name should be added to the official list.As we end this episode, I wanted to take a quick moment to say thanks to all the new CS subscribers and the many of you who’ve liked us on FB, or written a review on iTunes.

78- The Long Road to Reform 03

This is part three of “The Long Road to Reform.”In our last episode we looked at The Conciliar Movement that formed to end the Great Papal Schism and so many hoped would be a permanent fixture for reform in the Church. As well-intentioned as the movement was, it ended up resurrecting the Schism instead of solving it. In its long battle with the Papacy, Conciliarism eventually lost.We turn now to look at a reformer from Bohemia named John Hus; or more properly Jan Hus. One of my personal, all-time favorite church leaders.Bohemia was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire; a sovereign state with its capital at Prague. Today, it roughly corresponds with the Czech Republic. It had a long history as a place of vibrant Christianity, especially monasticism. In 1383, Bohemia and England were linked by the marriage of Anne of Bohemia and the English King Richard II. With this union, students of both countries went back and forth between the colleges of Prague and Oxford where the pre-reformer John Wycliffe.The revolt Wycliffe started at Oxford, expanded when he was booted and met with greater success in Bohemia than England because unlike England, it was joined to a strong national party led by a man named Jan Hus.Hus came from peasant parents in the southern Bohemian town of Husinetz. He studied theology at the University of Prague, earning a Master of Arts before teaching there and diving into the cause of religious reform.While a student, Hus was introduced to the early philosophy of Wycliffe, but it was only after his appointment as the pastor at Bethlehem Chapel that was exposed to Wycliffe’s more radical views on religious reform. He immediately adopted Wycliffe’s views that the church was an invisible company of the elect, with Jesus as its head rather than a Pope.Bethlehem Chapel was located near the University of Prague, giving Hus an open door to circulate Wycliffe’s writings. As his ideas took hold, paintings began to appear on the walls of the church contrasting the behavior of the popes and Christ. In one, the pope rode a horse while Jesus walked barefoot. Another showed Jesus washing the disciples’ feet as the pope’s were kissed.Bethlehem Chapel had been founded in 1391 to encourage the national faith of Bohemia, so Hus’s strong sermons in Bohemian stirred up popular support for reform. And wouldn’t you know it? Where do you think the first protests came from--That’s right: Students rioted both for and against the ideas of Wycliffe being promoted by Hus and his supporters.The Archbishop of Prague realized the threat Hus’s activities had for the upper echelons of Church Hierarchy and complained to the pope. The Pope responded, “Root out the heresy.” So the Archbishop excommunicated Hus. Bad move; for right away the Archbishop realized how little local support he had. When Hus realized he held the backing of the people, he ramped up his criticisms and attacked the pope’s sale of indulgences to support of his war against Naples. That was too much for the Bohemian King Wenceslas. Hus might have the support of the common people, but his condemnation of the sale of indulgences impacted a political issue the king didn’t want messed with. Negotiations between the Pope and king saw Prague being placed under a papal interdict; a political and religious slap on the wrist that had an immediate impact on people across the board. When under an interdict, people remained members of the church, but the sacraments were suspended. All of this happened because of Hus, so he left Prague to live in exile in southern Bohemia. It was during this time Hus wrote his most notable work, titled On the Church.The Council of Constance we recently looked at was fast approaching. This was the council set to solve the problem of the Great Papal Schism. At the urging of the Emperor Sigismund, Hus agreed to appear. He hoped to present his views on the nature of the Church to the members of the Council. He ended up instead a victim of the Inquisition.The rule of the Inquisition was simple. If enough witnesses testified to the guilt of the accused, he had to confess and renounce his error or he’d be executed by being burned, because, well – being good churchmen, they couldn’t shed blood. If the accused confessed, the sentence was life in prison, which in most cases was hardly better than being burnt at the stake. Hus’s case was handled in a manner typical for the Inquisition of that time. Greedy Inquisitors often went after someone simply because they lusted for their property. So people were accused of some grievous crime and there were usually enough witnesses-for-hire around who’d say whatever the Inquisitors paid them to. In Hus’s case, the Inquisitors weren’t after his wealth; the Church simply wanted him gone, so he was accused and found guilty of heresies he’d never taught.Now, Hus said he’d alter his views—IF they could be shown to be contrary to Scripture. But he refused to recant the heresies he’d been falsely accused of. It was a matter of principle; to recant of them, he’d have to admit he taught them. He hadn’t. How could he recant something he’d never taught? But the Inquisitors were adamant: Hus must recant.In words similar to what Martin Luther would say some time later while on Trial at Worms, Hus said, “I have said that I would not, for a chapel full of gold, recede from the truth. . . . I know that the truth stands and is mighty forever, and abides eternally, with whom there is no respect of persons.”It’s clear in the letters Hus wrote at this time his main anxiety was that “liars would say I’ve slipped back from the truth I preached.” This trial of Hus is one of those special stand-out moments in church history. His fidelity and refusal to swerve from Truth, even to save his life was duplicated many times over by thousands of the un-named, but it was Hus who forged the template.For 8 months he lay in prison in Constance. His letters during his last month rank among the great in Christian literature.“O most holy Christ,” he prayed, “draw me, weak as I am, after Yourself, for if You do not draw us we cannot follow You. Strengthen my spirit, that it may be willing. If the flesh is weak, let Your grace precede us; come between and follow, for without You we cannot go for Your sake to cruel death. Give me a fearless heart, a right faith, a firm hope, a perfect love, that for Your sake I may lay down my life with patience and joy. Amen.”On July 6^th, 1415 Jan Hus was led out of his cell and began the walk to the place where he was to be burned. On the way he passed thru a churchyard and saw a bonfire of his books. He laughed, and told those looking on not to believe the lies being passed around about him. On arriving at the stake in a spot called The Devil’s Place, Hus knelt and prayed. Following protocol, the official in charge of the execution asked him for the final time if he’d recant and save his life. Hus replied, “God is my witness that the evidence against me is false. I have never thought nor preached except with the one intention of winning men, if possible, from their sins. In the truth of the gospel I have written, taught, and preached; today I will gladly die.”The Inquisitors thought Hus’s condemnation and execution would put the kibosh on the calls for Reform. They thought burning Hus was a kind of back-fire that would put out the forest-fire lit by Wycliffe’s criticisms. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The Bohemian rebellion grew and developed into both a moderate and a militant wing. The moderates were called Utraquists, a Latin term meaning “both” since their protest called for freedom to receive both the bread and the cup in Communion.The militants were called Taborites after the city in Bohemia that served as their headquarters. This was an apocalyptic group that called for radical reform.Facing armed resistance from the Bohemian King at the urging of the Pope, the various groups of Hus’s followers, loosely called Hussites, agreed to what’s called The Four Articles. Under the Articles, while the various groups might differ on this or that, they were far more united with each other in facing the King. The Four Articles were, à1) The Word of God was regarded as the chief authority and was to be taught freely throughout the kingdom.2) Per the Ultraquists, Communion would be given by BOTH bread and cup.3) All agreed that clergy should give up their wealth and live in apostolic poverty.4) Simony and any other public sin was to be punished.When King Wenceslas died in 1419, his successor was Sigismund, the guy who’d failed Hus at Constance. The Hussites demanded he agree to the Four Articles and grant them freedom of worship. Sigismund refused and petitioned the Pope to proclaim a Crusade against them. The Pope agreed and Sigismund marched on Prague where he and his army was crushed by the Hussites.Their leader was Jan Zizka who turned the many peasant carts into a kind of war chariot. In a follow up battle, the remnant of Sigismund’s army was wiped out. Then, a year later, an army of a hundred thousand crusaders fled yet again before Zizka’s carts. A 3^rd Crusade, a year after that, in 1422, dissolved before it even met them.Under different leaders, the Bohemians crushed 2 later Crusades called against them, one in 1427 and the other in 31. The Council of Basel extended an olive branch to the Hussites, but they, fearing the same treatment Hus had met at Constance, refused. So yet ANOTHER Crusade was called against them. This was also put down. Good Grief! When are these people going to learn?Actually, this defeat convinced the Catholics negotiation with the Hussites was necessary. As a result of that negotiation, the church in Bohemia rejoined the rest of Western Christendom, but was allowed to retain Ultraquist communion as well as a modified form of the Four Articles.While most of the nobility accepted this arrangement and honored Sigismund as King, many of the commoners left the Church, and formed the Unitas Fratrum—or “Union of Brethren.” Their numbers grew in Bohemia and nearby Moravia.They’ll become closely aligned with the Reformation later.What the lives of Wycliffe and Hus make clear is that if the Church of Rome was going to be reformed from within, it had ample opportunity in the 14^th and early 15^th Cs. By the end of the 15^th, those who hoped to bring reform by councils were themselves frustrated and by their opponents, repudiated. The treatment of Wycliffe and Hus by church authorities made clear to all the reform-minded how they were going to be dealt with. It was now clear: Reform of the papal church from within was impossible. A time of “judgment” had come.In our next episode, we’ll take a look at an Italian Reformer from a bit later in the 15^th C; Savonarola.

77-The Long Road to Reform 02

This is part 2 of “The Long Road to Reform.”Before diving into the THE Reformation, we’ll do some review and add detail to the story of the Church. We do this because I fear too many of us may have the impression Martin Luther and John Calvin were wild aberrations. That they just sprang up out of nowhere. Many Protestants assume the Roman Catholic Church got progressively more corrupt during the Late Middle Ages and that Luther was a lone good guy who stood up and said, “Enough!” Many Roman Catholics would agree that the late medieval Church got a bit off but see what Luther did as a gross over-reaction that took him off the rails.So in this series of podcasts within the larger Church-story, I want to make sure we understand The Reformation was the inevitable result of a long attempt at reform that had gone on for awhile. To do that, we need to go back over some of the ground we’ve already covered.Pope Clement V made his headquarters the French city of Avignon. For the next 70 years, the popes resided there and bent their policies to the advantage of the French throne. The rest of Europe wasn’t real excited about this, giving this period the title of “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.”When Clement V died in 1314, the cardinals found it difficult to agree on a successor so they decided to elect a 72 year old, assuming he’d not last long, but it would afford them time to reach a consensus on a real pope. But Pope John XXII turned out be far more than a mere place-holder. He lived for 18 years and surprised everyone with his vigorous rule. Pope John was determined to make the Italians honor his papacy and sent troops to force down recalcitrant nobles. To finance these military excursions as well as funding the expansion of the papal court at Avignon, John devised a complex tax system. This only added to resentment against his rule.In the decade Pope Clement VI reigned, nepotism in the Church reached new heights and the papal palace at Avignon rivaled those of the secular courts of Europe in pompous luxury.Innocent VI made arrangements to move back to Rome but died before doing so.The eight years of Pope Urban V were marked by reform. Urban was an austere man of great personal discipline. He simplified the life of the court and removed from office anyone who wouldn’t abide his reforms. In 1365, he returned to Rome to the acclaim of the people. But his policies weren’t pro-Italian enough and loyalty to him quickly eroded. When his rule was defied by large groups, he moved back to Avignon.When Urban V died in 1370, Gregory XI was elected. Gregory’s uncle was Pope Clement VI who made him a cardinal at the age of 17. It’s that nepotism thing I mentioned a moment ago. This Gregory is the pope St. Catherine of Siena urged to return to Rome, we talked about in an earlier episode. On January 17, 1377, amid great rejoicing, Gregory entered Rome. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church was over and most assumed things would return to normal. It was not to be. The Great Papal Schism is just around the corner.The Avignon Papacies engaged in numerous intrigues and conducted military forays into various regions of Europe that had to be funded. So the popes came up with ingenious ways to raise revenue that furthered corruption. When an ecclesiastical position was vacant, its income was sent to Avignon. So the popes rather preferred that these positons weren’t filled and churches went without bishops. When the positon WAS filled, it was auctioned off to the highest bidder in a return to the practice of simony Pope Gregory VII had worked so hard to end. Since these ecclesiastical offices were a source of income, some men managed to secure several of them. But, being that they could only be in one place at a time, they served as absentee landlords in their parishes. Added to this simony and absenteeism, the nepotism that marked the Avignon Papacy was so bad, by the end of the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, there was a widespread sense of the need for radical reform of the Church. And since it was the papacy itself that needed reform, the voices calling for it increasingly understood reform would need to come from someone other than the Pope.While I’d love to dive into the story of the Great Papal Schism, I don’t think it would make for very good podcast material. We’ve already given a decent summary of it in previous episodes. Any more would devolve into a long list of names that become a jumble. The intrigues that went on during this time are rich and complex and would make for a great TV miniseries. But we’re going to pass over it now and just say that the emergence of 2, then 3 popes all claiming to be Peter’s rightful heir is one more obvious evidence things had gone horribly awry in the leadership of the Western Church.It became clear to everyone reform was needed. And in fact, many voices called for it.During the Great Schism, the conciliar movement wanted to reform the structure of the church while leaving its doctrine alone. Others, like John Wycliffe, who we recently looked at, and Jan Hus we have yet to - concluded it wasn’t just the structure of the Church that needed reform; so did its doctrine.As a backdrop to all this were the frequent popular movements, especially among the poor, who saw the Mongol threat to the East, the Hundred Years’ War, and the devastation of the Plague as harbingers of the End Times and potential judgments of God on a corrupt State and Church.The Conciliar Movement arose to deal with the Great Schism. Church leaders realized the history of the church had been dramatically shaped by its councils. They’d kept it ON THE RAILS at times it was being threatened with de-railing. It began all the way back in the 4^th C, when Constantine called the first at Nicaea. Other crises were solved by similar councils over the centuries. Then, when popes gained power, the councils became instruments to enforce their power. This was especially true in the famous Fourth Lateran Council, which adopted a long list of polices of Pope Innocent III.But as papal authority diminished during the Great Schism, many hoped a new council would convene and undo the wrongs that had settled in as the status quo in both Church and State. As this theory grew, advocates said such a council held more authority than the pope because it would represent the WHOLE church, and not the partisan interests of one. Therefore, the council could select a new pope all could and should agree on.Now, this may seem imminently reasonable to us in the 21^st C, but the issue was tied up in a sticking point its advocates had a hard time resolving à and that was this:Who had authority to call such a council. The first council was called by Constantine. Subsequent councils were convened by a notable church leader, and eventually by the popes. And—the findings of a council had to be officially endorsed by the Pope or they weren’t valid.This problem was solved in 1409 when cardinals of both sides in the Great Schism, agreed to a great council in Pisa. è And they all lived happily ever after.You know enough of the history of this period to know that’s not how the story goes. On the contrary, each of the rival popes called his own council to pre-empt the one at Pisa. You gotta’ wonder who would consent to such silliness and be on one of those councils. Wouldn’t you get an invitation and say, “Ah, thanks, I’m so honored. But, ummm, I have to decline. I need to uhhh, ummm – visit my dying uncle in Tuscany.”It seems this was in fact what some did because both papal councils failed. So the rival popes retreated to strongholds to await the outcome of the Pisan Council. It had the support of both colleges of cardinals and most courts of Europe.Rather than saying one of the two papal claimants was right, the council declared both unworthy and deposed them. The council then renewed opposition to simony and several other ecclesiastical ills. They elected Alexander V as the new Pope.Convinced they’d ended the schism, the council adjourned.Ready for some fun? Here we go . . .All of this illustrates just how BADLY the Church needed reformation.Though the Pisan Council deposed the rival popes and installed Alexander, they refused to step down and had enough support to retain their position, in title at least. So now there were 3 popes. Then, months after being elected, Alexander died, and the cardinals appointed John XXIII. Turmoil saw John flee to the German Emperor Sigismund, who was himself in a tussle with 2 claimants to the throne, each supporting a different pope.Sigismund called another council to put an end to the now 3-way schism. John assumed this new council would endorse his papacy and agreed with Sigismund to call it in 1414 at Constance. The council realized John was not the reformer they needed and deposed him. He fled but was captured and returned to Constance where he agreed to resign. Worried he’d flee again and set up somewhere else, he was consigned to prison for the rest of his life.Then the Roman pope, Gregory XII, resigned as he’d promised if his rivals did likewise. The Constance council passed some rules for reformation and began the process of picking a new pope, which resulted in the selection of Martin V.Benedict XIII, last of Avignon popes, took refuge on the coast of Spain, where he continued his claim as pope, but by now, no one was listening. When he died in 1423, no successor was elected.Those who gathered at Constance hoped to rid the church of heresy and corruption. So they condemned Jan Hus, a guy they should have embraced as a fellow reformer.Then they fumbled when it came to ridding the church of simony and absenteeism simply because so many in the church’s hierarchy had attained their position that way. It issued some decrees and made provision for future councils that would meet regionally to address local issues.The next council, called by Martin V as agreed at Constance, gathered at Pavia in 1423, but then moved to Siena due to the plague. Attendance was thin and not much was done. As 1430 and the next council drew near, Pope Martin was inclined to skip it. Advisors informed him the urge for conciliarism was still strong and if he failed to convene it might provoke a new crisis. The council met in Basel, during which Martin died. The council picked Eugene IV as his successor and as soon as he was elected, Eugene adjourned the council. But they refused, and considered deposing him. Under threat by Emperor Sigismund, Eugene withdrew the decree of adjournment.Up to this point, the Basel Council had gone virtually unnoticed by Europe, but now, all eyes were on it. A council seemed to have gained power over a Pope. Some said the council ought to stay convened and rule the church directly.It was then that an urgent request for help came from Constantinople being severely threatened by the Turks. Both the Byzantine emperor and patriarch said they were willing to rejoin the Western church and take part in the council, if it would move to a city closer to Constantinople. Eugene saw this as a way to regain some of his mojo and moved the council to Ferrara in NE Italy. Most of the council refused to relocate, but some, in hopes of ending the long rift between East and West, went to Ferrara.And so it was that the conciliar movement, which had come into being as a response to schism, was itself “schized” (yeah, I know that’s not a word). There were now 2 councils à and 1 pope.The Council of Ferrara later moved to Florence where it gained recognition for seeing the Eastern Church accept papal authority.The Council of Basel, meanwhile, became more radical in its pronouncements, causing increasing numbers of its members to leave and head off for Ferarra. Basel deposed Pope Eugene and named Felix V as the new Pope.Are you keeping track? There are now 2 councils and 2 popes. The conciliar movement, conceived as a way to end the schism resurrected it!But the truth is, the council in Basel had dwindled down to such a small number that people paid little attention to it. They moved to Lausanne and eventually disbanded when they realized they were irrelevant to church life. Felix V gave up his claim to the papacy.While it seemed for a while that conciliarism would be a standing feature of church life, in the end, the Popes won. Any future councils would be at their discretion.

76-The Long Road to Reform 01

This episode is the first of several I’m calling “The Long Road to Reform.” As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, we’ll track the Church’s long march to the Reformation, then pause before picking it up acwith THE Reformation by doing some episodes tracking Church History into the East.Until recently, most treatments of the History of Christianity have focused almost exclusively on the Church in Europe and what’s often called “Western” Christianity. Mention is made of the Church’s growth into other regions like North Africa, and the Middle and Far East. But it’s barely a nod in that direction. For every 10,000 words devoted to the Church in Europe, 10 are given to the Church of the East. What’s sad is that this Church has a rich history. We won’t make up for the lack of reporting on the history of the church in these regions, but we will seek to fill in some of the gaps and give those interested resources for learning more.Okay, here we go. We embark now on The Long Road to Reform.At the dawn of the 13^th C with Innocent III, the papacy reached the zenith. The Dominicans and Franciscans carried the Gospel far and wide, new universities were hotbeds of theological enterprise, and Gothic Cathedrals seemed to defeat the law of gravity.Europe was united under the pope and the emperor; in theory at least. Because the Crusaders had taken Constantinople, the breach between East and West looked to have been finally healed. Yeah – it looked like Christendom was about to enter a Golden Age.As is often the case, looks can be deceiving. These were.By 1261, the West’s influence in Constantinople was over as well as the bogus union the 4^th Crusade claimed to have forged. Over the next 2 centuries, Europe saw several changes that set the scene for the modern world.One of the most important was in the realm of economics.When we think of the Middle Ages in Europe, we remember feudalism with its strict rules of class. There was the land-owning nobility and the commoners, serfs who worked the land for nobles in exchange for protection. We don’t have time to go into it here, but feudalism was largely the result of developments in the technology of warfare. Armored warriors, called knights, were expensive. It took a vast economic base to field them. So serfs worked lands in exchange for protection by knights. These serfs gave loyalty, called fealty, to nobles in ever higher levels from counts and barons to dukes and earls, with the king at the top. A third class in this tiered structure of medieval society were the clergy. The Church also owned lands and had serfs who worked for them. This made priests and abbots responsible for the secular rule of church and monastery estates. But toward the end of the Middle Ages, the cities of Europe began to grow and a new class of commoner emerged – the merchant.There were several reasons for the proliferation of merchants and the growth of villages into town and towns into cities. One of the most important was the boom in trade. The Crusades stimulated Europe’s taste for new things. Someone needed to buy up what Europe produced, which was a lot of wool, and take it to the East were all the goodies were. Increased trade meant increased wealth for merchants, who weren’t land-owners but who did buy themselves nice homes in the growing cities. Those houses needed furniture and art and all the other luxuries that mark a successful merchant so industries popped up to supply those wants – bringing even MORE to the cities. New credit systems were developed as extra money meant people looking to invest for a profit. And slowly but surely, a NEW social class developed – the middle-class who didn’t fit the strict class structure that had dominated Europe for several hundred years. When nobles began taxing the trade crossing their land, the merchants protested and called for a stronger central government that would reign in the nobles. A king could protect trade, quash the bandits that harassed caravans, establish a common currency, and put an end to silly conflicts that disrupted trade.Kings saw the merchants and emerging middle-class that supported them as a way to do an end run around the nobles who so often gave them grief. The king didn’t have to depend now on those nobles to supply knights and men at arms. From the taxes raised from the middle-class, they could field their own army.The growth of strong kings during the late Middle Ages in Europe goes hand in hand with the rising middle-class. And it’s out of this process the modern nations of Europe emerged. Regions that shared a common language and culture coalesced around strong central governments. So, nationalism became one of the factors that will lead to problems for the Church. Until the 13^th Century, Europeans identified themselves by their town, city or county. By the 15^th Century they identified themselves as English, French, Swedish …Where this emerging nationalism effected the Church was when a pope leaned in his policies toward this nation or that. When he did, that nation or this ignored his rule. And this led to the overall denigration of the pope’s office and authority. That in turn led to not a few looking to someone other than the Pope to lead in reform of the Church.What’s often neglected in a discussion of the roots of the Reformation is the impact of the Hundred Years’ War on Church History. Lasting almost 140 yrs, from 1337 to 1475, the war dragged in almost all of Europe at one point or another. Basically a conflict between France and England, it lasted so long and was filled with such intrigue, everyone seemed to want to weigh in at some point and take a few swings at the other guy.It was during the Hundred Years’ War that a French teenager named Joan had visions that stirred her countrymen to rally behind the French prince and give the British a good run for their money. Actually, money was the perennial British problem in this War. They’d win amazing victories on the battlefield at places like Crecy and Agincourt, then have to withdraw for lack of funds.This long conflict with all its many chapters had enormous consequences for the Church. It was during this time the so-called “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” took place, with the popes relocating from Rome to the French city of Avignon. Popes became virtual puppets of the French throne. So the English disregarded the papacy. Then, during the Great Papal Schism, when two rival popes vied for control of the Church, Europeans aligned under whichever pope supported their cause in the War. That made putting the Schism to an end, even MORE difficult. All of this of course, weakened the claims of the Pope to universal authority.And what are to say of the Plague that devastated whole regions of the continent? The Little Ice Age of the 14^th C set crop yields back and led to virtual famine in some places. This in turn shattered the fragile economy and set those already living hand to mouth into a physically vulnerable position. Their immune systems were degraded so when the Plague arrived, hundreds of thousands were susceptible to its ravages. Between 1348 and 50, the Black Death swept Europe. While numbers vary, with a general account of a third of Europeans dying, there were some regains were as much as HALF the population succumbed. Just imagine what that did to the social fabric of these places! Well, imagine what it would be like living where you do with only half the people. For those in urban centers, that may sound like a dream come true – at first. But realize half those who die are the only ones with the know-how or skill to do a good part of the work that keeps your system running. Half the houses are now empty. Half the stores, closed. You get the idea.The Plague sent a shockwave through the collective conscious of Europe. How could a society so dominated by Christianity have suffered such a devastation? Maybe the Church had gone astray so badly God’s wrath was in evidence. Could the Black Death be His way of cleaning house? While life had always been precarious, death now hovered over all, so life became little more than preparation for life after death. Pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem were sought. The poor who couldn’t make such a journey went on local pilgrimages to local holy spots. Trade in relics boomed, even though the Fourth Lateran Council tried to put a kibosh on it.In the mid-15^th Century, when it was clear the Turks were determined to take Constantinople, the Byzantine emperors appealed to the West for help, even though the 4^th Crusade had been a colossal failure. In trade for assistance, the popes required the East affirm their loyalty to Rome. Under threat of imminent demise, the East agreed to terms at the Council of Ferrara in 1439. But the Pope wasn’t able to persuade the Knights and armies of Europe to go to the aid of Constantinople. In the East, many of the Christians there saw the emperor’s bowing to Rome as a capitulation to heresy. They refused to fight for him or his cause. In 1443, the patriarchs of, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem rejected the Council’s decisions and broke communion with Constantinople. In 1452, after more than 400 yrs of animosity, a Roman mass was celebrated in Hagia Sophia. But Constantinople’s days were numbered. A year later, Muhammad II laid siege to the City. His new guns punched holes in those once impregnable walls. Emperor Constantine XI died defending the City. The great Hagia Sophia became a mosque and the city was renamed Istanbul.It was King Philip IV of France who managed to wrap the papacy tightly around his finger. His long contest with Pope Boniface VIII is what helped lead to the Avignon Papacy and Great Schism.The next Pope was Benedict XI. A Dominican of genuine piety who sought to undo the acrimony Boniface had managed to stir up across Italy and France. Despite Benedict’s attempts at harmony, King Philip insisted on calling a council to condemn the acts of Boniface. Benedict refused as it would be yet another denigration of papal authority at the hands of the French monarch. But this wasn’t enough for the conservatives regarded Benedict’s reconciliatory acts as giving away of too much papal mojo. He died after only a year as Pope.A rumor spread he’d been poisoned; both sides claiming the other had done the deed. And by both sides, I mean those French cardinals who backed Philip and the Italian, German and English cardinals who backed Rome. Except for those who didn’t. Yeah, I know it gets confusing. è Welcome to church history.Through a clever bit of subterfuge, the French cardinals wrangled an agreement to elect Clement V. Clement seemed to be a neutral candidate, when he’d in fact been scheming with the French all along. During his term as Pope, from 1305-14, he never visited Rome even once.He appointed 24 cardinals; all but 1 of them, French; ensuring the next several Popes would also be a pro-French interest. Several of these cardinals were his relatives. While Clement V’s papacy was abysmal, probably the most shameful moment was his consent to the destruction of the Templars.The Templars were one of the military orders founded during the Crusades. Since the Crusades were over, the Templars were really obsolete. But they were incredibly wealthy and powerful. This was at a time when King Philip was on a campaign to assert his absolute dominance over all French nobility. The Templars were an obstacle to overcome as they provided both funds and arms to the very nobles Philip wanted to subjugate. He also owed them a considerable sum in the loans he’d taken from them. So in a fascinating tale of intrigue, Philip persuaded others to do his dirty work for him. He had the Templars accused of disgusting crimes, besides the more pedantic evil of heresy. Under torture, some Templar leaders confessed, including their Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. De Molay later recanted his confession, but it was too late. He and a companion were executed. The Templars were disbanded, their wealth confiscated by the French Crown.We’ll pick it up at this point next time.

75-The Witness of Stones

This episode is titled “The Witness of Stones.”I’ve had the privilege of doing a bit of touring in Europe. I’ve visited the cathedral at Cologne, Germany on several occasions. I’ve been to Wartburg Castle where Luther hid out. Mrs. Communion Sanctorum and I did a 2-week tour of Florence and Rome for our 30^th Anniversary. We saw lots of churches and cathedrals. No matter what your thoughts about medieval Christianity, you can’t help but be impressed by the art and architecture the period produced.Some modern Christians, especially those of the Evangelical stripe, visit a medieval European cathedral, and come away impressed at the architecture, but mystified and maybe, a few anyway, a bit angry. Mystified on WHY people would go to such extremes to build such an immense and impressive structure. Angry at the massive expense such a structure meant.This episode seeks to explain the why behind medieval cathedrals.Churches in general and cathedrals in particular served two main purposes. First, the building was a place for worship; that worship being centered on the Mass. Second, the church was a place of instruction.The architecture was used as a tool for BOTH of these.In an age when only a small portion of society was literate, church buildings became a kind of “book in stone,” telling God’s story in the paintings and carvings that adorned the walls, and later, in the dazzling light of stained glass windows.Churches and cathedrals were made elaborate because of the theology of the Mass that we’ve looked at in the episode on the Eucharistic controversy. While the debate was long, the Church eventually settled in on the doctrine of transubstantiation; the belief that at the words of the priest, the bread and wine of Communion are transmuted into the literal body and blood of Christ. A portion of the consecrated host is kept in a container called a tabernacle, making the church into a house that holds the most precious thing in the universe; the body of Christ. It’s for this reason churches have long been regarded as sacred refuges. The church’s specialness derived from the presence of the host. And of course, that host deserved a house worthy of its importance.Think of the consecrated host as the finest gem. Such a jewel deserves an elaborate setting. It was this mentality that fueled the building of Europe’s Medieval Cathedrals. While churches were the meeting place of the faithful, their primary function was to serve as the location where the great miracle of transubstantiation took place.Following the Edict of Milan ending official persecution of Christians, the first church buildings were built in the same pattern and plan as Roman basilicas. These were civil government buildings used for a variety of purposes but officially designated as the hall where the king held court. The Roman basilica was in the shape of a capital “T.” Churches built in the 7^th thru 11^th C, a period called Romanesque, were built in a small “t” floor plan. The addition of the space at the top of the “t”, called the apse, was to provide room for the clergy who became increasingly distinct from the laity. As more priests and monks were added to the choir, the apse grew.Another major change in Romanesque churches was their roofs. They went from wood to stone. Stone roofs were possible because of the use of semi-circular arches that supported the additional load. When arches transect each other, it forms a vault. The challenge these arches, vaults, and stone roofs put on builders was the lateral stress they exerted. The weight of all that stone had to go somewhere and where it went was to the walls of the church. To keep them from toppling over, they were made sturdier by adding weight and width. So Romanesque churches are massive, imposing structures of thick walls and few windows.In the mid-12^th C, Romanesque architecture gave way to a new movement called Gothic. That label was applied much later by those who considered the style barbaric, so worthy of association with the Goths who’d helped bring Rome down. The basic floor plan for churches remained the same, but Gothic architects used pointed, rather than semi-circular arches and vaults. This allowed much higher ceilings. The weight was born by columns rather than walls, which doubled and trebled the lateral thrust on the columns. So external columns were built outside the church and used as additional support for the internal columns by means of an ingenious prop called a flying buttress. Since the weight was now born by columns rather than walls, the walls grew lighter and could be replaced by large stained- glass windows, whose scenes depicted stories from the Bible and lives of the saints.Just imagine the first time a peasant wandered into Cologne Cathedral! The only church he’d ever known was the centuries old massive block building back home that could hold no more than 200. He stands in the plaza in front of Cologne cathedral and tilts back his head as he takes in the church’s front façade, carved with hundreds of statues of Apostles and saints. His head keeps going back and back because there seems no end to the spires that rise ever higher, pointing like fingers toward God in His heaven. Dumbstruck that anything could be so big and reach so high, he stumbles in the front door, expecting to be greeted by the thick gloom he’s used to in the church back home. But this church isn’t dark; it’s filled with light. On his right is the main sidewall of the church, pierced by the most magnificent works of art he’s ever seen. More than that—than he’s ever even conceived! They are massive windows of colored glass through which the light streams. And they cast images of stories he’s heard many times. These are the Apostles, Jesus, Mary, and the saints. And the ceiling over his head is so high he can’t see it because it’s veiled in shadow. He stands there with mouth hanging open and wonders how he’s going to make his wife and family believe the wonders he’s seeing. He simply has no words to describe it; no point of reference in all his experience.Earlier I said that medieval churches were books in stone. These books told the story of God's creation and the human condition. The average town church only told a few chapters of that story while a cathedral was an entire encyclopedia.The story begins outside, looking at the front façade. While the Gothic cathedrals of Europe are all unique, they bear many similarities. Most have twin towers that soar into the sky. Most are entered via 3 doors; a North, Center, and South entrance that leads to the center and side aisles of the nave of the central hall. Cathedrals were built on an East-West axis with the façade at the west end. Above the central entrance is a large circular stained-glass window, called the Rose window. The central porch and entrance are the largest and were often kept closed for normal church services as they were for the exclusive use of the king or nobles. Commoners used the north and south doors.The porches for each door were elaborately decorated with sculptures of dozens upon dozens of figures both large and small. The left or North porch was often devoted to depictions of normal, everyday life. The labor of the months and various occupations are found there. The idea was to capture the human condition, especially as it intersected with the Life of Faith.The Central porch was more often than not a rendering of the Last Judgment. So, Jesus is seen seated in glory at the apex, judging the souls of mankind, who are found lower down rising from the dead. At the very bottom are depictions of hell and the torment of those souls cast into eternal damnation. Flying around Jesus’ throne are the saved in heaven and myriad angels.The South, right-hand porch was often given to the elevation of Mary.Standing across the front of the entire façade are statues of the OT prophets, the Apostles, and Saints.Poised above the central portal is the West Rose Window. From outside one cannot see the beauty of its stained glass, but the design is still noteworthy. Many of these rose windows have the appearance of an elaborate spoked wheel.If you stroll around the outside of the cathedral, rather than rushing to enter through one of those glorious portals, you’ll note how though the building lies heavy and squat on the land, it’s many spires and vertical embellishments all seem to lighten the effect. Like they are “lifting” it off the ground.Those gruesome gargoyles that have fascinated so many aren’t just for decoration. They served an important architectural and engineering purpose. They added weight to the columns that bore the load of the roof. Figures of fearsome demeanor, perched outside, they reminded people making their way into the church that while evil was outside in the world, the Church was a holy sanctuary free of such malevolence.Tourists entering a medieval cathedral today are often met by a lot of stone. The walls are gray, the stone rough. When first built, these walls were awash in color. The sculptures were painted. Gold-leaf was everywhere. And the treasures of the church were on full display. Well, they were when times were good. When not so good, they were sold and used to buy food or outfit soldiers for defense of the realm. Yes, cathedrals were a kind of public storehouse, kept against times of trouble.Inside, as you arrive at the head of the central aisle, you approach the altar area and the choir, or apse; sacred place for the clergy. Cathedrals were built where they were because they possessed some special relic from the Church’s past, a piece of the true Cross; the thumb of some saint. These relics were often kept in a special box called a reliquary and stowed away in a vault under the main altar of the church. They would be taken out and carried in procession at special events and days of the year.The back of the apse, so the East wall of the cathedral, was the building’s most elaborate and largest stained glass windows.Protestant visitors to Europe’s medieval churches and cathedrals are often confused on why there are so many little side rooms that dot the walls of the nave. They appear almost as places were smaller services were held – and that is in fact what they were; chapels for smaller services. Some of these were the donation of wealthy patrons and families where they would conduct their own private services. It’s in these chapels that some of Europe’s greatest art is to be found.As we end this episode, I want to again thank all those who’ve left a message on FB or gone by and Liked the page. Those reviews on iTunes are stellar and one of the best ways to get the word out to others about the podcast. Each country has its own iTunes store, so reviews from each country are only seen by people there. So I encourage our many international listeners to leave a review of CS on their iTunes store. Thanks.Let me give a quick preview of what’s coming . . .I’ve been doing a LOT of reading and study for our next phase of Church History. The next era we’ll dive in to is the Reformation in Europe. The more I read, the more I realize we need to go back a bit and take a closer look at the call for reform that had been heard in the Western church long before Martin Luther came on the scene. It’s a real injustice to the history of the Church to think he arose out of thin air. That fact is, Luther could have done nothing if there hadn’t already been a lot of work done in moving for reform.Once we’ve laid the groundwork for the Reformation, we’ll take a look at what was happening in the rest of the word as far as the Faith was concerned. Then we’ll return to the story of Reform in Europe.So, get ready for some fun stuff.

74-Overview 2

This 74^th Episode of CS is the 2^nd Overview, where we pause to sum up the journey we’ve taken since the last overview in Episode 35.That summary began with the Apostolic Church and ran up through the 5^th C marking the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. This Overview starts where that left off and brings us up to the 15^th C. We’re about to move into what’s called the Reformation and Counter- Reformation Era, but have a bit more work to do in looking at some trends that took place in the Church in Europe in the waning decades of the Middle Ages.Turns out, there was a lot of reform-oriented activity that took place in the Church well before the birth of Martin Luther. So we’ll take a look at that, filling in some of the holes left in the story so far.The reason these overview / review episodes are important is because of the need to set the events of Church history into the larger context of world history. But a danger lies in the very thing many dislike in the study of history; that inevitable list of names and dates. We have an advantage here because the assumption is – you LIKE history > Or for goodness sake, why would you be listening? I sure hope no home-school student has to listen to these, and no parent uses them as a form of discipline. Although, I guess they could be used in some kind of enhanced interrogation technique.Anyway à Here we go . . . Picking up where we left off in the last Overview àChristianity came to England early, at the end of the 3^rd C. Patrick took the Gospel to Ireland in the 5^th.The Goth and Hun invasions of Europe altered both the political and religious landscape. As the political structures of the Western Roman Empire fragmented, people looked to the Church to provide leadership. Being generally pretty capable leaders, the task of providing guidance fell to the dozens of Christian bishops.Then we briefly examined a subject that could have occupied us for much longer; the emergence of the Roman bishop as the Pope and de-facto leader of the Church.We spent an episode considering Pope Gregory the Great’s monumental impact on the Church in the 6^th C, how the Church proved to be a crucial feature of the Middles Ages and how Augustine’s work on theology formed the intellectual core of that era.We charted the Faith’s expansion into Africa, Mesopotamia, Asia and the Far East.Charlemagne’s tenure as Holy Roman Emperor was reviewed. The Iconoclast Controversy in the Eastern Church was covered. Then we saw the rift between the Eastern and Western churches that occurred in the 11^th C.The Crusades occupied us for 4 episodes; the growth of monasticism for 5 as we took a closer look at both Francis of Assisi and Dominic. We were fascinated by the career of the brilliant Bernard of Clairvaux. We attempted an examination of two major controversies –Investiture and the Eucharist.Universities were founded; the two most important at Paris and Oxford, but several lesser schools as well – giving rise to the movement known as Scholasticism which we took 3 episodes to cover. Scholasticism was fueled by the earlier work of Anselm and Abelard, but really took off with the labor of Thomas Aquinas and Dun Scotus.Thomas Beckett was made the Archbishop of Canterbury, then killed by over-zealous knights.In the mid-late 12^th C, Peter Waldo started a movement of mendicants that would birth a movement that lasts to this day. We haven’t said much about that yet but will in a near episode.The Third Lateran Council met in 1179 and a Middle Eastern Church known as the Maronites made common cause with the Roman Catholic Church rather than the Eastern Orthodox.In 1187, Saladin captured Jerusalem and the 3^rd Crusade set out.Innocent III became the most powerful Pope of the Middle Ages and convened the monumental Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.A Crusade was launched against the Cathars in Southern France.King John issued the Magna Carta.Pope Gregory IX appointed the first Inquisitors, another episode of church history we need to devote an episode to.Coming up to recent episodes, we looked at the emerging tension between the Church and State, Popes and Princes, that was a harbinger of Europe’s emergence into the Modern world. Pope Boniface VIII’s papal edict Unam Sanctum in 1302 was the proverbial gauntlet hurled at the foot of the secular power, denying salvation to anyone outside the Church.We reviewed the Great Papal Schism when there was—count them; not 1, nor 2, but for a time, 3 popes!In 1312, the Knights Templar were suppressed.Nine years later the Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy.1337, the Hundred Year’s War began and a decade later the Plague killed off a third of Europe.Then, as we start to move inexorably toward the emergence of serious reform attempts, we saw the central place of Sacramentalism in the mindset of people in the Middle Ages – that salvation is free and by grace, but that it’s dispensed THROUGH the Church, BY the clergy performing the sacraments.One episode looked at the Mystics who managed to keep the focus on God while it seemed so much of the rest of the clergy had been consumed by the intrigues of European politics.We paused to see what was happening with the Mongols and their rapacious conquest of the East, and ended with a look at John Wycliffe, Morningstar of the Reformation.It’s important we understand, the reform of the Church was not something that began with Martin Luther in the 16^th C. Far from it. There’d been many reform movements and the century and half before Luther went far to prepare the ground for his emergence.Jesus spoke of the problem of wineskins. New wine needs a new skin. If you put new juice in an old skin, as it ferments, the already stretched bottle will burst, ruining both skin and wine. Noà Jesus wasn’t giving wine-making lessons. He illustrated a spiritual axiom. When God does a new thing, He often goes outside the current religious “skin”, the existing structure, and uses a new vessel, medium, or method.From one perspective, we could say that Church History is a long tale of fresh movements of the Spirit, and how the Faith has embodied, or given expression to those new movements.The challenge of the modern student of history is to avoid layering back onto history our own particular experience and evaluation. People with smartphones and the Internet with a vast searchable electronic encyclopedia, literally at their fingertips, could easily consider people just a hundred years ago to be terribly uninformed; and people 500 years ago to be bereft of knowing much of anything. It’s said by some that the brilliant polymath Thomas Young, who died in 1829, was the last man to know everything. What that means is that until the early 19^th C, the body of information available in the form of books, the repositories of knowledge in that time, was of such a volume that a single human being could potentially have at least a working knowledge of ALL of it. But after that, the proliferation of knowledge began to grow exponentially so that it became impossible for one person to have such knowledge.We don’t need to attempt such a knowledge upload today when we can download any piece of knowledge we need in an instant.I say all that as a preface for this: As we soon move in our podcasts into the Reformation Era and the breakaway of the Protestants, it’s easy for us who’ve lived so long with the tension between Roman Catholics and Protestants, to project that paradigm back onto the Church before the Reformation. That would be wrong, a gross distortion of the facts.Before the Reformation, there really was just one church in Europe – and we ought not call it the “Roman Catholic Church” because what we think of TODAY as the RC Church was not that! The Roman Catholic Church today is what it is, in good measure, BECAUSE of the Reformation, as we’ll see. Western Christians today probably ought to understand the Church of Europe before the Reformation as “our church” – regardless what your denominational stripe is now. Eastern Christians, of course, look to the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church as their Church and have for a thousand years.The point is, the numerous attempts at reform prior to the Reformation were all kept in-house. Most of the monastic movements were attempts at reforming, not just monasteries, but the entire Church. Some of the popes had a reform agenda and were able to accomplish somewhat in the way of getting the Church back to its Apostolic ideal. The Reformation split the Church precisely because of a perfect storm of several factors that combined in Europe when it was obvious to just about everyone there was something seriously wrong in the leadership of the Church. And when the Church wouldn’t install the reforms it so obviously needed, a door had opened to allow those who wanted out, to leave.The factors that contributed to that perfect storm were . . .First, the growing tension between Popes and Princes.As the Investiture Controversy made clear, there’d been strife between secular rulers and the Pope for a while. It all went back to Charlemagne and his descendants who ruled by having their crowns bestowed by the Pope; their rule sanctioned by the Church. But as the different rulers of Europe jostled each other for territory and wealth became more important to fielding ever larger armies, these rulers competed with the Church for income. As the borders of Europe became thicker, the tension between Church and State grew.Second, the emergence of the European middle-class meant the feudalism that dominated European politics and economics began to loosen its grip on society. Though the social structure was still tightly controlled, new options began to appear. The emerging middle-class possessed more disposable income, fueling more markets and options. Cities began to grow. More were educated. Questions were asked, and the Church didn’t always have satisfying answers.Third, the printing press arrived and books began to proliferate. Ideas that had taken months to move from one place to another were now making the trip in days.Fourth, the scandal of the Papal Schism, with the governance of the Church being argued over by three claimant-popes all at the same time was simply embarrassing to many of Europe’s faithful. It was clear to everyone, including the Pope’s themselves, that serious changes was needed. This Church, divided as it was, could NOT be what Jesus and the Apostles had in mind.So, in the next episodes, we’ll take a look at some of the attempts at reform that occurred in the Late Middle Ages that act as precursors, foreshocks, if you will, to the eventual rift brought by the Protestants.

73-A Glimmer of Reform

The title of this episode of Communio Santorum is A Glimmer of Reform.I assume most listening to this are students of history, or—why would you be listening? Some like history in general. Others find a fascination with certain eras or moments of the past. Whatever your interest, every student recognizes that as time passes, things change. Sometimes that change is merely incidental to the thing changed, a cosmetic difference that does little to the substance. Other change is deep, fundamentally altering the thing changed; and in some cases, doing away with it altogether.Institutions and beliefs held for long periods can be swept away in a matter of days, while others abide for centuries without being touched.Jesus challenged the Guardians of Tradition of His day with the Parable of the Wine-skins. The point of the parable is that while truth doesn’t change, the container it’s put in and dispensed from will change, it MUST change. The rabbinic and Pharisaical Judaism of Jesus’ day had become an inflexible complex of traditions that obscured the Spirit behind the Law. The Rabbis and Pharisees played an important role after the Babylonian Captivity in moving the Jews away from their age old tendency to idolatry. But their exaltation of tradition had become so rigid it ended up missing what the Law of Moses was intended to promote. Jesus came to cut through the thick vines of tradition and make a path back to God.Sadly, some seem to think the parable of the wineskins only referred to 1^st C Judaism. They don’t realize what Jesus said is an abiding truth with application to every age; including the Church. Historically, God births a fresh move of the Spirit and people are mobilized to maximize the effect of that movement. Spiritual inspiration builds a structure, a vehicle for the movement to take place in and through. But as time passes, man makes policies and procedures regulate the movement. They’re needed so people can work together. Leaders want to ensure future members of the movement know where they came from and why. The problem is, those policies and procedures often become a limit, a line, a defining mark that says, “This is us, and beyond that line is NOT us. This is who we are; we are not that. This is what we do, we do NOT do that.”Traditions. à Which can be good and necessary for passing on values and identity; but can get in the way of hearing what else God might say.All of this is crucial to the next phase of Churchy History we’re looking at. So bear with me as I use an illustration I hope makes all this clear.Let’s say as a young Christian, I’m addicted to TV. I watch TV hours a day. What I watch isn’t the issue – just that I spend way too much time on it. At church one day, while in worship, I’m convicted about the TV, so I decide to only watch an hour each night, and spend the rest of the time reading, visiting other Christians and volunteering at the local mission.I experience such amazing spiritual growth, I decided to forego TV altogether. After a couple months of astounding deepening, I get angry at all the time I wasted and come to loath TV. So I take it out to the dumpster and toss it. I now abhor TV and when invited over to a friend’s house on the weekend, when he turns on the TV, I excuse myself and go home. As I drive home I grumble about how immature he is for watching TV. After that I use every opportunity I have to “encourage” others to turn off their TV’s and spend that time in more profitable and God-honoring ways. Several of my friends see major spiritual progress and become equally energetic in their anti-TV crusade as I. We form a group that makes watching TV a test as to whether or not someone is a real follower of Jesus. Then something interesting happens. The loss of visual entertainment moves a couple in the group to suggest we start performing dramas that enact Biblical stories and faith lessons. An acting group forms that stages weekly plays. And three years later what’s developed is a whole movement of TV bashers who’ve made mini-plays a part of their traditional church services.When someone in the group suggests they film one of their plays and put it on TV, he’s kicked out of the church.The spiritual condition of the leadership of the Western European church had sunk abysmally in the 14^th C. The papacy and its supporting mechanism had become little more than a political battlefield. When the papacy was split between three contenders, all claiming to be Peter’s legitimate successor, it was a evidence things had gotten completely out of hand.It was time for reform; for a new wineskin to contain and dispense God’s Grace and Truth.I want to be clear. While the upper echelons of Roman Catholic hierarchy had become hideously corrupt, thousands of local priests and monks continued to serve God faithfully. Don’t forget that the original Reformers were members of the Roman church.The Babylonian Captivity at Avignon and the Great Schism of the Papacy that followed it revealed a grotesque abuse of power. The failure of the counciliar movement made it clear no real reform would come from within the Church. People believed the Pope was essential, not just for providing leadership of the spiritual realm, but as a means of sanctioning political rule as well. By the end of the 14^th C, Europeans recognized that the Popes were often grossly self-interested, power-hungry despots. But they couldn’t shake the assumption the Pope was the cornerstone of Christendom.It was two brave souls, an Englishman named John Wyclif, and a Czech named Jan Hus, who got the dialog rolling on what the Church is and ought to look like. Of course, they weren’t the first to broach this important topic. Augustine had done back in the 4^th C. His ideas shaped the Roman church’s doctrine and polity. It was time to hold them up to the light of Scripture and see if they’d been properly interpreted and implemented.In a word, John Wyclif was a zealot. And, as is typical of zealots, there was no gray with him; it was all black or white. He was a polarizer. People either supported or opposed him. He left no room for no-opinion.There’s considerable confusion about the real Wyclif because we know little about him. He had a habit of hiding himself under many pages of scholarly discourse. So we know what he believed but not much about him personally.His early life is hazy; we don’t even know when he was born. He was brought up in North England but emerges from the fog when he became a student at Oxford. He attained a doctorate in 1372 and rose quickly as a leading professor there.The hot topic at that time was the nature of authority, specifically as it related to governance. Everyone knew authority comes from God, but the question was HOW it was conferred to men so they could rule.The majority-view said all authority was only just when it was bestowed by the Roman hierarchy. God entrusted the Pope with ‘catholic’, that is universal dominion over all things and persons. So, any authority used by civil rulers not under the auspices of the Pope was unlawful and invalid.The minority-view said authority inhered in civil rulers as a work of God’s general grace and was not officially bestowed by the Church. As long as a ruler remained within the scope of God’s grace, his rule was legitimate. This group went further and said if such grace was the basis of rule by civil authorities, how much more was it necessary for spiritual leaders?Wyclif was in the minority and dove into the debate with an important addition. He said the English government had a divinely assigned responsibility to correct abuses in the church and remove from office those clergy who’d proven by immoral or unethical behavior to be abusers of God’s grace. Wyclif went further, saying the State could even seize the property of corrupt church officials.Uhh – you can see where this is going for JohnW, can’t you?In 1377, the Pope condemned Wyclif’s teaching. But of course he didn’t back down. It led to the kind of brouhaha that saw the Church condemn, not just Wyclif’s teachings, but Wyclif himself. But powerful friends in England made sure no action was taken beyond threats.Wyclif’s teaching on authority was one of the early doctrinal wedges that would eventually lead to the Reformation. It posited the idea of spiritual freedom for all followers of Christ because of God’s grace, bestowed by Himself, in Himself, and through Himself, à not via the Church. Everyone, whether priest or layman is equal before God. Salvation doesn’t bring someone into the Church so they can get to God, so much as it brings people to God, and so includes them in the Church. It’s crucial we understand how radical Wyclif’s ideas were, how revolutionary. What he proposed was a personal relationship between God and man; something modern Evangelicals take as a given.Because of this, it was God in the heart and mind of a person that qualified them to hold office in the Church. Character and Calling were everything. Based on what he found in the Bible, Wyclif said priests did NOT mediate salvation by conducting masses. How could they, He asked, if as it says in Hebrews, Jesus died once for sins? How could they, if Jesus is the ONE mediator between God and man? Wyclif’s thoughts foreshadowed Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. Both men dismantled the medieval barriers between God and man.Wyclif’s doctrine of “authority bestowed by grace” was just the first of his theological hammer-blows delivered toward Roman doctrine. The decisive year of his reforming career was 1378, the same as the Great Papal Schism. Seeing the travesty of one pope excommunicating another, Wyclif ramped up his calls for reform.He spent a lot of time critiquing the Pope. He said, following the example of Christ and the Apostles, the Pope should be the shepherd of the God’s flock and a preacher who brings men to Christ. His view left no room for the temporal power Popes. The papacy as a political force constantly striving for mastery over men by political means was absurd and detestable to Wyclif. He abhorred trappings of power and denounced the crass worldliness and luxury of some of Church hierarchy.Wyclif rather welcomed the Great Schism precisely because it made obvious to all the problems in the Papacy of the 14^th C. But as the Schism went on and the rhetoric of church officials grew more intense, Wyclif became more determined to call for the dismantling of the Papacy.He listed the many ways Popes had departed from the simple faith and practice of Christ and His disciples. He scoffed at the idea that just because Peter died in Rome every bishop of Rome was above all Christendom. He reasoned, by that logic, Muslims might conclude their “sultan in Jerusalem,” where Christ died, was greater than the pope. No, Wyclif claimed, Christ alone is head of the Church and that headship is communicated through the Spirit of God working through the Word of God.Again, remember that Wyclif WAS PART OF THE ROMAN CHURCH at this point. This was an internal discussion, where there were many priests and bishops who found Wyclif’s idea thoroughly Biblical. They might not be politically safe, but they were theologically sound.But when Wyclif’s call for reform was met with resistance by those who could and should implement it, he took a fateful step. He passed from being an orthodox preacher of reform into a Protester; From Reformer to Protestant.His break with the papacy was part of a new idea he’d formed of the Church.Wyclif’s concept of the Church was prescient in its foreshadowing of what John Calvin would later propose. Wyclif said the church was less a visible institution as it was an invisible body of the elect; men and women chosen by God to be saved. Their salvation was a work of God’s sovereignty, and not subject to the ministrations of priests.Building on this, Wyclif challenged a whole range of medieval beliefs and practices: pardons, indulgences, absolutions, pilgrimages, the worship of images, the adoration of the saints, the treasury of merit, and the distinction between venial and mortal sins.He retained a belief in purgatory and extreme unction. He said if images increased devotion they need not be removed; and prayers to saints were not necessarily wrong. He considered confession to be useful if it was voluntary. We catch something of the spirit of his revolt when he declared that preaching was “of more value than the administration of any sacrament.”The standard Wyclif used in his evaluation of the practices of the Church was Scripture. He said, “Neither the testimony of Augustine nor Jerome, nor any other saint should be accepted except in so far as it was based upon Scripture.”He maintained the right of everyone to examine the Bible for himself: “The New Testament is of full authority, and open to the understanding of simple men, as to the points that be most needful to salvation.”But in all his protests and call for reform, Wyclif aroused no hostility like that sparked by his attack on the doctrine of transubstantiation¸ which lies at the heart of the Mass.In the Summer of 1380, he published twelve arguments against the idea that the bread and wine of were transformed into the literal, physical body and blood of Christ. He said the early church considered the elements as symbols of Christ’s body and blood. So, Christ is present in the elements sacramentally, not materially. The point of the sacrament he said, was the presence of the PERSON Christ in the soul, not the body of Christ in the belly.Wyclif’s denial of transubstantiation gave his enemies their opportunity. His support dwindled to just a few at Oxford. A council condemned his doctrines and forbade him lecturing. Then, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, convened a council that condemned ten of Wyclif s doctrines, labeling them heretical. By 1382, Wyclif was persona non-grata at Oxford.He turned to the people for support. He called for the Bible to be produced in the language of craftsmen and peasants so they could read and study and see how far the Church had departed from its roots. He led a handful of scholars at Oxford in the translation of the Latin Bible into English and copied the methods of St. Francis and the friars by wandering around, preaching outdoors, anywhere people would listen.Wyclif sent out priests sympathetic to his cause to win the souls of the neglected. Clad in brown robes of undressed wool, without sandals, purse, or scrip, a staff in their hand, dependent for food and shelter on the good will of their neighbors, Wyclif’s “poor priests” soon became a power in the land. Their enemies dubbed them Lollards, meaning “mumblers.” They each carried a few pages of Wyclif’s English Bible and his tracts and sermons as they went throughout the countryside, preaching. The movement spread and soon, many became lay-preachers.Wyclif gained enough support that the authorities decided to not move against him. But his followers were hunted, expelled from Oxford, and forced to renounce their views. Wyclif, driven from the university, was left to end his days in peace at his parish at Lutterworth. He died there in 1384.

72-Meanwhile, Back in the East

This episode is titled “Meanwhile, Back in the East” because before we dive into the next phase of church history in Europe, we need to catch up on what's happening to the East.The Mongol Empire of the 13^th and 14^th Cs occupied the largest contiguous land empire in history. Rising originally from the steppes of Central Asia and stretching from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan; from Siberia in the north to Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Iranian plateau, and the Middle East. At its greatest extent it spanned 6000 miles and covered about 16% of the planet's total land area.Genghis Khan was a shamanist, but recognizing the need to unite the Mongol clans. He adopted a policy of religious toleration that remained official policy during his reign and that of his son Ogedai. Several of the tribes that formed the core of the Mongol horde were Christians in at least a cultural sense. The Keriats, Onguds and Uighurs owed the Christianization of their culture to the Eastern expansion of Christianity we’ve looked at in earlier episodes.It's important to insert a short parenthetical comment here. Knowing what devastation the Mongols wrought during the 13^th and 14^th Cs and the literal wagon-loads of blood they spilled, we have to be careful when we call these tribes Christian. They certainly weren't evangelical missionaries. Their faith was a highly-distorted Nestorian version of the Gospel that exercised little restraint on the barbaric rapaciousness that marked their conquests. Still, they called themselves ‘’Christians and their claimed allegiance to the Gospel had a huge impact on what happened in the Middle East.Genghis Khan’s son Tolui, married a Christian woman from the Keriat tribe. One of their sons was the Mongol ruler Hulegu. Another was the famous Kublai Khan, founder of the Yaun Dynasty in China. While Hulegu seems to have identified as a Christian, Kublai certainly favored Christians in his court. When Hulegu conquered Baghdad, the Islamic capital of the day, his Christian wife urged him to destroy the city's mosques but protect the churches. Her goal was to dismantle Islam in the region and hand it a permanent setback.The Mongols took control of the Caliph’s palace and gave it to Baghdad's Christian patriarch. It ended up being made into a grand church. With such obvious favor being shown Christians, many Mongols converted.Asian Christians who'd suffered under the tyranny and oppression of Islamic rule for generations began to look to the advancing Mongol army as deliverers. One writer lauded the genocidal Hulegu and his wife as great luminaries and zealous combatants for the Christian religion. Beleaguered Western Crusaders were stoked by reports of allies in the East doing noble battle with the Muslims. Some Crusaders even sent emissaries to try to link up with the Mongols and help them in their conquest of the Egyptian Mamelukes in 1260. The Mameluke victory at Ain Jalut over the Mongols was a major disappointment.Hulegu’s son married a Byzantine princess and he favored Christianity over both Buddhism and Islam. Over the next few decades the Mongols didn't persecute Muslims but they did impose what the Muslims felt was a heavy burden. They were no longer able to treat Christians living among them as a subject people they could extract heavy tolls and fines from. The Mongol attitude was that as long as everyone paid their taxes, they were free to practice whatever religion they wanted. So a huge source of wealth to Muslims was lost.Christians all across the Middle East took advantage of their newfound freedom and hoped things would stay that way indefinitely under a sympathetic Mongol rule. With Hulegu and his heirs in power, Christians began doing things that had been forbidden under Islam; like carrying the cross in public processions, drinking wine, and building churches where none had been permitted.Then, in 1268 in Baghdad, I aks you to pay close attention to. Maybe this will bring a little light to why there's such tremendous hatred on the part of certain elements within Islam towards Christians today; especially in that region of the world. The Christian Catholicos, the title of the archbishop, ordered a man drowned for converting from Christianity to Islam. Muslims were scandalized and rioted. Following Mongol policy, the rioting was brutally crushed. Christians took this as further evidence they were now the favored faith. But that favor was soon to turn against them.The Mongol leaders became increasingly aware that Islam, with its embrace of jihad in the extension of the Faith by the power of the sword, was much more compatible with their values than either Christianity or Buddhism. They began to drift towards Islam until 1295, when the new Khan, Mahmoud Gazahn, persecuted Christianity and Buddhism. His successors followed his policies. During the early years of the 14^th C, Christians found themselves under the control of a Muslim super-state. Their position radically change from what they'd known under the Arab caliphate. Now Christians were subject to intense persecution. In the regional capital of Al-Malek in 1338, all Christians in the city were killed. The few traces of faith among the Keriats and Uighurs didn't last much into the 15^th C.Islam's victory among the Mongols proved devastating for the remaining Christians of Central Asia and the Middle East. These communities had managed to weather the storm of the Muslim Arab conquest of the 7^th C and it settled down to an uneasy peace with their new neighbors. But the brief respite brought by the Mongol invasion allowed the Christians to emerge in a dominant role for a time that they used to inflict the Muslims with real hurt. When a few years later, Muslims were back in control, this time with the authority of a Mongol Muslim powerhouse à Well, they decided it was payback-time. It was the Christians in Egypt who first bore the brunt of this new intolerance.From the start of the 13^th C, Egypt was the main target of Western Crusades. Frustrated Egyptian governments regularly retaliated for the Crusades by attacking the Copts, the native Egyptian church. In the mid-13^th C, Egypt was ruled by the Mamelukes and with the loss of Baghdad to the Mongols, the center of gravity of the Muslim world shifted to Mameluke Egypt. They considered the Christians in their region as a 5^th column, in cahoots with the Mongols pressing west toward Egypt. After the loss of Baghdad, it wasn't hard to imagine a world in which Egypt would stand alone as the last great Muslim power in a Middle East dominated by Christian-Mongols.The greatest Mameluke leader was General Baibar, the Scourge of both Crusaders and Mongols. Baibar hated Christians in general, but had an extra dose of loathing for those of the European variety. When he captured Antioch in 1268, he wrote the city's Crusader ruler, who’d barely escaped, “Had you stayed, you’d have seen the crosses in your churches smashed, the pages of a false testament scattered, the patriarchs’ tombs overturned. You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling over the places where you celebrated Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests, and deacons upon your altars--bringing sudden death to the patriarchs and slavery to your royal princes.”This attitude was radically different from the tone of earlier Muslim-Christian affairs. It reflected Baibar’s fury at the Christian alliance with the Mongols who themselves were utterly brutal in their conquests. This intolerance was increasingly evident in Egyptian policies toward their still substantial Christian minority. Persecution in Egypt wasn't new, but things deteriorated quickly after the Mameluke-Mongol wars.Between 1293 and 1354, the Egyptian government launched four campaigns to enforce the submission of Christians and Jews and drive them to accept Islam. Each wave of violence became more intense and better organized. A review of this half-century gives us a much better understanding of the ancient hostilities that have inflamed the Middle East ever since.A quick sketch of what happened.In 1293, an initial persecution fizzled when the sultan’s officials realized the Christians they were about to execute controlled the country's finances and were the most competent scribes.In 1301, a vizier visiting from Morocco was appalled at the wealth and status of Egyptian Christians and Jews. In Morocco, they had to pay a steep fine if they refused to convert and were subject to all kinds of public indignities. But in Egypt they held high public office, wore rich clothes and rode the best mounts. The vizier's criticisms moved Egyptian officials to install the same rules as Morocco. A wave of repressive laws followed, and ordinances closed all the churches and synagogues outside of Cairo. Some ancient churches were demolished, relics burned. Non-Muslims were dismissed from public employment and were forced to wear distinctive clothing; blue turbans for Christians, yellow for Jews. They were forced to ride only on donkeys and whenever a Muslim approached, they had to dismount and bow. Visitors to Egypt said that the enforcement of these rules continued all the way into the 19^th C.The effects of this crisis linger to the present day, since the rigorous Muslim legalism that emerged at that time shaped modern Islamic fundamentalist movements. From the 1290s, Muslim jurists produced ever harsher interpretations of the laws governing minorities, particularly through the work of militant puritanical scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah. His life was shaped by the disasters of the Mongol wars which forced him into exile in Egypt. He saw his goal as the militant restoration of Islam in the face of its enemies at home and abroad. His work has had a long afterlife. Ibn Taymiyyah is regarded as the spiritual godfather of the Wahhabi movement and of most modern extremist and jihadist groups. Among many others, Osama bin Laden cited him as a special hero.The Muslim hostility toward Christianity in the early 14^th C was reflected in outbreaks of extreme anti-Christian violence. In 1321, Muslim mobs looted and destroyed Cairo's Coptic churches. Usually, a Muslim cleric would give the signal for the attacks by mobilizing crowds in the mosques under the cry of “Down with the churches.”Now, the sultan tried to keep order, but the hatred of Christians was too powerful to contain. They were blamed for setting fires across Cairo. When some of the accused confessed under torture, the authorities were forced to support the popular movement. At one point, the Sultan faced a mob of 20,000 calling for the forceful suppression of Christians. In order to safeguard his rule, the Sultan permitted purge. The government went further and announced that anyone who found a Christian was permitted to beat him and take his goods.By the mid-14^th C, Muslim writers had a whole catalog of anti-Christian charges that bear a close resemblance to the libelous anti-Jewish tracks - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Christians were accused of being spies, ever on the lookout for opportunities to betray the Muslim cause. Cases in both Egypt and Syria proved, and I’m using air-quotes around that word “proved”-- they were serial arsonists. Some were even reported to have planted a bomb in the Great Mosque of Medina.Given modern-day stereotypes of Islam in the West, it’s ironic that Christian minorities were then so feared because they allegedly plotted terror attacks against prestigious symbols of Muslim power.In a society founded on honor and family pride, the humiliations of these new policies were too much to bear for many wealthy urban Christians who then converted to Islam. Other, poorer Christians proved firmer; particularly if they were located in rural areas where government policies were slower to penetrate. But later waves of intimidation wore down there resistance. Violence in the 1320s reduced Christian numbers and prepared the way for the disasters of 1354. From the end of the 14^th C, Egypt's Coptic Christians were reduced to a minority they retain up to the present day. The Coptic Church entered a period of hibernation that lasted until the mid-19^th C. This is sad when we consider that Egypt had been a major center of Christianity for hundreds of years, and the place of dozens of vital and prolific monasteries. What were once the thousand monks of Bufanda, were reduced to just two.Once their Mongol rulers converted to Islam, conditions became equally difficult for the Christians of Mesopotamia and Syria. Between 1290 and 1330, the story of Christianity in these parts, like that in Egypt, becomes a long list of disasters and ever harsher laws. One edict commanded that churches be demolished and services halted. All clergy and Christian leaders were to be executed. The storied churches of Tabriz, Arbella, Mosul, and Baghdad were torn down. Bishops and priests were tortured and imprisoned. Some laws struck directly at ordinary believers rather than just the institutions and hierarchy. Some of these edicts came from the Khans themselves while others came from the initiation of local governors. But the effects were just as damaging. Even when the Khans tried to limit persecution, they could hardly stem the zeal of local officers. In some cities, local laws ordered forcible conversion to Islam and prohibited the exercise of Christianity upon the pain of death. One Muslim ruler in Armenia passed ruinous taxes and ordered that anyone who refused to convert to Islam should be branded, blinded in one eye, and castrated. Christians and Jews were to be instantly recognizable by wearing distinctive clothing. In the words of one contemporary, “The persecutions and disgrace and markings and ignominy which the Christian suffered at this time, especially in Baghdad, well the words cannot describe.” The persecution reached its height with wholesale massacres at Arbella in 1310 and at Amita in 1317. There at Amita, where 12,000 were sold into slavery, the destruction of churches and monasteries was so thorough the fires burned for a month. These persecutions had a greater effect on the churches of the Middle East than any other event since the conversion of the Roman Empire. The succession of church leadership that had remained unbroken since the time of the Apostles came to an abrupt end. Whole Christian communities were annihilated across Central Asia and surviving communities shrank to tiny fractions of their former size. Christianity disappeared in Persia and across southern and central Iraq the patriarchs of Babylon now literally headed for the hills, taking up residence on the safer soil of northern Mesopotamia.

71-The Mystics

This episode is titled The Mystics and looks at the Mysticism of the Western Church during the Late Middle Ages.Alongside the Scholastics we spent a couple episodes on, was another movement within Medieval Christianity in Europe led by a group known as “The Mystics.”Don’t let that title mislead you. They weren’t wizards with black, long-sleeved robes and tall pointed hats embellished with moons and stars. Don’t picture Gandalf or some old man bent over a dusty tome reciting an incantation. The Mystics weren’t magicians. They were Christians who thought a vital part of the Faith had been left behind by the academic pursuits of the Scholastics. They aimed to reclaim it.Think of the Medieval Christian mystics this way; if the Scholastics sought to synthesize faith and reason, to give a rational base for the Christian faith, the Mystics wanted such reason to be fervent. If Scholastics emphasized the head, Mystics emphasized the heart. They wanted there to be some heat added to the light the Scholastics shined on the Faith. They added adoration to analysis.The primary message of the Mystics was the call for Christians to maintain a deeply personal and intimate connection to God. For some, that still meant going through the sacraments we looked at in the last episode, but the goal was to experience the divine. This is why they were called Mystics; their movement = Mysticism. That experience of the divine was inexpressible—indescribable. No formula can be given to obtain it, and once felt, to adequately describe it. It’s a mystery, one the mystics thought believers ought to aim for; the essence of the soul’s communion with God.The word which best captures the activity of the mystics is devotion. While the Scholastics looked for evidence of God “out there” the Mystics looked within. Not for some internal divine essence, as the earlier Gnostics had or some later mystics would. Rather, they engaged in an inner quest to discover the presence of the Holy Spirit working to conform them to the image of Christ. Faith wasn’t merely an intellectual pursuit. Mystics wanted to FEEL their faith, or better, what their faith was fixed on. They relied more on experience than definitions.There’s a common misconception about the medieval mystics that they were all hermits; living in seclusion in some esoteric pursuit of the divine. That’s not the case. For the most part, they weren’t recluses. They lived in monastic communities.The Mystics drew a good part of their material from the 5^th C Church Father Augustine, who also furnished the Scholastics with their core ideas. It was Augustine who said, “You have made us for Yourself O God and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”While Mysticism and Scholasticism are often set over against each other as separate movements, the truth is, most of the Scholastics show a flavor of the mystical, just as the Mystics often show a surprising element of the rational. The mystical element was strong in the greatest of the Scholastics; Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure.While Scholastic theology was developed in the cathedral schools and new universities, Mysticism grew up in convents and monasteries. Clair Vaux and St. Victor near Paris were the nurseries of medieval Mysticism. It was in the cloistered halls of monasteries that the passionate hymns of the Middle Ages were composed.The leading Mystics of this period were Bernard of Clair Vaux, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Joachim of Fiore. Hildegard and Elizabeth of Schoenau [Sker-naw] belong in a class by themselves.Bernard is considered one of the first medieval mystics, though he lived well before the flowering of Mysticism in the 13^th C. His writings reveal an intimate acquaintance with Scripture. One historian called him the religious genius of the 12^th C, the leader of his age, the greatest preacher Germany ever had. In matters of spiritual contemplation he was a new Augustine.Bernard maintained it was prayer and devotion that led to the knowledge of God rather than doctrinal disputes. It’s the saint rather than the scholar who understands God. Humility and love are the fundamental ethical priorities of theology. In other words, Bernard said, if our learning about God does not bring us nearer His moral makeup, it’s a false knowledge.Bernard reformed the community life of convents and monasteries. But he said the cloistered life, with its vigils and fastings, isn’t an end in itself; it’s but a means to develop the two fundamental Christian virtues of humility and love.Sounding very much like one of our finest Bible teachers today, Bernard said our love grows alongside our apprehension of God’s love. He maintained as the soul contemplates the cross it’s pierced with the sword of love, as when the Song of Solomon says, “I am sick from love.” Love towards God has its reward, but love loves without regard for reward.Then, moving more into what we might call classic mystical expression Bernard wrote - As the drop of water dropped into wine loses its color and taste, or as iron held in the fire loses its shape and becomes like the flame, or as air illuminated by the light of the sun, becomes itself like the light, even so all feeling in the believer is wholly infused and transmuted by God’s will, so that God becomes all and in all.Bernard preached 86 Sermons on the Song of Solomon. Not 8, not 6 – 86! And he only made it to the 1^st verse of the 3^rd chapter. Every one of them was a mediation on love, both God’s prior love and man’s reply. While commentaries on the Song of Solomon are rare today, it was a favorite of the Middle Ages precisely because of the influence of the Mystics who used it as the premier text for meditations on God. Everything in it is allegorized.The mysticism of Bernard centers in Christ. It is by contemplation of Him that the soul is filled with knowledge and ecstasy. The goal which the soul aspires to is that Christ may live in us, and our love to God becomes the all-controlling affection.The Abbey of St. Victor in Paris became a center of mystical theology in the 12^th C. The two most famous Mystical leaders who worked there were Hugo and his pupil, Richard. With both men, Mysticism was linked to the work of the Scholastics. With Bernard, mysticism was a highly developed personal experience. With the Victorines, it was brought within the limits of careful definition and became a system. Hugo and Richard centered their activity on the convent, taking no part in the public controversies of the age, where as we’ve seen in other episodes, Bernard was all over the place in the early 12^th C; preaching up the 2^nd Crusade, participating in the Great Papal Schism, founding the Knights Templar, and a host of other major events.Hugo, the first of the great German theologians, was born about 1097 in Saxony. In 1115 he went to Paris and became a monk at St. Victor’s. He was a friend of Bernard’s. Hugo left behind him many writings. He was an independent and fair thinker who influenced contemporary writers by whom he’s often quoted. He wrote commentaries on Romans, Ecclesiastes, and other books of the Bible, and a treatise on what would now be called a Biblical Introduction. Going against the standard allegorical slant most Bible study of the time followed, Hugo emphasized the historical sense of the text. But having developed that historical sense, Hugo went on to allegorize the text along mystical lines.Richard of St. Victor was Hugo’s student. If Hugo was reserved, Richard was extravagant. We know little of his life other than he was born in Scotland and became prior of St. Victor in the late 12^th C.Richard’s style was awash in exuberance. His commentaries on the Books of the Bible follow a truly mystical path as he sees all kinds of connections between the Gospel and the stories of the Old Testament. Today we’d call Richard an inveterate Possibility-thinker. In his work titled Emmanuel, a treatise directed to Jews, he praised sin as a happy misdemeanor,—felix culpa,—because it brought about the Incarnation of Christ. è I guess that’s one way to look at it.For all Richard’s mystical leanings, he magnifies Scripture and makes it the test of spiritual experiences. This is something modern mystics should take to heart. Everything, Richard said, is to be looked upon with suspicion which does not conform to the letter of Scripture.The leading idea of these two Victorines is that we must believe, love, and sanctify ourselves in order that the soul may reach the ecstasy and composure of contemplation in the knowledge of God. The Scriptures are the supreme guide and the soul by contemplation reaches a spiritual state which the intellect and argumentation could never bring it to.Hildegard was born to noble parents in Germany. From the age of three she experienced visions, which over time revealed to her the nature of God and the universe. At a young age, her parents sent her to be educated at a Benedictine convent where she spent the rest of her life.In 1141, for the first time, she informed others of her visions. They persuaded her to have the revelations she had experienced written down. It was titled Scivias and became a classic of medieval mysticism. The highest authorities in the church, including the Pope, regarded her as a prophetess.Bernard of Clair Vaux was numbered as one of her admirers. They carried on a lifelong correspondence dealing, among other topics, with the need for church reform. Because of her leadership abilities, she eventually became abbess of her convent and in 1148 founded a new convent near Bingen where she remained until her death. Besides her administrative duties, she maintained a wide correspondence and authored books on science, medicine, hymnology, and lives of the saints. She joined other leaders of the church in condemning the heresy of the Cathars but unlike others she opposed sentencing them to death.Caterina Benincasa’s birth into a middle-class wool dyer’s family caused scarcely a ripple; she was after all, the 23^rd of 25 children. Another event that year, a flea full of the bacillus pestis entered the Italian port of Messina and brought a tidal wave of disease called the “Black Death.” In just 3 years, 1348 to 50, more than a third of Europe died. Baby Catherine somehow survived the Plague.As a young girl, she often went to a cave near her home in Siena to meditate, fast, and pray. At 7, she claimed to have seen a vision of Jesus and announced to her parents her determination to live a religious life. Convinced of her devotion, they gave her a small room in the basement of their home that acted as a hermitage. She slept on a board with a log for a pillow. A few years later at the age of 15 her parents thought her period of religious devotion had run its course and that she ought to marry. She cut off her hair to thwart their designs.The path for young women at that time who wanted to devote themselves to the religious life was to enter a convent as a nun. But Catherine didn’t want a contemplative life; she wanted to help the poor and sick. Her cousin was a Dominican priest who persuaded her to join the Dominicans as a lay sister. She lived at home, wore distinctive clothes, and directed her activities in sacrificial service to the needy.From 16 to 19, Catherine continued living a secluded life at home and attracted many followers, who were drawn by her feisty personality and exemplary sanctity. She learned to read and became familiar with the Church Fathers; Gregory the Great and Augustine, as well as the popular preachers of the day. At the end of this 3-year seclusion, Catherine experienced what she later described as a “spiritual marriage” to Christ. In a vision, Jesus placed a ring on her finger, and her soul attained mystical union with God.She returned to her ministry to the poor, sick, and imprisoned of Siena. When a wave of the plague struck her hometown in 1374, most people fled, but she and her followers stayed to nurse the ill and bury the dead. She was tireless, working day and night, healing all of whom the physicians despaired.When the crisis ended, she began a letter-writing ministry to convert sinners and reform the Church and society. Like many reformers of the day, she was disturbed by the blatant corruption of Church officials, and believed the source of the problem was the Great Papal Schism. In a series of letters, Catherine exhorted the Pope to address the problems of the church and charged him to return to Rome. She wrote, “Respond to the Holy Spirit who is calling you! I tell you: Come! Come! Come! Don’t wait for time because time isn’t waiting for you.”A year later, in 1377, after Catherine visited with him in Avignon, Gregory XI finally returned to Rome. It was the great moment of her public life.In her 383 letters and book The Dialogue, Catherine describes her mystical experiences and her all-consuming desire to love God.At the heart of Catherine’s teaching was the image of a bleeding Christ, the Redeemer—ablaze with fiery charity, eager sacrifice, and unqualified forgiveness. It wasn’t the cross or nails that held Christ to the tree; those were not strong enough to hold the God-Man. It was love that held Him there.Catherine died in Rome at the age of just 33. What a life she lived and example she set.

70-Sacramentalism

In this, the 70^th Episode of CS , we take a look at Sacramentalism; a mindset that dominated the religious landscape of late Medieval Christianity.The question that consumed Europeans of the Middle Ages was, “How can I be saved? What must I believe and do that will preserve my soul from the torments of hell?”Rome answered that with what’s called Sacramentalism.Now, let me be clear; the basic answer was, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.” But the Church went on to define what that trust looked like with a set of rules and required practices. Yes, people are saved by grace through faith, but that grace is received by special acts only authorized clergy may conduct. These acts were called “sacraments” from the word “sacred” meaning holy. But there was a specific flavor to the word sacrament that carried the idea of mystery. Precisely HOW the sacraments communicated grace was unknown, while that they did was a certainty. So while salvation was by grace, one had to go to the Church to get that grace. The sacraments were channels of grace and necessary food of the soul. They accompanied human life from the cradle to the grave. An infant was ushered into the world by the sacrament of Baptism while the dying were sent on their way out by the sacrament of Extreme Unction.While all the sacraments were important, the most essential were Baptism and the Eucharist.Baptism was thought to open the door to the Kingdom of Heaven by removing the stain of original sin. But that door to glory was only opened. The baptized needed to follow up their baptism as an infant with later sacraments like Confirmation, Marriage and others. So important was baptism, in an emergency, when an infant appeared to be in distress and a bishop wasn’t close enough to perform the rite, the Church allowed the nearest available pious person to baptize.The Lord’s Table, Communion, or as it’s referred to by some churches, the Eucharist, was the sacrament of grace by which people nourished and nurtured their spirits and progressed in sanctification.Besides these, other rites were called sacraments, but until the time of the Scholastics, there was little agreement as to the proper number. Before the Scholastics, the number of sacraments varied from four to twelve.Bernard of Clairvaux listed ten and including foot-washing and the ordaining or as it was called, “investiture” of bishops and abbots. Abelard named only five. A mystic theologian named Hugo of St. Victor also gave five but went on to suggested thirty possible means by which the Church dispensed special grace. Hugo divided the sacraments into three classes,—First were the sacraments necessary for salvation; Baptism and the Eucharist.Second were those which sanctified the worshipper and made spiritual progress possible. This includes holy water and the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday.A third class prepared the way for the other sacraments.Though Thomas Aquinas listed seven sacraments, he recognized some of the lesser rites as quasi-sacramental in character.The uncertainty concerning the number of the sacraments was a heritage from the Church Fathers. Augustine defined any sacred rite as a sacrament. In 1179, the Third Lateran Council used the term in a wide sense to include the investiture of bishops and burial. The Catholic Church today makes a distinction between certain sacred rites, called sacramentalia, and the seven sacraments. Aquinas gave as the reason for the proper number to be seven—saying that three is the number of Deity, four of creation, and seven represents union of God and man. A rather interesting “reason” for the supreme Scholastic to make since it sounds far more like the work of one of the Mystics.Following the inquisitive nature of the Scholastics however, ingenious and elaborate attempts were made to correlate the seven sacraments to all the areas of mankind’s spiritual need. They were understood as undoing the Fall and its effects.Seven corresponds to the seven classic virtues. Bonaventura allegorized the sacraments to a military career. He said the sacraments furnish grace for the spiritual struggle and strengthened the warrior on the various stages of his/her conflict. Baptism equips him on entering the conflict, confirmation encourages him in its progress, extreme unction helps him at the finish, the Eucharist and penance renew his strength, ordination introduces new recruits into the ranks, and marriage prepares men to be recruits. Augustine compared the sacraments to the badges and rank conferred upon a soldier, a comparison Thomas Aquinas adopted from him.By the authority of the well-regarded Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, seven was chosen as the sacred number. The seven sacraments are Baptism, Confirmation, Penance which includes confession and absolution, Eucharist, Marriage, Ordination, and Extreme Unction; sometimes called Last Rites.Confirmation was closely connected with baptism as a kind of supplement. It was a way for someone who’d been baptized as an infant to personally appropriate the faith of his/her parents by endorsing baptism as their own choice. They “confirmed” their faith in God and His Church. In the Greek Church, Confirmation can be performed by any priest, but in the Latin church, only by a bishop.Penance was deemed necessary for sins committed after Baptism and Confirmation. The penitent confessed his/her sins to a priest, who then prescribed certain acts that were understood to mark genuine repentance, such as praying the rosary or performing some compensatory act that rectified the error. Either upon completion of the penance, or in anticipation of its completion, the priest would announce the confessor absolved of the confessed sins. Being thus morally and spiritual clean the penitent was qualified to partake of the Eucharist.Ordination is the sacrament by which priests are authorized to their office.Marriage lies at the basis of the family and society in Church and State, and the rite of marriage was jealously guarded by the Church against any and all forces that would weaken it. The Church sanctioned marriage and it was to the Church one had to appeal to have a marriage annulled.In the Middle Ages, ordination and marriage were mutually exclusive. Since priests were to be celibate, they were ordained, and since lay people weren’t ordained, they were provided the sacrament of marriage. The idea back of both was the sense of divine call and fitting to the role each was to play in the plan of God.Extreme unction was first mentioned as a sacrament in the Synod of Pavia in 850. Originally it was a special prayer for someone gravely ill. It was meant to replace the use of amulets and incantations and could be applied by both laymen and priests. Later, priests alone were permitted to offer it and it was only given to those about to die.The Scholastics taught that the effectiveness of the sacraments were ex opere operato, meaning that their virtue as channels of special grace were inherent in them and independent of the moral character of the priest or recipient. The only requirement was that they be performed in the proper manner with right intent.If this sounds familiar, you may remember the Donatist controversy that so incensed Augustine. The Donatists of North Africa insisted that Baptism and Communion, the only sacraments or ordinances they recognized, were invalid if performed by a derelict priest or unqualified bishop. Augustine upheld the idea that the sacraments carried inherent virtue. His ideas shaped the theological base of Sacramentalism.Thomas Aquinas said the sacrament imparts its virtue without the operation of faith on the part of the recipient. Protestant scholars have often claimed the Scholastics ascribed a magical virtue to the sacraments that was unaffected by the attitude of the recipient. But that’s not really their view. Aquinas said it was the activity of God that made the sacrament efficacious, not the rite as divorced from Him. The Scholastics maintained Christ gave the Sacraments to the Church, to give to the people as a way to convey saving and sanctifying grace. Only the duly ordained church hierarchy of Pope, Cardinals, bishops and priests, possess the power to administer the sacraments. Under Sacramentalism, salvation is by Christ alone, but through the mediation of the Church.This is why and how the Medieval Church was able to exert such tight control over the lives of the people of Europe. They were the spiritual gatekeepers of heaven, declaring who was in and who was out.To the mediaeval mind, the sacraments were essential food of the religious life, and, in building up the sacramental system, the mediaeval theologian thought he was strengthening the Church. In the authority to administer them lay the power of the priesthood to open and shut the kingdom of heaven.Duns Scotus, whose opinions were set aside by the Church for those of Thomas Aquinas, insisted that God can confer grace apart from the sacraments, and their efficacy is dependent on the will of the recipient. Scotus said the sacraments acted indirectly. They weren’t supernatural vehicles of saving or sanctifying grace. They were symbols used to affect a change of heart and mind in someone so an opening could be made for God’s grace.The relation the priest sustains to the sacraments is a vital one, and except in extraordinary cases his administration of the rites is essential. As already said, their effectiveness doesn’t depend upon the priest’s personal character; it’s only important that he perform them according to proper procedure. An immoral priest can confer sacramental grace. To use the mediaeval illustration, pure water may be conveyed through a lead pipe as well as thru a silver. The priest acts in the name of the Church, and in uttering the sacramental formula gives voice to the Christ-ordained authority of the Church. That’s enough for bestowing a perfect sacrament.Bonaventura said that in the event of an emergency, when a sacrament was necessary but a priest wasn’t available, the ritual could be performed by laymen outside the Church, IF the recipient then re-enacted the rite within the Church as soon as possible.Three of the sacraments; baptism, confirmation, and ordination, were thought to confer an indelible mark on the soul. Once baptized, always baptized. Once confirmed, forever confirmed. Once ordained, permanently ordained. However, in extreme cases, the state these marks ushered one into could be forfeited by becoming an apostate and being excommunicated.While Sacramentalism dominated the theology and practice of the Medieval Church, the Reformers set about to dismantle it. They claimed it was based on a faulty interpretation of Scripture. Martin Luther called Sacramentalism the Church’s Babylonish captivity, in which the rights and liberty of believers were fettered by the traditions of men.In our next episode we’ll take a look at another theological strain that operated at this time – The Medieval Mystics.As we end, I want to once more thank those who’ve donated to CS to help defray the cost of maintaining the site and server. Every bit helps.

69-The Not So Great After All Schism

The title of this episode of CS is The Not-So Great After All Schism.At the end of our last episode, a Frenchman, the Archbishop of Bordeaux was elected by the College of Cardinals in 1305 as Pope Clement. But Clement never set foot in Rome, because the locus of political power had shifted to France and her King, Philip. This marks the beginning of what’s called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, a 72–year long period when France dominated the papacy. After Clement, the next 6 Popes, all French, made their headquarters in Avignon, France rather than Rome. Though it began as a small town when Clement first located there, over the next 70 years it grew to a population of some 80,000, nearly all of them associated in some way with the Church bureaucracy.This transfer of the papacy from Rome to France had a profound impact on the way all Europe came to see both the Pope and the leadership of the Church. Rome was the Eternal City. The Church of Rome, with the Pope as its bishop, went all the way back to Peter. That’s why people regarded it as special; why it called the shots for everyone else. If the Pope no longer sat in Rome, if he could now reside in some other church, what did that say about his authority? Was he indeed Peter’s successor? Was he truly The Vicar of Christ? And what did it mean when the Pope seemed to be little more than the political mouthpiece for the King of France?While the French enjoyed having the Pope close to home, the rest of Europe didn’t find it much to their liking. The duchies and other regions of what would later be called Germany in particular resented it, being in constant tension with their French neighbors.A good part of the hostility toward the Avignon papacy revolved around the abuse of money. Since the Papal States in Italy were no longer contributing, the papacy nearly went bankrupt. To replace lost income, French popes employed a slew of schemes. There were fees for this and taxes for that. Whenever a new bishop was appointed, his first year’s income went to the Pope. Veteran bishops were transferred between churches, so the Pope could start the process all over again. Sometimes no bishop would be appointed so the entire income went to Avignon.The most lucrative practice was the granting of indulgences. These were passed out for just about any reason; any venture the Church figured was in its interest. From minor public works to war could earn someone an indulgence. And what the indulgences earned those they were granted, grew as time passed. The common people, who couldn’t afford to purchase such spiritual extravagances, and trusted in a more sincere form of devotion, saw all of this as a gross departure from the path of genuine righteousness. Bitter feelings toward Avignon grew, especially when the Pope demanded an increase in revenue under the threat of excommunication. Hell was for un-repentant sinners, not people who couldn’t afford to pay ever more taxes and fees.By 1360, the outcry over the French domination of the Church made it clear the Avignon papacy could not continue. But no one foresaw the incredible events a return to Rome would bring.In 1377, the elderly Pope Gregory XI re-entered Rome. But the joy that attended the re-establishment of the papacy there was short-lived. Gregory died within a year. The College of Cardinals, still filled by Frenchmen, yielded to the clamor of a Roman mob and chose an Italian. On Easter Sunday, April 18, Urban VI was crowned as the new Vicar of Christ. As the next months unfolded, it became clear Urban was a harsh dictator. The Cardinals had second thoughts about his election. In August, they announced that in their earlier decision, a mob had forced the selection of an apostate and the proceedings were invalid.End of Round One.A month later, the so-called apostate Pope Urban VI fired off Round Two by creating a new College of Cardinals. The sitting College, dominated by French cardinals, chose a new Pope from among their number, Clement VII. Clement took a tour of Italy to present himself as the real Pope, then headed back to à Avignon.This brings us to what’s known as “The Great Schism.” It lasted 39 years. Each papal court had its own College of Cardinals, insuring the succession of its choice. Each Pope claimed to be the true Vicar of Christ, with the power to excommunicate those who refused to acknowledge him. The other guy was “antichrist.”Of course, the French went with Clement; Italy and most of the rest of Europe, with Urban. But since England went with Urban, Scotland went with – can you guess? Yep – Clement. Within each kingdom, there were minorities of support for the “other guy.” Riots broke out. Property was burned and a new crusade was called for.In 1395, professors at the University of Paris proposed a general council, representing the Universal Church, to meet and heal the schism. Problems immediately arose. Canon Law said only the Pope could call a general council; and only the Pope could ratify any decision it made. Which Pope had those rights? In effect, Canon Law prohibited the reunion of Christendom.By 1409, a majority of cardinals from both sides agreed something had to be done. They met for a general council at Pisa in Italy. They deposed both Popes and elected a new man, Alexander V. Wouldn’t you just know it; neither of the two deposed prelates accepted the action. Now the Church had not two, but three Popes!One of them called for a crusade against another and sold indulgences to pay for it. This ridiculousness finally stirred the people of Europe to action. In 1414, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund assembled the most impressive Church gathering of the era at the German city of Constance. Even the Eastern Greek Orthodox Church sent representatives.For the first time, voting took place on a purely national basis. Each nation had one vote. The national structure of the council was highly significant. It shows that the Church was reluctantly coming to realize the new alignment of power turning Europe into the modern world.It took three years, but eventually the council got one of the Popes to step aside, deposed the other two and chose a new Pope, Martin V. One of the deposed popes tried to retain his title, but for all practical purposes, the council in Constance brought an end to the Great Schism.Just when it seemed things would get back to normal, the new Pope made a move which seemed to slit his own throat. The instant he was seated, he repudiated all acts of the council, except the one by which he ruled. Yet it was the council’s acts that had built the authority by which they could name him Pope. It was as if he said his election was based on a fiction.Looking back, Pope Martin’s actions seem foolish, but he had good reason to deny the work of the council. It raised an important question: Who’s greater, a council that seats a Pope, or the Pope who’s authority convenes councils?This blatant foray into political machinations dug a trough for the papacy it would be a while getting out of.As we end this episode on the Not-So-Great-After-All Schism, it seems a good place to pause and make an editorial comment.Over the years I’ve done this podcast, I’ve had only a few Roman Catholics who’ve gone after me for not being fair with the Church and Papacy. A lot more have remarked on how fair they’ve found the podcast. So let me say this à The Church, whether we’re talking about the Eastern Orthodox, the Church in the East, the Roman Catholic Church, or the dozens of Protestant groups have a mixed record when it comes to faithfulness to God. There are high points and low. Golden Ages, Glided Ages, and periods of growdy mud. There’s no point in white-washing those times in Church History when the People of God didn’t act like it. This era of the Great Schism is at best an embarrassment. No amount of spin can make it anything else.Pope Alexander VI’s real name was Roderigo Borgia. He ruled from 1492–1503 and was grossly immoral; obsessed with providing wealth and power for his children. Yes, I said “children.” So much for being celibate. The entire 15^th C is an abysmal period for the Popes as they were far more interested in politics and the arts than the things of God. As Shelly puts it, “The pope often could not make up his mind whether he was the successor of Peter or Caesar. Political corruption and immorality in the Vatican reached unbelievable heights under the Borgias.”And while things were horribly out of whack in the upper reaches of Church Hierarchy, there were many godly bishops, priests, and deacons who served their parishes well, with a heart to glorify God. It’s just that the Papacy was certainly no example to follow.So, Pope Martin tried to up-end the Council of Constance but what happened there was not to be forgotten by the representatives. Estrangement from the Vatican was growing. Men began to think in terms of “national churches,” and a church governed by representative bodies instead of a tyrannical dictator.The ground for the Reformation was being plowed.

68-Of Popes and Princes

The title of this episode of is Of Popes and Princes.As far as the Church in the West was concerned, the 14^th C opened on what seemed a strong note. Early in 1300, Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed a Year of Jubilee, a new event on the Church calendar. The Pope’s decree announced a blanket pardon of all sins for all who visited the churches of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s in Rome over the next 10 months. Huge crowds poured into the city.Boniface VIII was interesting. He had a flair for the pomp and circumstance of what some might call pretentious ceremony. He regularly appeared in public dressed in royal, or even better, imperial robes, announcing, “I am Caesar. I am Emperor.” His papal crown had 48 rubies, 72 sapphires, 45 emeralds, and 66 large pearls. He could afford to be generous with pardons. At the Church of St. Paul, pilgrims to Rome kept priests busy night and day collecting and counting the unending offerings.For Boniface, looking ahead the years seemed bright. The Vatican had held unrivaled religious and political power for 2 centuries and there was nothing on the horizon that portended change. The Pope had before him the sparkling example of Innocent III, who a hundred years before dominated emperors and kings. Boniface assumed he’d carry on in the same vein.But just 3 years later, Boniface died of a shock of the greatest personal insult ever inflicted on a Pope. Even as the Jubilee celebrants rejoiced, forces were at work to end the hegemony of medieval papal sovereignty.You don’t have to study history long before you realize there are often major changes brewing beneath the surface, long before people are aware of them. The 14^th C was such a time. The Roman popes continued on in a “business as usual” mode while radical new ideas and forces were altering the Faith. The idea of Christendom, a Christian Empire unifying Europe from the 6^th thru 14^th C’s, was rapidly deteriorating.So-called Christendom had been useful in creating 7^th and 8^th C Europe . But its importance faded in the 12^th and 13^{th Cs}. Pope Innocent III had indeed demonstrated that papal sovereignty was effective in rallying princes for a crusade or for defending the Church against heretics. But the 14^th and 15^th C’s saw a marked decline in papal power and prestige.Because we are used to thinking of the World politically, as a collection of nation-states, it’s difficult to get our heads around the idea they’re a rather recent phenomenon. For most of history, people lived regionally; their lives and thoughts circumscribed by the borders of their county or village. For centuries, Gauls and Goths defined themselves by their tribe. It never occurred to them to call themselves French or German. Such national labels don’t come into play until late, as Europe emerged from the Middle Ages into what we call the Modern World. A world, BTW, marked as modern precisely because of this new way of identifying ourselves.By the 14^th C, people were just beginning to get used to the idea they were English or French. This was possible because for the first time, they began to think of the political state in terms independent of their religious affiliation.Europe was moving, ever so slowly, away from its feudal past. Land was less important as hard cash became the new emphasis. Those at the political top came to realize they needed ever-larger sources of revenue, which meant taxes.Edward I of England and Philip the Fair of France were, as was typical for centuries – at odds with each other. To finance their increasingly expensive campaigns of territorial expansion, they decided to tax the clergy. But popes had long maintained the Church was exempt from such taxation, most especially if the money raised was going to be used to let some other guys’ blood out of his body at high speed.In 1296, Pope Boniface VIII issued a decree threatening excommunication for any ruler who taxed the clergy and any clergy who paid w/o the Pope’s consent. But Edward and Philip were of the new kind of monarch advancing to Europe’s many thrones. They were unimpressed by Rome’s threats. Edward warned if the Church didn’t pay, the Crown’s protection of the Church would be removed, their properties seized in lieu of taxes. Phillip’s answer was to block the export of gold, silver, and jewels from France, depriving Rome of a major source of revenue from its collections.Pope Boniface backed down, protesting he’d been misunderstood. He certain had not meant to cut off contributions for defense of the realm in times of need. It was a clear victory for both kings.Their victory over papal power had a way yet to go, though. Reinforced by the success of the Jubilee, Pope Boniface assumed the reverence shown him in every corner of Europe extended to the civil sphere as well. He had another gold ornament added to his crown signifying his temporal power. Then, he went after France’s King Philip, trying to undermine his right to rule. Philip responded by challenging the Pope to show where Jesus gave the Church temporal authority.In 1301, Philip imprisoned a French bishop on charges of treason. Boniface ordered his release and rescinded his earlier concession on taxation of Church lands. The next year Philip summoned the French nobility, clergy, and other leaders and formed a kind of French parliament. He then gained their unanimous support in his quarrel with the pope. One of the new civil ministers put the choice they had to make this way, “My master’s sword is made of steel; the Pope’s is made of words.”Several months later Boniface issued the most extreme assertion of papal power in Church history; the papal bull known as the Unam Sanctum = The One Holy, most famous of all bulls of the Middle Ages, asserting the Pope’s authority over all other authorities. His meaning was unmistakable. He declared, “It’s altogether necessary for every human being to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”Philip’s counter to the Unam Sanctum was no less drastic. He moved to have Boniface deposed on the grounds his election had been illegal. To carry out this plan, Philip turned to William of Nogaret, the lawyer helping him set up the political foundations of France.Nogaret was also a master at producing so-called “evidence.” He’d gained testimony to support his case by such dubious means as stripping a witness, smearing him with honey, and hanging him near a beehive. His case against Boniface went way beyond the charge that his election was illegitimate. Nogaret claimed the Pope was guilty of heresy, simony, and gross immorality. Given authority by a French assembly of clergy and nobles, he rushed to Italy to bring the Pope to France for trial before a Church council.Boniface was 86 and had left Rome for the Summer. He was staying in his hometown when Nogaret arrived with troops. They broke in to Boniface’s bedroom, violently manhandling him. They waited a few days for him to recover, then prepared to return to France. But the people of the town discovered what was happening and rescued the Pope. He died a few weeks later, weak and humiliated.This tragic affair becomes something of a marker for the fact that Europe’s rulers would no longer tolerate papal interference in what they regarded as political matters. The problem was after so many centuries of Christendom, it was difficult sorting out where politics ended and Church affairs began. What was clear was that a king’s power within his own country was now a fact.At the same time, abuse of a Pope, even an unpopular one, was deeply resented. Despite his declaration of the Jubilee, Boniface was not a beloved leader. He’d been a target of much criticism. To give you an idea of just how low Boniface’s esteem had fallen, Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, reserved a place in hell for him. Still—the Pope was the Vicar of Christ. Few people at that time could conceive of Christianity without the Pope and the Church hierarchy he presided over.Even when there was no political vocabulary for it, people of the early 14^th C began to distinguish between secular and religious authority and recognize the rights of each in its own place.When Boniface’s successor died after a brief reign, Philip’s daring coup seemed to bear its fruit. In 1305, the College of Cardinals elected a Frenchman, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, as Pope Clement V. Clement never set foot in Rome, preferring to stay closer to home, where he was always accessible to do the royal bidding.Clement’s election marked the start of a 72 year long period called “The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” named after the Jewish exile some 2000 years before. Following Clement, six popes, all French, ruled from the French town of Avignon rather than in Rome.This relocation of the Popes to France was more than a matter of geography. In the thinking of Europeans, the Eternal City of Rome stood not only for the idea of the Apostolic Succession of the Church founded by St. Peter, but also of Roman imperium. Avignon was surrounded by what? The French kingdom. The Church was a mere tool in the hands of one nation, the power-hungry French.This was resented bitterly in Germany. In 1324, Emperor Louis the Bavarian moved against the French Pope John XXII by appealing to a general council. Among the scholars supporting such a move was Marsilius of Padua who’d fled from the University of Paris. In 1326, Marsilius and his colleague John of Jandun presented Louis with a work titled Defender of the Peace. This questioned the entire papal structure of the Church and called for a democratic government. Defender of the Peace asserted that the Church was the community of all believers and that the priesthood was not superior to the laity. Neither popes, bishops, nor priests had any special function; they served only as agents of the community of believers.In this revolutionary view of the church, the Pope was made over into an executive office of the Church council which were simply spiritual elders. The Pope was subordinated to the authority of the Council. This new church government form was called counciliarism. It would soon move from theory to practice.But that - as we often say, is the subject for another podcast.I want to take a moment at the end of this episode to once again thank all those who’ve taken the time to give us a review on iTunes. As the largest podcast portal, ratings there go a long way to promote CS.And thanks to those who’ve donated to CS recently. Every donation is used to keep the podcast up and running.

67-No Dunce Here

This episode of CS is titled, “No Dunce Here.”The Franciscans had an answer to the Dominican Scholastic we looked at in the previous episode. In fact, Aquinas’ Franciscan counterpart lived at the same time. His name was John Bonaventure.Born in Tuscany in 1221 as John Fidanza, he became known as Bonaventura when he had a miraculous recovery from a grave illness as a child of four. Upon regaining his health, his mother announced, “Bonaventura = Good fortune” and the name stuck.While Aquinas was predominantly a theologian, Bonaventure was both theologian and accomplished administrator in the affairs of the Franciscans. Where Thomas was precise but dry, John was a mystic given to great eloquence. If Aquinas was prose, Bonaventure was poetry.Bonaventure joined the Franciscans and immediately excelled in his studies. He spent 3 years in Paris studying under the Scholastic scholar Alexander of Hales. Alexander paid his pupil a huge compliment when he said that in Bonaventure, “Adam seems not to have sinned.”Finishing his studies in Paris, he stayed to teach, filling the spot of John of Parma when he took on the leadership of the Franciscans. He was only 26. Anyone would have been in over their head at that age since Bonaventure became the leader of the Franciscans when they ere being split by the fracture we talked about in an earlier episode. He took a middle position between the two parties and was able to negotiate an uneasy peace. It was a brutally hard assignment, but Bonaventure pulled it off with aplomb and earned the title of 2^nd founder of the order.The entire idea of mendicancy came under assault during his term at the helm of the Franciscans. He penned a tract that silenced the opposition and reinforced support for the Mendicants.At the direction of the first Franciscan General Council at Narbonne in 1260, he wrote the Legend of Francis, the authoritative Franciscan account of the Order’s founder.In 1273, he was made cardinal of Albano, Italy. He died in Lyons while attending a Church council in 1274. The Pope performed extreme unction for him and his funeral was attended by dignitaries from all over the Christian world. He was declared a “Doctor of the Church” in 1587, one of the highest honors the Roman Church can bestow.Dante, a fierce critic of sham religion, gave Bonaventure great honor by placing him beside Thomas Aquinas.These two will always be considered by students of history side by side. One historian of mediaeval theology calls them the illuminating stars on the horizon of the 13^th C. Aquinas had the sharper mind, but Bonaventure the warmer heart. Maybe this is why each joined their respective orders; Thomas the Dominicans and John the Franciscans.Bonaventura enjoyed great popularity as a preacher. Being a poet, his sermons were far more eloquent than his peers.When Bonaventure wrote, like Aquinas, he turned his mind to theology and provided much to the cleaning up of the thoughts of the day. To give an idea of what kinds of things the Scholastics wrestled with, here are some of the topics Bonaventure weighed in on. . . .The Trinity, creation, sin, the Incarnation, grace, the Holy Spirit, sacraments, and the Afterlife. Having dealt with these basic topics he engaged a whole host of other subjects more popular to discuss. Things like . . .

Could God have made a better world?
Could He have made it sooner than He did?
Can an angel be in several places at the same time?
Can several angels be at the same time in the same place?
At the moment of his creation was Lucifer corrupt?
- Did he belong to the order of angels?
Is there a hierarchy among the fallen angels?
Do demons have foreknowledge of contingent events?

Bonaventure discussed whether or not sexual intercourse took place before the Fall, whether or not before the Fall men and women was equal, did Adam or Eve sin more grievously by eating the forbidden fruit.With such weighty and important stuff, no wonder these guys spent a good part of their time sitting at a desk, studying.Bonaventure agreed with Aquinas in denying that Mary was immaculately conceived and free of original sin. He disagreed with his fellow Franciscan, Duns Scotus, on the issue of transubstantiation. Though Scotus differed from Aquinas on precisely WHAT the bread and wine became, he did accept the idea they became something MORE than mere bread and wine, while Bonaventure held to a symbolic nature for the Communion elements.While Bonaventure was a brilliant mind, it’s not his theology he’s known for. It’s hard to be when you live at the same time as Thomas Aquinas. He’s best known as a mystic and the author of the Life of St. Francis.While Aquinas’ Summa became the theological textbook of the Roman Church, it was Bonaventure’s devotional writings that stirred the hearts of thousands of everyday priests to seek God by grace and through His Word.That brings us to another Franciscan and the last of the Scholastics we’ll consider, John Duns [done] Scotus.Let me begin by saying that the Scotists, the followers of Duns Scotus, and the Thomists, who followed Aquinas, form the 2 great theological schools of the Middle Ages. The battle between them was fierce; at times violent.Now, I have to say that in reviewing Scotus’ work, I have a difficult time grasping his thought. Being of only average intelligence, most of his work goes way over my head. Scotus was a serious brainiac and when I read him, I’m lost. I’ll attempt a summary of his work later but first, let’s take a look at his life. We can cover it quickly, because, well, we know next to nothing about him.He was born “John Duns [done]”; in Scotland; thus the Latin nickname “Scotus” by which he’s best known. Scotus became a priest and joined the Franciscans. Most of his career was spent lecturing at Oxford. He eventually taught at Paris and Cologne where he died in 1308. A monument to Scotus in the Franciscan church at Cologne bears this inscription:—Scotia gave me birth, England nursed me, Gaul educated me, Cologne holds my ashes.Among the stories told of Duns Scotus is one that gives more insight into his thoughts than entire chapters of his complex written discourses.Scotus engaged an English farmer on the subject of religion. The conversation came round to predestination. The farmer, who was sowing his field, said to Scotus: “Why do you speak to me? If God has foreknowledge that I will be saved, I will be saved whether I do good or ill.”Scotus replied: “Well, if God has foreknowledge that grain in your bag will grow out of this soil, it will grow whether you sow or withhold your hand. You may as well save yourself the labor you’re at.”Scotus’ mind was more critical than constructive. He tended to pick apart the thoughts and conclusions of others than to develop or declare his own positions. His work feels reactionary, though he was just using the dialectical method in fashion among the Scholastics.You’ll remember that the great endeavor of the Scholastics was to link faith and reason; to show that faith wasn’t ir-rational; it was super-rational. They aimed to show that the intellect was a tool to inform and strengthen faith, not weaken it.Scotus is regarded as last of the Scholastics because his work under-cut their endeavor. By using the questioning methodology of the dialectic, he attacked, not the sufficiency of faith as some scholastics had, he attacked the sufficiency of reason as the means to arrive at knowledge. He subjected Scholastic propositions to intense scrutiny. He showed how several of the theological propositions of the Church were difficult to support by reason, yet the Church said they were true. So, the problem had to be with reason, not with Church dogma. Some things had to be accepted, he said, by faith.Scotus’ adeptness at asking questions that backed people into logical corners earned him both supporters and enemies. At times, his thoughts were so elaborate; his writing so confusing, today we refer to a muddle-headed person as a “dunce” a word derived from his name.Scotus spent much of his time on the subject of the will. It’s his work on it that framed the philosophical base for the Reformers and their views on God’s Sovereignty and Election.Scotus was the first major Catholic theologian to support the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. That says the mother of Jesus, though herself born of human parents, was conceived in holiness without the taint of original sin. That idea had been set forward a century earlier in France, where it immediately met with controversy. Scotus defended the view at a public debate in Paris, employing two-hundred lines of argument for its support and winning the university to his side. Although Aquinas rejected it, Scotus’s view won the day. In Dec. 1854, Pope Pius IX, a Franciscan, declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be a divinely revealed fact and official Catholic dogma.Aquinas’s reputation in philosophy and theology has eclipsed Scotus’s, though Scotus’s influenced a wide range of later thinkers, including in the 18^th C German Protestant philosopher Leibniz and the 20^th C French Catholic theologian Teilhard de Chardin. The Existentialism of the 20^th C resurrected Scotus’s emphasis on will over reason.If you take a college philosophy class today, most likely you’ll be told that faith and reason are totally separate things. Reason, it’s postulated, is based on evidence and the faculty of the mind. Faith is divorced from both reason and evidence; and reason, always trumps faith. This is an complete reversal from the Scholastics, who may be attributed with some of the loftiest moments in the long history of philosophical analysis. For them, faith came first, with reason a tool that helped fill out and bolster faith.Duns Scotus began the drift away from that by showing how untrustworthy reason could be. His goal was to remind Scholastics that in their emphasis on reason, they’d neglected the primacy of Faith. But in the divorce he postulated between faith and reason, what happened was that later thinkers ran with reason as separate and superior to faith. If Dun Scotus showed up at a college philosophy lecture today, he’d weep that his ideas had been so poorly developed. And he’d annihilate the shoddy thinking of the secular professor.

66-God’s Ox

This Episode is titled “God’s Ox.”I begin with a thanks to those who’ve given a review of CS on the iTunes store where many subscribe to the podcast. While iTunes is just one outlet for the podcast world, it turns out to be THE MAJOR venue for rating and promoting podcasts.Look, what we’re doing here is ultra-amateur. CS is a labor of love and makes no claim at being a scholarly review of history. I share these episodes in the hope others can tag along and learn alongside me. I make no claim that this is exhaustive. On the contrary; it’s a cursory account meant to give a brief overview of Church history; a kind of verbal fly-over; with occasional moments when we linger over something interesting. I aim to give listeners a basic sense of when events occurred in relation to each other; who some of the main actors and actresses were with the part they played. And as I’ve said before, the episodes are intentionally short to make it easy to listen in the brief snatches as people are working out, doing chores, going for a walk, driving to work. What’s a kick is to hear about all the ways people HAVE connected to CS. Several have queued up a bunch of episodes and listened as they drive across country or fly overseas.I was at a conference a while back, talking quietly to some friends when a guy sitting in the row in front of me turned around and said, “Are you Lance? Do you have the podcast, Communio Sanctorum?” He recognized my voice. We had a great time getting to know each other better. Another time while on a tour of Israel, I met a guy in the dining room of one of our hotels who’s a fan of the podcast. What a kcick that was.Anyway – I appreciate it when people leave comments on the FB page or send an email. But best of all is to rate the podcast and write a quick review on iTunes, then tells your friends to give us a listen.Now, back to the Scholastics.Though fueled by the work of Abelard and Anselm, Scholasticism reached its zenith when the Greek philosopher Aristotle was re-discovered by scholars in Europe. The Crusades made contact with Muslim scholars who debated Aristotle’s philosophy. Their thoughts returned with the Crusaders and were passed on to the theological schools located in the mendicant orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans. These were the groups the Church had invested with the study of theology. During the mid-13th C, there was something of an Aristotelian revival in these schools. It’s interesting that at the dawn of the 13th C, the reading of Aristotle was banned! After all, he was a pagan Greek. What could Christians learn from him? But, as any college knows, there’s one way to make sure something gets read. Ban it, place a prohibition on it. So a couple decades later, portions of Aristotle were allowed to be read. By mid-Century, he was required reading and both he and his mentor Plato and his teacher Socrates were unofficially baptized and made over into pre-Christian saints.It makes sense that Aristotle’s philosophy would be resurrected when we remember the goal of the Scholastics was to apply reason to faith; to seek to understand with the rational mind what the spirit already believed. It was Aristotle who’d developed the rules of formal logic.During the Middle Ages in Europe, all learning took place under the watchful eye of the Church. Theology reigned supreme among the sciences. Philosophers like Aristotle, the Muslim Averroes [ah-ver-O –ee], and Jewish Maimonides were studied alongside the Bible. Scholars were especially fascinated by Aristotle. He seemed to have explained the entire universe, not by using Scripture but by his powers of observation and reason.For some ultra-conservatives, this emphasis on reason threatened to undermine traditional belief. Christians had come to think that knowledge could come only through God’s revelation, that only those to whom God chose to reveal truth could understand the universe. How could this be squared with the knowledge taught by these newly re-discovered philosophies?The pinnacle of Scholastic theology arrived with Thomas Aquinas. His work forever shaped the direction of Catholicism. His influence was so profound he was given the title “Dr. Angelicus – the Angelic Doctor.” His magnum opus was Summa Theologica in which he said philosophical reasoning and faith were perfect complements: Reason leads to faith.He was born in Italy to Count Lundulf of Aquino and his wife Theodora. It became clear at a young age that Thomas would be a physically large child. At 5 he was sent to a school at the nearby monastery of Monte Cassino that Benedict had started 700 yrs before. At 14, Thomas went to the University of Naples, where his Dominican teacher so impressed him Thomas decided he too would join the new, study-oriented Dominican order.His family fiercely opposed this, hoping he’d become a wealthy abbot or archbishop rather than take the mendicant’s vow of poverty. Thomas’s brothers kidnapped and confined him for over a year. His family tempted him with a prostitute and an offer to buy him the archbishopric of Naples. Thomas would have none of it. He went to Paris, medieval Europe’s HQ of theological study. There it was that he came under the spell of the scholar Albert the Great.When Thomas began his studies, no one would suspect the future that lay before him. He was colossally obese, much of his size due to suffering from edema, AKA dropsy. He had one huge eye that dwarfed the other and gave his face a distorted aspect many found disconcerting. Socially, he was anything but the dynamic, charismatic figure some might assume; you know – something to make up for his awkward physical appearance. Aquinas was introspective and silent most of the time. When he did speak, what he said often had nothing to do with the conversation at hand. In college his classmates called him “the dumb ox,” a title that seemed apropos for both appearance and behavior.What people didn’t realize till later was the incredibly keen mind behind the unassuming exterior, and the brilliant way he was able to marshal his thoughts into persuasive language others could understand. Remember that the goal of the Scholastics was to provide a rational understanding to what Christians believe. Aquinas gave critical support to such doctrines as the attributes of God, the Resurrection, and ex-nihilo creation; creation out of nothing. While these are things most Christians hold to, Aquinas also provided support for distinctly Roman beliefs; such as the veneration of Mary, purgatory, the role of human merit in salvation, and the seven sacraments by which God conveys grace through the Roman clergy. He also gave much support to Transubstantiation, the idea that the Communion elements are turned into the actual, literal body and blood of Christ in the Mass.His theological and philosophical thoughts consumed him. According to one account, he was dining with King Louis IX of France. While others engaged in conversation, Thomas stared off into space, lost in thought. Forgetting or not caring where he was, he slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “Ah! There’s an argument that will destroy the Manicheans!” -- a heretical group from ages before.At the beginning of his Summa Theologica, Thomas distinguished between philosophy and theology, between reason and revelation. Contrary to what some had claimed, true theology and philosophy don’t contradict each other. They are each avenues of knowledge ordained by God.Following Aristotle’s lead, Thomas proposed that reason is based on what our senses tell us—what we can see, feel, hear, smell, and touch. Revelation is based on more. While reason can lead us to belief in God—something that other theologians like Anselm had already said—only revelation can show us God as He really is, the God of the Bible. Philosophy makes clear the existence of God. But only theology based on Revelation tells us what the God Who exists is like.Thomas accepted Aristotle’s principle that every effect has a cause, every cause a prior cause, and so on back to the First Cause. He declared creation traces back to a divine First Cause, the Creator. However, the full knowledge of God—the Trinity, for example—comes only through revelation. From this knowledge we discover man’s origin and destiny.Aquinas went on: Man is a sinner in need of special grace from God. Jesus Christ by his sacrifice has secured the reconciliation of man and God. All who receive the benefits of Christ’s work are justified, but the key, as in traditional Catholic teaching, lies in the way the benefits of Christ’s work are applied. Christ won grace; but the Church imparts it. Aquinas taught that Christians need the constant infusion of “cooperating grace,” whereby the Christian virtues are stimulated in the soul. Assisted by this cooperating grace a Christian can do works that please God and gain special merit in God’s sight.This grace, said Aquinas, comes to men only through the divinely appointed sacraments placed in the keeping of the Church; that is the visible, organized Roman Church, led by the Pope. So convinced was Aquinas of the divine authority of the papacy he insisted that submission to the pope was necessary for salvation.Following an earlier Scholastic, Peter of Lombard, Aquinas held to seven sacraments as a means by which the Church imparts grace to people. He said since sin remains a problem for the baptized believer, God provided penance, a sacrament that made for spiritual healing.With some caution, Thomas also accepted the practice of indulgences that had gained acceptance during the Crusades. Aquinas taught that thanks to the work of Christ and the meritorious deeds of the saints, the Church had access to a “treasury of merit”—a kind of great spiritual reservoir of excess goodness. Priests were able to draw from this reservoir to aid Christians who had insufficient merit of their own. We’ll take a closer look at indulgences later when we get to the Reformation.Aquinas said the wicked pass into hell while the faithful who’ve wisely used the means of grace pass immediately to heaven. But the bulk of Christians who’d followed Christ inadequately, had to suffer purification in purgatory before ascending to the joys of heaven. Thankfully, these souls are not beyond the help of the Church on Earth, Aquinas reasoned. Prayers to the saints and special masses could relieve the pains of souls in purgatory.Now, there was nothing new in all this. It’d been said many times before. But Thomas set the traditional teachings of the Church in a cosmic framework.Thomas’s writings, and there were more than what was contained in the Summa, were attacked before he was in his grave. In 1277, the archbishop of Paris tried to have Thomas condemned, but the Roman clergy put a stop to it. Though Thomas was canonized in 1325, it took another 200 years before his teaching was hailed as pre-eminent and a major rebuttal to Protestantism. His writings played a prominent role in the Counter-Reformation’s Council of Trent.In 1879, a papal bull endorsed Aquinas’s theology, today known as Thomism, as an authentic expression of doctrine and said it should be studied by all students of theology. Both Protestant and Catholic scholars study his work deeply.Thomas himself would probably not be pleased. Toward the end of his life, he had a vision that forced him to drop his pen. Though he’d experienced such visions for years, this was different. His secretary begged him to pick up his pen and continue, but Aquinas replied, “I cannot. Such things have been revealed to me that what I have written seems but straw.” His Summa Theologica, one of the most influential writings in Church history was left unfinished when he died three months later.

65-Scholasticism

The title of this episode is ScholasticismOne of the most important questions faced by philosophers and theologians throughout the centuries has been the interplay between Faith and Reason. Are they enemies or allies? Is the Christian faith reasonable, or a blind leap into an irrational darkness? A major advance in answering this came with the emergence of a group of medieval theologians known as the Scholastics. Chief among them were Anselm of Canterbury in the 11^th C and Thomas Aquinas in the 13^th.In his novel Pillars of the Earth, author Ken Follett spins an intriguing tale of the construction of a cathedral in England. While the cathedral and town are fictional, Follett does a masterful job of capturing the mindset and vision of medieval architecture.I’ve had the privilege of visiting the cathedral in Cologne, Germany a few times and am fascinated by what is found there. While some modern American evangelicals who decry tradition may be put off by all the elaborate decoration and religious symbolism of Europe’s Gothic cathedrals, most find them fascinating studies in art, architecture and with a little research, interesting expressions of theological thought. You see, the Gothic cathedral wasn’t just a building; it was an attempt to embody the period’s thoughts about God and man. As Bruce Shelly says, “The medieval masters of Gothic style tried to portray in stone and glass man’s central religious quest. They wanted to depict a tension. On one hand was man aspiring to reach the heights of heaven; on the other hand was God condescending to address the least of men.”The pillars, arches, and steeples point up like fingers to heaven. But down comes the light through stained glass windows illuminating the Earth, and more specifically, those who’ve gathered inside to seek God. It is the architect’s version of human reason and divine revelation.The schools these cathedrals housed gave rise to the universities of the late Middle Ages. Their task was to understand and explain Creation in light of God’s revealed Word and Ways. As the Crusades were an attempt to extend the authority of God over the Middle East, the universities hoped to extend an understanding of God and His creation over the realm of the mind.But how did the world of ideas bow to the rule of God? How was reason to be made a servant of faith? This era in Christian thought is called “Scholasticism” because distinctive methods of scholarship arose and a unique theology emerged. The aim of the Scholastics was twofold: to reconcile Christian doctrine with human reason and to arrange the teachings of the Church in an orderly system.But, it’s important we mark at the outset that a free search for truth wasn’t on the horizon for the Scholastics. The doctrines of the Christian faith were already fixed. The purpose of the Scholastics was to show the reasonableness of those doctrines and explain them.The early universities were intimately linked to the Church. They were usually housed in the Cathedrals. A medieval scholar was most often a priest or monk. This began centuries before when Benedict of Nursia insisted monks study as a means of their spiritual development. In the 8^th C, Charlemagne, while dreaming of a Christian empire, widened the opportunities for study through a decree that every monastery have a school to teach those able to learn. The Emperor himself set an example with a palace school for his children and court.While the cathedral schools were set up primarily to train clergy, it wasn’t long before laymen were invited to attend as well.The curriculum was limited to grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—the 7 liberal arts, so-called because in ancient Rome their study had been reserved for liberi = freemen. The few texts available were writings of a handful of scholars of the early Middle Ages. Students learned from Cassiodorus, Boethius, Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great, and a handful of Church Fathers the medieval student dared not question.We can track the birth of the great medieval universities to the influence of several outstanding teachers. It was their skill in teaching and enthusiasm for learning that attracted students.Among the first of this new breed of scholar was Gerbert, master of the cathedral school at Rheims [reems] in the latter half of the 10^th C. Though he came from peasant stock, Gerbert became Pope Sylvester II. His genius was recognized early on so he was sent to study mathematics in Spain. While there, he was exposed to what at the time was the tolerant culture of the ruling Muslims. This was the first of a several significant contributions Muslims made to the Christian intellectual awakening of the Middle Ages.Gerbert returned to Rheims greatly impressed by the inquisitive, questing spirit of Muslim scholars. When he began to teach, he announced that quotations of the so-called authorities were no longer going to be accepted as the final say. From then on, he required his students to study the classics in their original language. He began collecting manuscripts wherever he could and built a substantial library. This was no mean feat when we remember a manuscript could take a year to copy, and cost a fortune.The most notable figure from this early period of Scholasticism was Peter Abelard. The senior son of a minor noble of NW France, Peter turned over his inheritance rights to his younger brothers so he could roam France and learn from the great masters. But he did more than listen. He challenged those he caught in factual or philosophical error. It wasn’t long before he settled in as a lecturer in Paris, where he attracted a host of students.He also began to write. In a tract titled Yes and No, he posed over a hundred questions from Christian teaching, then answered them using conflicting quotations from Scripture, the Church Fathers, and even pagan classics. His point was that there were still many fronts for discussion and inquiry that needed to be resolved. Abelard said, “The first key to wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning.… For by doubting we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we arrive at the truth.” This idea of using doubt to fuel the quest for knowledge was commonplace to the ancient Greeks but dangerous ground to medieval Europeans. Abelard had a few fans but many more detractors who were alarmed by his bold questioning of what were considered unimpeachable authorities. Having stirred one too many pots and poked one too many bee-hives, he decided to lay low for a while in a monastery.A year later he left to live in an open area SE of Paris. Supporters built him a shelter, tilled his land, and begged him to teach once more. So, resuming his pursuit of reason, Abelard again fell out with the religious conservatives. It was at this point that Abelard ran afoul of Bernard of Clairvaux, the famous preacher of the 2^nd Crusade and the most influential churchman in Christendom. Of Abelard, Bernard remarked, “The faith of the righteous believes, it does not dispute.” Bernard managed to have Abelard branded a heretic and excommunicated. Abelard retired to the abbey of Cluny, where its abbot, Peter the Venerable, persuaded Bernard to reconcile with Abelard. The excommunication was lifted. Abelard spent his last 2 years at the monastery at Cluny where he was regarded as a great scholar and wise counselor.I’ll leave out of this Abelard’s marriage to Heloise, one of the most remarkable love-stories of history.No one could stop the growth of the seeds Abelard planted. Schools popped up all over Europe. Less than 100 years after his death universities flourished at Paris, Orleans, and Montpellier in France; across the English Channel at Oxford and Cambridge; and at Bologna and Padua in Italy, all of them aflame with the ideas Abelard ignited.Students and their teachers formed guilds. Just as craftsmen had done since the Roman Empire, scholars banded together for protection and promotion of their interests. They called themselves universitas, the medieval name for any corporate group.Most students in Italy were grown men who pursued advanced study in law and medicine. Their guilds exercised tremendous power. Students paid teachers, determined the courses to be given, and fined any lecturer who skipped a chapter in expounding his subject. Certainly a turn around from today’s schools.In English and French universities where students were younger, scholars’ guilds had the upper hand. They forbade swearing and gambling, fined students for breaking curfews, and set table manners.Medieval universities, were not the ivied walls and grassy lawns we think of today. At first, lectures were given in shanties and sheds alongside roads at Oxford and Cambridge. They met in side rooms of the cathedral in Paris, open piazzas in Italy. Once the prestige and income of a teacher rose, he might rent a room for his students where they’d sit on straw-covered floors. Because they lacked any fixed property, they were able to move when they ran afoul of local authorities.Along with lectures, teachers used what were called disputations. Two or more masters debated a text using Abelard’s question-and-answer approach. This was how Scholasticism developed. It arose from the pain-staking process of arriving at logical conclusions through questioning, examining, and arranging details into a system of logic. Scholastic disputations often caused heated clashes and bitter feelings. Wars of logic ran for years between different scholars, with supporters of each cheering their hero with loud whistling and stomping of feet. The point was, students were learning to think. The unquestioned acceptance of traditional authorities was no longer assured. Now, conclusions had to square with Christian doctrine.Scholasticism was less a philosophy or theology as it was a method of learning. The emphasis was on harmonizing faith and reason. The Scholastics used the ancient Greek practice of relentless questioning of traditional authority. Truth would no longer be accepted just because those in authority said so. Truth was to be rigorously analyzed and brought over into the realm of reason. After all, didn’t the Bible say we are to love God with all our mind?The Scholastics were known for their careful drawing of distinctions. In classrooms and books, topics were vigorously debated, with one of the sides of the debate not even really being believed but still proposed as a way to check the value of the side being affirmed.Scholastics wanted to harmonize Christian theology with the philosophy of the classical era, especially that of Aristotle and the Neo-platonists.Some scholastics of note are Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Bonaventure. Two of the greatest were Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas's masterwork, the Summa Theologica, is considered to be the greatest work of the Scholastics.Anselm was born into one of the many noble houses of Europe in the early 11^th C. Because there was little prospect for him to achieve prominence in the political realm, he became a Benedictine monk. His studies quickly marked him as a man of keen intelligence and deep philosophical reflection. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury for the last 17 years of his life.Anselm is often called the founder of Scholasticism, and was a major influence in European theology. He’s most famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and the Satisfaction theory for the Atonement; that Jesus’ death satisfied the righteous requirements of God’s justice.Anselm spent most of his time devising reasonable arguments for theological propositions he already accepted as true by faith. His goal wasn’t to justify faith by reason. He wanted to better understand what he believed. He saw reason as the servant of faith, rather than the other way around. Faith came first and guided reason. He wrote, “I believe in order to understand.” He thought that spiritual things had to be a matter of experience before they could be comprehended by the intellect. He said, “He who does not believe has not felt, and he who has not felt, does not understand.” He contended that Christ must come to the intellect through the avenue of faith and not to faith through the intellect. He declared himself against blind belief, and called it a sin of neglect when the one who has faith doesn’t strive for knowledge.^[1]Anselm gave reasonable proofs for God’s existence and compelling reasons for God as a self-existent, immaterial, all-powerful, compassionate, just, and merciful deity. In his book Why the God-Man? Anselm demonstrated the relationship between the incarnation and the atonement. His argument that Christ’s atonement satisfied God had a powerful impact on both Luther and Calvin centuries later. He wrote on the nature of the Trinity, original sin, free will, the harmony of foreknowledge and foreordination, and why Satan fell.^[2]Anselm’s two sources of knowledge were the Bible and the teaching of the Church which, he maintained, were in total agreement with each other and with all true philosophy. He had the deepest admiration for Augustine, and his agreement with him earned Anselm the titles “The 2^nd Augustine” and, “Tongue of Augustine.”^[3] Besides being a man of genuine piety and devotion to God, Church Historian Philip Schaff says Anselm was probably the most original thinker since Augustine.I want to share the interesting story of Anselm’s conflicts with two of England’s kings. The best way to do so is to tell the story as Schaff does in Vol 5 of his Church History series.William II, called William Rufus, or the Red for the color of his hair, 3^rd son of William the Conqueror, ruled from 1087 to 1100. Probably the only good he did during his entire reign was to appoint Anselm as Archbishop of Canterbury. William inherited all the vices and none of the virtues of his father. He despised the clergy. It was said that, “he feared God but little, and man not at all.” He wasn’t a skeptic so much as he was profane and blasphemous. He believed in God à and hated Him. He wasn’t married but indulged in gross immorality. People said he rose a worse man every morning, and lay down a worse man every evening.He plundered the Church and oppressed the clergy. He robbed the churches and monasteries of their income by leaving them vacant or selling them to the highest bidder. Within four years he changed thirty cemeteries into royal parks to satisfy his passion for hunting, which in the end cost him his life.When the Archbishop of Canterbury died, William kept the seat vacant for four years. Under the influence of a severe sickness, he finally yielded to the pressure to elect Anselm who was then in England, and well-known as a profound theologian of pious character. A greater contrast of men can scarcely be imagined. Anselm did not want to be archbishop. He wanted to return to the life of a quiet monk in his abbey back in northern Italy. But he sensed the call of God, even though if he accepted he’d face a never-ending battle with the English king.He was appointed to his seat to great celebration on the 2^nd Sunday of Advent, 1093 and immediately set out to revive the discipline that had fallen away during the previous years.This was the time of the Great Papal Schism and King William supported the French Pope Clement III while Anselm owed allegiance to Urban II. The king insisted on Anselm’s receiving the archbishop’s pallium, his vestment, from Clement, then demanded that HE be the one to confer Anselm’s authority on him. Of course Anselm refused and took the pallium from Urban’s agent who’d brought the vestment to England in a special case.When the archbishop refused to meet William’s ever increasing financial requirements, the king took him to court. Anselm refused to appear; a civil court had no jurisdiction in church affairs. It was the old question of whether a church official, in his capacity as a clergyman owed allegiance to the pope or crown.Anselm managed to secure the king’s permission in 1097 to go to Rome. But William sent troops after him and overtook him at Dover. They searched Anselm’s baggage and seized the offerings he was taking to Rome. Anselm’s trip ended up as an exile.Anselm was warmly received by the pope, who threatened William with excommunication and pronounced a curse on any layman who thought, as William had, that he could invest a bishop with spiritual authority. The papal curse went further, to anyone who accepted such a false investiture.In early Aug of 1100, while hunting in the New Forest, the Red King was killed by an arrow. No one knows whether it was shot by a hunter or assassin. There was little mourning for a king nearly everyone had been hoping would drop dead. They would not have been surprised if a bolt of lightning had slain him.^[4]But this isn’t the end of Anselm’s monarch problems. When William II died, his younger brother, Henry I took the throne. Henry was generally a good king who did much to root out the worst of the corruption of court. He reconciled the clergy by recalling Anselm from exile, but renewed the investiture controversy. He appointed bishops and abbots, and demanded Anselm consecrate them. Anselm refused, time and again. So, he was sent into a 2^nd exile. The queen had an extraordinary devotion to Anselm and tried to mediate between him and her husband. She urged Anselm to return even if it meant he compromise a bit and grant Henry a measure of power to have a hand in appointing clergy. She reminded Anselm that the Apostle Paul circumcised Timothy as a compromise measure.Following Urban’s lead, Pope Pascal II excommunicated the bishops who accepted Henry’s appointments. But Henry wanted to reconcile with Anselm. They met in Normandy and agreed to make a joint appeal to the pope. Pascal confirmed the king’s previous investitures on the condition of his surrendering the right to future appointments. This decision was ratified in August, 1106. The king promised to restore to Anselm Canterbury’s income during his absence, to leave off from claiming the income of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and to refund all fines of the clergy. And while he followed through on his promise not to appoint new clergy, he did send along to vacant seats the names of candidates he’d like to see fill them.Anselm returned to England in triumph, and was received by the queen at the head of the monks and the clergy. At a council held at Westminster in 1107, the king formally relinquished the privilege of investiture. During the last years of his life, Anselm enjoyed the friendship and respect of the king, and during Henry’s absence on the Continent in 1108, he was entrusted with the regency and the care of the royal family.He died in 1109. His impact on the Archbishopric was so great, the seat wasn’t filled for five years.Next time, we’ll take a look at the real heavy-weight among the Scholastics – Thomas Aquinas. ^[1] Schaff, P., and Schaff, D. S. (1910). History of the Christian church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.^[2] ibid^[3] ibid^[4] ibid

64-The Eucharistic Controversy

This episode is titled “The Eucharistic Controversy.”As we round out the Middle Ages in Europe, we have several topics we need to cover before we launch into the Era of Scholasticism. Last time we took a brief look at the Investiture Controversy and an even briefer look at a doctrinal error that had a long lifespan and several flavors – Adoptionism.Now we’ll consider another controversy that raged in the church of both East and West for a long time; how to understand the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.For Protestant listeners, the issue was; What do we mean when we say Jesus is present at Communion or the Lord’s Supper.I need to begin by making clear à This is not an attempt to expand on ALL the various theories of the Eucharist. That’s a discussion way beyond my ability. It took me a while to compose this episode because I had to work out exactly how to phrase things. Words are the tools theologians work with. Those words carry precise meanings. But we’re dealing with multiple languages; typically, Greek and Latin. And once the ancient theologians worked out some theological formula over decades, and in some cases, centuries, picking just the right words to express truth, then refining those words, as problems with their earlier choices became clear, then we have to find words in English to accurately translate those. THEN, we face the problem of people pouring different meanings into those words.So, if I get some of this less than totally accurate or clear, I beg your forgiveness ahead of time. I’m no Sheldon Cooper. Just a little guy with a pea-brain.The Eucharistic Controversy owes its origin to the tension between the Bible’s call to worship God in Spirit and truth, and the desire to have something tangible to venerate and make focus attention on. The use and veneration of icons in the East had a correlation in the West with the elevation of the Communion elements.While Christians had long discussed the true nature of the elements of Communion, the real controversy got under way in the mid-9^th C by a Frankish monk named Paschasius Radbertus. In 831, he published a book titled On the Body and Blood of the Lord; the first complete treatise on the Eucharist.The most significant part of Radbertus’ work was his insistence that the elements were the REAL, corporeal, body and blood of Jesus.Let me back up: All Christians believed Jesus was present at Communion. Jesus said, “When two or three of you are gathered in My Name, I’m there in your midst.” Communion was just that; a time for Christians to gather in a special way together IN CHRIST. So when they passed round the bread and wine, they regarded it as a holy moment when the Spirit of God mediated the Person of Jesus in a uniquely way. Simply stated, Jesus was present in Communion.But, people understood that presence in different ways. Augustine, with his massive influence on Medieval theology, said Jesus was spiritually present at Communion, but not physically. His presence was a mystery to be acknowledged by faith. Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus said Jesus was bodily present in the Eucharist, but they meant His resurrection body, which was spiritual, not corporeal. So for them Christ’s presence in the Eucharist was also a mystery.Radbertus now proposed that the elements of Communion became the literal flesh and blood of Jesus. They were the same stuff as the body born to Mary, as he put it. Phenomenologically, they didn’t look or taste like flesh and blood because that would have been too much for people to deal with, so God graciously allowed the bread and wine to retain their outward properties, but in reality, WERE Jesus’ body and blood. Radbertus said it was in the act of partaking the Eucharist that eternal life was maintained and nurtured. They were the “medicine of immortality.”The elements became Jesus’ body and blood, not by an act of creation but of transformation.This raised the question: If the Eucharist is the real body and blood of Christ, do unbelievers who partake of the elements chew Christ. Radbertus denied it; saying while the elements were the corporeal body of Jesus, they still had to be taken by faith. So while unbelievers might participate in the sacrament, they didn’t in fact partake of Christ.Radbertus got around the lack of correspondence between the reality of Jesus’ bodily presence and its appearance as bread by saying God allowed this to make sure when the elements were taken, they were done so by faith; so their spiritual benefit could accrue to the partaker. So, the bread and wine were made over as symbols once again, which moved back toward Augustine’s position, the very thing Radbertus had set out to undo.Hrbanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda, detested Radbertus’ ideas. He denounced any view of the Eucharist that made it a materialistic manifestation of Jesus’ body. Maurus said the value of Communion lay in the communicant’s faith, not in a piece of bread or drop of wine.Gottschalk, who we’ll come back to later, agreed with Radbertus and said the Eucharist WAS Jesus’ body and blood. But he refused to take it as far as Radbertus, who said every time Communion was celebrated, it was a fresh sacrifice of Christ, a re-crucifying.This is where we need take a closer look at how the early church understood Communion. The ante-Nicean Fathers, that is, those church leaders before the Council of Nicaea in 325, referred to the Lords’ Table, Communion, the Eucharist, whatever you want to call it, as a commemoration of Christ sacrifice. They linked it to the Last Supper where Jesus made it an ordinance for His followers. He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” That’s the way the Apostles passed it on, as a commemorative moment to reflect on Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross when his Body was broken and His blood was shed. The value of Communion was the spiritual link forged between follower and their rabbi through this remembering as they were reconnected in a specific and tangible way to what Jesus did for them.Later Christians moved away from this commemorative core of Communion to a more mystical view of Communion. And since mystery craves expression, it’s inevitable someone made the elements of Communion more than mere symbols. Then to say each time they were transformed into the corporeal body of Christ, it wasn’t just a commemoration of His sacrifice, it was a fresh sacrifice.Radbertus was the abbot of a monastery in Corbie. King Charles the Bald asked one of his fellow monks, Ratramnus, to evaluate his abbot’s work. Ratramnus effectively agreed with Radbertus, but denied that a miracle of transformation took place with the elements. Ratramnus said communicants do indeed partake of Jesus’ body and blood. But they do so by faith, rather than by the elements being mystically transmuted into the corporeal body of the man born by Mary.The Eucharistic Controversy of the 9^th C opened a door that eventually brought about a new understanding of faith, grace and even the Church. Radbertus’ ideas eventually triumphed in the Roman Church because he set them forth in a clear way for an age that ached for assurance of salvation. Now there was a tangible way to be assured people were doing something that maintained and nurtured immortality. His ideas prevailed as well, because his opponents’ arguments were vague, complex, and frankly, not as appealing.Radbertus also laid the ground for a paradigm shift in the ministry of the clergy and Church. With a growing emphasis on the fresh sacrifice of the Mass, a bodily presence of Christ provided the rationale for a shift in Christian devotion from its original base in the Word and Faith, to a religious life that centered on the new reality offered in a sacrament. To put it bluntly, interest shifted from what Christ did at the Cross, to what the priest does with Christ in the elements. Jesus began to morph in people’s minds from the Victorious Savior to the Eternal Victim – offered continually in the Mass.While Radbertus’ view eventually became the majority view in the Latin West, it was never without those who rejected it and clung to a more Augustinian view. And of course, how to understand the Eucharist will re-emerge among the Reformers and see Round 2 in some pretty contentious disputes.But, that’s the subject for a later episode.

63-Invest

This 63^rd episode is titled InvestedWe’ve just concluded a series on medieval monasticism and return to the narrative of the Church during the Middle Ages in Europe.Before we do, let’s remember the story of Church History is much bigger than just what happened in Europe. Until recently, church history spent most its time on the Western Church and only touched other places as it related TO the Western narrative. We’re trying to broaden our horizons, although it’s tough because the source material for the history of the Church beyond the Western realm is much slimmer. It isn’t that there isn’t any; there’s quite a bit; but it’s not presented in the popular format that commends a layman’s format. And an historical layman is certainly what I am So it’s thick wading through most of it.With that said – back to the Church in the European Middle Ages . . .We have several themes and topics to develop. It’s going to take a few episodes to do so. The first we’ll look at, because it ends up being a recurring problem, is what’s called the Investiture Controversy.This was a theological and political dustup that came about as a result of the fusion of Church and State in Feudal Europe. Church officials had both religious and secular roles. Though they weren’t part of the official nobility, they did hold positions in the very strict social structure of the Feudal system. Serfs didn’t just work the lands of the nobility. Many of them worked church lands and holdings. So, many bishops and abbots not only oversaw ecclesiastical duties, they were secular rulers. You can imagine how these clerics were torn in their loyalty between the Pope far off in Rome, and the much closer secular feudal lord; whether a duke, earl, count, or baron, to say nothing of the emerging kings of Europe.When the Roman Empire dissolved in the West, the role and responsibility of civil government often fell to church officials. Most people wanted them to step in. So when feudalism took hold, it wasn’t a difficult transition for these religious leaders to be invested with the duties of secular rule.Because bishops, abbots and other church officials had secular as well as spiritual authority, many of Europe’s nobility began to take it upon themselves to appoint those bishops and abbots when vacancies occurred. It’s not difficult to see why they’d want to, instead of waiting on Rome to make the selection. Local rulers wanted someone running things amiable to their aims. Also, with the inheritance rules the way they were, with everything going to the firstborn son, a lucrative and influential career as a bishop was a plum job for all those second and third sons. This investing of church offices by secular rulers was called Lay Investiture, because it was done by the laity, rather than by ordained clergy. And as you can imagine, it was NOT something Popes were happy about.Though the details are different today, imagine you’re a church member for thirty years. One day your pastor says he’s retiring. You expect your denomination or elders to pick a new pastor. How surprised would you be to find out the local mayor picked your pastor? Oh, and by the way; if you squawk about it, the Police will arrest and toss you in jail till you learn to shut your yap and go along with the new arrangement. è Welcome to lay investiture.While Rome for the most part opposed lay investiture, because administrating the Church all over Europe was a monumental task, for centuries the Popes begrudgingly consented to allow secular rulers to assist in the appointment of church officials. Some of these appointments were wise and provided good and godly men to lead the Church in their domain. Other times, nepotism and crass pragmatism saw, at the best inept and at the worst, corrupt officials installed.The issue became a controversy when the Popes decided to reign things in and required that church officials be appointed by the Church itself. Secular rulers were no longer allowed to do so. But just because the Popes said “No” to lay investiture, didn’t mean secular rulers stopped. And that’s where the brueha kicked in.It came to a head in 1076 when Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV came to a loggerheads over the archbishop of Milan. Both men proposed different candidates, and both believed it was his right to appoint the office. The Pope threatened excommunication if the Emperor refused to comply. Henry answered by calling a synod of German bishops at Worms in 1076. The Synod deposed Pope Gregory. Not to be outdone, Gregory excommunicated Henry and absolved his subjects of allegiance to him. A deft move—since at the time, Henry and his Saxon nobles were at odds. These nobles then demanded Henry reconcile with Gregory within a year or forfeit his throne. So the Emperor was forced to make peace with Gregory in a famous meeting at Canossa. Henry demonstrated his contrition by walking around the castle for 3 days in the snow, barefoot! The Pope reversed the excommunication and received the Emperor back into the faith.That’s the end of the story – a happy one, right? Not quite.Henry leveraged his return to favor into a campaign against the Pope. He marched on Rome and set up a new Pope. Gregory died in exile. Still, Pope Gregory’s position on investiture eventually prevailed.In 1099, Pope Urban II decreed that anyone who either gave or received lay investiture was excommunicated. In 1105 a moderate compromise was reached at Bec and ratified in a Council at Westminster two yrs later.Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was followed by, can you guess? Yep; Henry V. It was during his reign the papacy ultimately won the investiture struggle. At Worms in 1122, a Concordat was drawn up in which the Emperor agreed The Church could elect bishops and abbots and invest them with their office. Although elections were to be held in the presence of the king, he was prohibited from influencing the decision by simony or the threat of violence. While it was the Church who selected her clergy, it was the secular rulers who handed them the symbols of their authority in the form of a crozier and a ring, representing their role as Shepherd of God’s flock and that they were married to the Church. By allowing secular rulers a hand in the bestowal of the symbols of office, it conveyed the idea of the bishop’s duty to support the secular ruler.The political intrigues that flowed from this dual loyalty of church officials across Europe is a thing of legend; literally! I’m guessing most listeners have seen at least one movie that captures the intrigues that ruled the political and religious scene at this time.Despite the Concordat of Worms in 1122, there were a few of Europe’s nobles who continued to practice lay investiture. And there were plenty of their appointees willing to go along with them because they were being appointed to some pretty cushy posts. But eventually, lay investiture was set aside as feudal society gave way to the modern world.We round out this episode with a review of an aberrant doctrine that kept resurfacing in the Church of both the East and West. It was an attempt to understand the Person of Christ.Adoptionism had an early origin, being advocated by the Ebionites in the 2^nd C. The famous Gnostic heresiarch Cerinthus taught a form of adoptionism.While the details of Adoptionism vary from time to time and place to place, the basic idea is that Jesus was merely a human being who was adopted by God into His role as Messiah and Savior. The nature of this adoption, that is, what it effected IN Jesus is where Adoptionists differ. That and when exactly God the Father adopted Jesus the man to become the Son of God. Some think it occurred at his baptism, others at his resurrection, and still others at His ascension. Adoptionists all concur with Jesus’ humanity, but deny His eternal essence as God the Son. They say he BECAME the Son of God, due to his morally excellent life.The Church declared Adoptionism a heresy at the end of the 2^nd C, but it continued to find a home in the work of several teachers and groups in the following centuries, right up thru the Middle Ages and into small groups today.The term “Adoptionism” is used to describe another but very different flavor of the idea that arose in Spain during the 8^th and 9^th Cs. To differentiate it from classic adoptionism, which starts with a human Jesus who becomes the divine Christ by adoption, historians refer to this later heresy as Spanish Adoptionism. It begins with God the Son, adopting a human form, but not really the human NATURE that went with it.The first to articulate this view in the late 8^th C was Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo. His views were quickly seized on by his opponents and declared heretical. His supporters were summoned to appear before Charlemagne, whose clerics were able to persuade them away from their aberrant beliefs. That ought to have been the end of the matter. They’d been treated civilly and with respect by the Emperor, but when they arrived before the Pope in Rome they were publically humiliated. This seems to have only inflamed the adherents back in Spain who determined to resist Rome’s efforts to reign them in.This came at an unfortunate moment as the Church in Spain was at this time dealing with Moorish-Muslim rulers.While Adoptionism can rightly be labeled a heresy, especially its early manifestation, Spanish Adoptionism is a more tricky wicket. I don’t want to get into the technical details of the theology, so let me just say that there is in the NT some passages in the Gospels and letters of Paul that seem to speak of Jesus’ 2 sonships. When these passages are viewed through the lens of some of the early church fathers, one can see a subtle nod toward the core ideas of Spanish Adoptionism.It gets back to that issue we’ve spoken of often here in CS; how to understand, then how to ARTICULATE the nature, person, and identity of Jesus. Theology is the fine art of distinctions – distinctions that have to be expressed in words. Finding the exact, right word has proven to be the angst-filled work of centuries and some of the keenest minds in history.Though Spanish adoptionism was effectively quelled by the 10^th C, it resurfaced in the 11^th and 12th, to once again enjoy a moment in the sun, then to be sprayed with some more theological Roundup, and die out once more.It’s the ancient, classical adoptionism that’s enjoyed a resurgence in modern times in a flavor of liberal Christianity. In this brand of Adoptionism, Jesus is a man, who by his exemplary moral path becomes an enlightened agent for God’s Spirit to work through. This Liberal Jesus isn’t a Savior so much as an Example.

62-Monastic Wrap Up

This 62^ndepisode of CS is the 5^th and final in our look at monasticism in the Middle Ages.To a lesser extent for the Dominicans but a bit more for the Franciscans, monastic orders were an attempt to bring reform to the Western Church which during the Middle Ages had fallen far from the Apostolic ideal. The institutional Church had become little more than one more political body, with vast tracts of land, a massive hierarchy, a complex bureaucracy, and had accumulated powerful allies and enemies across Europe. The clergy and older orders had degenerated into an illiterate fraternity. Many priests and monks could neither read nor write, and engaged in gross immorality while hiding behind their vows.It wasn’t this case everywhere. But it was in enough places that Francis was compelled to use poverty as a means of reform. The Franciscans who followed after Francis were quickly absorbed back into the Church’s structure and the reforms Francis envisioned were still-born.Dominic wanted to return to the days when literacy and scholarship were part and parcel of clerical life. The Dominicans carried on his vision, but when they became prime agents of the Inquisition, they failed to balance truth with grace.Modern depictions of medieval monks often cast them in a stereo-typical role as either sinister agents of immorality, or bumbling fools with good hearts but soft heads. Sure there were some of each, but there were many thousands who were sincere followers of Jesus and did their best to represent Him.There’s every reason to believe they lived quietly in monasteries and convents; prayed, read and engaged in humble manual labor throughout their lives. There were spiritual giants as well as thoroughly wicked and corrupt wretches.After Augustine of Canterbury brought the Faith to England it was as though the sun had come out.Another among God’s champions was Malachi, whose story was recounted by Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12^th C. Stories like his were one of the main attractions for medieval people who looked to the saints for reassurance some had managed to lead exemplary lives, and shown others how to.The requirement of sanctity was easy to stereotype. In the Life of St Erkenwald, we read that he was “perfect in wisdom, modest in conversation, vigilant in prayer, chaste in body, dedicated to holy reading, rooted in charity.” By the late 11^th C, it was even possible to hire a hagiographer, a writer of saintly-stories, such as Osbern of Canterbury, who would, for a fee, write a Life of a dead abbot or priest, in the hope he’d be canonized, that is – declared by the Church to be a saint.There was strong motive to do this. Where there’d been a saint, a shrine sprang up, marking with a monument his/her monastery, house, bed, clothes and relics. All were much sought after as objects veneration. Pilgrimages were made to the saint’s shrine. Money dropped in the ubiquitous moneybox. But it wasn’t just a church or shrine that benefited. The entire town prospered. After all, pilgrims needed a place to stay, food to eat, souvenirs to take home proving they’d performed the pilgrimage and racked up spiritual points. Business boomed! So, hagiographers included a list of miracles the saint performed. These miracles were evidence of God’s approval. There was competition between towns to see their abbot or priest canonized because it meant pilgrims flocking to their city.It was assumed that a holy man or woman left behind, in objects touched or places visited, a residual spiritual power, a ‘merit’, which the less pious could acquire for assistance in their own troubles by going on pilgrimage and praying at the shrine. A similar power inhered in the body of the saint, or in parts of the body; fingernails or hair, which could conveniently be kept in ‘relic-holders’ called reliquaries. People prayed near and touching them in the hope of a miracle, a healing, or help in some other urgent request of God.The balance between the active and the contemplative life was the core issue for those who aspired to be a genuine follower of Jesus and a good example to others. They struggled with the question of how much time should be given to God and how much to work in the world? From the Middle Ages, there comes no account of the enlightened idea the secular and religious could be merged into one overall passion for and service of God.In the medieval way of thinking, to be truly godly, a sequestered religious life was required. The idea that a blacksmith could worship God while working at his anvil was nowhere in sight. Francis came closest, but even he considered working for a wage and the call to glorify God mutually exclusive. Francis urged work as part of the monk’s life, but depended on charity for support. It wouldn’t be till the Reformation that the idea of vocation liberated the sanctity of work.Because the cloistered, or sequestered religious life, was regarded as the only way to please God, many of the greats from the 4^th C on supported monasticism. I list now some names who held this view, trusting if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while you’ll recognize them . . .St. Anthony of Egypt, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Benedict of Nursia.In the Middle Ages the list is just as imposing. Anselm, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, St. Bernard and Hugo de St. Victor, Eckart, Tauler, Hildegard, Joachim of Flore, Adam de St. Victor, Anthony of Padua, Bernardino of Siena, Berthold of Regensburg, Savonarola, and of course, Francis and Dominic.The Middle Ages were a favorable period for the development of monastic communities. The religious, political and economic forces at work across Europe conspired to make monastic life for both men and women a viable, even preferred, option. As is so often the case in movies and books depicting this period, sure there were some young men and women who balked at entering a monastery or convent when forced by parents, but there were far more who wanted to engage the sequestered life who were denied by parents. When war decimated the male population and women outnumbered men by large margins, becoming a nun was the only way to survive. Young men who knew they weren’t cut out for the hard labor of farm life or military service could always find a place to pursue their passion for learning in a monastery.As in most institutions, the fate of the brothers and sisters depended on the quality of their leader, the abbot or abbess. If she was a godly and effective leader, the convent thrived. If he was a tyrannical brute, the monastery shriveled.In those monasteries where scholarship prevailed, ancient manuscripts were preserved by scribes who laboriously copied them, and by doing so, became well-versed in the classics. It was from these intellectual safe-houses the Renaissance would eventually emerge.By drawing to themselves the best minds of the time, from the 10^th well into the 13^th C, monasteries were the nursery of piety and the centers of missionary and civilizing energy. When there was virtually no preaching taking place in churches, the monastic community preached powerful sermons by calling men’s thoughts away from war and bloodshed to brotherhood and religious devotion. The motto of some monks was, “by the plough and the cross.” In other words, they were determined to build the Kingdom of God on Earth by preaching the Gospel and transforming the world by honest and hard, humble work.Monks were pioneers in the cultivation of the ground, and after the most scientific fashion then known, taught agriculture, the tending of vines and fish, the breeding of cattle, and the manufacture of wool. They built roads and some of the best buildings. In intellectual and artistic concerns, the convent was the main school of the times. It trained architects, painters, and sculptors. There the deep problems of theology and philosophy were studied; and when the universities arose, the convent furnished them with their first and most renowned teachers.So popular was the monastic life that religion seemed to be in danger of running out into monkery and society of being little more than a collection of convents. The 4^th Lateran Council tried to counter this tendency by forbidding the establishment of new orders. But no council was ever more ignorant of the immediate future. Innocent III was scarcely in his grave before the Dominicans and Franciscans received full papal sanction.During the 11^th and 12^th Cs an important change came. All monks were ordained as priests. Before that time it was the exception for a monk to be a priest, which meant they weren’t allowed to offer the sacraments. Once they were priests, they could.The monastic life was praised as the highest form of earthly existence. The convent was compared to The Promised Land and treated as the shortest and surest road to heaven. The secular life, even the life of the secular priest, was compared to Egypt. The passage to the cloister was called conversion, and monks were converts. They reached the Christian ideal.The monastic life was likened to the life of the angels. Bernard said to his fellow monks, “Are you not already like the angels of God, having abstained from marriage.”Even kings and princes desired to take the monastic vow and be clad in the monk’s habit. So even though Frederick II was a bitter foe of the Pope as he neared his death, he changed into the robes of a Cistercian monk. Rogers II and III of Sicily, along with William of Nevers all dressed up in monks robes as their end drew near. They thought doing so would mean a better chance at heaven. Spiritual camouflage to get past Peter.Accounts from the time make miracles part and parcel of the monk’s daily life. He was surrounded by spirits. Visions and revelations occurred day and night. Devils roamed about at all hours in the cloistered halls. They were on evil errands to deceive the unwary and shake the faith of the careless. Elaborate accounts of these encounters are given by Peter the Venerable in his work on Miracles. He gives a detailed account of how these restless spiritual foes pulled the bedclothes off sleeping monks and, chuckling, left them across the cloister.While monasteries and convents were a major part of life in Middle Age Europe, many of them bastions of piety and scholarship, others didn’t live up to that rep and became blockades to progress. As the years marched forward, the monastic ideal of holiness degenerated into a mere form that became superstitious and suspicious of anything new. So while some monasteries served as mid-wives to the Renaissance others were like Herod’s soldiers trying to slay it in its infancy.As we end, I thought it good to do a brief review of what are called “the hours, the Divine Office or the breviary.” This was how monks and nuns divided their day.The time for these divisions varied from place to place but generally it went like this.In the early morning before dawn, a bell was rung that awakened the monks or nuns to a time of private reading and meditation. Then they all gathered for Nocturns, in which a psalm was read, there was chanting, then some lessons form Scripture or the Church Fathers.After that they went back to bed for a bit, then got up at dawn for another service called Lauds. Lauds was followed by another period of personal reading and prayer, which resolved in the cloister again gathering for Prime at 6 AM.Prime was followed by a period of work, which ended with Terce, a time for group prayer at about 9.Then there’s more work from about 10 to just before Noon, when the nuns and brothers gather for Sext, a short service where a few psalms are read. That’s followed by the mid-day meal, a nap, another short service at about 3 PM called None, named for the 9^th hour since dawn.Then comes a few hours of work, dinner about 5:50, and Vespers at 6 PM.After Vespers the nuns and monks have a time of personal, private prayers; regather for the brief service Compline, then hit the sack.Protestants and Evangelicals might wonder where the idea for the canonical hours came from. There’s some evidence they derived from the practice of the Apostles, who as Jews, observed set times during the day for prayer. In Acts 10 we read how Peter prayed at the 6^th hour. The Roman Centurion Cornelius, who’d adopted the Jewish faith, prayed at the 9^th hour. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas worshipped at Midnight; though that may have been because they were in stocks in the Philippian jail. As early as the 5^th C, Christians were using references in the Psalms as cues to pray in the morning, at mid-day and at midnight.

61-Dominic

This episode is titled, Dominic and continues our look on monastic life.In our last episode, we considered Francis of Assisi and the monastic order that followed him, the Franciscans. In this installment, we take a look at the other great order that developed at that time; the Dominicans.Dominic was born in the region of Castile, Spain in 1170. He excelled as a student at an early age. A priest by the age of 25, he was invited by his bishop to accompany him on a visit to Southern France where he ran into a group of supposed-heretics known as the Cathars. Dominic threw himself into a Church-sanctioned suppression of the Cathars through a preaching tour of the region.Dominic was an effective debater of Cathar theology. He persuaded many who’d leaned toward their sect to instead walk away. These converts became zealous in the resistance against them. For this, the Bishop of Toulouse gave Dominic 1/6^th of the diocesan tithes to continue his work. Another wealthy supporter gave Dominic a house in Toulouse so he could live and work at the center of controversy.We’ll come back to the Cathars in a future episode.Dominic visited Rome during the 4^th Lateran Council, the subject of another future episode. He was encouraged by Pope Innocent III in his apologetic work but was refused in his request to start a new monastic order. The Pope suggested he instead join one of the existing orders. Since a Pope’s suggestion is really a command, Dominic chose the Augustinians. He donned their black monk’s habit and built a convent at Toulouse.He returned to Rome a year later, staying for about a half year. The new Pope Honorius II granted his petition to start a new order. Originally called the “Order of Preaching Brothers,” it was the first religious community dedicated to preaching. The order grew rapidly in the 13^th C, gaining 15,000 members in 557 houses by the end of the century.When he returned to France, Dominic began sending monks to start colonies. The order quickly took root in Paris, Bologna, and Rome. Dominic returned to Spain where in 1218 he established separate communities for women and men.From France, the Dominicans launched into Germany. They quickly established themselves in Cologne, Worms, Strasbourg, Basel, and other cities. In 1221, the order was introduced in England, and at once settled in Oxford. The Blackfriars Bridge, London, carries in its name the memory of their priory there.Dominic died at Bologna in August, 1221. His tomb is decorated by the artwork of Nicholas of Pisa and Michaelangelo. Compared to the speedy recognition of Francis as a saint only two years after his death, Dominic’s took thirteen years; still a quick canonization.Dominic lacked the warm, passionate concern for the poor and needy that marked his contemporary Francis. But if Francis was devoted to Lady Poverty, Dominic was pledged to Sir Truth. If Francis and Dominic were part of a cruise ship’s crew; Francis would be the activities director, Dominic the lawyer.An old story illustrates the contrast between them. Interrupted in his studies by the chirping of a sparrow, Dominic caught and plucked it. Francis, on the other hand, is revered for his tender compassion and care for all things. To this day he’s represented in art with a bird perched on his shoulder.Dominic was resolute in purpose, zealous in propagating Orthodoxy, and devoted to the Church and its hierarchy. His influence continues through the organization he created.At the time of Dominic’s death, the preaching monks, or “friars” as they were called, had sixty monasteries and convents scattered across Europe. A few years later, they’d pressed to Jerusalem and deep into the North. Because the Dominicans were the Vatican’s preaching authority, they received numerous privileges to carry out their mission any and everywhere.Mendicancy, that is begging as a means of support, was made the rule of the order in 1220. The example of Francis was followed, and the order as well as the individual monks renounced all right to personal property. However, this mendicancy was never emphasized among the Dominicans as it was among Franciscans. The obligation of corporate poverty was revoked in 1477. Dominic’s last exhortation to his followers was that they should love, service humbly, and live in poverty but to be frank, those precepts were never really taken much to heart by most of his followers.Unlike Francis, Dominic didn’t require manual labor from the members of the order. He substituted study and preaching for labor. The Dominicans were the first monastics to adopt rules for studying. When Dominic founded his monastery in Paris, and sent seventeen of his order to staff it, he told them to “study and preach.” A theological course of four years in philosophy and theology was required before a license was granted to preach, and three years more of theological study followed.Preaching and the saving of souls were defined as the chief aim of the order. No one was permitted to preach outside the cloister until he was 25. And they were not to receive money or other gifts for preaching, except food. Vincent Ferrer and Savonarola were the most renowned of the Dominican preachers of the Middle Ages. The mission of the Dominicans was mostly to the upper classes. They were the patrician order among the monastics.Dominic would likely have been just one more nameless priest among thousands of the Middle Ages had it not been for that fateful trip to Southern France where he encountered the Cathars. He’d surely heard of them back in Spain but it was their popularity in France that provoked him. He saw and heard nothing among the heretics that he knew some good, solid teaching and preaching couldn’t correct. He was the right man, at the right time doing the right thing; at first. But his success at answering the errors of the Cathars gained him support that pressed him to step up his opposition toward error. That opposition would turn sinister and into what is arguably one of the dark spots on Church history – the Inquisition. Though hundreds of years have passed, the word still causes many to shiver in terror.Dante said of Dominic he was, “Good to his friends, but dreadful to his enemies.”We’ll take a closer look at the Inquisition in a later episode. For now àIn 1232, the conduct of the Inquisition was committed to the care of the Dominicans. Northern France, Spain, and Germany fell to their lot. The stern Torquemada was a Dominican, and the atrocious measures which he employed to spy out and punish ecclesiastical dissent an indelible blot on them.The order’s device or emblem as appointed by the Pope was a dog with a lighted torch in its mouth. The dog represented the call to watch, the torch to illuminate the world. A painting in their convent in Florence represents the place the order came to occupy as hunters of heretics. It portrays dogs dressed in Dominican colors, chasing away heretic-foxes. All the while the pope and emperor, enthroned and surrounded by counselors, look on with satisfaction.As we end this episode, I thought it wise to make a quick review of the Mendicant monastic orders we’ve been looking at.First, the Mendicant orders differed from previous monastics in that they were committed, not just to individual but corporate poverty. The mendicant houses drew no income from rents or property. They depended on charity.Second, the friars didn’t stay sequestered in monastic communes. Their task was to be out and about in the world preaching the Gospel. Because all of European society was deemed Christian, the mendicants took the entire world as their parish. Their cloister wasn’t the halls of a convent; it was the public marketplace.Third, the rise of the universities at this time presented both the Franciscans and Dominicans with new opportunities to get the Gospel message out by educating Europe’s future generations.Fourth, the mendicants promoted a renewal of piety by the Tertiary or third-level orders they set up, which allowed lay people an opportunity to attend a kind of monk-camp.Fifth, The mendicants were directly answerable to the Pope rather than local bishops or intermediaries who often used orders to their own political and economic ends.Sixth, the friars composed an order and organization more than a specific house as the previous orders had done. Before the mendicants, monks and nuns joined a convent or monastery. Their identity was wrapped up in that specific cloister. The Mendicants joined an order that was spread over dozens of such houses. Monks’ obedience was now not to the local abbot or abbess, but to the order’s leader.Besides the Dominicans and Franciscans, other mendicant orders were the Carmelites, who began as hermits in the Holy Land in the 12^th C; the Hermits of St. Augustine, and the Servites, who’d begun under the Augustinian rule in the 13^th C, but became mendicants in the 15^th.

60-Francis

This Episode of CS is titled, Francis and continues our look at the mendicant orders.Though we call him Francis of Assisi, his original name was Francesco Bernardone. Born in 1182, his given name was Giovanni (Latin of John). His father Pietro nicknamed him Francesco which is what everyone called him. Pietro was a wealthy dealer in textiles imported from France to their hometown of Assisi in central Italy.His childhood was marked by the privileges of his family’s wealth. He wasn’t a great student, finding his delight more in having a good time entertaining friends. When a local war broke out, he signed up to fight for his and was taken prisoner. Released at 22, Francis then came down with a serious illness. That’s when he began to consider eternal things, as so many have when facing their mortality. He rose from his sick-bed disgusted with himself and unsatisfied with the world.The war still on, he was on his way to rejoin the army when he turned back, sensing God had another path for him. He went into seclusion at a grotto near Assisi where his path forward became clearer. He decided to make a typical pilgrimage to Rome, where it was assumed the godly went to seek God. But there he was stuck by the terrible plight of the poor who lined the streets, many of them just outside the door of luxurious churches.Confronted with a leper, he recoiled in horror. Then it dawned on him that his reaction was no different from an indifferent Church, which tolerated such gross need in their midst but doing nothing to lift the needy out of their condition. He turned around, kissed the leper’s hand, and left in it all the money he had.Returning to Assisi, he attended the chapels in its suburbs instead of the main city church. There seemed less pretention in these humble chapels. He lingered most at the simply furnished St. Damian’s served by a single priest at a crude altar. This little chapel became a kind of Bethel for Francis; his bridge between heaven and earth.The change that came over the one-time party-animal led to scorn and ridicule from those who’d known him. Privileged sons like Francis didn’t grovel in the mucky world of commoners; yet that was exactly what Francis was now doing. His father banished him from the family home. He renounced his obligations to them in public saying: “Up to this time I have called Pietro Bernardone ‘father,’ but now I desire to serve God and to say nothing else than ’Our Father which art in heaven.’” From then on, Francis was wholly devoted to a religious life. He dressed in beggar’s clothes, moved in with a small community of lepers, washed their sores, and restored the damaged walls of the chapel of St. Damian by begging building materials in the squares and streets of the city. He was 26 years old.Francis then received from the Benedictine abbot of Mt. Subasio the gift of a little chapel called Santa Maria degli Angeli. Nicknamed the Portiuncula—the Little Portion. It became Francis’ favorite shrine. There he had most of his visions. It was there he eventually died.While meditating one day in 1209, Francis heard the Words of Jesus to his followers, “Preach, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Provide neither silver nor gold, nor brass in your purses.” Throwing away his staff, purse, and, shoes, he made this the rule of his life. He preached repentance and gathered about him several companions. Their Rule was nothing less than full obedience to the Gospel.Their mission was to preach, by both word and deed. Their constant emphasis was to make sure their lives exemplified the Word and Work of God. One saying attributed to him is: “Preach at all times. When necessary, use words.”In 1210, Francis and some companions went to Rome were they were received by Pope Innocent III. The chronicle of the event reports that the pope, in order to test his sincerity, said, “Go, brother, go to the pigs, to whom you are more fit to be compared than to men, and roll with them, and to them preach the rules you have so ably set forth.” This may seem like a cruel put off, but it may in truth have been a test of Francis’ sincerity. He proposed a very different way than priests and monks had chosen. This command would certainly determine if Francis’ claim to poverty and obedience were genuine. Well, Francis DID obey, and returned saying, “My Lord, I have done so.” If the pope had only been mocking, Francis’ response softened him. He gave his blessing to the brotherhood and sanctioned their rule, granted them the right to cut their hair in the distinctive tonsure that was the badge of the monk, and told them to go and preach repentance.The brotherhood increased rapidly. The members were expected to work. In his will, Francis urged the brethren to work at some trade as he’d done. He compared an idle monk to a drone. The brethren visited the sick, especially lepers who sat at the very bottom of the social order. They preached in ever expanding circles, and went abroad on missionary journeys. Francis was ready to sell the very ornaments of the altar rather than refuse an appeal for aid. He was ashamed when he encountered any one poorer than himself.One of the most remarkable episodes of Francis’ career occurred at this time. He made a covenant, like marriage, with Poverty. He called it his bride, mother, and sister, and remained devoted to Sister Poverty with the devotion of a knight.In 1217, Francis was presented to the new Pope Honorius III. At the advice of a powerful Cardinal who would later become Pope Gregory IX, he memorized his sermon. But when he appeared before the pontiff, he forgot it all and instead delivered an impromptu message, which won over the papal court.Francis made evangelistic tours in 1219 thru Italy then into Egypt and Syria. Returning from the East with the title “il poverello” the little Poor Man, he found a new element had been introduced into the brotherhood thru the influence of a stern disciplinarian named Cardinal Ugolino, the same cardinal who’d coached him to memorize his sermon before the pope.Francis was heart-broken over the changes made to his order. Passing through Bologna in 1220, he was deeply grieved to see a new house being built for the brothers. Cardinal Ugolino was determined to manipulate the Franciscans in the interest of the Vatican. Early on he’d offered Francis help to negotiate the intricacies of Vatican life and politics, and Francis accepted. Little did he realize he was inviting a force that would fundamentally alter all he stood for. Under the cardinal’s influence, a new code was adopted in 1221, then a third just two years later in which Francis’ distinctive perspective for the Franciscans was set aside. The original Rule of poverty was modified; the old ideas of monastic discipline re-introduced, and a new element of absolute submission to the pope added. The mind of Francis was too simple for the shrewd rulers of the church. His lack of guile couldn’t compete with men whose entire lives were lived wielding vast levers of political power. He was set aside and a member of the nobility was put at the head of the Order.The forced subordination of Francis offers one of the most touching spectacles of medieval biography. Francis had withheld himself from papal privileges. He’d favored freedom of movement. But the deft hand of Cardinal Ugolino installed a strict monastic obedience. Organization replaced devotion. Ugolino probably did attempt to be a real friend to Francis but his loyalty was always and only to the Pope whom the Cardinal thought ought to be the undisputed ruler of all and every facet of Church life. It didn’t seem right to him that any monastic order wasn’t directly answerable to and controlled by the Pope. Ugolino laid the foundation of the cathedral in Assisi to Francis’ honor, and canonized him only two years after his death. But the Cardinal did not appreciate Francis’ humble spirit. Francis was helpless to carry out his original ideas, and yet, without making any outward sign of rebellion, he held them tightly to the end.These ideas were affirmed in Francis’ famous will. This document is one of the most moving pieces of Christian literature. Francis called himself “little brother.” All he had to leave the brothers was his benediction, the memory of the early days of the brotherhood, and counsels to abide by their first Rule. This Rule, he said, he’d received from no human author. God himself had revealed it to him, that he ought to live according to the Gospel. He reminded them how the first members loved to live in poor and abandoned churches. He bade them not accept ornate churches or luxurious houses, in accordance with the rule of holy poverty they’d professed. He forbade their receiving special privileges from the Pope or his agents, even orders that gave them personal protection. Through the whole of the document there runs a note of anguish over the lost simplicity that had been the power of their first years; years when the presence of God had been so obvious and they had power to live the holy lives they longed for.Francis’ heart was broken. Never strong, his last years were full of sicknesses. Change of location only brought temporary relief. The works of physicians, such as the age knew, were employed. But no wonder they didn’t help when you hear what they were: an iron, heated white-hot, was applied to his forehead.As his body failed, he jokingly referred to it as Brother Ass.Francis’s reputation as a saint preceded his death. We’ve talked about relics in previous episodes. But relics were always attributed to people dead for decades, usually hundreds of years. Francis was a living saint from whom people craved things like fragments of his clothing, hairs from his head, even the parings of his nails.Two years before his death, Francis composed the hymn Canticle to the Sun, called by some the most perfect expression of religious feeling. It was written at a time when he was beset by temptations with blindness setting in. The hymn is a pious peal of passionate praise for nature, especially Brother Sun and Sister Moon.The last week of his life, Francis asked for Psalm 142 to be read to him since his eyes were failing. Two brothers sang to him. That’s when a priest named Elias, loyal to Cardinal Ugolino and had advocated setting aside Francis’ original Rule in favor of the Cardinal’s more strict rule, rebuked Francis for making light of death and acting as though he wanted to die! “Why, what kind of faith did that reveal,” the indignant priest asked? It was thought unfitting for a saint. Francis replied that he’d been thinking of death for at least a couple years, and now that he was so united with the Lord, he ought to be joyful in Him. One witness at his bedside said when the time came, “he met death singing.”Before Francis’ coffin was closed, great honors began to be heaped upon him. He was canonized only two years later.The career of Francis of Assisi, as told by his contemporaries, and as his spirit is revealed in his own last testament, leaves the impression of purity, purpose, and humility of spirit; of genuine saintliness. He sought not positions of honor nor a place with the great. With a simple mind, he sought to serve his fellow-man by announcing the Gospel, and living out his understanding of it in his own example.He sought to give the Gospel to the common people. They heard him gladly. He didn’t possess a great intellect but had a great soul.He was no diplomat, but he was a man whose love for God and people was obvious to all who met him.Francis wasn’t a theologian in the classic sense; someone who thought lofty thoughts. He was a practical theologian in that he lived the truths the best theology holds. He spoke and acted as one who feels full confidence in his mission. He spoke to the Church as no one after him did till Martin Luther came.While history refers to the followers of Francis as the Franciscans, their official name was the fratres minores, the Minor Brethren, or simply the Minorites. When the order was first sanctioned by the Pope, Francis insisted on this as their title as a warning to the members not to aspire after positions of distinction.They spread rapidly in Italy and beyond; but before Francis’ generation passed, the order was torn by the strife Cardinal Ugolino introduced. No other monastic order can show anything like long conflict within its own membership over a question of principle. The dispute had a unique place in the theological debates of the Middle Ages.According to the founding Rule of 1210 and Francis’ last will, they were to be a free brotherhood devoted to poverty and the practice of the Gospel, rather than a closed organization bound by precise rules. Pope Innocent III who’d originally sanctioned them, urged Francis to take the rule of the older orders as his model, but Francis declined and went his own path. He built upon a few texts of Scripture. And as we said, just six years into the order’s life, Cardinal Ugolino installed a rigid discipline to the order, pushing aside Francis’ vision of a free brotherhood governed by grace instead of rules.In 1217, the order began sending missionaries beyond Italy. Elias, a former mattress-maker in Assisi and one of Ugolino’s lackeys, led a band of missionaries to Syria. Others went to Germany, Hungary, France, Spain and England. The Franciscans proved to be courageous and entrepreneurial agents for the Gospel. They went south to Morocco and east as far as China. They accompanied Columbus on his 2^nd journey to the New World and were active in early American missions from Florida to California, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.The Rule of 1221, second in the order’s history, shows two influences at work; one from Ugolino, the other of course from Francis. There are signs of the struggle which had already begun several years before. The Rule placed a general at the head of the order and a governing body or board was installed, made up of the heads of the order’s houses. Poverty was retained as a primary principle and the requirement of work remained. The sale of their products was forbidden except when it benefited the poor and needy.The Rule of 1223, the third, was briefer but added even more organization to the order. It went further in erasing from the order the will of Francis. The mendicant or begging character of the order was emphasized. But obedience to the pope was introduced and a cardinal was made the order’s protector and guardian. Contrary to Francis’ will, a devotional book of prayers and hymns called the Roman Breviary was ordered to be used as the book of daily worship. Monastic discipline replaced Biblical liberty. The Rule of 1223 made clear the strong hand of papal hierarchy. The freedom of the 1210 Rule disappeared. The pope’s agents did everything they could to suppress Francis’ last testament since it was a passionate appeal for the original freedom of his brotherhood against the new order.In light of the way the order was stolen out from under Francis’ leadership during his own lifetime, it’s a wonder they continued to be known as the Franciscans; they ought to have been called the Ugolinoians.Alongside the male Franciscans were the Clarisses, nuns who took their name from Clara of Sciffi, canonized in 1255. Clara was so moved by Francis’ example she started a parallel order for women. Francis wrote a Rule for them which enforced poverty and made a will for Clara. The nuns supported themselves by the labor of their hands, but by Francis’ advice and example also became mendicants who depended on alms. Their rule was also modified in 1219 and the order was afterwards compelled to adopt the much older Benedictine rule.The Tertiaries, or Brothers and Sisters of Penitence, were the third order of the Franciscans. The Tertiaries were lay brothers and sisters who held other employment but wanted to show a greater level of devotion to God than the common person. Francis never made an order for the Tertiaries. He simply called them to dedicate themselves wholly to God while going about their usual lives as merchants, workers and family men and women.Francis wanted to include all classes of people, men and women, married and unmarried. His object was to put within the reach of lay-people the higher practice of virtue and godliness it was thought only sequestered monks or nuns could attain.Historians wonder where Francis got his idea for his attempt to take the rigid formalism of the church of the Middle Ages back to more of a New Testament practice. Chances are good he took his example from the Waldenses, also called the Poor Men of Lyons, a group well known in Northern Italy in Francis’ day.Most likely, it was Francis’ original intent to start an organic movement of lay-people, and that the idea of a monastic order only developed later.Following Francis’ death, throughout the rest of the 13^th C, the Franciscans were split into two groups; those who clung to his original vision and Rule and the stricter sect loyal to Cardinal Ugolino. The contest became so bitter that at times it fell to bloodshed. Eventually the pro-papal party prevailed.In the pervious episode, I mentioned Francis was a bit of an anti-intellectual. That is to say, he’d seen too many priests who could parse fine points of doctrine, but who, like the religious leaders in the parable of the Good Samaritan, seemed not to understand the practical compassion, mercy and grace their theology ought to have stirred in them. Francis was not against learning per say; only when such study pre-empted living out what Truth commends. To a monastic leader named Anthony of Padua, Francis wrote, “I am agreed that you continue reading lectures on theology to the brethren provided that kind of study does not extinguish in them the spirit of humility and prayer.”Francis’ followers departed from his anti-intellectual leaning and adopted the 13^th Century’s trend of casting off the darkness of the Middle Ages by establishing schools and universities. They built schools in their convents and were well settled at the chief centers of university culture. In 1255, an order called upon Franciscans going out as missionaries to study Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew.The order spread rapidly all the way to Israel and Syria in the East and Ireland in the West. It was introduced in France by Pacifico and Guichard, a brother-in-law of the French king. The first successful attempt to establish the order in Germany was made in 1221.They took root in England in Canterbury and London in 1224. They were the first popular preachers England had seen, and the first to embody practical philanthropy. The condition of English villages and towns at that time was wretched. Skin diseases were common, including leprosy. Destructive epidemics spread rapidly due to the poor sanitation. The Franciscans chose quarters in the poorest and most neglected parts of towns. In Norwich, they settled in a swamp through which the city sewerage passed. At Newgate, now part of London, they settled into what was called Stinking Lane. At Cambridge, they occupied a decaying prison.It was for this zeal to reach the poor and needy they received recognition. People soon learned to respect the brothers. By 1256, the number of English Franciscans had grown to over 1200, settled in just shy of fifty locations around England.We’ll see what became of the Franciscans later. Suffice it to say, Francis would not approve of what became of his brotherhood. No he would NOT!The Mendicant orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans, which we’ll look at next time, comprised a medieval poverty movement that was in large part, a reaction to the politicizing of the Faith. It was a movement of priests, monks and eventually commoners, who’d come to believe Church policies sought to wrangle political influence for ever more power in world affairs. These would-be reformers wondered, “Is this what Jesus and the Apostle intended? Didn’t Jesus say His Kingdom was NOT of this world? Why then are Bishops, Cardinals and Popes working so hard at controlling the political realm?”The call to voluntary poverty drew its strength from widespread resentment of corrupt clergy; not that all or even most priests were. But it seemed the only priests selected for advancement were those who played the Church’s political game. The back-to-the-New Testament poverty movement of the Mendicants became a political movement in itself – a reform movement fueled by the spiritual hunger of the common people.As early as the 10^th C, reformers had called for a return to the poverty and simplicity of the early church. The life and example of the Apostles was regarded as the norm and when modern bishops were held up to that example, it was clear something unusual had happened; bishops in their religious finery stood markedly higher than the Apostles in terms of worldly power and wealth.To illustrate this, visit the cathedral at Cologne, Germany. There’s a little museum there called the Treasury. It contains several display cases with the various vestments and tools the cardinals of Cologne have worn. Composed of gold and silver threads, encrusted with gems, these robes are priceless; literally. But one set of cases sums up for me the utter contradiction of an exalted clergy; the croziers. A crozier is a stylized shepherd’s staff carried by a bishop or cardinal. It’s a symbol of his role as a pastor, a shepherd. As a shepherd’s staff it ought to be a functional and useful tool. A humble piece of wood used to guide and protect sheep. But the croziers in the Treasury at Cologne Cathedral are made of solid gold, their head-pieces jammed with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and pearls. You would no more use that to tend sheep than you would a painting by Rembrandt. Every time a cardinal wrapped his fingers around it, he ought to have been convicted deeply about how FAR FROM his calling as a humble servant to the flock we was.Now, imagine you’re a commoner at church one Sunday. You’ve just been told by some priest God wants every bit of money you can give. How God NEEDS your money! Then in walks the Cardinal with his jewel-encrusted cape, his mitre and that priceless crozier in his hand.How long before you begin to say to yourself, “WHAT is going on here? Did Jesus wear a get-up like that? Did Peter or John or any of the Apostles? I don’t think so. In fact, Jesus said something about not even having anywhere to lay his head. I’ll bet that Cardinal has a nice satin covered down pillow.”In the earlier centuries of the Church, calls for reform were dealt with by channeling them into internal reform movements that directed attention away from the upper hierarchy to a more personal desire for reform that ended up in increased devotion. That’s what many of the monastic orders were. But by the 12^th and 13^th Centuries things began to change. Many of the lesser clergy began to speak out against the abuses of the Church. When they did they often entered the ranks of what were called “heretics.”Francis adopted a radical devotion to poverty as a way to confront the blatant greed of the Church. His example spread like wild-fire precisely because it was so obvious to everyone how far off the Church had gotten. And it explains why Ugolino felt obligated to bring the order back in line by bringing it under the control of the Pope. While outwardly commending their order’s devotion to poverty, he installed policies that made the order dependent on their land holdings and property. It’s hard to criticize the wealth of “The Church,” when you’re part of that church and possess a good measure of that wealth.Some were wise to Ugolino’s ways and went further by staying true to Francis’ original vision and commitment to poverty. Because they refused to knuckle under to his rule, they were declared heretical. And as heretics, they were treated with a brutality no one can reconcile with the Gospel of Grace. à But that, is for a later episode.

59-Monk Business Part 2

This episode is titled – Monk Business Part 2In the early 13^th C a couple new monastic orders of preaching monks sprang up known as the Mendicants. They were the Franciscans and Dominicans.The Franciscans were founded by Francis of Assisi. They concentrated on preaching to ordinary Christians, seeking to renew basic, Spirit-led discipleship. The mission of the Dominicans aimed at confronting heretics and aberrant ideas.The Dominicans were approved by the Pope as an official, church sponsored movement in 1216, the Franciscans received Papal endorsement 7 years later.They quickly gained the respect of scholars, princes, and popes, along with high regard by the masses. Their fine early reputation is counterbalanced by the idleness, ignorance, and in some cases, infamy, of their later history.To be a Mendicant meant to rely on charity for support. A salary or wage isn’t paid by the church to support mendicant monks.The appearance of these two mendicant orders was one of the most significant events of the Middle Ages, and marks one of the notable revivals in the history of the Christian Church. They were the Salvation Army of the 13^th C. At a time when the spirit of the Crusades was waning and heresies threatened authority, Francis d’Assisi and Dominic de Guzman, an Italian and a Spaniard, united in reviving the spirit of the Western Church. They started monasticism on a new path. They embodied Christian philanthropy; the sociological reformers of their age. The orders they birthed supplied the new universities and study of theology with some of their most brilliant lights.Two temperaments could scarcely have differed more widely than the temperaments of Francis and Dominic. The poet Dante described Francis as a Flame, igniting the world with love; Dominic he said, was a Light, illuminating the world.Francis is the most unpretentious, gentle, and lovable of all greats of monastic life.Dominic was, to put it bluntly à cold, systematic, and austere.Francis was greater than the order that sought to embody his ways.The Dominicans became greater than their master by taking his rules and building on them.Francis was like one of the apostles; Dominic a later and lesser leader.When you think of Francis, see him mingling with people or walking through a field, barefoot so his toes can feel the soil and grass. Dominic belongs in a study, surrounded by books, or in court pleading a case.Francis’ lifework was to save souls. Dominic’s was to defend the Church. Francis has been celebrated for his humility and gentleness; Dominic was called the “Hammer of heretics.”The two leaders probable met at least thre times. In 1217, they were both at Rome, and the Vatican proposed the union of the two orders into one organization. Dominic asked Francis for his cord, and bound himself with it, saying he desired the two to be one. A year later they again met at Francis’ church in Assisi, and on the basis of what he saw, Dominic decided to embrace mendicancy, which the Dominicans adopted in 1220. In 1221, Dominic and Francis again met at Rome, when a powerful Cardinal tried to wrest control of the orders.Neither Francis nor Dominic wanted to reform existing monastic orders. At first, Francis had no intention of founding an order. He simply wanted to start a more organic movement of Christians to transform the world. Both Dominic and Francis sought to return the church to the simplicity and dynamic of Apostolic times.Their orders differed from the older monastic orders in several ways.First was their commitment to poverty. Dependence on charity was a primary commitment. Both forbade the possession of property. Not only did the individual monk pledge poverty, the entire order did as well. You may remember from our last episode this was a major turn-around from nearly all the previous monastic orders, who while the individual monks were pledged to poverty, their houses could become quite wealthy and plush.The second feature was their devotion to practical activities in society. Previous monks had fled for solitude to the monastery. The Black and Gray Friars, as the Dominicans and Franciscans were called from the colors of their habits, gave themselves to the service of a needy world. To solitary contemplation they added immersion in the marketplace. Unlike some of the previous orders, they weren’t consumed with warring against their own flesh. They turned their attention to battling the effects of evil on the world. They preached to the common people. They relieved poverty. They listened to and sought to redress the complaints of the oppressed.A third characteristic of the orders was that lay brotherhoods developed à a 3^rdorder, called the Tertiaries. These were lay men and women who, while pursuing their usual vocations, were bound by oath to practice the virtues of the Christian life.Some Christians will hear this and say, “Wait – isn’t that what all genuine followers in Christ are supposed to do– follow Jesus obediently while being employed as a mechanic, student, salesman, engineer school-teacher or whatever?”Indeed! But keep in mind that the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, and living the Christian life by the power of the Spirit had been submerged under a lot of religion and ritual. It took the Reformation, three centuries later to clear away the ritualistic crust and restore the Gospel of Grace. In the 13^th C, most people thought living a life that really pleased God meant being a monk, nun or priest. Lay brotherhood was a way for someone to in effect say – “My station in life doesn’t allow me to live a cloistered life; but if I could, I would.” Many, probably most believed they were hopelessly sinful, but that by giving to their priest or supporting the local monastery, the full-time religious guys could rack up a surplus of godliness they could draw on to cover them. The church facilitated this mindset. The message wasn’t explicit but implied was, “You go on and muddle through your helplessness, but if you support the church and her priests and monks, we’ll be able to pray for your sorry soul and do works of kindness God will bless, then we’ll extend our covering over you.”On an aside, while that sounds absurd to many today, don’t in fact many repeat this? Don’t they fall to the same error when a husband hopes his believing wife is religious enough for the both of them? Or when a teenager assumes his family’s years of going to church will somehow reserve his/her spot in heaven? Salvation on the family-plan.Lay brotherhood was a way for commoners to say, “Yeah, I don’t really buy that surrogate-holiness thing. I think God wants ME to follow Him and not trust someone else’s faith.”A fourth feature was monks activity as teachers in the universities. They recognized these new centers of education held a powerful influence, and adapted themselves to the situation.While the Dominicans were quick to enter the universities, the Franciscans lagged. They did so because Francis had resisted learning. He was a bit of an anti-intellectualist. He was because he’d seen way too much of the scholarship of priests who ignored the poor. So he said things like, “Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.”To a novice he said, “If you have a songbook you’ll want a prayer-book; and if you have a prayer-book, you’ll sit on a high chair like a prelate, and say to your brother, ’Bring me my prayer-book.’ ” To another he said, “The time of tribulation will come when books will be useless and be thrown away.”While this was Francis’ attitude toward academics, his successors among the Franciscans built schools and became sought after as professors in places like the University of Paris. The Dominicans led the way, and established themselves early at the seats of the two great continental universities, Paris and Bologna.At Paris, Oxford, and Cologne, as well as a few other universities, they furnished the greatest of the Academics. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and Durandus, were Dominicans; John of St. Giles, Alexander Hales, Adam Marsh, Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, Ockham, and Roger Bacon were all Franciscans.The fifth notable feature of the Mendicant orders was their quick approval by the Pope. The Franciscans and Dominicans were the first monastic bodies to vow allegiance directly to him. No bishop, abbot, or general chapter intervened between order and Pope. The two orders became his bodyguard and proved themselves to be a bulwark of the papacy. The Pope had never had such organized support before. They helped him establish his authority over bishops. Wherever they went, which was everywhere in Europe, they made it their business to establish the principle of the Vatican’s supremacy over princes and realms.The Franciscans and Dominicans became the enforcement arm for doctrinal orthodoxy. They excelled all others in hunting down and rooting out heretics. In Southern France, they wiped out heresy with a river of blood. They were the leading instruments of the Inquisition. Torquemada was a Dominican. As early as 1232, Gregory IX officially authorized the Dominicans to carry out the Inquisition. And in a move that had to send Francis spinning at top speed in his burial plot, the Franciscans demanded the Pope grant them a share in the gruesome work. Under the lead of Duns Scotus they became champions of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary.The rapid growth of the orders in number and influence was accompanied by bitter rivalry. The disputes between them were so violent that in 1255 their generals had to call on their monks to stop fighting. Each order was constantly jealous that the other enjoyed more favor with the pope than itself.It’s sad to see how quickly the humility of Francis and the desire for truth in Dominic was set aside by the orders they gave rise to. Because of the papal favor they enjoyed, monks of both orders began to intrude into every parish and church, incurring the hostility of the clergy whose rights they usurped. They began doing specifically priestly services, things monks were not authorized to do, like hearing confession, granting absolution, and serving Communion.Though they’d begun as reform movements, they soon delayed reformation. They degenerated into obstinate obstructers of progress in theology and civilization. From being the advocates of learning, they became props to ignorance. The virtue of poverty was naught but a veneer for a vulgar and indolent insolence.These changes set in long before the end of the 13^th C, the same century the Franciscans and Dominicans had their birth. Bishops opposed them. The secular clergy complained of them. Universities ridiculed and denounced them for their mock piety and abundant vices. They were compared to the Pharisees and Scribes. They were declaimed as hypocrites that bishops were urged to purge from their dioceses. Cardinals and princes repeatedly appealed to popes to end their intrusions into church affairs, but usually the popes were on the Mendicant’s side.In the 15^th C, one well-known teacher listed the four great persecutors of the Church; tyrants, heretics, antichrist, and the Mendicants.All of this is a sorry come-down from the lofty beginnings of their founders.We’ll take the next couple episodes to go into a bit more depth on these two leaders and the orders they founded.As we end this episode, I want to again say thanks to all those listeners and subscribers who’ve “liked” and left comments on the CS FB page.I’d also like to say how appreciative I am to those who’ve gone to the iTunes subscription page for CS and left a positive review. Any donation to CS is appreciated.

58-Monk Business Part 1

This 58^th Episode of CS is titled – Monk Business Part 1 and is the first of several episodes in which we’ll take a look at monastic movements in Church History.I realize that may not sound terribly exciting to some. The prospect of digging into this part of the story didn’t hold much interest for me either, until I realized how rich it is. You see, being a bit of a fan for the work of J. Edwin Orr, I love the history of revival. Well, it turns out each new monastic movement was often a fresh move of God’s Spirit in renewal. Several were a new wineskin for God’s work.The roots of monasticism are worth taking some time to unpack. Let’s get started . . .Leisure time to converse about philosophy with friends was prized in the ancient world. Even if someone didn’t have the intellectual chops to wax eloquent on philosophy, it was still fashionable to express a yearning for such intellectual leisure, or “otium” as it was called; but of course, they were much too busy serving their fellow man. It was the ancient version of, “I just don’t have any ‘Me-time’.”Sometimes, as the famous Roman orator Cicero, the ancients did score the time for such reflection and enlightened discussion and retired to write on themes such as duty, friendship, and old age. That towering intellect and theologian, Augustine of Hippo had the same wish as a young man, and when he became a Christian in 386, left his professorship in oratory to devote his life to contemplation and writing. He retreated with a group of friends, his son and his mother, to a home on Lake Como, to discuss, then write about The Happy Life, Order and other such subjects, in which both classical philosophy and Christianity shared an interest. When he returned to his hometown in North Africa, he set up a community in which he and his friends could lead a monastic life, apart from the world, studying scripture and praying. Augustine’s contemporary, Jerome; translator of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate, felt the same tug, and he, too, made a series of attempts to live apart from the world so he could give himself to philosophical reflection.Ah; the Good Life!This sense of a divine ‘call’ to a Christian version of this life of ‘philosophical retirement’ had an important difference from the older, pagan version. While reading and meditation remained central, the call to do it in concert with others who also set themselves apart from the world both spiritually and physically was added to the mix.For the monks and nuns who sought such a communal life, the crucial thing was the call to a way of life which would make it possible to ‘go apart’ and spend time with God in prayer and worship. Prayer was the opus dei, the ‘work of God’.As it was originally conceived, to become a monk or nun was to attempt to obey to the full the commandment to love God with all one is and has. In the Middle Ages, it was also understood to be a fulfillment of the command to love one’s neighbor, for monks and nuns prayed for the world. They really believed prayer was an important task on behalf of a morally and spiritually needy world of lost souls. So among the members of a monastery, there were those who prayed, those who ruled, and those who worked. The most important to society, were those who prayed.A difference developed between the monastic movements in the East and West. In the East, the Desert Fathers set the pattern. They were hermits who adopted extreme forms of piety and asceticism. They were regarded as powerhouses of spiritual influence; authorities who could assist ordinary people with their problems. The Stylites, for example, lived on high platforms; sitting atop poles, and were an object of reverence to those who came to ask advice. Others, shut off from the world in caves or huts, sought to deny themselves any contact with the temptations of ‘the world’, especially women. There was in this an obvious preoccupation with the dangers of the flesh, which was partly a legacy of the Greek dualists’ conviction that matter and the physical world were unredeemably evil.I pause to make a personal, pastoral observation. So warning! – Blatant opinion follows.You can’t read the NT without seeing the call to holiness in the Christian Life. But that holiness is a work of God’s grace as the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to live a life pleasing to God. NT holiness is a joyous privilege, not a heavy burden and duty. NT holiness enhances life, never diminishes it.This is what Jesus modeled so well; and it’s why genuine seekers after God were drawn to him. He was attractive. He didn’t just do holiness, He WAS Holy. Yet no one had more life. And everywhere He went, dead things came to life!As Jesus’ followers, we’re supposed to be holy in the same way. But if we’re honest, we’d have to admit that for the vast majority, holiness is conceived as a dry, boring, life-sucking burden of moral perfection.Real holiness isn’t religious rule-keeping. It isn’t a list of moral proscriptions; a set of “Don’t’s! Or I will smite thee with Divine Wrath and cast thy wretched soul into the eternal flames!”NT holiness is a mark of Real Life, the one Jesus rose again to give us. It’s Jesus living in and thru us.The Desert Fathers and hermits who followed their example were heavily influenced by the dualist Greek worldview that all matter was evil and only the spirit was good. Holiness meant an attempt to avoid any shred of physical pleasure while retreating into the life of the mind. This thinking was the major force influencing the monastic movement as it moved both East and West. But in the East, the monks were hermits who pursued their lifestyles in isolation while in the West, they tended to pursue them in concert and communal life.As we go on we’ll see that some monastic leaders realized casting holiness as a negative denial of the flesh rather than a positive embracing of the love and truth of Christ was an error they sought to reform.In the East, while monks might live in a group, they didn’t seek for community. They didn’t converse or work together in a common cause. They simply shared cells next to one another. And each followed his own schedule. Their only real contact was that they ate together and might pray together. This tradition continues to this day on Mount Athos in northern Greece, where monks live in solitude and prayer in cells high on the cliffs, food lowered to them in baskets.A crucial development in Western monasticism took place in the 6^th C, when Benedict of Nursia withdrew with a group of friends to live an ascetic life. This prompted him to give serious thought to the way in which the ‘religious life’ should be organized. Benedict arranged for groups of 12 monks to live together in small communities. Then he moved to Monte Cassino where, in 529, he set up the monastery which was to become the mother house of the Benedictine Order. The rule of life he drew up there was a synthesis of elements in existing rules for monastic life. From this point on, the Rule of St Benedict set the standard for living the religious life until the 12^th C.The Rule achieved a good working balance between the body and soul. It aimed at moderation and order. It said that those who went apart from the world to live lives dedicated to God should not subject themselves to extreme asceticism. They should live in poverty and chastity, and in obedience to their abbot, but they shouldn’t feel the need to brutalize their flesh with things like scourges and hair-shirts. They should eat moderately but not starve. They should balance their time in a regular and orderly way between manual work, reading and prayer—their real work for God. There were to be seven regular acts of worship in the day, known as ‘hours’, attended by the entire community. In Benedict’s vision, the monastic yoke was to be sweet; the burden light. The monastery was a ‘school’ of the Lord’s service, in which the baptized soul made progress in the Christian life.In the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, nuns formed a significant part of the population. There were several ‘double monasteries’, where communities of monks and nuns lived side by side. Several female abbots, called ‘abbesses’ proved to be outstanding leaders. Hilda, the Abbess of the double monastery at Whitby played a major role at the Synod of Whitby in 664.A common feature of monastic life in the West was that it was largely reserved for the upper classes. Serfs generally didn’t have the freedom to become monks. The houses of monks and nuns were the recipients of noble and royal patronage, usually because the nobility thought by supporting such a holy endeavor, they promoted their spiritual case with God. Remember as well that while the first-born son stood to inherit everything, later sons were a potential cause of unrest if they decided to vie with their elder brother in gaining the birthright. So these ‘spare’ children of good birth were often given to monastic communes by their families. They were then charged with carrying the religious duty for the entire family. They were a kind of “spiritual surrogate” whose task was to produce a surplus of godliness the rest of the family could draw from. Rich and powerful families gave monasteries, lands and estates, for the good of the souls of their members. Rulers and soldiers were too busy to attend to their spiritual lives, so ‘professionals’ drawn from their own families could help them by doing it on their behalf.A consequence of this was that, in the late Middle Ages, the abbot or abbess was usually a nobleman or woman. She/He was often chosen because of being the highest in birth in the monastery or convent, and not because of any natural powers of leadership or outstanding spirituality. Chaucer’s cruel 14^th C caricature of a prioress depicts a woman who would have been much more at home in a country house playing with her pet dogs.In these features of noble patronage of the religious life lay not only the stamp of society’s approval, but also the potential for decay. Monastic houses that became rich and were filled with those who’d not chosen to enter the religious life, but had been put there in childhood, often became decadent. The Cluniac reforms of the 10^th C were a consequence of the recognition that there would need to be a tightening of the ship if the Benedictine order was not to be lost altogether. In the commune at Cluny and the houses which imitated it, standards were high, although here, too, there was a danger of distortion of the original Benedictine vision. Cluniac houses had extra rules and a degree of rigidity which compromised the original simplicity of Benedictine life.At the end of the 11^th C, several developments radically altered the range of choice for those in the West who wanted to enter a monastery. The first was a change of fashion, which encouraged married couples of mature years to decide to end their days as a monk or nun. A knight who’d fought his wars might make an agreement with his wife that they would go off into separate religious houses. Adult entry of this sort was by those who really did want to be there, and it had the potential to alter the balance in favor of serious commitment.But these mature adults weren’t the only one’s entering monasteries. It became fashionable for younger people to head off to a monastery where education had become top-rank. Then monasteries began to specialize in various pursuits. It was a time of experimentation.Out of this period of experiment came one immensely important new order, the Cistercians. They used the Benedictine rule, but had a different set of priorities. The first was a determination to protect themselves from the dangers which could come from growing too rich.“Too rich?” you might ask. “How’s that possible if they’d taken a vow of poverty?”Ah à There’s the rub.Yes; monks and nuns vowed poverty, but their lifestyle included diligence in work. And some brilliant minds had joined the monasteries, so they’d devised ingenious methods for going about their work in a more productive manner, enhancing yields of crops and products. Being deft businessmen, they worked good deals and maximized profits, which went in to the monastery’s account. But individual monks, of course, didn’t profit thereby. The funds were used to expand the monastery’s resources and facilities. This led to even higher profits. Which were then used in plushing up the monastery itself. The monks’ cells got nicer, the food better, the grounds more sumptuous, the library more expansive. The monks got new outfits. Outwardly things technically were the same, they owned nothing personally, but in fact, their monastic world was upgraded significantly.The Cistercians responded to this by building houses in remote places and keeping them as simple, bare lodgings. They also made a place for people from the lower social classes who had vocations but wanted to give themselves more completely to God for a period of time. These were called “lay brothers.”The rather startling early success of the Cistercians was due to Bernard of Clairvaux. When he decided to enter a newly founded Cistercian monastery, he took with him a group of friends and relatives. Because of his oratory skill and praise for the Cistercian model, recruitment proceed so rapidly many more houses had to be founded in quick succession. He was made abbot of one of them at Clairvaux, from which he draws his name. He went on to become a leading figure in the monastic world and in politics. He spoke so well and so movingly that he was useful as a diplomatic emissary, as well as a preacher. You may remember he was one of the premier reasons the Crusades were able to rally so many to their campaign.Other monastic experiments weren’t so successful. The willingness to try new forms of the monastic life gave a platform for some short-lived endeavors by the eccentric. There are always those who think their idea is THE way it ought to be done. Either because they lack common sense or have no skill at recruiting, they fall apart. So many were engaged in pushing forward the boundaries of monastic life one writer thought it would be helpful to review the available modes in the 12^th C. His work covered all the possibilities, from the Benedictines and reformed Benedictines, to priests who didn’t live enclosed lives, but who were allowed to work in the world—and the various sorts of hermits.The only real rival to the Rule of St Benedict was the ‘Rule’ of Augustine, which was adopted by church leaders. These differed from monks, in that they were priests who could be active in the wider social community, for example, by serving in a parish church. They weren’t living under a monastic rule which confined a monk for life to the house in which he was consecrated. Priests serving in a cathedral, for example, were encouraged to live in a city but under a code like the Augustinian rule which was well-adapted to their needs.The 12^th C saw the creation of new monastic orders. In Paris, the Victorines produced leading academic figures and teachers. The Premonstratensians were a group of Latin monks who took on the massive task of healing the rift between the Eastern and Western churches. The problem was, there was no corresponding monastic group in the East.We’ll pick it up at this point next time.Monasticism is an important part of Church History because of the huge impact it had shaping the faith of common Christians throughout the Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance. Some of the monastic leaders are the great pillars of the faith. We can’t really understand them without knowing a little about the world they lived in.As we end this episode, I want to again say thanks to all those listeners and subscribers who’ve “liked” and left comments on the CS FB page.I’d also like to say how appreciative I am to those who’ve gone to the iTunes subscription page for CS and left a positive review. We’ve developed a large listener base.Any donation to CS is appreciated.Finally, for interested subscribers, I want to invite you to take a listen to the sermon podcast for the church I serve; Calvary Chapel Oxnard. I teach expositionally through the Bible. You can subscribe via iTunes, just do a search for Calvary Chapel Oxnard podcast, or link to the calvaryoxnard.org website.

57-The Crusades Part 4

This is part 4 of our series on the Crusades.The plan for this episode, the last in our look at the Crusades, is to give a brief review of the 5^th thru 7^th Crusades, then a bit of analysis of the Crusades as a whole.The date set for the start of the 5^th Crusade was June 1^st, 1217. It was Pope Innocent III’s long dream to reconquer Jerusalem. He died before the Crusade set off, but his successor Honorius III was just as ardent a supporter. He continued the work begun by Innocent.The Armies sent out accomplished much of nothing, except to waste lives. Someone came up with the brilliant idea that the key to conquering Palestine was to secure a base in Egypt first. That had been the plan for the 4^th Crusade. The Crusaders now made the major port of Damietta their goal. After a long battle, the Crusaders took the city, for which the Muslim leader Malik al Kameel offered to trade Jerusalem and all Christian prisoners he held. The Crusaders thought the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was on his way to bolster their numbers, so they rejected the offer. Problem is, Frederick wasn’t on his way. So in 1221, Damietta reverted to Muslim control.Frederick II cared little about the Crusade. After several false starts that revealed his true attitude toward the whole thing, the Emperor decided he’d better make good on his many promises and set out with 40 galleys and only 600 knights. They arrived in Acre in early Sept. 1228. Because the Muslim leaders of the Middle East were once again at odds with each other, Frederick convinced the afore-mentioned al-Kameel to make a decade long treaty that turned Jerusalem over to the Crusaders, along with Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim route from Acre to Jerusalem. On March 19, 1229, Frederick crowned himself by his own hand in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.This bloodless assumption of Jerusalem infuriated Pope Gregory IX who considered control of the Holy Land and the destruction of the Muslims as one and the same thing. So the Church never officially acknowledged Frederick’s accomplishments.He returned home to deal with internal challenges to his rule and over the next decade and a half, the condition of Palestine’s Christians deteriorated. Everything gained by the treaty was turned back to Muslim hegemony in the Fall of 1244.The last 2 Crusades, the 6^th and 7^th, center on the career of the last great Crusader; the king of France, Louis IX.Known as SAINT Louis, he combined the piety of a monk with the chivalry of a knight, and stands in the front rank of all-time Christian rulers. His zeal revealed itself not only in his devotion to religious ritual, but in his refusal to deviate from his faith even under the threat of torture. His piety was genuine as evidenced by his concern for the poor and the just treatment of his subjects. He washed the feet of beggars and when a monk warned him against carrying his humility too far, he replied, “If I spent twice as much time in gambling and hunting as in such services, no one would find fault with me.”The sack of Jerusalem by the Muslims in 1244 was followed by the fall of the Crusader bases in Gaza and Ashkelon. In 1245 at the Council of Lyons the Pope called for a new expedition to once again liberate the Holy Land. Though King Louis lay in a sickbed with an illness so grave his attendants put a cloth over his face, thinking he was dead, he rallied and took up the Crusader cross.Three years later he and his French brother-princes set out with 32,000 troops. A Venetian and Genoese fleet carried them to Cyprus, where large-scale preparations had been made for their supply. They then sailed to Egypt. Damietta once again fell, but after this promising start, the campaign turned into a disaster.Louis’ piety and benevolence was not backed up by what we might call solid skills as a leader. He was ready to share suffering with his troops but didn’t possess the ability to organize them. Heeding the counsel of several of his commanders, he decided to attack Cairo instead of Alexandria, the far more strategic goal. The campaign was a disaster with the Nile being chocked with bodies of slain Crusaders. On their retreat, the King and Count of Poitiers were taken prisoners. The Count of Artois was killed. The humiliation of the Crusaders had rarely been so deep.Louis’ fortitude shone brightly while suffering the misfortune of being held captive. Threatened with torture and death, he refused to renounce Christ or yield up any of the remaining Crusader outposts in Palestine. For the ransom of his troops, he agreed to pay 500,000 livres, and for his own freedom to give up Damietta and abandon the campaign in Egypt.Clad in garments given by the sultan, in a ship barely furnished, the king sailed for Acre where he stayed 3 yrs, spending large sums on fortifications at Jaffa and Sidon. When his mother, who acted as Queen-Regent in his absence, died—Louis was forced to return to France. He set sail from Acre in the spring of 1254. His queen, Margaret, and the 3 children born them in the East, returned with him.So complete a failure might have been expected to destroy all hope of ever recovering Palestine. But the hold of the crusading idea upon the mind of Europe was still strong. Popes Urban IV and Clement III made renewed appeals, and Louis once again set out. In 1267, with his hand on a crown of thorns, he announced to his assembled nobles his purpose to go a 2^nd time on a holy crusade.In the meantime, news from the East had been of continuous disaster at the hand of the “Mohammaden” enemy (as they called Muslims) and of discord among the Christians. In 1258, 40 Venetian vessels engaged in battle with a Genoese fleet of 50 ships off Acre with a loss of 1,700 souls. A year later the Templars and Hospitallers held forth in a pitched battle, not with the Muslims, but each other. Then in 1268, Acre, greatest of the Crusader ports, fell to the Muslims Mamelukes.Louis set sail in 1270 w/60,000 into disaster. Their camp was scarcely pitched on the site of ancient Carthage when plague broke out. Among the victims was the king’s son, John Tristan, born at Damietta, and King Louis himself. His body was returned to France and the French army disbanded.By 1291, what remained of the Crusader presence in the Holy Land was finally uprooted by Muslim control.Those more familiar with the history of the Crusades may wonder why I’ve neglected to mention the disastrous Children’s Crusade of 1212, inserted between the 4^th and 5^th Crusades. The reason I’ve decided to mostly skip it is because historians have come to doubt the veracity of the reports about it. It seems now more apocryphal than real, conflated from several disparate reports of groups that wandered around Southern Europe looking to hop on to another campaign to capture Jerusalem. The story goes that a French or German child of 10 years had a vision in which he was told to go to the Middle East and convert the Muslims by peaceful means. As he shared this vision and began his trek to Marseilles, other children joined his cause, along with some adults of dubious reputation. As their ranks swelled, they arrived at the French coast, expecting the seas to part and make a way for them to cross over to the Middle East on dry land. Never mind that it was a trip of hundreds of miles. Anyway, the waters failed to part, and the children, most of them anyway, ended up dispersing. Those who didn’t were rounded up by slavers who promised to transport them to the Holy Land, free of charge. Once they were aboard ship though, they were captives and were hauled to foreign ports all over the Mediterranean where they were sold off.As I said, while the Children’s Crusade has been considered a real event for many years, it’s recently come under scrutiny and doubt as ancient records were examined closely. It seems it’s more a product of cutting and pasting various stories that took place during this time. The children were in fact bands of Europe’s landless poor who had nothing better to do than wander around Southern France and Germany, waiting for the next Crusade to be called so they could go and hopefully participate in the plunder of the rich, Eastern lands.I want to offer some commentary now on the Crusades. So, warning, what follows is pure opinion.For 7 centuries Christians have tried to forget the Crusades, but critics and skeptics are determined to keep them a hot issue. While Jews and Muslims have (mostly rightly, I think) used the Crusades for generations as a point of complaint. In more recent time, New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have raised them like a crowbar and beaten Christians over the head with them. Isn’t it interesting that these God-deniers have to first assume Biblical morality to then deny it? If they were consistent with their own atheistic beliefs they’d have to find some other reason to declaim the Crusades than that it’s wrong to indiscriminately kill people. Why, according to their Darwinist evolutionary, Survival of the Fittest motif, shouldn’t they in fact applaud the Crusades? After all, they were advancing the cause of evolution by getting rid of the weaker elements of the race.But no! The New Atheists don’t use this line of reasoning because it’s abhorrent. Instead, they have to first don a belief in Christian morality to attack Christianity. Talk about being hypocritical.And let’s get our facts straight. The 20^th Century saw more people killed for political and ideological reasons than all previous centuries combined! Between the Communists, Nazis, and Fascists, well over 100 million were killed. Stalin, Hitler, and Mao Zedong were motivated by an atheistic agenda, one rooted in a social application of Darwinism.Karl Marx, the ideological father of Communistic socialism, applied Darwin’s evolutionary ideas to society and turned human beings into mere parts of a vast machine called the State. Anyone deemed a cog instead of a gear was to be removed so the machine could run as the leaders wanted. In the name of Communism, Stalin killed at least 20 million; Mao, about 70 million!Adolf Hitler was inspired by the atheist Fredrick Neizsche’s Darwinian concept of the ubermensche = the superman; humanity’s next evolutionary step. He justified the killing of 10 million saying the Final Solution was simply removing those who would hinder humanity’s evolution. He employed an entire army of science-minded killers who believed it was right and good to rid the world of “human weeds” as they called Jews, Slavs, homosexuals and the infirm.It takes a colossal ignorance of history to neglect this. Yet the New Atheists ignore the facts because they destroy their premise that atheism has the moral high ground.As calculated by historical evidence, the Crusades, Inquisition and witch trials killed about 200,000 in all over a period of 500 years. Adjusting for population growth, that would be about a million in today’s terms. That’s just 1% of the total killed by Stalin, Mao and Hitler; and they did it in a few decades!So, let’s keep the Crusades, as brutal as they were, and as utterly contrary to the nature and teaching of Christ as they were, in the proper historical perspective. No! I’m not justifying them. They were totally wrong-headed! To turn the cross into a sword and slay people with it is blasphemous and deserves the loud declamation of the Church.But let’s not forget that the Crusaders were human beings with motives not unlike our own. Those motives were mixed and often in conflict. The word crusade comes from “taking the cross,” after the example of Christ. That’s why on the way to the Holy Land the crusader wore the cross on his breast. On his journey home, he wore it on his back.But the vast majority of those who went crusading were illiterate, even most of the nobles. They weren’t taught the Bible as Evangelicals are today. People throughout Europe thought salvation rested IN THE CHURCH and was doled out by priests at the direction and discretion of the Pope. So if the Pope said Crusaders were doing God’s work, they were believed. When priests broadcast that dying in the holy cause of a Crusade meant they’d bypass purgatory and gain immediate access to heaven, thousands grabbed the nearest weapon and set off.For Urban and the popes who followed him, the Crusades were a new type of war, a Holy War. Augustine had laid down the principles of a “just war” centuries before. Those principles were . . .

A Holy War was conducted by the State;
Its purpose was the vindication of justice, meaning the defense of life and property;
And its code called for respect for noncombatants; civilians and prisoners.

While these principles were originally adopted by the Crusaders when they set out on the 1^st Campaign, they evaporated in the heat of the journey and reality of battle.The Crusades ignited horrible attacks on Jews. Even fellow Christians were not exempt from rape and plunder. Incredible atrocities befell the Muslim foe. Crusaders sawed open dead bodies in search of gold.As the Crusades progressed, the occasional voice was lifted calling into question the propriety of such movements and their ultimate value. At the end of the 12^th C, the abbot Joachim complained that the popes were making the Crusades a pretext for their own advancement.Humbert de Romanis, general of the Dominicans, in making out a list of matters to be handled at the Council of Lyons in 1274, was obliged to refute no less than 7 well-known objections to the Crusades. They included these 4 . . .

It was contrary to the precepts of the NT to advance religion by the sword;
Christians may defend themselves, but have no right to invade the lands of another;
It is wrong to shed the blood of unbelievers;
And the disasters of the Crusades proved they were contrary to the will of God.

Christians in Europe during the 14^th and 15^th Cs were to face far more pressing problems than a conquest of the Holy Land. So while there was still an occasional call for one, it fell on deaf ears.Erasmus, writing at the close of the Middle Ages, made an appeal for the preaching of the Gospel as a way to deal with Muslims. He said the proper way to defeat the Turks was by conversion, not annihilation. He said, “Truly, it is not meet to declare ourselves Christian men by killing very many but by saving very many, not if we send thousands of heathen people to hell, but if we make many infidels Christian; not if we cruelly curse and excommunicate, but if we with devout prayers and with our hearts desire their health, and pray unto God, to send them better minds.”The long-range results of 2 centuries of crusading were not impressive. If the main purpose of the Crusades was to win the Holy Land, to check the advance of Islam, and heal the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, they failed spectacularly.For a time, the 4 Crusader kingdoms held a beach-head on the Mediterranean coast of the Holy Land. In them, three semi-monastic military orders formed: the Templars, whose first headquarters were on the site of the old Temple of Jerusalem; the Hospitallers, also known as the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, originally founded to care for the sick and wounded; and the Germanic Teutonic Knights. These orders combined monasticism and militarism and had as their aims the protection of pilgrims and perpetual war against Muslims. They fielded 500 armed knights. Their great castles guarded the roads and passes against attack. For 2 centuries the Templars in their white robes decorated with a red cross, the Hospitallers in black robes emblazoned with the white Maltese cross, and the Teutonic Knights in white robes with a black cross were common sights in Crusader States and across Europe.While the Crusades seem to us today a terrible betrayal of Biblical Christianity, we must bring the historian’s mindset to them and consider them against the times in which they occurred. This doesn’t excuse them, but it does make them a bit more understandable.European society of the Middle Ages was ir-redeemably warlike. In feudal Europe, the whole economic and social system depended on the maintenance of a military; the knights, permanent professional soldiers; by necessity due to the cost involved, noblemen whose only profession was fighting. The city-states of Italy were frequently at war. In Spain, a line was drawn across the map for centuries by the presence of the Muslim Moors. So even if Christians had wanted to create a peaceful society, it would have been socially and practically difficult to do.One way of dealing with this was to idealize warfare. That is, casting war as a contest between good and evil. In the development of the idea of the Christian knight, there was an attempt to give the spiritual battle a corresponding literal application. The knight was a ‘soldier of Christ’, a warrior for good. At a time when priests and monks were deemed the only ones able to make contact with God, the Crusades were a way for laypeople to enter the spiritual realm and rack up some serious points with God. Priests fought the good fight by prayer; now laymen could fight as well, with a sword, mace, or if that’s all they could afford, a pitchfork, until they got to the battlefield where hopefully they’d find a more suitable weapon.So it was important for medieval Christians to convince themselves the war they were fighting was justified. A sophisticated system of identifying a ‘just’ war developed. Augustine had said a good deal about this, explaining that someone whose property or land was stolen is entitled to get it back, but that this was different from warfare designed to enlarge one’s territory. The underlying principle was that reasonable force could be used to maintain order.The late 11^th C saw the arrival of a new thought; not Augustine’s “Just War,” but the concept of “Holy War”, one God called His people to fight to restore Christian control to the Holy Land. This was war which could not only be regarded as ‘justified’, and the sins committed in the course of it forgiven, but meritorious. God would reward those who fought it. Guibert of Nogent, in his book The Acts of God through the Franks, explained how to identify a Holy War. It wasn’t motivated by the desire for fame, money or conquest. Its motive was the safeguarding of liberty, the defense of the State and the protection of the Church. He considered this kind of warfare a valid alternative to being a monk.This idea was so engaging to the Medieval mind that as the 12^th C wound on it had to be discouraged as it seemed everyone began seeing knighthood and combat as spiritual warfare. Bullies have always been able to villainize those they want to victimize. They justified their brutality by calling it a divine mission. So priests and theologians emphasized not all fighting came under the same umbrella. Crusading was special.Of course, one of the major tenets of Muslim theology is jihad, Holy War to spread the faith. Despite loud protests by some today, the fact remains that the Islam Mohammad taught, which of course is true Islam, endorses jihad. How else did it spread from its desert base in Arabia across the Middle East, North Africa, and into Europe in such a short time if not by the power of the scimitar?I find it interesting that modern Muslims decry the Crusades when it was their own bloody campaigns that took the lands the Crusaders sought to what? RECLAIM! How could they RECLAIM something what wasn’t CLAIMED and conquered by the Muslims previously? I say it again: This in no way justifies the Crusades. They’re an indefensible period of Church history that stands as a dark stain. But let’s be clear; if they’re a stain on Church history, the conquests by the Muslims that predate the Crusades are just as dark.

56-The Crusades Part 3

This episode of CS is part 3 of our series on The Crusades.A major result of the First Crusade was a further alienation of the Eastern and Western Churches. The help provided Byzantium by the crusaders were not what The Eastern Emperor Alexius was hoping for.It also resulted in an even greater alienation of the Muslims than had been in place before. 200 years of crusading rampages across the Eastern Mediterranean permanently poisoned Muslim-Christian relations and ended the spirit of moderate tolerance for Christians living under Muslim rule across a wide swath of territory. The only people who welcomed the Crusaders were a handful of Christian minorities who’d suffered under Byzantine and Muslim rule; the Armenians and Maronites living in Lebanon. The Copts in Egypt saw the Crusades as a calamity. They were now suspected by Muslims of holding Western sympathies while being treated as schismatics by the Western Church. Once the Crusaders took Jerusalem, they banned Copts from making pilgrimage there.Things really went sour between East and West when the Roman church installed Latin patriarchates in historically Eastern centers at Antioch and Jerusalem. Then, during the 4^th Crusade, a Latin patriarch was appointed to the church in Constantinople itself.To give you an idea of what this would have felt like to the Christian of Constantinople; imagine how Southern Baptists would feel if a Mormon bishop was installed as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. You get the picture = No Bueno.Another long-lasting effect of the Crusades was that they weakened the Byzantine Empire and hastened its fall to the Ottoman Turks a couple centuries later. Arab governments were also destabilized leaving them susceptible to invasion by Turks and Mongols.A significant new development in monastic history was made at this time in the rise of the knightly monastic orders. The first of these was the Knights Templar, founded in 1118 under Hugh de Payens. King Baldwin gave the Templars their name, and from them the idea of fighting for the Temple passed to other orders. Bernard of Clairvaux, although not the author of the Templar rule, as legend has it, did write an influential piece called In Praise of the New Militia of Christ which lauded the new orders of knights.The Templars were imitated by the Hospitallers, who had an earlier origin as a charitable order. They’d organized in 1050 by merchants from Amalfi living in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims. They provided hospitality and care of the sick, and helped morph the word “hospitality” into “hospital.” Under Gerard in 1120, the Hospitallers gained papal sanction. Gerard’s successor was Raymond de Provence who reorganized the Hospitallers as a military order on the pattern of the Knights Templar. The Hospitallers, also known as the Knights of St. John eventually moved to the islands of Rhodes, then Malta, where they held out in 1565 in a protracted siege against the Turks in one of history’s most significant battles.Another important military order, the Teutonic Knights arose in 1199, during the 3^rd Crusade.The knightly monastic orders had certain features in common. They viewed warfare as a devotional way of life. The old monastic idea of fighting demons, as seen in the ancient Egyptian desert hermits, evolved into actual combat with people cast as agents of evil. Spiritual warfare became actual battle. Knights and their attendants took the vows similar to other monks. They professed poverty, chastity, and obedience, along with a pledge to defend others by force of arms. While personal poverty was vowed, using violence to secure wealth was deemed proper so it could be used to benefit others, including the order itself. The Templars became an object of envy for their immense wealth.In studying the relations between Christianity and Islam during the Middle Ages, we should remember there were many peaceful interchanges. Some Christians advocated peaceful missions to Muslims. These peaceful encounters can be seen in the exchange of art. Christians highly valued Muslim metalwork and textiles. Church vestments were often made by Muslim weavers. Such a vestment is located today at Canterbury. It contains Arabic script saying, “Great is Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”On the positive side, if there was anything positive to be gleaned from the Crusades, it did promote a greater sense of unity in Western Europe. Remember that one of the reasons Pope Urban sparked the Crusade was to vent the violent habits of the European nobles who were constantly at each other’s throats. Instead of warring with each other back and forth across Europe, watering its fields with blood, they united to go against infidels “way over there.”The Crusades also led to increased prestige for the papacy as they were able to mobilize huge numbers of people. The Crusades also stimulated an intellectual revival in Europe as Crusaders returned with new experiences and knowledge from another part of the world.After the 1^st Crusade, over the next 60 years, Jerusalem saw a succession of weak rulers while the Muslims from Damascus to Egypt united under a new dynasty of competent and charismatic leaders. The last of these was Saladin, or, more properly, Salah ad-Din. Founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Islam, he became caliph in 1174 and set out to retake Jerusalem.The king of Jerusalem at the time was (and warning: I’m going to butcher this poor guy’s name) Guy de Lusignan. Let’s just call him “Guy.” He led the Crusaders out to a hill on the West of the Sea of Galilee called the Horns of Hattin. Both the Templars and Hospitallers were there in force, and the much vaunted “true cross” was carried by the bishop of Acre, who himself was clad in armor. On July 5, 1187, the decisive battle was fought. The Crusaders were completely routed. 30,000 perished. King Guy, the leaders of the Templars and Hospitallers along with a few other nobles were taken prisoner. Saladin gave them clemency. The fate of the Holy Land was decided.On Oct. 2, 1187, Saladin entered Jerusalem after it made brave resistance. The generous conditions of surrender were mostly creditable to the chivalry of the Muslim commander. There were no scenes of savage butchery as followed the entry of the Crusaders 90 years before. The people of Jerusalem were given their liberty if they paid a ransom. Europeans and anyone else who wanted to, were allowed to leave. For 40 days the procession of the departing continued. Relics stored in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were redeemed for the sum of 50,000 bezants. Named after Byzantium where they were the medium of exchange, the bezant was a gold coin of 5 grams.Thus ended the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Since then the worship of Islam has continued on Mount Moriah without interruption. The other European conquests of the 1^st Crusade were then in danger from the unending feuds of the Crusaders themselves, and, in spite of the constant flow of recruits and treasure from Europe, they fell easily before Saladin.He allowed a merely ceremonial Latin ruler to hold the title King of Jerusalem but the last real king was Guy, who was released, then travelled around claiming the title of king but without a court or capital. He eventually settled in Cyprus.We’ll go into less detail for the rest of the Crusades as we finish them off over the next episode .The 2^nd Crusade was sparked by 2 events; the Fall of the Crusader state of Edessa in Syria and the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux. And note that the 2^nd Crusade took place BEFORE the arrival of Saladin on the scene.Edessa fell to the Turks in Dec., 1144. They built a fire in a large breach they’d made in the city wall. The fire was so hot it cracked a section of the wall a hundred yards long. When the wall collapsed, the Turks rushed in and unleashed the same kind of brutality the Crusaders had when they conquered Jerusalem.Pope Eugenius III saw the Turk victory at Edessa as a threat to the continuance of the Crusaders in Palestine and called upon the king of France to march to their relief. The forgiveness of all sins and immediate entrance into heaven were promised to all embarking on a new Crusade. Eugenius summoned Bernard of Clairvaux to leave his abbey and preach the crusade. Bernard was the most famous person of his time and this call by the Pope came at the zenith of his fame. He regarded the Pope’s summons as a call from God.On Easter in 1146, King Louis of France vowed to lead the Crusade. The Pope’s promise of the remission of sins was dear to him as he was stricken with guilt for having burned a church with 1300 inside. How grand to be able to gain forgiveness by killing more! He assembled a council at Vézelai at which Bernard made such an overpowering impression by his message that all present pressed forward to take up the crusading cause. Bernard was obliged to cut his own robe into small fragments, to give away to all who wanted something of his they could carry to the East. He wrote to Pope Eugenius that the enthusiasm was so great “castles and towns were emptied of their inmates. One man could hardly be found for 7 women, and the women were being everywhere widowed while their husbands were still alive.” Meaning most of the men set off on the Crusade, leaving the population of France with 7 women to every man. Hey – lucky them!From France, Bernard went to Basel, in modern day Switzerland, then up thru the cities along the Rhine as far as Cologne. As in the 1^st Crusade, persecution broke out against the Jews in this area when a monk named Radulph questioned why they needed to go to the Middle East to get rid of God-haters and Christ-killers. There were plenty of them in Europe. Bernard objected vehemently to this. He called for the Church to attempt to win the Jews by discussion and respect, not killing them.Bernard was THE celebrity of the day and thousands flocked to hear him. Several notable miracles and healings were attributed to him. The German Emperor Konrad III was deeply moved by his preaching and convinced to throw his weight to the Crusade.Konrad raised an army of 70,000; a tenth of whom were knights. They assembled at Regensburg and proceeded thru Hungary to the Bosporus. All along their route they were less than welcome. Konrad and the Eastern Emperor Manuel where brothers-in-law, but that didn’t keep Manuel from doing his best to wipe out the German force. The guides he provided led the Germans into ambushes and traps then abandoned them in the mountains. When they finally arrived at Nicea, famine, fever and attacks had reduced the force to a tenth is original size.King Louis set out in the Spring of 1147 and followed the same route Konrad had taken. His queen, Eleanor, famed for her beauty and skill as a leader, along with many other ladies of the French court, accompanied the army. The French met up with what was left of Konrad’s force at Nicea.The forces then split up into different groups which all reached Acre in 1148. They met King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and pledged to unite their forces in an attempt to conquer Damascus before retaking Edessa. The siege of Damascus was a total failure. The European nobles fell to such in-fighting that their camp fragmented into warring groups. Konrad left for Germany in the Fall of 1148 and Louis returned to France a few months later.Bernard was humiliated by the failure of the Crusade. He assigned it to the judgment of God for the sins of the Crusaders and Christian world.A little more about King Louis’s wife Eleanor. Eleanor of Aquitaine was really something. In a world dominated by men, Eleanor’s career was something special. She was one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Europe during the Middle Ages.Eleanor succeeded her father as the ruler of Aquitaine and Poitiers at the age of 15. She was then the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after her accession, she married King Louis VII. As Queen of France, she went on the 2^nd Crusade. Then, with it’s defeat and back in France, she got an annulment from Louis on the basis that they were relatives, then married Henry Plantaget, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, who soon became King Henry II of England in 1154. This despite the fact that Henry was an even closer relative than Louis had been and 9 years younger than she. They were married just 8 weeks after her annulment. Over the next 13 years Eleanor bore Henry 8 children: 5 sons, 3 of whom would become king, and 3 daughters. However, Henry and Eleanor eventually became estranged. She was imprisoned between 1173 and 1189 for supporting her son’s revolt against her husband.Eleanor was widowed in July 1189. Her husband was succeeded by their son, Richard I, known as the Lion-hearted. As soon as he ascended the thrown, Richard had his mother released from prison. Now the queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent while Richard went on the 3^rd Crusade. She survived Richard and lived well into the reign of her youngest son John, known as the worst king in England’s long history. It’s this King John who’s cast as the chief villain in the story of Robin Hood.The 3^rd Crusade is referred to as the Kings' Crusade due to the European monarchs who participated in it. It was an attempt to reconquer the Holy Land from the Muslims who, under Saladin, had reclaimed the lands the Crusaders took in the 1^st Crusade. The 3^rd was for the most part successful but fell short of its ultimate goal, the re-conquest of Jerusalem.When Saladin captured Jerusalem in 1187, the news rocked Europe. The story goes that Pope Urban III was so traumatized, he died of shock. Henry II of England and Philip II of France ended their dispute with each other to lead a new crusade. When Henry died 2 years later, Richard the Lionheart stepped in to lead the English. The elderly Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa also responded to the call to arms, and led a massive army across Turkey. Barbarossa drowned while crossing a river in June, 1190 before reaching the Holy Land. His death caused great grief among the German Crusaders. Most were so discouraged they returned home.After driving the Muslims from the port of Acre, Frederick's successor Leopold V of Austria and King Philip of France left the Holy Land in August 1191, leaving Richard to carry on by himself. Saladin failed to defeat Richard in any military engagements, and Richard secured several key coastal cities. But the English King realized a conquest of Jerusalem wasn’t possible to his now weakened force and in September of 1192, made a treaty with Saladin by which Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, but allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims and merchants to visit the city. Richard departed the Holy Land a month later.The successes of the 3^rd Crusade allowed the Crusaders to maintain a considerable kingdom based in Cyprus and along the Syrian coast. Its failure to recapture Jerusalem led to the call for a 4^th Crusade 6 years later.The 3^rd Crusade was yet another evidence of the European’s inability to form an effective union against the Muslims. The leaders and nobility of Europe made great promises of unity when they embarked on a Crusade, but the rigors of the journey, along with the imminent prospect of victory saw them more often than not falling out with each other in incessant and petty squabbles.On Richard’s journey back to England he was seized by the afore mentioned Leopold, duke of Austria, whose enmity he’d incurred in the battle for the city of Joppa. The duke turned his captive over to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI who also had a grudge to settle. The Lionheart was released on the humiliating terms of paying an enormous ransom and consenting to hold his kingdom as a fiefdom of the Empire. It’s this hostage taking of Richard the Lionhearted that forms the backdrop for the tale of Robin Hood.Saladin died in March, 1193, by far the most famous of the foes of the Crusaders. Christendom has joined with Arab writers in praise of his courage, culture, and the magnanimous manner in which he treated his foes.Historians debate how many Crusades there were. It wasn’t as though Kings Henry and Philip said, “Hey, let’s make nice and launch the 3^rd Crusade.” They didn’t number them as historians have since. History tends to ascribe 9 as the number of Crusades, but then add 2 more by assigning them with names instead of numbers; the Albigenian and the Children’s Crusades, which took place between the 4^th and 5^th Crusades.Generally, the 5^th thru 9^th Crusades are considered lesser armed movements while the first 4 are called the Great Crusades.We’ll finish with a quick review of the 4^th Crusade.Innocent III became Pope in 1198. He called for the 4^th Crusade which was the final blow that forever sundered the Western and Eastern churches, though that was certainly never his aim. In fact, he warned the Crusaders against it.Pope Innocent’s plan was simply to destroy a Muslim military base in Egypt. The merchants of Venice had promised to supply the Crusaders with ships at a huge discount; one the Crusaders couldn’t pass up. So in the summer of 1202, they arrived in Venice expecting to sail to Egypt. But there was a problem: Only a third of the expected number of warriors showed. And they came up with a little more than half the required sailing fee.A prince from the East offered to finance the balance under one condition: That the Crusaders sail first to Constantinople, dethrone the current Emperor and hand it over to him. They could then sail on their merry way to Egypt. Pope Innocent forbade this diversion, but no one paid him any attention.On July 5^th, 1203, the Crusaders arrived in the Eastern capital. The people of Constantinople were by now fed up with Europeans meddling in their affairs and formed a counter revolution that swept the current emperor off the throne, but only so they could install their own fiercely anti-Crusader ruler. Being now shut out of his hopes, the would-be emperor who’d paid the Crusaders way to Constantinople refused to pay their way to Egypt, leaving them stranded in increasingly hostile territory.They were furious. Their leaders decided to try and make the best of it and called for a quick plundering of Constantinople. One of the Crusade chaplains proclaimed; in complete disregard for the Pope’s wishes, “If you rightly intend to conquer this land and bring it under Roman obedience, all who die will partake of the pope's indulgence.” That was like letting a rabid dog off its chain. For many of the Crusaders, this was not only an excuse to get rich by taking loot, it meant a license to do whatever they pleased in Constantinople.On Good Friday, 1204, the Crusaders, with red crosses on their tunics, sacked Constantinople. For 3 days, they raped and killed fellow Christians. The city's statues were hacked to pieces and melted down. The Hagia Sophia was stripped of its golden vessels. A harlot performed sensual dances on the Lord's Table, singing vile drinking songs. One Eastern writer lamented, “Muslims are merciful compared with these men who bear Christ's cross on their shoulders.”Neither the Eastern Empire nor Church ever recovered from those 3 days. For the next 60 years Crusaders from the Roman church ruled what was once the Eastern Empire. The Eastern emperor established a court in exile at Nicaea. Rather than embrace Roman customs, many Eastern Christians fled there. There they remained until 1261, when an Eastern ruler retook Constantinople.

55-The Crusades Part 2

Episode 55 – The Crusades, Part 2As Bruce Shelly aptly states in in his excellent book Church History in Plain Language, for the past 700 years Christians have tried to forget the Crusades, though neither Jews nor Muslims will let them. Modern Christians want to dismiss that era of Church History as the insane bigotry of the illiterate and superstitious. But to do so is to show our own kind of bigotry, one neglectful of the historical context of the European Middle Ages.The Crusaders were human beings, who like us, had mixed motives often in conflict. The word crusade means to “take up the cross,” hopefully after the example of Christ. That’s why on the way to the Holy Land crusaders wore the cross on their chest. On their return home they wore it on their back.^[1]In rallying the European nobility to join the First Crusade, Pope Urban II promised them forgiveness of past sins. Most of them held a deep reverence for the land Jesus had walked. That devotion was captured later by Shakespeare when he has King Henry IV say:We are impressed and engag’d to fight … To chase those pagans in those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d, For our advantage on the bitter cross.For Urban and later popes, the Crusades were a Holy War. Augustine, whose theology shaped the Medieval Church, laid down the principles of a “just war.” He said that it must be conducted by the State; its broad purpose was to uphold an endangered justice, which meant more narrowly that it must be defensive to protect life and property. In conducting such a just war there must be respect for noncombatants, hostages, and prisoners. And while all this may have been in the mind of Pope Urban and other church leaders when they called the First Crusade, those ideals didn’t make it past the boundary of Europe. Once the Crusaders arrived in the East, the difficulties of their passage conspired to justify in their minds the wholesale pillaging of the innocent. Even those who’d originally taken up the Crusader cross with noble intent, didn’t want to be left out of acquiring treasure once the looting began. After all, everyone else is doing it?As we return to our narrative of the First Crusade, let’s recap …What triggered the Crusade was a request for assistance from Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Alexios worried about the advances of the Muslim Seljuk Turks, who’d reached as far west as Nicaea, a suburb of Constantinople. In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks. Urban’s reply was positive. It’s likely he hoped to heal the Great Schism of 40 yrs before that had sundered Western and Eastern churches.In the Summer of 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit for the campaign. His journey ended at the Council of Clermont in November, where he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy, detailing the atrocities committed against pilgrims and Christians living in the East by the Muslims.Malcolm Gladwell wrote a bestseller in 2000 called The Tipping Point. The Pope’s speech was one of those, an epic tipping point that sent history in a new direction. Urban understood what he proposed as an act so expensive, long, and arduous that it amounted to a form of penance capable of discharging all sins for those who went crusading. And he understood how his audience’s minds worked. Coming from a noble house himself and having worked his way up through the ranks of the monastery and Church, he understood the puzzle that lay at the heart of popular religious sentiment. People were keenly aware of their sinfulness and sought to expunge it by embarking on a pilgrimage, or if that wasn’t possible, to endow a monk or nun so they could live a life of sequestered holiness on their behalf. But their unavoidable immersion in the world meant it was impossible to perform all of the time-consuming penances which could keep pace with their ever-increasing catalog of sin. Urban saw that he could cut the Gordian knot by prescribing a Crusade. Here at last was a way for men given to violence, one of the most grievous of their misdeeds, to USE it as an act of penance. Overnight, those who were the most in need of penance became the very ones most likely to be the cause of the Crusade’s success.While there are different versions of Urban’s sermon, they all name the same basic elements. The Pope talked about the need to end the violence the European knights continued among themselves, the need to help the Eastern Christians in their contest with Islam, and making the pathways of pilgrims to Jerusalem safe again. He proposed to do this by waging a new kind of war, an armed pilgrimage that would lead to great spiritual and earthly rewards, in which sins would be remitted and anyone who died in the contest would bypass purgatory and enter immediately into heaven’s bliss.The Pope’s speech at Clermont didn’t specifically mention liberating Jerusalem; the goal at first was just to help Constantinople and clear the roads to Jerusalem. But Urban's later message as he travelled thru Europe raising support for the Crusade, did include the idea of liberating the Holy City.While Urban's speech seemed impromptu, it was in fact well-planned. He’d discussed launching a crusade with two of southern France's most important leaders who gave enthusiastic support. One of them was at Clermont, the first to take up the cause. During what was left of 1095 and into 96, Pope Urban spread the message throughout France and urged the clergy to preach in their own regions and churches throughout Europe.Despite this planning, the response to call for the Crusade was a surprise. Instead of urging people to JOIN the campaign, bishops had to dissuade certain people from joining. Women, monks, and the infirm were forbidden, though many protested their exclusion. Some did more than protest; the defied officials and made plans to go anyway. When Pope Urban originally conceived the crusade, he envisioned the knights and nobility leading out trained armies. It was a surprise when thousands of peasants took up the cause.What was the bishop to say to these peasants when they indicated their intent to go? “You can’t. You have to stay and tend your fields and herds.” When the peasants asked why, the bishops had no good answer, so they formed companies and set off. The clergy was forced to give grudging permission. They gathered local groups of peasants and had them take a vow of devotion to the Holy Cause, setting as their destination, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.Alongside the enthusiasm of the peasants, Urban courted the nobility of Europe, especially in France, to lead the Crusade. Knights from both northern and southern France, Flanders, Germany, and Italy were divided into four armies. Sadly, they often saw themselves in competition with each other rather than united in a common cause. They vied for prominence in bringing glory to God; oh, and of course, the loot that went along with it.While it was the scion of the noble houses that led a few of the armies, the bulk of the knights were lesser sons of the nobility whose only route to wealth lay in conquest. The eldest brother was set to inherit the family name and estate. So hundreds of these younger sons saw the Crusades as a way to make a name for themselves and carve out their own domain in newly acquired lands. If they didn’t return to Europe laden with treasure, they hoped to settle down on land they’d won with the sword.One of the many sad results of the spin-up for the First Crusade was the persecution of Jews in Northern France and the Rhineland. Anti-Semitism bubbled beneath the surface of this region for generations. It spilled over now as peasants and commoners mobilized to remove the infidels form the Holy Land. Some began to question why a trip to the Middle East was needed when there were Christ-haters living right at hand. So Jews were attacked, their homes burned, businesses sacked.As we saw in our last episode, the peasants formed into bands and rampaged their way across Europe to Constantinople. They lacked the discipline and supplies of the knights so they foraged their way East like Sherman on his march to the Sea during the American Civil war. Though we don’t know the numbers, thousands of these peasant crusaders were killed along the way as armed defenders came out to oppose their trek across their lands.When they finally arrived in Constantinople, they were hurriedly escorted across the Bosporus in August of 1096. At that point they split into two groups. One tried to recapture Nicaea but failed when the Turks surrounded and wiped them out. The other group was ambushed and massacred in October.This phase of the First Crusade is called The People’s Crusade because it was made up of btwn 20 and 30,000 commoners. Its leadership include some minor nobles but its most visible leader was the odd Peter the Hermit.Peter’s leadership of The People’s Crusade was due to his fiery recruitment sermons. He wasn’t so skilled in the tactical management of 30,000 would-be warriors. Once they arrived in Constantinople, his lack of administrative skill became obvious and the handful of knights who’d joined up realized they need to take control. But they refused to submit to one another and fragmented into different groups based on nationality. This lack of leadership proved fatal. They lost control of their so-called army which set to looting the homes and towns of Eastern Christians. The German contingent managed to seize a Seljuk city and the French began agitating for their leaders to do likewise. A couple Turkish spies spread a rumor in the French camp that the Germans were marching on Nicaea. So the French rushed out to beat them to it. While passing thru a narrow valley, they were wiped out by waiting Seljuk forces.A remnant made it back to Constantinople where they joined up with the knights who were just then, at the end of the Summer, arriving from Europe. This force formed into contingents grouped around the great lords. This was the kind of military force Pope Urban II and the Emperor Alexius had envisioned.The Crusaders realized they had to conquer and occupy Antioch in Syria first or a victory over Jerusalem would be short-lived. They took the city, but then barely survived a siege laid in by the Turks. Breaking the siege in the Spring of 1099, the leaders of the Crusade ended their quarrels and marched South. Their route took them along the coast to Caesarea, where they headed inland toward their goal. They arrived in the vicinity of Jerusalem in early June.By that time the army was reduced to 20,000. The effect of seeing the Holy City for the first time was electrifying. These men had fought and slogged their way across thousands of miles, leaving their homes and cultures to encounter new sights, sounds and tastes. And every step of the way, their goal was Jerusalem—the place where Jesus had lived and died. Accounts of that moment say the warriors fell on their knees and kissed the sacred earth. They removed their armor and in bare feet w/tears, cried out to God in confession and praise.A desperate but futile attack was made on the City five days later. Boiling pitch and oil were used by Jerusalem’s defenders, with showers of stones and anything else they could get their hands on that would do damage. Then the Crusaders set a siege that took the usual course. Ladders, scaling towers, and other siege-engines were built. The problem is, they had to travel miles to get wood. The trees around Jerusalem had all been cut down by the Roman General Titus twelve centuries before. They’d never grown back.The City was surrounded on 3 sides by Raymund of Toulouse, Godfrey, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. It was a hot Summer and the suffering of the besiegers was intense as water was scarce. Soon, the valleys and hills around the city walls were covered w/dead horses, whose rotting carcasses made life in camp unbearable.Someone got the brilliant idea to duplicate Joshua’s battle plan at Jericho. So the Crusaders took off their shoes and with priests leading, began marching around Jerusalem, hoping the walls would fall down. Of course, they didn’t. I wonder what they did with the guy who came up with the idea. Help at last came with the arrival of a fleet at Joppa harbor from Genoa carrying workmen and supplies who went to work building new siege gear.The day of the final assault finally arrived. A huge tower topped by a golden cross was dragged up to the walls and a massive plank bridge was dropped so the Crusaders could rush from tower to the top of the wall. The weakened defenders couldn’t stop the mass of warriors who flooded into their City.The carnage that followed is one more chapter in the many such scenes Jerusalem has known.Once they’d secured the City, the blood-splattered Crusaders paused to throw God a bone. Led by Godfrey, freshly changed into a suit of white linen, the Crusaders went to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and offered prayers and thanksgiving. Then, devotions over, the massacre recommenced. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of children, did anything to halt to terror. The leaders tried to restrain their troops but they’d been let off the chain and were determined to let as much blood out of bodies as possible.When it was finally over, Muslim prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence.Remember Peter the Hermit, who’d lead the peasant army to disaster? He made it to Jerusalem before returning to Europe where he founded a monastery and died in 1115.Pope Urban II also died just 2 weeks after the fall of Jerusalem, before the news reached him.Looking back, it’s clear the First Crusade came at probably the only time it could have been successful. The Seljuk Turks had broken up into rival factions in 1092. The Crusaders entered into the region like a knife before a new era of Muslim union and conquest opened. That’s what those newly arrived Crusaders would now have to face.Just eight days after capturing Jerusalem, a permanent government was set-up. It was called “The Kingdom of Jerusalem.” Godfrey was elected king, but declined the title of royalty, unwilling to wear a crown of gold where the Savior had worn a crown of thorns. He adopted the title Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.From the moment of its birth, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was in trouble. Less than a year later they made an appeal to the Germans for reinforcements. And Godfrey survived the capture of Jerusalem by only a year. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where his sword and spurs are still on display. On his tomb is the inscription: “Here lies Godfrey of Bouillon, who conquered all this territory for the Christian religion. May his soul be at rest with Christ.”Rome immediately moved to make The Kingdom of Jerusalem part of it’s region of hegemony. The archbishop of Pisa, Dagobert, who’d been a part of the Crusade, was elected to be Jerusalem’s Patriarch.The new rulers turned from conquest to defense and governing. They tried to layer the feudal system of Europe onto Middle Eastern society. The conquered territory was distributed among Crusader barons, who held their possessions under the king of Jerusalem as overlord. The four chief fiefs were Jaffa, Galilee, Sidon, and east of the Jordan River, a region called Kerat. The counts of Tripoli and Edessa and the prince of Antioch were independent of Jerusalem but were closely allied due to the nearby Muslim menace.The Crusader occupation of Israel was far from peaceful. The kingdom was torn by constant intrigues of civil rulers and religious clerics. All that while it faced unending threats from without. But it was the inner strife that was the main cause of weakness. Monks settled in swarms all over the country. The Franciscans became guardians of the holy places. The offspring of the Crusaders by Moslem women, called pullani, became a blight as they were given over to unrelenting greed and the most grotesque immorality.When Godfrey died, he was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, count of Edessa. Baldwin was intelligent and the most active king of Jerusalem. He died after eight years; his body laid next to his brother’s.During Baldwin’s reign, the kingdom grew significantly. Caesarea fell to the Crusaders in 1101, then Ptolemais in 1104. Beirut in 1110. But Damascus never fell to the Crusaders. With the progress of their arms, they built castles all over their holdings in the Middle East. The ruins of those fortifications stand today and are premier tourist sites.Many of the Crusaders, who began the adventure planning to return to Europe, decided rather to stay once the work of conquest was finished. One wrote, “We who were Westerners, are now Easterners. We have forgotten our native land.” Other Crusaders did return to Europe, only to return later. Even several European kings spent long stays in the Holy Land.During Baldwin’s reign most of the leaders of the First Crusade either died or went home. But their ranks were continually replenished by fresh expeditions from Europe. Pope Pascal II, successor to Urban II, sent out a call for recruits. The Italian cities furnished fleets, and coordinated with land forces. The Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese established quarters of their own in Jerusalem, Acre, and other cities. Thousands took up the Crusader cause in Lombardy, France, and Germany. They were led by Anselm, archbishop of Milan, Stephen, duke of Burgundy, William, duke of Aquitaine, Ida of Austria, and others. Hugh who’d gone home, returned. Bohemund also came back with 34,000. Two Crusader armies attacked the Islamic stronghold at Bagdad.Baldwin’s nephew, also named Baldwin, succeeded his uncle and reigned for 13 years, till 1131. He conquered the strategic city of Tyre on the coast. It was 1124 and that marked the high-water point of Crusader power.Over the next 60 yrs, Jerusalem saw a succession of weak rulers while the Muslims from Damascus to Egypt were uniting under a new band of competent and charismatic leaders. The last of these was Saladin. He became caliph in 1174 and set out to retake Jerusalem.But that’s for our next episode . . .^[1] Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd ed.) (187–188). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.

54-The Crusades – Part 1

Episode 54 – The Crusades – Part 1In the first episode of Communio Sanctorum, we took a look at the various ways history has been studied over time. In the Ancient world, history was more often than not, propaganda. The old adage that “History is written by the winners” was certainly true for the ancients. With the implementation of the Scientific Method in the Modern Era, the researching and recording of history became more unbiased and accurate. It was far from a pure report, but it could no longer be considered blatant propaganda. The Post-Modern Era has seen a return to bias; this time an almost knee-jerk suspicion of ALL previous attempts at recording history. Even attempts of Modernity to document history are suspect and assumed guilty of recording little more than the bias of the authors, though their works were footnoted and peer-reviewed. Post-modern critics adopt a presupposition all recorded history is fabrication, especially if there’s anything heroic or virtuous. If it’s a dark tale of hopelessness and tragedy, well, then, maybe it can be accepted. It’s almost as though Post-moderns want to make up for the ancient historians’ penchant for propaganda. Post-Moderns cast history as “neg-paganda” if I can coin a word.Let’s attempt a shedding of our bias, even though we can’t fully do that, as we look at the Crusades. Instead of layering onto the Christians of Europe in the 11^th and 12^th Cs the sensibilities of people who live a thousand years later, let’s attempt to understand the reasoning behind the idea of taking up a pitchfork or sword and making a life-altering trip over hundreds of miles, through strange lands, to risk one’s life for è What? Oh yeah, to rid the Holy Land of pagan infidels.Wait; Mr. Crusader-person; have you ever been to the Holy Land? Do you own land there that’s been stolen? Do you have relatives or friends there you need to protect? Have you ever met one of these infidels? Do you know what they believe or why they invaded?No? Then why are you so amped about marching half-way around the world to liberate a land you’ve not been all that interested in before from a people you know nothing about?See? There must have been some powerful forces at work in the minds and hearts of the people of Europe that they’d go in such large numbers on a Crusade. We may find their reasons for crusading to be horribly ill-conceived, but they were totally sold out to them.The Crusades reflected a new dynamism in the Christianity of Medieval Europe. People were driven by religious fervor, a yearning for adventure, and of course if some personal wealth could be thrown in, all the better. For 200 years, Crusaders tried to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. It seems all the colorful figures of this era were caught up in the cause, from Peter the Hermit in the 1^stCrusade, to the godly Louis IX, King of France, who inspired the 6^th and 7^th.Many Europeans of the medieval period viewed a pilgrimage as a form of especially poignant penance. These pilgrimages were usually trips to a local holy place or shrine erected to commemorate a miracle or to cathedrals where the relics of some saint were kept in a reliquary. But there was one pilgrimage that was thought to gain a special dose of grace – a trip to the Holy City of Jerusalem. The merchants of Jerusalem did a good business in keeping the constant flood of Christian pilgrims supplied with food, lodging and of course sacred mementos. Some pilgrims went by themselves; others in a group—ancient versions of the modern day Holy Land Tour. When pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem they’d make the rounds of all the traditional points of interest. They walked the Via Dolorosa to Calvary then sat for hours praying. When these pilgrims returned home, they were esteemed by their community as real saints; towering figures of spirituality.For centuries, peaceful pilgrims traveled from Europe to Palestine. The arrival of Islam in the Middle East in the 7^th C didn’t interfere. By the 10^th C European bishops organized mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The largest we know of set out from Germany in 1065, with some 7,000 ! That’s a lot of buses.To impede a pilgrim's journey was considered by the medieval Church as a serious breach of protocol because you endangered the pilgrim’s salvation. If his pilgrimage was penance for some sin, you might deny him pardon by your altering his course. The mind-set of European Christians became one of extreme care to not interfere with Pilgrims once they’d set out.All of this faced a major problem in the 11^th C when a new Muslim force took control of the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks, new and fanatical converts to Islam, came sweeping in to plunder the region. They seized Jerusalem from their fellow Muslims, then moved north into Asia Minor.The Byzantine Empire tried desperately to stop their advance, but at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Turks captured the eastern emperor and scattered his army. Within a few years nearly all Asia Minor, the chief source of Byzantine wealth and troops, was lost, and the new Byzantine emperor sent frantic appeals to the West for help. He pleaded with Europe’s nobility and the Pope, seeking mercenaries to aid in the rescue of lost territory.Then, reports began to trickle back about the abuse of Christian pilgrims on the Turkish controlled roads to Jerusalem. The trickle turned to a stream, the a river. Even when pilgrims weren’t mistreated, they were subject to heavy fees to travel thru Muslim lands.The standard, brief description of the inception of the First Crusade goes like this ... In 1095, the Eastern Emperor Alexius I sent an urgent appeal for help against the Muslims to Pope Urban II. The Pope responded by preaching one of history's most influential sermons. In a field near Clermont, France he said to the huge crowd that had gathered, “Your Eastern brothers have asked for your help. Turks and Arabs have conquered their territories. I, or rather, the Lord begs you, destroy that vile race from their lands!”But there was more to Urban’s appeal than just liberating the East from infidel hordes. He also mentioned the European need for more land. He said, "For this land which you inhabit is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.”Popes and bishops were accustomed to making such bold proclamations and issuing stirring appeals. They were nearly always met by loud “Amens!” and affirmations of the rightness of their call. Then people went home to lunch and promptly forgot all about what they’d just heard. So the response to Urban’s sermon that day was astonishing. The crowd began to chant, “Deus vult = God wills it!” But they did more than chant. People across the entire socio-economic spectrum of Europe began preparations to do precisely what the Pope had said è Go to Jerusalem and liberate it from the Muslims. They sewed crosses onto their tunics, painted them on their shields, fired up the smithies and made swords, spears and maces. Commoners who couldn’t afford armor or real weapons, made clubs and sharpened sticks.They were going to go on a new kind of pilgrimage. Not as humble worshippers but as armed warriors. Their enemy wasn’t the world, the flesh and the devil; it was the Muslim infidel defiling the Holy Places.As the Pope ended his impassioned appeal to the loud affirmation of the crowd, he declared their slogan Deus Vult! would be the crusader battle cry in the coming campaign.The pilgrims agreed to make their way east any way they could, gathering at Constantinople. Then they'd form into armies and march south toward the enemy.The First Crusade was underway.As word spread across France and Germany of the holy mission, people from across all social levels were caught up in Crusader fervor. A similar excitement was seen in the California and Yukon Gold Rushes. It's not difficult to understand why. We need to be careful here because removed by a thousand years we can't presume to know the motivations that shaped every Crusader's actions, even though there are not a few historians who claim to be able to do so. Surely motives were mixed and diverse. Some, out of simple obedience to the Church and Pope, believed it was God's will to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. Being illiterate peasants, they couldn’t read the Bible or know God's will on the matter. They believed it was the Pope's duty to tell them what God willed and trusted him to do it. When the Pope declared anyone who died in the holy cause would bypass purgatory and enter directly into heaven, all the incentive needed to go was provided for thousands who lived in the constant fear of ever being good enough to merit heaven.Another powerful incentive was the opportunity for wealth. Medieval Europe was locked in a rigid feudalism that kept the poor in perpetual poverty. There was simply no rising above the social level one was born into. A Crusade offered a chance at the unthinkable. The loot of a successful campaign could bring great wealth, even to a peasant. And those who returned gained a reputation as a warrior that could see them and their sons raised into positions of relative honor in a noble’s army.The risks were great; but the benefits both tangible and significant. So thousands took up the crusader cause.The problem for the thousands of peasants who wanted to go was that no noble would lead them. On the contrary, the nobles wanted their serfs to stay home and tend their fields and farms. But the Pope's appeal had gone out to all and no noble wanted to be seen as contradicting the Church. So they just hoped no one would rise to lead them. It was one of those moments of profound leadership vacuum that just begged to be filled; who filled it was a man known as Peter the Hermit.Of all the Crusaders, Peter surely had the strongest scent. The monk had not bathed in decades. He rode a donkey that, eyewitnesses said, bore a remarkable resemblance to its owner. Peter's preaching was even more powerful than his odor. In 9 months, he gathered 20,000 peasants under his banner, then began the long and difficult trek east to Constantinople.They created chaos as soon as they arrived. Complaints of robbery poured into the Emperor's office. He knew these Western European peasants were no match for the Muslims, but he couldn't let them camp out in his city. They were ferried across the river where they immediately began pillaging the homes of Eastern Christians. Many of these poor, uneducated and illiterate peasants had come for loot and saw plenty of it right there. They'd already travelled a long way from home and were now among a people who spoke a different language, wore different styles and ate different foods. “Why, they don't look like Christians at all! And what's that you say? These people don't follow the Pope? Well, then maybe they aren't Christians. Didn't we set out to fight unbelievers? Here are some. Let's get to work.”“But these aren't Muslims!”“Okay. We'll compromise. We won't kill them; we'll just take their stuff.”Peter's peasant army put additional strain on the already poor relations between the Eastern and Roman churches. Two months later, the peasants marched straight into a Muslim ambush and were wiped out. Peter, who was in Constantinople rounding up supplies—was the lone survivor. He then joined another army, this one led by European nobility who arrived well after the peasants. These Crusaders defeated the Muslims at Antioch then continued on to Jerusalem.The Muslims failed to take this second movement of the Crusade seriously. It’s not difficult to understand why. They’d just defeated a huge force of Europeans easily. They assumed they’d do the same to the smaller force that came against them now. What they didn’t realize was that this force, while indeed smaller, was the cream of Europe’s warrior class; mounted and armored knights who grew up on battle.On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. It was a brutal massacre. Around the Temple Mount, blood flowed ankle-deep. Newborn infants were thrown against walls. It wasn't just Muslims who knew the Crusaders’ wrath. A synagogue was torched, killing the Jews trapped inside. Some of the native Christians were also put to the sword. To this day, the wholesale slaughter of the First Crusade affects how Jews and Muslims perceive the Christian faith.But -- and this in no wise is meant to be a justification for the brutality of the Crusades; it seems just a tad hypocritical for Muslims to decry the atrocities of the Crusades when it was by the very same means they’d laid claim to the holy land in the 7^th C. In truth, while crusading under the Christian cross is a horrible violation of the morality of Biblical Christianity—Jihad, Holy War is one of the main tenets of Islam. Long before the Pope erroneously offered absolution to Crusaders and the promise of heaven to those who died in the campaign, Islam promised paradise to Muslims who died in Jihad. Historically, while the Christian faith has spread by the work of humanitarian missionaries, Islam has spread by the sword. Or we might say, while true Christianity expands by the sword of the Spirit, Islam spreads by a sword of steel.Following the conquest of Jerusalem, the Crusaders carved out four states in the Middle East; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.This First crusade was followed by eight more, none of them really able to accomplish the success of the first, if we can call it success. All told, the gains of the Crusades lasted less than 200 years. But one major accomplishment was the reopening of international trade between Europe and the Far East, something that had languished for a few hundred years.The Crusades have proven to be the focus of much historical study and debate. They’re usually linked to the political and social situation in 11^th C Europe, the rise of a reform movement within the papacy, and the political and religious confrontation of Christianity and Islam in the Middle East. The Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Spain from the Arian Christian Visigoths. When the Ummayads collapsed in North Africa, several smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged and attacked Italy in the 9^th C. Pisa, Genoa, and Catalonia battled various Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean.The Crusaders were emboldened in their prospects for success in the Holy Land because of the successes they'd had in the Reconquista, the conquest of the Muslom Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. Earlier in the 11^th C, French knights joined the Spanish in their campaign to retake their homeland. Shortly before the First Crusade, Pope Urban II encouraged the Spanish Christians to reconquer Tarragona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric he later used to preach Crusade to the people of Europe.Western Europe stabilized after the Saxons, Vikings, and Hungarians were brought into the Church by the end of the 10^th C. But the demise of the Carolingian Empire gave rise to an entire class of warriors who had little to do but fight among themselves. The incessant warfare sapped Europe of its strength and wealth. Europe needed an external enemy they could turn their wrath on. As we saw in a previous episode, while the violence of knights was regularly condemned by the Church, and there was the attempt to regulate them in the treaties known as the Peace and Truce of God, the knights largely ignored these attempts at pacification. The Church needed an external threat they could direct the knights lust for battle toward.It was also at this time that the Popes were in constant competition with the Western emperors over the issue of investiture - the question of who had the authority to appoint bishops; the Church or the nobility. In some of the squabbles between Church and State, the popes weren't above calling out knights and nobles loyal to them to back down the power of the Emperor and recalcitrant nobles. So the Pope's mobilizing an armed force wasn't that far out of context.Another reason Pope Urban called for the First Crusade may have been his desire to assert control over the East. Remember that the Great Schism had occurred 40 years before and the churches had been rent ever since. While historians suggest this as one of several reasons driving Pope Urban’s decision to start the Crusade, there's no evidence from any of his letters this factored into his plans.Until the crusaders' arrival, the Byzantines had continually fought the Muslim Turks for control of Asia Minor and Syria. The Seljuks, Sunni Muslims, had at one time ruled the Great Seljuk Empire, but by the First Crusade it had divided into several smaller states at odds with each other. If the First Crusade and been waged just a decade before it would probably have been crushed by a united Seljuk force. But by the time they arrived in the Middle East, the Seljuks were at odds with each other.Egypt and most of Palestine was controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, which was far smaller since the arrival of the Seljuks. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and western pilgrims. The Fatimids lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073, then recaptured it in 1098 just before the arrival of the Crusaders.As I said at the outset of this episode, this is just a summary of the First Crusade. Because this is such a crucial moment in Church History, we'll come back to it in our next episode.As we end, I want to once again say, “Thanks” to all the kind comments and those who’ve given the CS Facebook page a like.Every so often I mention that CS is supporter solely by a few subscribers. You can probably tell the podcast is your typical sole-author, “guy, a mic, and a computer” arrangement. I’m so thankful for those who occasionally send in a donation to keep CS going.

53-Crazy Stuff

This episode of CS is, “Crazy Stuff” because . . . we’ll you’ll see as we get into it.A short while back, we took at look at the Iconoclast Controversy that took place in the Eastern, Greek Orthodox church during the 8^th & 9^th Cs.While we understand the basic point of controversy between the icon-smashers, called iconoclasts, and the icon-supporters, the iconodules; the theology the iconodules used to support the on-going use of icons is somewhat complex.The iconoclasts considered the veneration of religious images as simple idolatry. The iconodules developed a theology that not only allowed, it encouraged the use of icons while avoiding the charge of idolatry. They said such images were to be respected; venerated even – but not worshiped. Though, for all practical purposes, in the minds of most worshipers, there was no real difference between veneration & the adoration of worship.The acceptance of icons as intrinsic to worship marked the entrance of a decidedly mystical slant that entered the Orthodox Church at this time, and has remained ever since. All of this was seen in the career of an author now known as PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS the Areopagite. He’s called Pseudo-Dionysius because while we know his writings were produced in the early 6^th C in Syria, they claim to have been written by the 1^st C Dionysius mentioned in Acts 17 who came to faith when Paul preached on the Mars Hill in Athens.Pseudo-Dionysius’ most famous works were titled The Divine Names, Mystical Theology, & The Celestial Hierarchy. The Monophysite Christians of Alexandria were the first to draw inspiration from his work, supposing them to be genuine works of one of the Apostle Paul’s disciples. The Byzantines followed suit & incorporated some of his ideas. Then, in 649 when Pope Gregory I and the Lateran Council accepted them as dating to the 1^st C, they became more widely looked to as informing Christian theology.Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings merged Christianity w/Neo-Platonism. He saw the universe as divided into a hierarchy of spirits and believed the Church ought to be organized in a similar way as this spiritual hierarchy. Where Pseudo-Dionysius deviated from the Neo-Platonists was in his rejection of the idea that the goal of each human individual was to lose their individuality by re-uniting with the Creator. He went 180 degrees the other way and said it was the individual’s goal to grow through mystical moments of revelation so that the person emerged into a divine state; more god-like than human. Pseudo-Dionysius taught that these mystical moments were bursts of revelation that brought enlightenment and advanced the soul’s journey to a near-deity. But they weren’t moments of revelation INTO divine knowledge so much as they were a stripping away of it. While early cults like the Docetists & Gnostics had made the acquisition of secret knowledge that imparted enlightenment the hallmark of their creed, Pseudo-Dionysius said knowledge stood in the way of enlightenment. The mind was a barrier to spiritual advancement, not a tool to attain it. He claimed the path to salvation, which he cast as “spiritual fulfillment,” proceeded through 3 stages—Purification, Illumination, and Union.First, the seeker needed to strip him/herself of all earthly and fleshly entanglements. Then by extreme forms of meditation in which the goal was to wipe the mind clean, the special moment would arrive when the person would achieve illumination & realize their union with the divine. If this sounds a bit like Gnosticism and the esoteric offerings of Eastern religion, that’s because they are similar.This synthesis of Christianity & Neo-Platonist concepts had a huge impact on Byzantine theologies of mysticism and liturgy, on Western mystics, scholastics & Renaissance thinkers. Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings were translated from Greek into Latin about 850.They were rejected as inconsistent with the Bible by the Protestant Reformers and exposed as 6^th Century forgeries when scholars dug into their origin. But their emphasis on the mystical had already done its damage in the Eastern Church which continued to hold onto many of Pseudo-Dionysius’ ideas. Even to this day, salvation in the Greek Orthodox Church means something rather different than it does in the Western Church, where it’s conceived as redemption from sin and reconciliation to God. In the Eastern Church, salvation is regarded as a return to a process of spiritual transformation enhanced by the Church; it’s priesthood, icons, and rituals, to a destiny that produces a being that is much more than human though not quite attaining to deity. The Eastern idea is that the Redeemed won’t be God, but will be certainly be god-like.Now, this is an over-simplification, but may help make THE crucial distinction between the ways the Western and Eastern Churches understand salvation. The West sees the work of Christ primarily as Salvation FROM sin, while the East understands it as Salvation TO glory. Again—that’s a maybe gross reduction of the complex soteriology of the Eastern and Western theological traditions, but pretty accurate nonetheless. It’s all in where the emphasis is placed.The Bible does say Adam and Eve were created in God’s image. And we know Christ came to restore what they lost in the Fall. Certainly, the redeemed in glory will appear as glorious creatures that dwarf the shades humans are now. We are, as one musical artist sang – like ghosts on the earth, compared to the glory that was once Adam’s & will be ours yet again. But in Greek Orthodox theology, salvation seems to be not just a restoration of what was lost so much as a promotion into something new; something even more glorious than the first man and woman enjoyed. Again, something above human if not quite divine.And the emphasis on the mystical in the Eastern Church is all about how to make that leap, that spiritual form of evolutionary advance.In 650, as Pseudo-Dionysius’ views were being heavily imbibed in the East, a church leader named Constantine (obviously not the Emperor of the 4^th C) resurrected some of the errors of the Gnostics. Constantine and his followers rejected the formalism of the Byzantine State church, claiming a desire to return to the simplicity of the Early Church. We might respond; “Wait! In 650 they wanted to return to the dynamism of the early church? Isn’t THAT the early church? That was 1400 years ago!”Constantine based his beliefs on the Gospels and letters of Paul alone. He claimed an evil deity inspired the rest of the NT and all the Old. In a reprise of Gnosticism, he claimed this evil deity was the creator and god of this world. The true God of heaven was opposed to the physical universe; that material world was unalterably evil. In order to save people's spirits from the wickedness of the physical world, the true God sent an angel who appeared as a man named Jesus.A little history taught church leaders how to shut down Constantine’s re-emergent Gnosticism. All they had to do was go back and read of the early church’s struggle with the Gnostics and how all these ideas were old hat with no basis in Scripture. While a few church leaders did just that and waged an apologetic battle with Constantine’s followers, the State Church persecuted & at times executed them.Constantine changed his name to Silas, one of the Apostle Paul’s associates. After Constantine-Silas was stoned to death, the next leader of the sect took the name Titus, another of Paul’s assistants. When he was burned to death, a third leader took the name Timothy. The next adopted the name Tychicus. All this lead to the sect being called the Paulicians.During the Iconoclast Controversy of the 8^th C, the persecution of the Paulicians eased a bit. One of the Emperors may even have been a Paulician. But in the 9^th C, the Empress Theodora ordered the Paulicians eradicated. Tens of thousands were killed, most in Armenia.In reaction, the Paulicians formed armies which proved quite capable in battle. So, unable to conquer them outright, the Byzantines offered them independence if they’d move to the troubled border w/the Slavs & Bulgars giving the Empire grief.The Paulicians ended up having a major religious impact on the Bulgars. These Bulgar-Paulicians became known as the Bogomils¸ named after their first leader. In the mid 10^th C he taught that the first-born son of God was Satan. Because of Satan’s pride, he was expelled from heaven. God then made a new heaven and earth, in which he placed Adam and Eve. Satan had sex with Eve which union produced Cain, the source of all evil among humans. Moses and John the Baptist, according to the Bogomils, were both servants of Satan. But God sent the Logos, his second Son, Jesus to save humanity from the control of Satan. Although Satan killed Jesus, his spiritual body was resurrected and returned to the right hand of God. Satan was in this way defeated; or so said Bogomilism.Some of our listeners may find all of this similar to another religious group headquartered today in a certain State of the US, that has great skiing during the winter and a capital located next to a large, salty inland sea. Turns out, Solomon was right; there really isn’t anything new under the sun.The Bogomils adopted a rigidly ascetic life-style. They despised marriage, although they permitted it in the case of less-than-perfect believers. They condemned the eating of meat and the consumption of wine. They rejected baptism and communion as Satanic rituals since they used material things.Bogomilism flourished in Bulgaria while it was an independent country in the 10^thC, then again in the 13^th. Bogomilian ideas spread to Western Europe where they influenced the Cathars and Albigensians. When the Turks destroyed the Bulgarian Empire in 1393, the Bogomils disappeared.The Paulicians continued in minor enclaves in Armenia all the way into the 19^th C. It’s possible that in some tiny corner of rural communities, Paulicianism continues to find adherents.And now you see why I chose to title this episode, “Crazy Stuff.”

52-Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

This episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”In our study of the History of the Church, we get to examine some periods when the followers of Jesus did some amazing, God-honoring, Christ-exalting, people-blessing things. In future episodes, we’ll take a longer look at how the Gospel has impacted history and world civilization for the better.But, we have to be honest and admit there have been too many times when the Church totally fumbled the ball. Worse than that, after fumbling, they stepped on and kicked it out of bounds!The danger I face as we deal with these atrocious moments in Church History is of being assumed to be hostile to the Body of Christ. When I speak about the abysmal career of some of the popes, some listeners assume I’m Catholic-bashing. Later, when we get to the Reformation era and take a look at some of the Reformers, I’ll be accused of being a closet-Catholic!So I want to pause here and say à This isn’t a podcast about me, but I need to use me as an example . . .As most of you know, I’m a non-denominational Evangelical pastor. I’m not a scholar, not even close. I’m just a guy who loves history and decided to share what he was learning about the history of the church with others because at the time CS began, there just wasn’t a short-format church history podcast available. While I genuinely try to be unbiased in presenting the story of the Church, it’s inevitable I’ll slant the narrative at points. I’ve already made it clear that when I do offer mere opinion, I’ll preface it with a warning, but infrequent side comments can still color the material. Even what adjectives I pick reveal bias.While I aim to be faithful in my own walk with God, my role in my family as a husband and father, and my calling as a pastor, I freely admit I’m still a man in process. I have many faults and a long way to go to be conformed to Christ’s image. Keenly aware of how far I have to go is what causes me to wonder how God could use me! Yet use me He does, week after week, in my role as pastor. I’m such a flawed vessel, yet God keeps pouring His grace thru me. It’s humbling.The point is this: While so much of Church History is flat-out embarrassing, God still uses the Church, still works by His Spirit through His people to accomplish His purposes. So when we see the Church stumble, regardless of what group it is, what era, what label is applied to those who mess up, let’s not white-wash, edit, or redact. Let’s tell it like it is; own it as part of our history, but remember that while man fails, God never does.From the late 9^th to 10^th C the position of Roman bishop once held by such godly men as Popes Leo and Gregory was turned over to a parade of corrupt nobles who were anything but.This was a time when the position of the pope was a plum political appointment, with the potential of gaining great wealth and power for the pope’s family. The intrigue surrounding the selection of the pope was vast and nefarious. An Italian heiress named Marozia [mah-RO-zee-ah], controlled the bishop’s seat at Rome for 60 years. She was one bishop's mother, another's murderer and a third’s mistress. In what just about everyone recognizes as a low point for the Papacy, Octavianus, Marozia’s grandson, celebrated his impending election as Pope John XII, by toasting the devil. Once in office, his behavior was far from saintly. The immorality that attended his term was legendary. Corruption of the office didn’t end with his death. Reform was desperately needed and many called for it. But one man’s reform is another’s loss of power and access to wealth.Though the Western and Eastern halves of the Church had quarreled for centuries over minor doctrinal issues and who ought to lead the Church, they still saw themselves as one Body. That unity was doomed by many years of contention and the fragmenting of the world into conflicted regions brought about by the dissolving of the Roman Empire and constant invasion of outsiders. The emergence of Islam in the 7^th C accelerated the break between East and West. We might assume the 2 halves of the old Empire would unite in face of the Islamic threat, and there were times when that seemed hopeful. But the reality was, Islam presented a threat across such a huge front, the various regions of Christendom ended up having to face the threat on their own.Between the 9^th and 13^th Cs, three separate challenges split Christianity into 2 disparate camps. Like taps on a diamond, each furthered the emerging rift until finally the break came.The first tap had to do with the Nicene Creed hammered out at the Council of Nicea all the way back in the early 4^th C when Constantine was Emperor. In the 9^th C, the Nicene Creed still stood as the standard formulation for how Christians in the East and West understood God. But the Spanish church added something they thought would make the creed clearer. The original creed stated, “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.” The revised creed of the Spanish church said, “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.”This reflected the work on the Trinity that had been conducted by later Councils. Remember, the very first councils were consumed with understanding the nature of Jesus and settled on the doctrine He is both fully God and fully Man. They labored hard to find just the right words to say that. Then, they turned their attention to the issue of the Trinity, and after much labor settled on the wording that God is one in essence but three in person. For most people, that was enough, but theologians have minds that want to go further. They debated over how to understand the divinity of God. Who actually possessed deity; all three equally? Or did one possess it, then shared it with the others?The Western Church centered held the idea divinity was co-equal and underived in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But relationally the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit then proceeds from both Father and Son. This seemed to accurately reflect the subordinate missions assigned the 2^nd and 3^rd members of the Trinity in the Bible.The Western Church adopted the revised Nicene Creed. The Eastern Church balked! Everyone agreed the Nicene Creed had been a work of the Spirit of God illuminating the minds of the Council to the Word of God. It was inviolable! How could Rome think to fiddle with it? And especially without consulting them? Why, at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, the Bishops committed themselves never to change the creed.According to Eastern theologians, divinity dwelt only in the Father. The Father then shared the divine being with the Son and Spirit. They could not say the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” If the Spirit arose from "the Father and the Son," the Son would possess divine being co-equally with the Father.While there had been potential doctrinal rifts before, the East and West had always been able to reach a consensus. That historic consensus became increasingly distant as this debate, known as the Filioque Controversy, raged. Filioque is Latin for “and the Son.”In 867 Photius, bishop of Constantinople formally denounced the added phrase. Five years later, Pope Adrian II offered to drop the phrase “and the Son” from the Nicene Creed. Rome would drop the Filioque clause if the Eastern church accepted the Pope's supremacy over the Church. Photius declined. >> Tap 1.Get ready for Tap 2 …One day in AD 1048, three shoeless pilgrims—Bruno, Humbert, and Hildebrand walked together through the gates of Rome. Each in his own way would transform the Roman church.Bruno was elected Pope Leo IX. He immediately set about reforming the Roman church morally and theologically. To keep priests from passing ecclesiastical positions to their children, he demanded celibacy. Next, he moved to extricate the Church from secular entanglements and obligations to European nobility. Bruno and his successor popes really believed God had given them authority over all Christians.The new bishop of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, refused to recognize Bruno as Pope. He closed every church in Constantinople loyal to Rome. Bruno then sent envoys to Constantinople to negotiate peace. His chief envoy was his friend Humbert. Before leaving Rome, Humbert wrote a bold notice in the Pope’s name. This official church notice is called a bull. We get our word “bulletin” from it. A Bull was an authoritative announcement of intention to follow a particular course. It’s based in the authority of the person who writes it or whose name it bears.Humbert made the journey from Rome to Constantinople, bull in hand. He arrived on July 16, 1054, marched into the Hagia Sophia while Communion was being observed. As one author says, Humbert’s notice was a lot like a Texas longhorn: It had a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between. Condemned in the bull were the Eastern practices of allowing priests to marry, refusing to recognize baptism performed in Roman churches, and deleting the Filioque.For the record, the Roman church had allowed priests to marry for several centuries, the Eastern church did not refuse to recognize Roman baptism, and they absolutely did NOT DELETE the phrase” and the son” from the Creed – The Western Church had added it!Humbert threw the bull on the Communion table, turned his back on the priest, and walked out, knocking the dust from his sandals and yelling "Let God judge!" A deacon picked up the bull and chased after Humbert, begging him to take it back. Humbert refused.The Papal Bull was viewed by the Eastern Church as the proverbial gauntlet, thrown at their feet by the Pope. The options seemed clear; either submit to the Pope’s undisputed authority over the Church, or be considered by Rome a breakaway church.Tap 2The third and decisive tap that sundered East from West was the Crusades, specifically, the 4^th. I need to make clear we’re only dipping a toe into the subject of the Crusades for now. They’re a major part of Church History we’ll spend a lot more time on in future episodes. For now, we’re only looking at how the Crusades served to split the Western and Eastern Churches.But even before THAT, I’m compelled to remind everyone that when I refer to the Eastern Church, what I really mean is the Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Church; not the Church of the East we’ve looked at in earlier podcasts. For simplicity sake. Picture a map of the ancient world; that swath of the globe that includes to the far left, Spain and Northwest Africa, up thru England and Scotland. Now, put the Middle East with Mesopotamia in the center of that mental map, and at the far right, China and Japan.Now, draw a mental oval over Spain, the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia; shade it blue – That’s the Western Church, speaking Latin, and centered at Rome under the Popes.Next, draw another oval over all East Europe and West Asia; shade it Green – That’s the Byzantine Church, speaking Greek and centered at Constantinople under the Patriarchs.Finally, draw a 3^rd oval over The Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, Central Asia, India, China and all the way to Japan. Shade it red – That’s the Nestorian Church of the East, that speaks mainly Syriac and is headquartered at Nisibis & Edessa under the leadership of the Metropolitans.Note how much larger that 3^rd sphere is. It covers a territory and population much larger than the two to its west combined. Yet in the popular review of Church History, this Church of the East is often neglected. The reason for that neglect is a subject for a later episode.My point here is that when we speak of the break between the Eastern and Western Churches, let’s be sure we understand that the description of the Byzantine Church as the Eastern Church isn’t really accurate. It’s only a description of the Byzantine Church as being to the geographic East of the Western, Latin Church.Now, back to our look at the 3^rd tap that severed West from East . . .As we’ve seen in previous episodes, penance played a major role in the religious life of Medieval Christians. Many believed they could prove themselves worthy of God’s favor by going on a “pilgrimage.” So pilgrims traveled to shrines containing the bones of saints and relics from the Biblical story. European cathedrals were centers where these sacred items were kept. But the greatest pilgrimage of all, one taken by not a few sincere believers was to Jerusalem. Even today with modern forms of transportation, a trip to Israel is a major event requiring special arrangements and a significant investment. Imagine what it meant for a pilgrim of the 10^th or 11^th C! They walked hundreds of miles, braved a risky voyage aboard a ship that traveled through stormy, pirate-infested seas. This was no Disneyland ride; there were real-deal pirates who’d slit your throat or sell you into slavery. Fun stuff.Pilgrimages became such a fixture of medieval society, to impede a pilgrim's journey was thought to imperil his/her salvation. So a whole trade developed in assisting pilgrims reaching their destination, whether it was some cathedral or holy shrine in Europe, or the great pilgrimage to the Holy Land.From AD 638, Muslims controlled Jerusalem and the routes leading there. They required pilgrims to pay special fees. So in 1095 in France, Pope Urban II responded by preaching one of history's most influential sermons. We’ll go into the details later. For now, just know he said, “Your Eastern brothers have asked for your help! Turks and Arabs have conquered their territories. I or, rather, the Lord begs you … destroy that vile race from your brothers’ lands!”The response astounded both the Pope and Europe’s nobility. The crowd of commoners began to chant, “Deus vult = God wills it!” There was an immediate response of hundreds to go in relief of their imperiled brothers. As the days passed, the fervor spread and soon, nobles and serfs set off on the Great Pilgrimage to liberate Jerusalem from the infidels. They sewed crosses onto their tunics and painted them on their shields. Nobles forged new swords and spears while commoners grabbed whatever might make for a weapon and set off. They agreed to gather in Constantinople. The First Crusade was off and running.Among the peasants that set out on the 1^st Crusade was a large group who followed a monk known as Peter the Hermit. The swarthy monk had not bathed in decades. He rode a burro that, according to some bore a remarkable resemblance to its rider. Peter's preaching was even more powerful than his odor. In 9 months, he gathered 20,000 European peasants to fight the Eastern infidel. They caused immediate chaos when they arrived in Constantinople. Complaints of robbery poured into the Emperor's office. He knew the untrained peasants were no match for the Muslims who cut their teeth on conquest, but he couldn't let them linger in his city. So he ferried them across the river where they began pillaging the homes of Eastern Christians, straining relations between the Byzantine and Roman churches. 2 months later, these peasants marched straight into an ambush. Peter, still in Constantinople begging for supplies, was the lone survivor. He joined another army, led by European nobility. These Crusaders clashed with the Muslims in Antioch, then continued on to Jerusalem.On July 15, 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. Near the Temple Mount, the blood flowed ankle-deep. Newborns were thrown against walls. Crusaders torched a synagogue and burned the Jews inside alive. To this day, this wholesale slaughter affects how Jews and Muslims perceive the Church.A couple more Crusader campaigns were launched, then in 1198 a noble became Pope Innocent III. He inspired the 4^th Crusade that would finally divide the Byzantine and Roman Churches.The bottom line of the 4^th Crusade is that it was more than anything, a commercial venture. The merchants of the powerful city-state of Venice agreed to supply the Crusaders with ships at the cost of 84,000 silver coins. They were then to sail to Egypt and destroy a key Muslim base that would open up trade. In the summer of 1202, the Crusaders arrived in Venice expecting to sail to Egypt. But there was a problem: Only one-third of the expected number of Crusaders showed up, and they came up with only 50,000 silver coins.Not to worry, an ambitious Eastern prince who fancied himself someone who deserved a fate and station better than the one life had dealt him, offered to finance the crusade à get this: Under the condition the Crusaders sail to Constantinople FIRST and dethrone the current Emperor. Once that was done, they could be on their merry way. Pope Innocent III forbade the assault on Constantinople, but no one paid him any mind. On July 5, 1203, the Crusaders arrived in Constantinople. But the people of the city were quite over the mess these Europeans kept making of things and revolted. They pre-empted the Crusaders attempt to install their own emperor and instead selected a fiercely anti-Crusader ruler.The Crusaders were furious. They’d set out to destroy Muslims in Egypt and saw their side trip to Constantinople as a brief diversion. Now, they were stranded in the Eastern Capital. With the promise of plunder the motive for their venture in the first place, they decided to go to town on those they now deemed their enemies – the people and city of Constantinople. One priest promised the Crusaders if they died in the now “holy cause” of sacking the city, they had the Pope’s blessing and would go immediately to heaven. The Pope had said no such thing; on the contrary, he’d forbidden the entire campaign. But people hear what they want, and the Crusaders took that priest’s announcement as a license to do whatever they pleased.On Good Friday, 1204, with red crosses on their tunics, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople. For 3 days, they raped and killed fellow believers. The city's statues were hacked to pieces and melted down. The Hagia Sophia was stripped of its treasures. A harlot performed sensual dances on the Lord's Table, singing vile drinking songs. One writer lamented that the Muslims were more merciful than those who bore a cross on their garments.Neither the Byzantine Empire nor Church recovered from those 3 horrible days. The Crusaders ruled the Eastern Empire for the next 60 years. The Eastern emperor set up a new capital in nearby Nicaea, to which many of the people of Constantinople fled. They remained there until 1261, when an Eastern ruler retook the City.Pope Innocent III tried to prevent the fall of Constantinople, but no one had listened. Afterward, he attempted to reunite the churches, but it was too late. After the 4^th Crusade, the Church was shattered into 2 communions. Today we know them as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.And while there have been a few attempts to affect a reconciliation recently, the wight of history has served to keep them at odds.

51-Icons

This episode is titled Icons.Those with a rough outline of history know we’re coming up on that moment when the Eastern and Western branches of the Church split. The break wasn’t some incidental accident that happened without a lot of preparation. Things had been going sour for a long time. One of the contributing factors was the Iconoclast Controversy that split the Byzantine church in the 8^th and 9^th Cs.While the Western Church went through monumental changes during the Middle Ages, the Eastern Church centered at Constantinople pretty much managed a holding pattern. It was the preservation of what they considered orthodoxy that moved Eastern Christians to view the Western Church as making dangerous and sometimes even heretical alterations to the Faith. The Eastern Church thought itself to now be alone in carrying the Faith of the Ecumenical Councils into the future. And for that reason, Constantinople backed away from its long-stated recognition that the Church at Rome was pre-eminent in Church affairs.Another factor contributing to the eventual sundering of East from West was the musical chairs played for the Western Emperor while in the East, the Emperor was far more stable. Remember that while the Western Roman Empire was effectively dead by the late 5^th Century, the Eastern Empire continued to identify itself as Roman for another thousand years, though historians now refer to it as the Byzantine Empire. At Constantinople, the Emperor was still the Roman Emperor, and like Constantine, the de-facto head of the Church. He was deemed by the Eastern Church as “the living image of Christ.”But that was about to experience a major re-model in the brueha between the iconoclasts and iconodules; terms we’ll define a bit later.The most significant controversy to trouble the Byzantine church during the European Middle Ages was over the use of religious images known as icons. That’s the way many modern historians regard what’s called the Iconoclast Controversy – as a debate over the use of icons. But as usual, the issue went deeper. It arose over the question of what it meant when we say something is “holy”.The Church was divided over the question of what things were sufficiently sacred as to deserve worship. Priests were set apart by ordination; meaning they’d been consecrated to holy work. Church buildings were set apart by dedication; they were sacred. The martyrs were set apart by their deeds; that’s why they were called “saints” meaning set-apart ones. And if martyrs were saints by virtue of giving their lives in death, what about the monks who gave their lives à yet still lived? Weren’t they worthy of the same kind of honor?If all these people, places and things were holy, were they then worthy of special veneration?The holiness of the saints was endorsed and demonstrated by miracles, not just attributed to them while they lived, but also reported in connection with their tombs, relics; even images representing them. By the beginning of the 7^th C, many cities had a local saint whose icons were revered as having special powers of intercession and protection. Notable examples were Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica, the Christ-icon of Edessa, and the miracle-working icon of Mary of Constantinople.From the 6^th C, both Church and government encouraged religious devotion to monks and icons. Most Christians failed to distinguish between the object or person and the spiritual reality they stood for. They fell into, what many regarded as the dreaded sin of idolatry. But before we rush to judgment, let’s take a little time to understand how they slipped into something Scripture clearly bans.The use of images as help to religious devotion had strong precedent. In pagan Rome, the image of the Emperor was revered as if the Emperor himself were present. Even images of lesser imperial officials were occasionally used as stand-ins for those they represented. After emperors became Christians, the imperial image on coins, in court-houses, and in the most prominent places in the major cities continued to be an object of veneration and devotion. Constantine and his successors erected large statues of themselves, the remains of which are on display today. It was Justinian I who broke with tradition and instead erected a huge icon of Christ over the main gate of the palace at Constantinople. During the following century icons of Christ and Mary came to replace the imperial icon in many settings. Eventually under Justinian II in the early 8^th C, the icon of Christ began to appear on coins.While the use of images as accouterments to facilitate worship was generally accepted, there were those who considered such practice contrary to the Bible’s clear prohibition of idolatry. They weren’t against religious art per se; only it’s elevation into what they considered the realm of worship.The debate over icons was really a kind of doctrinal epilogue to the Christological controversies of an earlier time. àWhat was proper in depicting Christ and other Biblical persons? Can Jesus even be represented, or is the attempt to a violation of His divinity? Does making an image of Jesus enforce his humanity at the expense of his deity?And when does art, used in the service of worship, to enhance or facilitate it, interfere with worship because the object or image becomes the focal point?Though these questions may seem distant to those who hail from a modern Evangelical background, they may be able to get in touch with the challenge the Eastern Church of the 8^th and 9^th Cs faced by remembering back a little way to when some notable worship leaders raised concern about the modern worship scene with its fostering an environment of overblown emotionalism. Some phrased it as the “Worship of worship,” rather than God. Musical productions and concerts became events people turned out by the thousands for as they sought a spiritual thrill, a worship-high. One well-known composer of modern worship wrote a song that aimed to expose this trend called “The Heart of Worship.”Though the medium was different, in some ways, the recent worship of worship concern was similar to the concern of the Byzantine iconoclasts. In the ancient Eastern Church, the medium was the art of images. The more recent controversy centered on the art of music.By the 7^th C, the most significant form of Eastern devotion was the cult of holy icons. While I could give a more technical definition or description of icons, let me keep it simple and say they were highly-stylized paintings made on wood. The images were of Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. While there were primitive images used by Christians all the way back in the 1^st C, we’d have to say Christian art began in earnest in the 3^rd C. It was used either decoratively or depicted scenes from the Bible as a way to instruct illiterate believers.As mentioned, since the people of the Eastern Empire were already accustomed to showing deference to portraits of the Emperor, it wasn’t much of a stretch to apply this to pictures of what were considered holy people. Since imperial portraits were often set off by draperies, people prostrated before them, burned incense and lit candles beside them, and carried them in solemn processions, it seemed inevitable that icons of the saints would receive the same treatment. The first Christian images known to have been surrounded by such veneration occurred in the 5^th C. The practice became widely popular in the 6^th and 7^th. The reserve church leaders like Epiphanius and Augustine had shown toward the use of images at the end of the 4^th C disappeared.It’s important to realize that when it comes to icons and their use, there were really two tracks. One track was the way theologians justified or condemned them. The second track was that of the common people who had little interest in the fine points of theology involved in their use. The iconoclasts framed the issue from Track 2. They were skeptical of the illiterate masses being able to make a distinction between simply using an icon as a means to worship of what the image represented, and actual worship of the image itself. What seemed to prove their point was when some of these icons and religious relics were attributed with special powers to effect healing and work wonders.Pro-icon Church leaders maintained a misunderstanding of icons ought not prohibit their use. That would err into mere pragmatism.Emperor Leo III launched an attack on the use of icons in the first half of the 8^th C. He was motivated by a concern the Church was engaging in the forbidden practice of idolatry, the very thing that had coast ancient Israel so much trouble. Perhaps the Eastern Empire’s humiliating losses over the previous century, as well as a terrible earthquake early in Leo's reign, were evidence of divine judgment. If so, Leo was concerned the Empire would awaken to their peril, repent and amend their ways.Of course, Leo didn’t come up with this on his own or out of the blue. There were many among the clergy and common people who questioned the use of icons as objects of religious devotion. But now with the Emperor’s backing, this group of Iconoclasts, as they were called, became more vocal. Antagonism toward the use of icons grew, especially along the eastern frontier that bordered Muslims lands. Muslims had long called Christians idolaters for their use of religious images. Leo grew up in that region and had served as governor of western Asia Minor among several iconoclast bishops.The word iconoclast means a breaker or destroyer of icons because eventually, that’s what the Iconoclasts will do; smash, break and burn the icons.After successfully repulsing the Muslim armies in their 2^nd attack on Constantinople in 717, Emperor Leo III openly declared his opposition to icons for the 1^st time. He ordered the icon of Christ over the Imperial Gate to be replaced with a cross. In spite of wide-spread rioting, in 730 Leo called for the removal and destruction of all religious icons in public places and churches. The iconodules, as supporters of icons were called, were persecuted.In Rome, Pope Gregory III condemned the destruction of icons. The Emperor retaliated by removing Sicily, southern Italy and the entire western part of the Balkans and Greece from Rome’s ecclesiastical oversight, placing them under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was this, as much as anything, that moved the Pope to seek the support and protection of the Franks.Leo’s son Constantine V not only continued his father’s iconoclastic policy, he furthered it. He convened a council in 754 at the imperial palace at Hiereia, a suburb of Constantinople. The iconoclasts regarded it as the 7^th Ecumenical Council, though it was only the Patriarchate of Constantinople that attended.Both iconoclasts and iconodules agreed that the divine in Jesus Christ could not be represented in pictures, but Jesus had 2 natures. The iconoclasts argued that to represent the human nature was to lapse into the dreaded Nestorianism but to represent both natures was to go against their distinction, which was the error of Monophysitism, and made an image of deity.The iconodules replied that not to represent Jesus Christ was Monophysitism.Note how these arguments illustrate the practice of debating new issues in terms of already condemned errors.Against pictures of Mary and the saints, the iconoclasts reasoned that one cannot depict their virtues, so pictures were at best a vanity unworthy of the memory of the person represented. “Surely,” they said, “Mary and the saints would not WANT such images made!”Other arguments by the iconoclasts were that the only true image of Jesus Christ is the Eucharist.Supporters of icons used arguments that were most effectively articulated by John of Damascus, an Arab Christian who wrote in Greek. John was a monk at the monastery of St. Saba in Palestine where he became a priest and devoted himself to study of the Scripture and literary work. Being outside the realm of Byzantine control, he was safe from retaliation by the Emperor and iconoclastic officials.John of Damascus was the most systematic and comprehensive theologian in the Greek church since Origen. His most important work is the Fountain of Knowledge, part three of which, titled On the Orthodox Faith, gives an excellent summary of the teaching of the Greek Fathers on the principal Christian doctrines. He also produced homilies, hymns, and a commentary on the NT letters of Paul. John of Damascus’s Three Apologies against Those Who Attack the Divine Images took a fourfold approach to the issue.1^st he said, it’s simultaneously impossible and impious to picture God, Who is pure spirit. Jesus Christ, Mary, saints, and angels on the other hand, who’ve appeared to human beings may be depicted. The Bible forbids idols alone.2^nd, it’s permissible to make images. The Old Testament prohibition of images was not absolute, for some images were commanded to be made; take for instance the cherubim over the mercy seat and other adornments of the temple. John said that we’re not under the strictures of the Old Covenant now. In fact, the incarnation of God IN Christ prompts us to make the invisible, visible. John set the incarnation at the center of his defense of icons, elevating the debate from a question only of practices of piety to a matter of theological orthodoxy. Since human beings are created with body and soul, the physical senses are important in human knowledge of the divine. There are images everywhere— human beings are images of God. The tradition of the Church allows images, and this suffices even without Scriptural warrant, he argued.3^rd, it’s lawful to venerate icons and images because matter isn’t evil. There are different kinds of worship: true worship belongs to God alone, but honor may be given to others.4^th, there are advantages to images and their veneration. They teach and recall divine gifts, nourish piety, and become channels of grace.John of Damascus is regarded by the Orthodox Church as the last of the great teachers of the early church, men universally referred to as the “Church Fathers.”Despite his arguments, Iconoclast emperors drove iconodules from positions of power and began vigorous persecution. Many works of art in church buildings from before the 8^th C were destroyed. Constantine V took strong measures against monks, the chief spokesmen for images, secularizing their property and forcing them to marry nuns. Many of them fled to the West.The Popes watched all of this with interest and came in on the side of the iconodules. Some of the best formulations of the independence of the Church, arguing that the emperor was not a teacher of the church, were made in their letters.In the end, the iconoclasts sealed their defeat by refusing to give to pictures of Jesus the reverence they gave pictures of the Emperor. The reaction against iconoclasm finally set in after Constantine V.Constantine V's son and successor, Leo IV, was not an energetic iconoclast as his father and grandfather. His widow Irene, regent for their son Constantine VI, overturned the dynasty's iconoclastic policy. At her bidding the Council of Nicaea in 787 and condemned the Iconoclasts, affirming the theological position taken by John of Damascus.They found, “The venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials . . . should be given due salutation and honorable reverence, not indeed that true worship of faith that pertains alone to the divine nature”But that wasn’t the end of iconoclasm. An Iconoclast block developed in the professional military as a reaction to a series of military disasters, diplomatic humiliations, and economic problems the Empire experienced in the quarter-century after the 787 Nicaean Council. They interpreted all these set-backs as the judgment of God for the Empire’s return to idolatry.Finally, Emperor Leo V decided that Iconoclasm should again become the official policy of his government. A synod of church leaders in 815 reaffirmed the position taken by the anti-icon synod of 754—except that they no longer regarded the icons as idols.With Leo V's death, active persecution of the pro-icon party declined for 17 years before bursting out again in 837 under the leadership of Patriarch John Grammaticus. Under his influence, Emperor Theophilus decreed exile or capital punishment for all who openly supported the use of icons.Theodora, the widow of Theophilus and regent for their son Michael III, decided he ought to abandon the iconoclastic policy to retain the widest support for his rule. A synod early in 843 condemned all iconoclasts, deposed the iconoclastic Patriarch John Grammaticus, and confirmed the decrees of the 7^th Council.In today's Eastern Orthodox churches, paintings and mosaics frequently fill spaces on ceilings and walls. A screen or low partition called the iconostasis stretches across the front of the church, between the congregation and the altar area, for the purpose of displaying all the special icons pertaining to the liturgy and holy days.

50-What a Mess

The title of this episode is “What a Mess!”As is often the case, we start by backing up & reviewing material we’ve already covered so we can launch into the next leg of our journey in Church History.Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany had received the support of Charles Martel, a founder of the Carolingian dynasty. Martel supported these missions because of his desire to expand his rule eastwards into Bavaria. The Pope was grateful for his support, and for Charles' victory over the Muslims at the Battle of Tours. But Martel fell afoul of papal favor when he confiscated Church lands. At first, the Church consented to his seizing of property to produce income to stave off the Muslim threat. But once that threat was dealt with, he refused to return the lands. Adding insult to injury, Martel ignored the Pope’s request for help against the Lombards taking control of a good chunk of Italy. Martel denied assistance because at that time the Lombards were his allies. But a new era began with the reign of Martel's heir, Pippin or as he’s better known, Pepin III.Pepin was raised in the monastery of St. Denis near Paris. He & his brother were helped by the church leader Boniface to carry out a major reform of the Frank church. These reforms of the clergy and church organization brought about a renewal of religious and intellectual life and made possible the educational revival associated with the greatest of the Carolingian rulers, Charlemagne & his Renaissance.In 751, Pepin persuaded Pope Zachary to allow Boniface to anoint him, King of the Franks, supplanting the Merovingian dynasty. Then, another milestone in church-state relations passed with Pope Stephen II appealing to Pepin for aid against the Lombards. The pope placed Rome under the protection of Pepin and recognized him and his sons as “Protectors of the Romans.”As we’ve recently seen, all of this Church-State alliance came to a focal point with the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in AD 800. For some time the Popes in Rome had been looking for a way to loosen their ties to the Eastern Empire & Constantinople. Religious developments in the East provided the Popes an opportunity to finally break free. The Iconoclastic Controversy dominating Eastern affairs gave the Popes one more thing to express their disaffection with. We’ll take a closer look at the controversy later. For now, it’s enough to say the Eastern Emperor Leo III banned the use of icons as images of religious devotion in AD 726. The supporters of icons ultimately prevailed but only after a century of bitter and at times violent dispute. Pope Gregory II rejected Leo’s edict banning icons and flaunted his disrespect for the Emperor's authority. Gregory's pompous and scathing letter to the Emperor was long on bluff but a dramatic statement of his rejection of secular rulers’ meddling in Church affairs. Pope Gregory wrote: “Listen! Dogmas are not the business of emperors but of pontiffs.”The reign of what was regarded by the West as a heretical dynasty in the East gave the Pope the excuse he needed to separate from the East and find a new, devoted and orthodox protector. The alliance between the papacy and the Carolingians represents the culmination of that quest, and opened a new and momentous chapter in the history of European medieval Christianity.In response to Pope Stephen's appeal for help against the Lombards, Pepin recovered the Church’s territories in Italy and gave them to the pope, an action known as the 'Donation of Pepin'. This confirmed the legal status of the Papal States.At about the same time, the Pope's claim to the rule of Italy and independence from the Eastern Roman Empire was reinforced by the appearance of one of the great forgeries of the Middle Ages, the Donation of Constantine. This spurious document claimed Constantine the Great had given Rome and the western part of the Empire to the bishop of Rome when he moved the capital of the empire to the East. The Donation was not exposed as a forgery until the 15^th Century.The concluding act in the popes’ attempt to free themselves from Constantinople came on Christmas Day 800 when Pope Leo III revived the Empire in the West by crowning Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor. It’s rather humorous, as one wag put it – the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, and can scarcely be called an Empire.Charlemagne’s chief scholar was the British-born Alcuin who’d been master of the cathedral school in York. He was courted by Charlemagne to make his capital at Aachen on the border between France & Germany, Europe’s new center of education & scholarship. Alcuin did just that. If the school at Aachen didn’t plant the seeds that would later flower in the Renaissance it certainly prepared the soil for them.Alcuin profoundly influenced the intellectual, cultural and religious direction of the Carolingian Empire, as the 300-some extant letters he wrote reveal. His influence is best seen in the manuscripts of the school at Tours where he later became abbot. His influence is also demonstrated in his educational writings, revision of the Biblical text, commentaries and the completion of his version of Church liturgy. He standardized spelling and writing, reformed missionary practice, and contributed to the organizing of church regulations. Alcuin was the leading theologian in the struggle against the heresy of Adoptionism. Adoptionists said Jesus was simply a human being who God adopted & MADE a Son. Alcuin was a staunch defender of Christian orthodoxy and the authority of the Church, the pre-eminence of the Roman Bishop and of Charlemagne's sacred position as Emperor. He died in 804.The time at which Alcuin lived certainly needed the reforms he brought & he was the perfect agent to bring them. From the palace school at Aachen, a generation of his students went out to head monastic and cathedral schools throughout the land. Even though Charlemagne’s Empire barely outlived its founder, the revival of education and religion associated with he and Alcuin brightened European culture throughout the bleak and chaotic period that followed. This Carolingian Renaissance turned to classical antiquity and early Christianity for its models. The problem is, there was only one Western scholar who still knew Greek, the Irishman John Scotus Erigena. Still, the manuscripts produced during this era form the base from which modern historians gain a picture of the past. It was these classical texts, translated from Greek into Latin that fueled the later European Renaissance.The intellectual vigor stimulated by the Carolingian Renaissance and the political dynamism of the revived Empire stimulated new theological activity. There was discussion about the continuing Iconoclastic problem in the East. Political antagonism between the Eastern and the Carolingian emperors led to an attack by theologians in the West on the practices and beliefs of the Orthodox Church in the East. These controversial works on the 'Errors of the Greeks' flourished during the 9^th C as a result of the Photian Schism.In 858, Byzantine Emperor Michael III deposed the Patriarch Ignatius I of Constantinople, replacing him with a lay scholar named Photius I, AKA Photius the Great. The now deposed Ignatius appealed to Pope Nicholas I to restore him while Photius asked the Pope to recognize his appointment. The Pope ordered the restoration of Ignatius & relations between East & West sunk further. The issue ended in 867 when Pope Nicholas died & Photius was deposed.Latin theologians also criticized the Eastern church for its different method of deciding the date of Easter, the difference in the way clergy cut their hair, and the celibacy of priests. The Eastern Church allowed priests to marry while requiring monks to be celibate, whereas the Western Church required celibacy of both.Another major doctrinal debate was the Filioque [Filly-o-quay] Controversy we briefly touched on in an earlier episode. Now, before I get a barrage of emails, there’s debate among scholars over the pronunciation of Filioque. Some say “Filly-oak” others “Filly-o-quay.” Take your pick.The point is, the Controversy dealt with the wording of the Nicene Creed as related to the Holy Spirit. The original Creed said the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father. A bit later, the Western Church altered the wording a bit so as to affirm the equality of the Son of God with the Father. So they said the Spirit proceeded from both Father & Son. Filioque is Latin for “and the Son” thus giving the name of the controversy. The Eastern Church saw this addition as dangerous tampering with the Creed and refused to accept it while the Filioque clause became a standard part of what was considered normative doctrine in the West.Another major discussion arose over the question of predestination. A Carolingian monk named Gottschalk, who studied Augustine's theology carefully, was the first to teach 'double predestination'; the belief that some people are predestined to salvation, while others are predestined to damnation. He was tried and condemned for his views by 2 synods and finally imprisoned by the Archbishop of Rheims. Gottschalk died 20 years later, holding his views to the end.The other major theological issue of the Carolingian era concerned the Lord's Supper. The influential Abbot of Corbie wrote a treatise titled On the Body and Blood of the Lord. This was the first clear statement of a doctrine of the 'real presence' of Christ's body and blood in the Communion elements, later called the doctrine of “transubstantiation,” an issue that will become a heated point in the debate between the Roman Church & Reformers.The reforms of King Pepin and Pope Boniface focused attention on priests. It was clear to all that clergy ought to lead lives beyond reproach. That synod after synod during the 6^th, 7^th, & 8^th Cs had to make such a major issue of this demonstrated the need for reform. Among the violations warned against were the rejection of celibacy, gluttony, drunkenness, tawdry relationships with women, hunting, carrying arms & frequenting taverns.Monastic developments at this time were significant. The emphasis was on standardization and centralization. Between 813 and 17 a revised Benedictine rule was adopted for the whole of the Carolingian Empire. Another Benedict, a monk from Burgundy, was responsible for an ultra-strict regimen. Charlemagne's successor, Louis the Pious, appointed Benedict the overseer of all monasteries in the realm, and a few years later his revised Benedictine rule was made obligatory for all monasteries. Sadly, with little long-term effect.When Louis succeeded Charlemagne, the Pope was able to regain his independence, following a long domination by the Emperor. The imperial theocracy of Charlemagne's reign would have yielded a 'state church' as already existed in the East. But the papacy stressed the superiority of spiritual power over the secular. This was reinforced by the forged Donation of Constantine with its emphasis on papal pre-eminence in the governing of the Empire, not just the Church.In the middle of the 9^th C, priests at Rheims produced another remarkable forgery, the False Decretals. Accomplished with great inventiveness, the Decretals were designed to provide a basis in law which protected the rights of bishops. They included the bogus Donation of Constantine and became a central part of the canon of medieval law. It shored up papal claims to supremacy in church affairs over secular authority. The first Pope to make use of the False Decretals was Nicholas I. He recognized the danger of a Church dominated by civil rulers and was determined to avert this by stressing that the church's government was centered on Rome, not Constantinople, and certainly not in some lesser city like Milan or Ravenna.From the late 9^th until the mid-11^th C, Western Christendom was beset by a host of major challenges that left the region vulnerable. The Carolingian Empire fragmented, leaving no major military power to defend Western Europe. Continued attacks by Muslims in the S, a fresh wave of attacks by the Magyars in the E, and incessant raids by the Norsemen all over the Empire, turned the shards of the empire into splinters. One contemporary lamented, “Once we had a king, now we have kinglets!” For many Western Europeans, it seemed the end of the world was at hand.The popes no longer had Carolingian rulers as protectors. So the papacy became increasingly involved in the power struggles among the nobility for the rule of Italy. Popes became partisans of one political faction or another; sometimes willingly, other times coerced. But the cumulative result was spiritual and moral decline. For instance, Pope Stephen VI took vengeance on the preceding pope by having his body disinterred and brought before a synod, where it was propped up in a chair for trial. Following conviction, the body was thrown into the Tiber River. Then, within a year Stephen himself was overthrown. He was strangled while in prison.There was a near-complete collapse of civil order in Europe during the 10^th C. Church property was ransacked by invaders or fell into the hands of the nobility. Noblemen treated churches and monasteries as their private property to dispose of as they wished. The clergy became indifferent to duty. Their illiteracy & immorality grew.The 10^th C was a genuine dark age, at least as far as the condition of the Church was concerned. Without imperial protection, popes became helpless playthings for the nobility, who fought to gain control by appointing relatives and political favorites. A chronicle by the German bishop of Cremona paints a graphic picture of sexual debauchery in the Church.Though there were incompetent & immoral popes during this time, they continued to be respected throughout the West. Bishoprics and abbeys were founded by laymen after they obtained the approval of the papal court. Pilgrimages to Rome hardly slackened during this age, as Christians visited the sacred sites of the West; that is, the tombs of Peter and Paul, as well as a host of other relics venerated in there.At the lowest ebb of the 10^th C, during the reign of Pope John XII, from 955-64, a major change in Italian politics affected the papacy. An independent & capable German monarchy emerged. This Saxon dynasty began with the election of Henry I and continued with his son, Otto I, AKA Otto the Great . Otto developed a close relationship with the Church in Germany. Bishops and abbots were given the rights and honor of high nobility. The church received huge tracts of land. Thru this alliance with the Church, Otto aimed to forestall the rebellious nobles of his kingdom.But the new spiritual aristocracy created by Otto wasn’t hereditary. Bishops & abbots couldn’t “pass on” their privileges to their successors. Favor was granted by the King to whomever he chose. Thus, their loyalty could be counted on more readily. In fact, the German bishops contributed money and arms to help the German kings expand into Italy, what is now the regions of East Germany & Poland.Otto helped raise the papacy out of the quagmire of Italian politics. His entrance into Italian affairs was a fateful decision. He marched south into Italy to marry Adelaide of Burgundy and declare himself king of the Lombards. Ten years later, he again marched south at the invitation of Pope John XII. In February of 962, the Pope tried a renewal of the Holy Roman Empire by crowning Otto and Adelaide in St Peter's. But the price paid by the pope for Otto’s support was another round of interference in Church affairs.For the next 300 years, each new German monarch followed up his election by making a march to Rome to be crowned as Emperor. But at this point, it wasn’t so much Popes who made Emperors as it was Emperors who made Popes. And when a pope ran afoul of the ruler, he was conveniently labeled ‘anti-pope’ & deposed, to be replaced by the next guy. It was the age of musical chairs in Rome; whoever grabs the papal chair when the music stops gets to sit. But when the Emperor instructs the band to play again, whoever’s in the chair has to stand and the game starts all over again. Lest you think I’m overstating the case, in 963 Otto returned to Rome, convened a synod which found Pope John guilty of a list of sordid crimes and deposed him. In his place, they chose a layman, who received all of his ecclesiastical orders in a single day to become Pope Leo VIII. He managed to sit in the Pope’s chair less than a year before the music started all over again.

49-Charlemagne Part 2

Welcome to the 49^th installment of CS. This episode is titled “Charlemagne Pt. 2.”After his coronation on Christmas Day AD 800, Charlemagne said he didn’t know it had been planned by Pope Leo III. If setting the crown of a new Holy Roman Empire on his head was a surprise, he got over the shock right quick. He quickly shot off dispatches to the lands under his control to inform them he was large and in-charge. Each missive began with these words, “Charles, by the will of God, Roman Emperor, Augustus … in the year of our consulship 1.” He required an oath be taken to him as Caesar by all officers, whether religious or civil. He sent ambassadors to soothe the inevitable wrath of the Emperor in Constantinople.What’s important to note is how his coronation ceremony in St. Peter’s demonstrated the still keen memory of the Roman Empire that survived in Europe. His quick emergence as the recognized leader of a large part of Europe revealed the strong desire there was to reestablish a political unity that had been absent from the region for 400 years. But, Charlemagne’s coronation launched a long-standing contest. One we’d not expect, since it was, after all, the Pope who crowned him. The contest was between the revived empire and the Roman Church.In the medieval world, Church and State were two realms comprising Christendom. The Medieval Church represented Christian society aimed at acquiring spiritual blessings, while the Medieval State existed to safeguard civil justice and tranquility. Under the medieval system, both Church and State were supposed to exist side by side in a harmonious relationship, each focused on gaining the good of mankind but in different spheres; the spiritual and the civil.In reality, it rarely worked that way. The Pope and Emperor were usually contestants in a game of thrones. The abiding question was: Does the Church rule the State, or the State the Church? This contest was played out on countless fields, large and small, throughout the Middle Ages.Charlemagne left no doubt about where sovereignty lay during His reign. He provided Europe a colossal father figure as the first Holy Roman Emperor. Everyone was answerable to him. To solve the problem of supervising local officials in his expansive realm, Charlemagne passed an ordinance creating the missi dominici or king’s envoys. These were pairs of officials, a bishop and noble, who traveled the realm to check on local officials. Even the pope was kept under the watchful imperial eye.Though Charlemagne occasionally used the title “emperor” in official documents, he usually declined it because it appeared to register his acceptance of what the Pope had done at his coronation. Charlemagne found this dangerous; that the Pope was now in a position to make an Emperor. The concern was—The one who can MAKE an emperor, can un-make him. Charles thought it ought to be the other way around; that Emperors selected and sanctioned Popes.In truth, what Pope Leo III did on Christmas Day of 800 when he placed the crown on Charlemagne’s head was just a final flourish of what was already a well-established fact – Charles was King of the Franks. One recent lecturer described the coronation as the cherry on the top of a sundae that had already been made by Charles the Great.In our last episode we saw a major objective of Charlemagne’s vision was to make Europe an intellectual center. He launched a revival of learning and the arts. Historians speak of this as the Carolingian Renaissance. Charlemagne required monasteries to have a school for the education of boys in grammar, math and singing. At his capital of Aachen he built a school for the education of the royal court. The famous English scholar Alcuin headed the school, and began the difficult task of reviving learning in the early Middle Ages by authoring the first textbooks in grammar, rhetoric, and logic.It was Charlemagne’s emphasis on education that proved to be his enduring legacy to history. He sent out agents far and wide to secure every work of the classical age they could find. They returned to Aachen and the monastery schools where they were translated into Latin. This is why Latin became the language of scholarship in the ages to come. It was helped along by Charlemagne’s insistence a standard script be developed – Carolingian miniscule. Now, scholars all across Western Europe could read the same materials, because a consistent script was being used for Latin letters.This became one of the most important elements in making the Renaissance possible.Few historians deny Charlemagne’s massive impact on European history, and thereby, the history of the modern world. The center of western civilization shifted from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe. After 300 years of virtual chaos, Charles the Great restored a measure of law and order. His sponsorship of the intellectual arts laid a heritage of culture for future generations. And the imperial ideal he revived persisted as a political force in Europe until 1806, when the Holy Roman Empire was terminated by another self-styled emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte.In reality, the peace of Charlemagne’s rule was short-lived. His empire were too vast, its nobility too powerful to be held together once his domineering personality was removed. Like Clovis before him, Charlemagne’s successors were weak and the empire disintegrated into a confusion of civil wars and new invasions. The Northmen began their incessant raiding forays, called going “a-viking” à So we know them as the Vikings. They set sail from Scandinavia in their shallow-hulled long ships, able to sail up rivers and deep inland, where they raided villages, towns and any other unfortunate hamlet they came on. These raids of the Vikings, forced the native peoples to surrender, first their lands, then their persons to the counts, dukes, and other local lords who began to multiply during this time, in return for protection from the raiders. It’s not difficult to see how the process of feudalism developed.Common people needed protection from raiders; whoever they were. But the king and his army was a long way away. It could take weeks, months even, to send a message and get help in reply. In the meantime, the Vikings are right here; right now. See ‘em? Yeah à That blond, long-haired giant berserker with his 2 headed battle axe is about to crash through my door. What good is the king and his army in Aachen or Paris?What I need is someone near with enough men at his call, enough trained and armed soldiers that is, who can turn away a long-ship’s crew of 50 berserkers. How expensive is it to hire, train, outfit and keep a group of soldiers; figure 2 for ever Viking? Who can field an army of a hundred professional soldiers? Well, the nearest Count is 20 minutes away and he only has a half dozen hired men for protection.That count’s a smart guy though and realizes he’s the only one in the area to do what needs to be done. So he goes to 25 of the area’s farmers and says, “Listen, I’ll protect you. But to do that, I need to field an army of a hundred men. That’s very expensive to do so here’s what I need in exchange for protection: Give me the title to your land. You live on and continue to work it. You keep half the yield of all the farm produces; the rest is mine. And for that, I and my army will keep you safe.”When the choice is either yield to that Count or face the long-ships on your own; there’s not much choice. So feudalism with its system of serfs, counts, barons, dukes, and earls began.Central to feudalism was the personal bond between lord and vassals. In the ceremony known as the act of homage, the vassal knelt before his lord, and promised to be his “man.” In the oath of loyalty that followed, called fealty, the vassal swore on a Bible, or a sacred object such as a Cross. Then, in the ritual of investiture, a spear, a glove, or a bit of straw was handed to the vassal to signify his control, but not ownership, over his allotted piece of the lord’s realm.The feudal contract between lord and vassal was sacred and binding on both parties. Breaking the tie was a major felony because it was the basic bond of medieval society. It was thought that to break the rules of feudal society was to imperil all of society, civilization itself.The lord was obliged to give his vassals protection and justice. Vassals not only worked the land for the Lord, they also gave 40 days w/o pay each year to serve as militia in the event of all-out war. But only 40 days, because as farmers, they needed to be home to work their fields and tend the herds.For the most part, this system worked pretty well, as long as the lord treated his vassals well. What became a problem was when lords got greedy and decided to mobilize their army and militia to make a land grab on a neighboring lord. Ideally, Feudalism was supposed to be for protection, not conquest.As the Church was so much a part of medieval life, it couldn’t escape being included in the feudal system. Since the Vikings were equal opportunity raiders, they had no qualms whatever about breaking into churches, convents and monasteries, putting priests and monks to the sword, raping nuns, and absconding with church treasures. This meant the Church turned to local lords for protection as well. Bishops and abbots also became vassals, receiving from the lord a specific region over which their authority lay. In return, they had to provide some service to the Lord. Monasteries produced different goods which they paid as tribute, and priests were often made the special private clergy for the noble’s family. This became a problem when loyalty to the lord conflicted with a ruling from or mission assigned by the Church. Who were the abbots, priest and bishops to obey, the duke 10 minutes from here, or the Pope weeks away in Rome? In the 10^th and early 11^th Cs the popes were in no position to challenge anyone. The office fell into decay after becoming a prize sought by the Roman nobility.What made the latter Middle Ages so complex was the massive intrigue that took place between Nobles and Church officials who learned how to play the feudal game. Society was governed by strict rules. But there were always ways to get around them. And when one couldn’t get around them, if you had enough money or a big enough army, why bother with rules when you can write your own, or pay the rule-interpreters to interpret them in your favor. We know how complex political maneuvering can be today. Compared to Europe of the High Middle Ages, we’re infants in a nursery. Don’t forget, it was that era and system that produced Machiavelli.On a positive note; while there were a few corrupt Church officials who saw religious office as just another way to gain political power, most bishops, priests and abbots sought to influence for the better the behavior of the feudal nobles so their vassals would be taken care of in an ethical manner. In time, their work added the Christian virtues to a code of knightly conduct that came to be called Chivalry. Now, to be clear, chivalry ended up being more an ideal than a practice. A few knights and members of the nobility embraced the Chivalric ideals but others just took advantage of those who sought to live by them.Knights in shining armor, riding off on dangerous quests to rescue fair maidens makes for fun stories, but it’s not the way Chivalry played out in history. It was an ideal the Church worked hard to instill in the increasingly brutal Feudal Age. Bishops tried to impose limitations on warfare. In the 11^th C they inaugurated a couple initiatives called the Peace of God and the Truce of God. The Peace of God banned anyone who pillaged sacred places or refused to spare noncombatants from being able to participate at Communion or receiving any of the other sacraments. The Truce of God set up periods of time when no fighting was allowed. For instance, no combat could be conducted from sunset Wednesday to sunrise Monday and during other special seasons, such as Lent. Good ideas, but both rules were conveniently set aside when they worked contrary to some knights desires.During the 11^th C, the controversy between Church and State centered on the problem of what’s called Investiture. And this goes back now to something that had been in tension for centuries, and was renewed in the crowning of Charlemagne.It was supposed to be that bishops and abbots were appointed to their office by the Church. Their spiritual authority was invested in them by a Church official. But because bishops and abbots had taken on certain feudal responsibilities, they were invested with civil authority by the local noble; sometimes by the king himself. Problems arose when a king refused to invest a bishop because said bishop was more interested in the Church’s cause than the king’s. He wanted someone more compliant to his agenda, while the Church wanted leaders who would look out for her interests. It was a constant game of brinkmanship, in which whatever institution held most influence, had the say in who lead the churches and monasteries. In places like Germany where the king was strong, bishops and abbots were his men. Where the Church had greater influence, it was the bishops and abbots who dominated political affairs.But that was the controversy of the 11^th C. The Church of the 10^th could see the way things were headed in its affiliation with the Throne and knew it was not prepared to challenge kings and emperors. It needed to set its own house in order because things had slipped badly for a couple hundred years. Moral corruption had infected large portions of the clergy and learning had sunk to a low. Many of the clergy were illiterate and marked by grave superstitions. It was time for renewal and reform. This was led by the Benedictine order of Cluny, founded in 910. From their original monastery in Eastern France, the Benedictines exerted a powerful impulse of reform within the feudal Church. The Cluniac program began as monastic reform movement, but spread to the European Church as a whole. It enforced the celibacy of priests and abolished the purchase of church offices; a corrupt practice called Simony.The goal of the Clunaic reformers was to free the Church from secular control and return it to the Pope’s authority. Nearly 300 monasteries were freed from control by the nobles, and in 1059 the papacy itself was delivered from secular interference. This came about by the creation of the College of Cardinals, which from then on selected the Pope.The man who led the much-needed reform of the papacy was an arch-deacon named Hildebrand. He was elected pope in 1073 and given the title Gregory VII. He claimed more power for the papal office than had been known before and worked for the creation of a Christian Empire under the Pope’s control. Rather than equality between Church and State, Gregory said spiritual power was supreme and therefore trumped the temporal power of nobles and kings. In 1075 he banned investiture by civil officials and threatened to excommunicate anyone who performed it as well as any clergy who submitted to it. This was a virtual declaration of war on Europe’s rulers since most of them practiced lay investiture.The climax to the struggle between Pope Gregory and Europe’s nobility took place in his clash with the emperor Henry IV. The pope accused Henry of Simony in appointing his own choice to be the archbishop of Milan. Gregory summoned Henry to Rome to explain his conduct. Henry refused to go but convened a synod of German bishops in 1076 that declared Gregory a usurper and unfit to be Pope. The synod declared, “Wherefore henceforth we renounce, now and for the future, all obedience to you.” In retaliation, Gregory excommunicated Henry and deposed him, absolving his subjects from their oaths of allegiance.Now, remember how sacred and firm those feudal oaths between lord and vassal were! The Pope, who was supposed to be God’s representative on Earth, sent a message to all Henry’s subjects saying not only was Henry booted out of the Church, and so destined to the eternal flames of hell, he was no longer king or emperor; their bonds to him were dissolved. Furthermore, to continue to give allegiance to Henry was to defy the Pope who opens and closes the door to heaven. Uhh, do you really want to do that? Can you see where this is going? Henry may have an army, but that army has to eat and if the peasants and serfs won’t work, the army falls apart.Henry was convinced by the German nobles who revolted against him to make peace with Pope Gregory. He appeared before the Pope in January of 1077. Dressed as a penitent, the emperor stood barefoot in the snow for 3 days and begged forgiveness until, in Gregory’s words “We loosed the chain of the anathema and at length received him … into the lap of the Holy Mother Church.”This dramatic humiliation of an emperor did not forever end the contest between the throne and the pope. But the Church made progress toward freeing itself from interference by nobles. The problem of investiture was settled in 1122 by a compromise known as the Concordat of Worms. The Church kept the right to appoint the holder of a church office, then the nobles endorsed him.The Popes who followed Gregory added little to the authority of the papacy. They also insisted society was organized under the pope as its visible head, and he was guarded against all possibility of error by the Apostle Peter perpetually-present in his successors.During the Middle Ages, for the first time, Europe became conscious of itself as a unity. It was the Church that facilitated that identity. Though it struggled with the challenge of how to wield power without being corrupted by it, the Church gained a level of influence over the lives of men and women that for the most part it used to benefit society.We’re used to seeing priests and bishops of the medieval era as modern literature and movies cast them. It’s far more interesting to make them out to be villains and scoundrels, instead of godly servants of Christ who lived virtuous lives. A survey of movies and novels written about the Middle Ages shows that churchmen are nearly always cast in 1 of 2 ways; the best are naïve but illiterate bumblers, while the worst are conniving criminals who hide their wickedness behind a cross. While there was certainly a handful of each of these 2 type-casts; the vast majority of priests and monks were simply godly lovers of Jesus who worked tirelessly to bring His love and truth to the people of their day. Guys like that just don’t make for very interesting characters in a murder mystery set in a medieval monastery.

48-Charlemagne Part 1

The title of this 48^th episode of CS is “Charlemagne – Part 1.”The political landscape of our time is dominated by the idea that nation-states are autonomous, sovereign societies in which religion at best plays a minor role. Religion may be an influence in shaping some aspects of culture, but affiliation with a religious group is voluntary and distinct from the rest of society.What we need to understand if we’re going to be objective in our study of history is that, that idea simply did not exist in Europe during the Middle Ages.In the 9^th C, the Frank king Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne, sought to makes Augustine’s vision of society in his magnum opus, The City of God, a reality. He merged Church and State, fusing a new political-religious alliance. His was a conscious effort to merge the Roman Catholic Church with what was left of the old Roman political house, creating a hybrid Holy Roman Empire. The product became what’s called Medieval European Christendom.How did it come about that Jesus’ statement that His kingdom was not of this world, could be so massively reworked? Let’s find out.300 years after the Fall of the Western Empire to the Goths, the idea and ideal of Empire continued to fire the imaginations of the people of Europe. Though the barbarians were divided into several groups and remained at constant war with each other, the longing for peace and unity that marked the region under the Roman Eagle held a powerful attraction. Many looked forward to the day when a new Empire would appear. Just as the Eastern Empire centered at Constantinople saw itself as Rome-still, the vestiges of the Western Empire along with their German neighbors hoped the Empire would (insert Star Wars reference) strike back and rise again.By merging the Roman and Germanic religions, customs and peoples, the Franks under Clovis became the odds on favorite to accomplish what many hoped for. But Clovis’ dynasty began to fall apart not long after he passed from the scene. His descendants were at odds with each other, vying for pre-eminence. They became adept at intrigue and treachery.The power vacuum created by their squabbles gave room for wealthy aristocrats to gain power. Like 2 dogs fighting over a scrap of food, while they’re busy snarling and snapping at each other, the cat comes and quietly steals away what they’re fighting over. So it was with Clovis’ descendants, the Merovingians. While they fought each other, the landed nobility quietly stole more and more of their authority. Among these emerging aristocrats was one who worked his way into the heart of power to become the most influential figure in the kingdom. He was called the “majordomo” or “mayor of the palace.”The majordomo was the real power behind the throne. He ran the kingdom while the king served as little more than a ceremonial figurehead. The idea was that the son of the previous king wasn’t necessarily the one most fit to rule just because of his birth. So while the title went legally to him, the day-to-day business of running the realm was better served by another with the skills to get the job done.In 680, Pepin II became majordomo for the Franks. He made no pretense of his desire to supplant the Merovingian line with his own as the de-facto rulers. He took the title of Duke and Prince of the Franks and made moves to ensure his line would eventually sit the throne.His son, Charles Martel, became majordomo in 715. Charles allowed the Merovingian kings to retain their title but as little more than figureheads. What catapulted Charles to the throne was his defeat of the Muslims in 732.In 711 a Muslim army from North Africa called the Moors invaded Spain and rolled back the weak kingdom of the Visigoths by 718. With the Iberian Peninsula under their control, the Moors began raiding across the Pyrenees into Southern Gaul. Until this time, the Muslims had advanced at a steady pace out of the Middle East, across North Africa, then into Europe. It seemed no one in the West could stop them and the fear of the infidel hordes running amuck throughout the lands of Christendom was a terror.In 732 Charles led the Franks against a Moor raiding party near Tours, deep inside the Frank’s land. He inflicted such heavy losses the Moors retreated to Spain and were never again a major threat to Western Europe. For this and his other conquests, Charles was called Martell – “the Hammer.”Martel’s son, Pepin III, also known as Pepin the Short, considered it time to make the power of the Frank majordomo more official. Why not give the title of “king” to the guy who was actually ruling, instead of some royal spoiled brat who thought armies were just large toys to play with? Pepin III asked Pope Zachary for a ruling saying whoever actually wielded power was the legal ruler. He got what he wanted, promptly deposed the last Merovingian King, Childeric III, and was crowned the first of the Carolingian kings by the bishop of Mainz in 751. Childeric was quietly shuffled off to a monastery where he was told to mind his manners or he’d wake up dead one day. Then, 3 years after Pepin’s coronation, Pope Stephen II himself blessed him by making the trip from Rome to Paris and personally anointing Pepin as the “Chosen of the Lord.”Both Popes Zachary and Stephen were eager to shore up the alliance with the Franks begun with Clovis because of the emerging problem with the Lombards. They’d already conquered Ravenna, the center of Byzantine power in Italy. The Lombards demanded tribute from the pope and threatened to take Rome if it wasn’t paid. With Pepin’s coronation, the Church at Rome secured his promise of protection and his pledge to give the pope the territory of Ravenna once it was recovered. In 756, the Franks forced the Lombards to surrender several of their Italian conquests, and Pepin kept his promise to give Ravenna to the Pope. This was known as the “Donation of Pepin,” and came to be called the Papal States. This made the Pope a temporal ruler over a strip of land cutting across Italy.This alliance between the Franks and the Church at Rome, or more properly, between the Carolingian kings and the Popes, had a dramatic impact on the course of European politics for centuries to come. It sped up the separation of the Latin and Greek Church by giving the Popes an ally to replace the Byzantines. And it created the Papal States which will play a major role in Italian politics all the way up to the late 19^th C.But one of the most significant issues was that with the Popes taking a hand in anointing kings, it set the stage for the eventual vying for power between Church and State, between Pope and Emperor. The question became: Who was really in charge? The Pope—who by reason of setting the crown on the king’s head, sanctioned his rule, or the King—whose armies were the enforcement end of the Pope’s staff and protected him from enemies? Do popes make kings, or do kings make popes? Fire up the medieval merry-go-round.It was Pepin III’s son who took all that his father and grandfather had done and put the cap on it. His name also was Charles; Charles the Great; known to us as Charlemagne.When Charlemagne succeeded his father in 768 he had a far-reaching vision of making Central Europe into a new Empire, similar to the Golden Age of Rome, but this time enlightened by Christianity.To accomplish this vision he had 3 objectives:1) Boost the Franks military might so they could dominate Europe,2) Secure an alliance with the Church to unite Europe under one faith,3) Make this European base an intellectual center.Charlemagne’s success, if we can call it that, set the course for Europe for the next thousand years.Charles the Great was a big man. At 6’3” he was a full foot taller than average at that time. But to those who met him he seemed even bigger because he was one of those people who had an extra dose of gravitas. He was skilled at arms and was always at the head of the army when they went into battle, which he led the Franks in every year.The Merovingians had wasted the strength of the Franks in incessant civil wars. Charlemagne united the Franks and set them on the task of conquest. He took advantage of feuds among the Muslims Moors in Spain and in 778 crossed the Pyrenees in an attempt to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula. His first campaign was met with minor success but later expeditions drove the Moors back to the Ebro River and established a frontier known as the Spanish March centered at Barcelona.Then Charlemagne conquered the Bavarians and Saxons, last of the independent Germanic tribes. He ruthlessly attempted to stamp out the residue of Germanic paganism by passing harsh laws, such as saying eating meat during Lent, cremating the dead, and pretending to be baptized, were offenses punishable by death.The kingdom’s eastern frontier was continually threatened by Asiatic nomads related to the Huns known as the Slavs and Avars. Charlemagne decimated the Avars and set up his own military province in the Danube valley to guard against future plundering. He called this the East March, later called Austria.Then, like his father before him, Charlemagne sought to take a hand in Italian politics. The Lombards invaded that territory Pepin had given the Church. So, in 774 at the Pope’s urging, Charlemagne once again defeated the Lombards and proclaimed himself their king.The Lombard’s campaigns and conquests made it clear the Popes needed protection. Only one military and political power had that ability, the Frank king. Charlemagne, on the other hand, needed divine sanction to accomplish his goal of uniting Europe. Only one authority possessed the religious mojo to do that – the Pope. Can you see where this is headed?April 25, 799 was St. Mark’s Day, a day set aside for repentance and prayer. It seemed the right thing to do since Italy had been stricken by numerous problems, including plague and pestilence. So Pope Leo III led a procession thru Rome beseeching God’s forgiveness and blessing.The procession wound thru the middle of the city to St. Peter’s. As it turned a corner, armed men rushed at the pope. They drove off his attendants, and pulled Leo off his horse, carting him off to a monastery favorable to their cause. That being that they were officials and dignitaries loyal to the previous pope, Adrian I. Perjury and adultery were the charges leveled at Leo. The pope’s supporters tracked him down and rescued him.This created a furor that sparked on-going riots that could not be quelled. So Pope Leo once again sent for Charlemagne. He crossed the Alps with an army, determined to settle the pope’s problem once and for all. He put down the unrest and in December presided over a large assembly of bishops, nobles, diplomats and malcontents. In other words, anyone who considered themselves someone and held a hand in the political game was in attendance. Then, the pope, wielding a Bible, took an oath swearing innocence in all charges against him. That brought the mutiny against him to an effective end. But it set the stage for a far more momentous development.2 days later, Christmas Day AD 800, Charlemagne arrived at St. Peter’s with a large retinue for the Christmas service. Pope Leo sang the mass and the king knelt in prayer in front of Peter’s crypt. The pope approached the kneeling monarch carrying a golden crown. Leo placed it on Charlemagne’s head as the congregation cried: “To Charles, the most pious, crowned Augustus by God, to the great peace-making Emperor, long life and victory!” The pope then prostrated himself. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, had just become the first king of the Holy Roman Empire.We’ll conclude Charlemagne’s story next time.

47-Challenge

This week’s episode is titled – “Challenge.”We’ve tracked the development and growth of the Church in the East over a few episodes. To be clear, we’re talking about the Church which made its headquarters in the city of Seleucia, twin city to the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, in the region known as Mesopotamia. What today historians refer to as The Church in the East called itself the Assyrian Church. But it was known by the Catholic Church in the West with its twin centers at Rome and Constantinople, by the disparaging title of the Nestorian Church because it continued on in the theological tradition of Bishop Nestorius, declared heretical by the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon 20 years later. As we’ve seen, it’s doubtful what Nestorius taught about the nature of Christ was truly errant. But Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, more for political reasons than from a concern for theological purity, convinced his peers Nestorius was a heretic and had him and his followers banished. They moved East and formed the core of the Church in the East.While that branch of the Church thrived during the European Middle Ages, the Western Catholic Church coalesced around 2 centers; Rome and Constantinople. Though they’d reached agreement over the doctrinal issues regarding the nature of Christ and expelled both the Nestorians to the East and the Monophysite Jacobites to their enclaves in Syria and Egypt, the Western and Eastern halves of the Roman Church drifted apart.The Council of Constantinople in 692 marked one of several turning points in the eventual rift between Rome and Constantinople. Called by the Emperor, the Council was attended only by Eastern Bishops. It dealt with no real doctrinal matters but set down rules for how the Church was to be organized and worship conducted. The problem is that several of the decisions went contrary to the long-held practice in Rome and the churches in Western Europe that looked to it. The Pope rejected the Council. à And the gulf between Rome and Constantinople widened.This gap between the Eastern and Western halves of the Church mirrored what was happening in the Empire at large. As we’ve seen, Justinian I tried to revive the gory of the Roman Empire in the 6^th C, but after his death, the Empire quickly reverted to its path toward disintegration. What helped this dissolution was the emergence of Islam from the southeast corner of the Empire.Historically, the Arabs were a people of multiple tribes who shared both a common culture and distrust of one another which fueled endless conflict. But the early 7^th C saw them united by a new and militant religion. The endless struggles that had kept them at each other’s throats, were merged into a shared mission of setting them at everyone else’s. Why steal from each other in generations of just transferring the same loot back and forth when they could unite and grab new plunder from their neighbors?And so much the better when those neighbors who used to be too strong to attack, were now in decline and under-defended?It was a Perfect Storm. The emergence of the Muslim armies in the early 7^th C, bursting forth from the furnace that forged them, came right at the time when the once unstoppable might of the Roman Empire was finally a relic of a bygone age. Constantinople was able to hold the invaders at bay for another 700 years, but Islam spread quickly over other lands of the once great Empire; into the Middle East, North Africa, and was even able to get a foothold in Europe when they jumped the Straits of Gibraltar and landed in Spain. In the East, the Muslims swept up into Rome’s ancient nemesis, Persia, and quickly subdued it as well.It all began with the birth of an Arab named Muhammad in 570.Since this is a podcast on the history of Christianity rather than Islam, I’ll be brief in this review of the new religion that moved the Arabs out of their peninsula during the 7^th C.Islam marks its beginning to the Hegira, Muhammad’s move from his hometown of Mecca to the city of Medina in AD 622. This began the successful phase of his preaching. Muhammad built a theology that included elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Arabian polytheism.While there’s much talk today about Islam’s place with Judaism and Christianity as a monotheistic religion, a little research reveals Muhammad really only elevated one of the Arab’s gods over the others – that is Il-Allah, or as it is known today – Allah. Allah was the moon god and patron deity of Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe. The enduring proof of this is the symbol of the crescent moon that adorns the top of every Muslim mosque and minaret and is the universal symbol of Islam.Muhammad’s new religion included elements of both Judaism and Christianity because he hoped to include both groups in his new movement. The Jews refused his efforts while several Christians joined the new movement. It’s understandable why. The church Muhammad was familiar with was one that had been co-opted by Arab superstition. It hardly resembled Biblical Christianity. It was ripe pickings for the emergent faith. When Islam later ran into more orthodox Christian communities, they refused the new faith. Muhammad was incensed at the Jews and Christians refusal to join, so they became the object of his wrath.Part of Muhammad’s genius was that he sanctified the Arabic penchant for war by uniting the tribes and sending them on the mission of taking Islam to the rest of the world thru the power of the sword. Loot was made over as a religious bonus, evidence of divine favor.Islam’s rapid spread across Western Asia and North Africa was facilitated by the vacuum left from the chronic wars between Rome and Persia. Just prior to the Arab conquests, the old combatants had concluded yet another round in their long contest and were exhausted!In the 2^nd decade of the 7^th C, the Persians conquered Syria and Palestine from the Romans, took Antioch, pillaged Jerusalem, then conquered Alexandria in Egypt. That means the Persians ruled what had been the 2^nd and 3^rd most populous cities of the Roman Empire. They conquered most of Asia Minor and set-up camp just across the Bosporus from Constantinople.Then, in one of the great reversals of history, Emperor Heraclius rallied the Eastern Empire and launched a Holy War to reclaim the lands lost to the Persians. They retook Syria, Palestine, Egypt and invaded deep into Persia. You can well imagine what all this war did politically, environmentally and economically to the region. It left it exhausted. Like a body whose defenses are down, the Eastern Empire was ripe for a new invasion. And look; Oh goodie à Here come the Arabs swinging their scimitars. The Arab advance was nothing less than spectacular.Muhammad died in 632 and was followed by a series of associates known as caliphs. In 635 the Arabs took Damascus, in 638 they captured Jerusalem. Alexandria fell in 642. Then the Muslim armies turned north and swept up into the demoralized region of Persia. By 650 it was theirs, as were parts of Asia Minor and a large part of North Africa.The Muslims realized conquering the Mediterranean would require they become a naval power. They did and began taking strategic islands in the Eastern and Central sea. In the 670s with their new navy, they began taking shots at Constantinople but were chased off by a new invention – Greek Fire.They conquered Carthage in 697, the center of Byzantine might in North Africa. Then in 715, they hopped the Straits of Gibraltar and landed in Spain, bringing the Visigothic rule there to an end. They then crossed the Pyrenees and laid claim to Southwestern Gaul. It wasn’t ill the Battle of Tours in 732 that the Franks under Charles Martel were able to put a halt to the Muslim advance. That also marks the beginning of the ever so slow roll-back of Muslim domination in the Iberian Peninsula.But what territory Islam lost in the far western reach of their holdings was made up for by their advances in the East. During the 8^th C, they reached into Punjab in India and deep into Central Asia.The major islands of the Mediterranean became coins that flipped from Byzantine to Muslim, then back again. The Muslims even managed to settle a couple of colonies on the coast of Italy. They raided Rome.These conquests tapered off as the old tendency toward animosity between the Arabic tribes returned. The thing that had united them, Islam, became one more thing to fight over. The main point of contention was over who was supposed to lead the Umma – the Muslim community. Islam fractured into different camps who turned their scimitars on each other, and the rest of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.The Church in those lands that now lay under the Crescent moon suffered. Islam was supposed to hold a certain respect for what they called “The People of the Book” - meaning Christians and Jews. Moses and Jesus were considered great prophets in Islam. While pagans had to convert to Islam, Christians and Jews were allowed to continue in their faith, as long as they paid a penalty tax. The treatment of Christians varied widely across Muslims lands. Their fate was determined by the intensity of the rulers’ faith and adherence to Islam. This was largely due to the conflicting instructions found in the Koran about how to treat people of other faiths.In Islam, later revelation supersedes earlier pronouncements. Early in Muhammad’s career, he hoped to win Christians by persuasion to his cause so he called for kindly treatment of them. Later, when he had some power and Christians proved intractable, he spoke more stridently and urged their forced compliance. Conversion FROM Islam to any other religion was to be punished by execution. But the Koran isn’t set down in a chronological sequence and readers don’t always know which was an earlier and which a later revelation. Some Muslims rulers were stern and read the harsh passages as being the rule. They persecuted Christian and tried to eradicate the Church. Others believed the call to a more merciful relationship with Christians was a higher morality and followed that. Churches were allowed to meet under such rulers, but public demonstrations of faith were banned and no new church building was permitted.Interestingly, there was a flowering of Arabic culture that took place due to rule by benevolent Muslims. Because Christian scholarship was allowed, the Classics of Greek and Roman civilization were translated into Arabic BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY and SCHOLARS. It was this that led to the emergence of the Arabic Golden Age modern historians make so much of. That such a Golden Age was sparked and enabled by Christian scholars giving Muslims access to the works of classical antiquity is rarely mentioned.The severe limits placed on the Faith by even lenient Muslim rulers, combined with the harsh treatment of the Church in other places led to widespread loses by the Church in terms of population and influence. Catholic Christians living in North Africa fled north to Europe where they were welcomed by those of similar faith. But the Jacobite Monophysite community was left behind to languish, and the vibrant church culture that had once dominated the region was nearly lost. The resurgent radical Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is now putting the final nails in the coffin of the Coptic Church, the spiritual heirs to that once vibrant history.Nearly everywhere Islam spread, it was accompanied by mass defections of marginal Christians to the new faith. Pragmatism isn’t such a modern philosophy after all. Many nominal Christians assumed the single God of Islam was the same as the one God of Christianity and He must favor the Muslims – I mean > look at how successful they are in spreading their religion. Might makes right – Right? // Well, maybe it doesn’t . . . Shhh! Not so loud, the mullahs might hear and their scimitars are sharp.As many had converted to the newly emergent Christianity under the auspices of Constantine in the early 4^th Century, now many converted to Islam under the caliphates in the 7^th.Along with the restrictions placed on those Christians who refused to convert to Islam was added a practice the Muslims picked up from the Zoroastrian rulers of Persia. They required Christians to wear a distinctive badge and prohibited them from serving in the army. That was probably for the best since the army was used specifically to spread the Faith by the sword – the Muslim practice of jihad. But being banned from the military meant they were prohibited the use of arms, and forced to wear distinctive clothing meant easy identification for those hostile elements who saw the presence of Christians as contrary to the will of Allah. Christians became targets of public shame and often, violence. Since conversions FROM Islam were punishable by death, while conversion TO Islam was rewarded, even in the most lenient realms under the banner of Crescent Moon, the church experienced a steady decline.As Islam settled in and became the dominant cultural force throughout its domains, most of the Christian communities that remained became tradition-bound. They reacted strongly against any innovations, fearing they were dangerous deviations from the Faith they’d held to so tenaciously in spite of persecution. Another reason they rejected change was for fear it might lead to success and the church would grow. Growth meant the Muslim authorities paying closer attention, and that was something they wanted to avoid at all costs. For that reason, to this day the Church in Muslim lands tends to be archaic and bound to traditions practiced for hundreds of years.

46-Liturgy

This episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “Liturgy.”What comes to mind when you hear that word – “Liturgy.”Most likely—it brings up various associations for different people. Some find great comfort in what the word connotes because it recalls a time in their life of close connection to God. Others think of empty rituals that obscure, rather than bring closer a sense of the sacred.The following is by no means meant as a comprehensive study of Christian liturgy. Far from it. That would take hours. This is just a thumbnail sketch of the genesis of some of the liturgical traditions of the Church.First off, using a broad-brush the word ‘liturgy’ refers to the order and parts of a service held in a church. Even though most non-denominational, Evangelical churches like the one I’m a part of doesn’t call our order of service on a Sunday morning a “liturgy” – that’s in fact what it is. Technically, the word “Liturgy” means “service.” But it’s come to refer to all the various parts of a church service, that is, when a local church community gathers for worship. It includes the order the various events occur, how they’re conducted, what scripts are recited, what music is used, which rituals are performed, even what physical objects are employed to conduct them; things like special clothes, furniture, & implements.Even within the same church, there may be different liturgies for different events and seasons of the year.For convenience sake, churches tend to get put into 2 broad categories; liturgical & non-liturgical. Liturgical churches are often also called “high-church” meaning they have a set tradition for the order of the service that includes special vestments for priests & officiants; and follow a pattern for their service that’s been conducted the same way for many years. Certain portions of the Bible are read, then a reading from another treasured tome of that denomination, people sit, stand and kneel at designated times, and clergy follows a set route through the sanctuary.In a non-liturgical church, while they may follow a regular order of service, there’s little of the formalism and ritual used in a high-church service. In many liturgical churches, the message a pastor or priest is to share each week is spelled out by the denominational hierarchy in a manual sent out annually. In a non-liturgical church, the pastor is typically free to pick what he wants to speak on.The great liturgies arose in the 4^th to 6^th Cs then codified in the 6^th & 7^th. They were much more elaborate than the order of service practiced in the churches of the 2^nd & 3^rd Cs.Several factors led to the creation of liturgies àFirst: There’s a tendency to settle on a standard way to say things when it comes to the beliefs & practices of a group. When someone states something well, or does something in an impressive way, it tends to get repeated.Second: Bishops & elders tended to take what they learned in one place and transplanted it wherever they went.Third: A written liturgy made the services more orderly.Fourth: The desire to hold on to what was thought to be passed down by the Apostles became a priority. This worked against any desire for change.Fifth: A devotion to orthodoxy, combined for a concern about heresy tended to sanctify what was old and opposed innovation. Changes in a liturgy sparked controversy.The main liturgies that emerged during the 5^th & 6^th Cs bear similarities in structure & theme; even in wording, while also having distinct features.The main liturgical traditions can be listed as . . .In the EastThe Alexandrian or sometimes called Egyptian liturgies.The West Syrian family includes the Jerusalem, Clementine, & Constantinoplitan liturgies.The East Syrian family includes the liturgies that were used in the Nestorian churches of the East.In the West, the principal liturgical families were Roman, Gallican, Ambrosian, Mozarbic & Celtic.As we saw in Epsidoe 41, Pope Gregory the Great in the 7^th C embellished the liturgy & ritual practiced in the Western Roman Church. Elaborate rituals were already a long-time tradition in the Eastern Church, influenced as it was by the court of Constantinople.If Augustine laid down the theological base for the Medieval church, Pope Gregory can be credited with its liturgical foundation. But no one should assume Gregory created things out of a vacuum. There was already extensive liturgical fodder for him to draw from.And this brings us to a 4^th C document called The Pilgrimage of Etheria – or The Travels of Egeria.We’re not sure who she was but can narrow it down to either a nun or a well-to-do woman of self-sufficient means from Northern Spain.She toured the Middle East at the end of the 4^th C, then wrote a long letter to some women she call her sisters & friends, chronicling her 3 year adventure. While the beginning and end of the letter are missing, the main body gives a detailed account of her trip, made from extensive notes.The first part describes her journey from Egypt to Sinai, ending at Constantinople. She visited Edessa, and travelled extensively in Palestine. The second and much longer section is a detailed account of the services and observances of the church in Jerusalem, centered on what the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.What’s remarkable in reading her account is the tremendous sense of freedom and safety Egeria seems to have had as she travelled over long distances in hostile environs. She was accompanied for a time by some soldiers, and no doubt these provided a measure of security. But that she felt safe WITH THEM, is remarkable and speaks to the impact the Faith was already having on the morality of the ancient world.Remarkable as well was the large number of Christian communes, monks & bishops she met on her travels. Every place mentioned in the Bible already had a shrine or church. As she visited each, using her Bible as a guide, she was shown dozens of places where this or that Biblical event was supposed to have occurred.I’ve been to the Holy Land several times. I know the many sites today that claim to be the place where this or that Bible story unfolded. Most of the sites are at best a guess. What I found fascinating about Egeria’s account is that already, by the end of the 4^th C, most of these sites were already boasting to be the very place. I have to wonder if the obligatory souvenir shop was also hawking wares at each location.You can’t read Egeria’s chronicle without being impressed with how thoroughly the Church had covered the Middle East in just 300 years, even in isolated locations; places mentioned in passing in the account of the Exodus. Every little town & village mentioned in the Old and New Testaments had a church or memorial and a group of monks ready to tell the story of what happened there. 300 years may seem like a long time, but remember that almost ALL that time was marked by persecution of Jesus’ followers.Egeria’s account of the liturgy of the church in Jerusalem, occupying the bulk of her record, is interesting because it reveals a pretty elaborate tradition for both daily services & special days like the Holy Week. They observed the hours and Holy Service marking off the day in different periods of devotion led by the Bishop.Accepted history tells us that the idea of a liturgical year was only just beginning in Egeria’s time. Her description of the practices of the Jerusalem Church community make clear many aspects of the liturgical year were already well along, and had been for some time.If you’re interested in reading Egeria’s account yourself, you can find it on the net. I’ll put a link in the show notes. http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm

45-Look Who’s Driving the Bus Now

This episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “Look Who’s Driving the Bus Now.”As noted in a previous episode, it’s difficult in recounting Church History to follow a straight narrative timeline. The expansion of the Faith into different regions means many storylines. So it’s necessary to do a certain amount of backtracking as we follow the spread of the Gospel from region to region. The problem with that though in an audio series, it can be confusing as we bounce back & forth in time. We’ve already followed Christianity’s expansion to the Far East & went from the 4^th C thru about the 6^th, then did a quick little jaunt all the way to the 17^th C. Then in the next episode we’re back in Italy talking about the 3^rd C.This week’s episode is a case in point. We’re going to take a look at 2 interesting & important individuals in the history; not only of the Faith, but of the world. It’s a couple men we’ve already looked at - Bishop Ambrose of Milan and Emperor Theodosius I. The reason we’re considering these 2 is because their relationship was instrumental in setting the tie between Church & State that becomes one of the defining realities of Europe in the Middle Ages.I know some of this is a repeat of earlier material. Hang with me because we need to consider the background of the players here.Ambrose was born into the powerful Roman family of Aurelius about 340 in the German city of Trier, which served at the time as the capital of the Roman province of Gaul. Both his parents were Christians. His father held the important position of praetorian prefect. His mother was a woman of great intellect & virtue.His father died while he was still young & as was typical for wealthy Romans of the time, Ambrose followed his father into the political arena. He was educated in Rome where he studied law, literature, & as we’d expect of someone going into politics - rhetoric. In 372 he was made the governor of the region of Liguria, its capital being Milan, the 2^nd capital of Italy after Rome. In fact, in the later 4^th C, Milan was the new Imperial Capital. The Western Emperors deemed Rome as both in need of major repairs & too far removed from where all the action was. For decades the Emperors in Rome were too distant from the constant campaigns against the Germanic tribes. They wanted to be closer to the action, so imperial HQs shifted to Milan.Not long after he became governor, the famous controversy between the Arians & Catholics heated up. In 374 the Arian bishop of Milan, Auxentius, died. Of course, the Arians expected an Arian would be named to replace him. But the Catholics saw this as an opportunity to install one of their own. The ensuing controversy threatened to destroy the peace of the City, so Governor Ambrose attended the church meeting called to appoint a new bishop. He thought his presence as the chief civil magistrate would forestall rioting. Imagine that! The Christians had a reputation for getting unruly when they didn’t get their way. Sounds like LA when the Lakers win.Yep è Those Christian in Milan! Running amok in the streets, overturning chariots & looting street vendors selling fish tacos – Shameful!Anyway, Ambrose attended the election, hoping his presence would remind the crowd à Rioting would be forcefully suppressed. He gave a speech to those gathered about the need to show restraint & that violence would dishonor God. His message was so reasonable, his tone so honorable, when it came time to nominate candidates for the bishop’s chair, a voice called out “Ambrose for bishop!” There was a brief silence, then another voice said, “Yes, Ambrose.” Soon a whole chorus was chanting, “Ambrose for bishop. à Bishop Ambrose.”The governor was known to be Catholic in belief, but had always shown the Arians respect in his dealing. They saw the way the political winds were blowing and knew in a straight vote, a Catholic bishop was sure to be elected. They realized Ambrose, though of the other theological camp, wouldn’t be a bad choice. So they added their voices to the call for his investiture as bishop of Milan.At first, Ambrose vehemently refused. He was a politician, not a religious leader. He knew he was in no way prepared to lead the Church. He hadn’t even been baptized yet and had no formal training in theology. None of this mattered to the crowd who’d not take his refusal as the last word. They said he was bishop whether he liked it or not.He fled to a colleague's house to hide. His host received a letter from the Emperor Gratian saying it was entirely proper for the civil government to appoint qualified individuals to church leadership positions since the Church served an important role in providing social stability. If there were people serving in the political realm who’d be more effective in the religious sphere, then by all means, let them transfer to the Church. Ambrose's friend showed him the letter & tried to reason with him but Ambrose wouldn’t budge. So the friend went to Church officials and told them where Ambrose was hiding. When they showed up at the door intent on seeing him take the seat they’d given him, he relented. Within a week he was baptized, ordained & consecrated as Bishop of Milan.He immediately adopted the ascetic lifestyle shared by the monks. He appointed relief for the poor, donated all of his land, & committed the care of his family to his brother.Once Ambrose became bishop, the religious toleration that had marked his posture as a political figure went out the window. A bishop must defend the Faith against error. So Ambrose took the Arians to task. He wrote several works against them and limited their access to Church life in Milan, which at the time was arguably the most influential church in the West since Milan was the seat of imperial power.In response to Ambrose’s moves to squelch them, the Arians appealed to high-level leaders in both the civil & religious spheres at both sides of the Empire. The western Emperor Gratian was catholic while his younger successor & augustus, Valentinian II was an Arian. Ambrose tried, but was unsuccessful in swaying Valentinian to the Nicene-catholic position.The Arian leaders felt there were enough of them in positions of influence that if they held a council, they might be able to win the day for Arianism and asked the Emperor for permission to hold one. Of course, they hid their real motive from Gratian, who thought a council during his reign a great idea and consented. Ambrose knew the real reason for the council and urged Gratian to stack the meeting with Western, pro-Nicene catholic bishops. In the council held the next year in 381 at Aquileia, Ambrose was elected to preside & the leading Arian bishops dropped out. They were then deposed by the council.This wasn’t the end of troubles with the Arians however. Valentinian’s mother, the dynamic Justina, knew the Arians were well represented among the generals & got them to rally behind her son. They demanded 2 churches to hold Arian services in; a basilica in Milan, the other in a suburb. Saying “No” to the Emperor & his mother is usually not so good for one’s health & most students of history would assume this would be the end, not only of Ambrose’s career, but of his life. But that’s not the way this story ends.When Ambrose denied the Arian demands, he was summoned to appear before a hastily convened court to answer for himself. His defense of the Nicene position & the necessity as bishop to defend the Faith was so eloquent the judges sat amazed. They realized there was nothing they could do to censure him w/o setting themselves in opposition to the truth & risking another riot. They released him and affirmed his right to forbid the use of the churches by the Arians.The next day, as he performed services in the basilica, the governor of Milan tried to persuade him to compromise & give up the church in the suburb for use by the Emperor & his mother. After all, Ambrose had made his point and his concession now would be seen as an act of grace & good will. It’s precisely the kind of thing Ambrose would have urged when he was governor. But as bishop, it was a no-go. The governor wasn’t accustomed to being denied & gave orders that BOTH churches were to be turned over to the Arians for their use at Easter. Instead of being cowed, Bishop Ambrose declared:If you demand my person, I am ready to submit: carry me to prison or to death, I will not resist; but I will never betray the Church of Christ. I will not call upon the people to [support] me; I will die at the foot of the altar rather than desert it. The rioting of the people I will not encourage: but God alone can appease it.Ambrose & his congregation then barricaded themselves inside the church in a kind of religious filibuster. When Valentinian & his mother Justina realized the only way to gain access was to forcefully evict them & how violently the people of Milan were likely to react, the order was rescinded.Trained in rhetoric and law, well-versed in the Greek classics, Ambrose was known as a learned scholar, familiar with both Christian & pagan sources. His sermons were marked by references to the great thinkers, not only of the past but his own day. When he was elected bishop, he embarked on a kind of crash-course in theology. His teacher was an elder from Rome named Simplician. His knowledge of Greek, rare in the West, allowed him to study the NT in its original language. He also learned Hebrew so he could deepen his understanding of the OT. He quickly gained a reputation as an excellent preacher.As noted in a previous episode, it was under his ministry that the brilliant Augustine of Hippo was converted. Prior to moving to Milan, Augustine was unimpressed by the quality of Christian scholarship. To be blunt, he thought Christians were for the most part an uneducated rabble. Ambrose shattered that opinion. Augustine found himself drawn to his sermons and sat rapt as he heard the Gospel explained.Ambrose’s sermons often promoted an ascetic lifestyle. He was so persuasive, several noble families forbade their daughters listening to him, fearing they’d chose celibacy over marriage. Since marrying off a daughter to another noble family was a way to advance socially, they feared their girls would become nuns, and thwart their plans.Ambrose introduced, or I should say re-introduced congregational singing to church services. Not afraid to innovate, when he included Eastern melodies in the hymns he wrote, and they proved to be wildly popular, some accused him of casting a spell on the people of Milan. Due to Ambrose, hymn singing became an important part of the liturgy of the Western Church.Ambrose’s most important contribution was in the area of church-state relations. He contended, not with just 1, but 3 emperors; & prevailed in each encounter. His relationship with Theodosius, the first emperor to make Rome a Christian state, is the best known. And the tale is one of those moments in history that would make a great miniseries.In 388 the local bishop & several monks led a mob in the Mesopotamian city of Callinicum to destroy the city’s synagogue. Why isn’t clear – but there was much ill will between Christians & Jews because the later had been one of the main informants on Christians during the persecutions of the previous century. Now that the Christians were buddied up to civil power, it didn’t take much to ignite a little payback, even though it was utterly contrary to the love Jesus called His followers to show. Be that as it may, the Emperor Theodosius ordered the rebuilding of the synagogue at the expense of the rioters, including the bishop. When Ambrose heard of the decision, he immediately shot off a fierce protest. The glory of God was at stake, so he couldn’t remain silent. He wrote, “Shall a bishop be compelled to re-erect a synagogue? Can he do this thing that ought not be done? If he obeys the Emperor, he’d become a traitor to his faith; if he disobeys the Emperor, he becomes a martyr. What real wrong is there, after all, in destroying a synagogue, a home of perfidy, a home of impiety, in which Christ is daily blasphemed?” Ambrose went on to say he was no less guilty than the bishop of Callinicum since he made no secret of his wish that all synagogues be destroyed, that no such places of blasphemy be allowed to exist.In a surprise move, Theodosius revoked his earlier decision. The Christians didn’t have to rebuild the synagogue they’d destroyed. Well, you might imagine what message that sent—it was open season on Jews & their meeting places.All this makes Ambrose appear a rabid anti-Semite. It’s confusing then to read of his high regard for their moral purity & devotion to learning.So ends Round 1 in the wrestling match between the Bishop of Milan & the Emperor Theodosius. Before we look at Round 2, let’s take a closer look at Theodosius.Blond & elegant, Theodosius began his imperial career the usual way for emperors of this era. He was born in northwest Spain, to a father who was a talented military commander. Theodosius learned his military lessons by campaigning with his father’s staff in Britain.After being crowned emperor in the East in 379, he battled the ever-troubling Germanic tribes in the North. The incessant war did little but wearing out both sides, so Theodosius offered the tribes an option. In exchange for land and supplies, Germans would provide soldiers for the legions. These Germans would serve under a Roman banner & generals. It was a novel idea for the time, an arrangement that later emperors increasingly depended on.To fund this expanded army, Theodosius raised taxes to a new high. His enforcement of collection of the new taxes was carried out harshly. Any official neglecting to collect was flogged.During a serious illness early in his reign, Theodosius was baptized. In 380 he proclaimed himself a Nicene Christian & called a council at Constantinople to put an end to the Arian heresy.Having won that victory, Theodosius tried to get his choice for the patriarch of Constantinople approved but the bishops demanded he appoint someone from their list. They prevailed. It was the first of several instances where Theodosius yielded to church leaders.And this brings us to Round 2 between Theodosius & Ambrose.Chariot-racing was THE big sport of the Greco-Roman world for hundreds of years. Merge baseball, basketball, football, & soccer into a single sport & you get the idea of just how huge chariot-racing was. Many of the larger cities had 4 to 6 teams, designated by a color. These teams often represented a neighborhood or social class, so rivalries were sectarian & fierce. Fans formed clubs around their teams and attacked each other. A band of thugs for the Reds might rampage through the Purple neighborhood, leading to a riot of retribution a couple days later. The point is, supporters were fanatically loyal to their team.In 390, local authorities imprisoned a charioteer in Thessalonica for homosexual rape. This charioteer happened to be one of the city’s favorites, and riots broke out when the governor refused to release him. That governor and several of his staff were killed, the charioteer busted out of jail by his fans.Thessalonica was no out-of-the-way village; it was a major city and the riot couldn’t go without being answered. The Emperor needed to do something, but the something he did was all wrong. He announced another chariot race. When the crowd arrived, the gates to the arena were locked and they were massacred by imperial troops. In a 3 hour horror show, 7000 were executed!Later records showed that after the initial order was sent by Theodosius with this plan, he realized it was a grave injustice & sent another message to rescind the first. It got there too late.Many across the empire were stunned at the news of the massacre. Bishop Ambrose was horrified. He shot off another angry letter to Theodosius demanding repentance. He wrote, “I exhort, I beg, I entreat, I admonish you, because it is grief to me that the perishing of so many innocent is no grief to you. And now I call on you to repent.” Then Ambrose did something that proved the turning point in Church-State affairs.When Theodosius visited Milan & attend a church service, he expected Bishop Ambrose to serve him Communion. Ambrose refused! He said until Theodosius repented for what he’d done at Thessalonica, no elements would cross his lips.Now, remember—It was believed the celebration of Communion was essential for maintaining salvation. It renewed and refreshed God’s grace. Barring the Emperor from Communion put his soul at risk.So when Theodosius professed repentance, Ambrose in effect replied, “Hold on pal; not so fast. Your repentance must be marked by penance - & a very public version.’ He told Theodosius to set aside his royal garments, put on a simple shroud, and publicly plead for God’s mercy where any & everyone could see & hear him. There’s some debate as to how long this went on but one source says it lasted 8 months before Ambrose finally relented & consented to serve the Emperor Communion.As stated, Theodosius’ capitulation to Ambrose marks a major turning point in Church-State relations. The Bishop’s treatment of the Emperor introduced the medieval concept of a Christian Emperor as a dutiful “son of the Church serving under orders from Christ.” For the next thousand years, secular and religious rulers struggled to determine who was sovereign in the various spheres of life.Lest the previous events I’ve just shared make Ambrose & Theodosius appear as rivals, understand that the Bishop of Milan was in fact the Emperor’s friend, confidant & counselor, in both religious & political matters. Theodosius is supposed to have said, “I know no bishop worthy of the title, except Ambrose.” When the emperor died, Ambrose was at his side.Two years after the showdown, Ambrose himself fell ill. And his impending death caused far more concern on the part of people than the passing of a dozen emperors. One wrote: “When Ambrose dies, we shall see the ruin of Italy.” On the eve of Easter, 397, the man who’d been bishop of Milan for 23 years finally closed his eyes for the last time.

44-Expansion

This Episode’s title is – “Expansion ”.We’re going to spend a little time now tracking the expansion of the Faith into different areas during the Early Middle Ages.We ended last time with the story of the conversion of the Frank king Clovis in 496. When he was baptized on Christmas Day by Bishop Remigius of Rheims {Reems}, 3,000 of his warriors joined him. It was the first of several mass baptism that took place during the Middle Ages in Europe. And it raises the issue of the paganizing of Christianity.The task of Missions usually proceeds in 1 of 2 ways.The first & more common route is that of individual conversion. Though in the NT we find converts being called into immediate baptism, it wasn’t long before conversion was followed by a period of instruction before baptism. That time for instruction in the basics of the Faith could be either short or long, depending on the standards of the bishop or community of believers. This form of missions, that of individual conversion & baptism was the method used by the Church for the first 3 Cs, & by most Protestant missions from the 19^th C to today. That’s because of the emphasis on an individual change of heart in Evangelicalism. While this certainly finds support in Scripture, it can miss an important dynamic when people convert to Christ out of a pagan culture. Their change in faith almost certainly means being uprooted from that culture; sometimes leading to the need to physically relocate to an area where their faith will not endanger their life or the lives of their family.For that reason, another method of Missions has sometimes been used; that of mass conversion, where an entire group of people make a communal decision to forsake their old religion in favor of Christianity.Now, I suspect some of those listening will respond to this idea of mass conversion with distaste. Evangelicalism has placed such an emphasis on personal salvation that the idea of the conversion of an entire community at once is highly suspect. We often talk of receiving Christ as one’s PERSONAL Savior. So the idea that an entire village or tribe would turn to faith in Christ at once seems disingenuous.But consider this: The idea of personal, individual freedom is in many ways a distinctly modern, western & democratic concept. Even in our own time, much of the world has little concept of personal or individual freedom. They understand themselves as part of a family, village, or tribe; as a member of a community of people where autonomous individuality is regarded as dangerous & a threat to the survival of the group. For much of history and a good part of the world, the idea that you would change your religion all on your own while everyone else believed in other gods was simply unthinkable. Conversion would enrage the old gods & so endanger your family & neighbors. This was something several Roman Emperors used as a reason for opposing Christianity.Some Christian missionaries realized the key to the conversion of these communal pagan peoples was to win the leader. Because his choice was nearly always adopted by the entire tribe. To be sure, these missionaries understood salvation was an individual issue. But they knew the key to being able to work for individual salvations was to win the leader, who would in turn lead his people in a mass conversion. Then they could be free to work the faith into the lives of the people in a more intimate & personal way.The downside to mass conversion is obvious. Many who formally converted by being baptized, never went on to a real faith in Christ. They took the label of Christian without ever being genuinely converted. What made this especially troublesome was when it was the ruler who feigned conversion. Some did for purely pragmatic ends. Submitting to baptism often brought them political & economic gain. Mass conversions might make it easier for genuine converts to practice a new worldview, but it also imperiled the Faith because the unconverted brought with them old superstitions, blending them into Christianity in a syncretistic religious amalgam.This was the case with the Frank king Clovis. He went through the motions of conversion, but Jesus remained little more for him than a divine warlord.Gregory of Tours, who lived a century after Clovis, was his main biographer. Gregory says even after his conversion, Clovis used deceit, cunning, & treachery to expand his kingdom. He sent bribes to nobles and those responsible for protecting a rival king to betray him. He told another king's son if he killed his father, Clovis would support the son's ascent to the throne & make an alliance with him. The son did as Clovis hoped & killed his father. Clovis them promptly announced the son guilty of the heinous crimes of patricide & regicide & took over his realm.As Dan Carlin likes to point out in his Hardcore History podcast-episode, Thor’s Angels, when you think of the Goths & the Franks of this time, think of a modern criminal biker gang. You’re not far off the mark in what these Germanic barbarians were like; in both mindset & appearance. When Clovis submitted to baptism, all he did was trade in his black leather vest for a navy blue one.Among the barely converted Franks & other Germanic tribes, long-dead saints stepped in to replace their numerous deities. Each saint adopted a role the old gods had performed. St. Anthony took care of pigs, St. Gaul looked after hens, Apollonia cured toothaches, Genevieve cured fever, and St. Blaise soothed sore throats. For every human need the Germans posted a saint to take care of it.Many tales circulated about the miraculous powers of these saints. One told of 2 beggars, 1 lame, the other blind. They got caught up in a procession of the devoted who carried the relics of St. Martin. But these 2 beggars made their living off the alms of the pious & didn’t want to be healed. Fearful lest they be cured by their proximity to the relics, they quickly struck a deal. The 1 who could see but not walk mounted the shoulders of the 1 who could walk but not see & they tried to exit the procession. They weren’t able to get away quickly enough; both were healed. è Such stories were plentiful.As with Constantine the Great in the early 4^th C, we can’t be certain if Clovis’ conversion was real or feigned. Certainly much of his behavior after his baptism is doubtful. But the political benefits of conversion were certainly not lost on him. Clovis was a man of huge ambition. He wanted to be more than a chieftain of the Franks. He wanted to be king, a chief of chiefs. He knew he needed to distinguish himself among the many competing power centers in Western Europe. By joining the Roman Church he set himself apart from the other Germanic kings who were all Arian. This move secured the support of the Gaelic-Roman nobility throughout Gaul.Clovis was the first leader of the Franks to unite the tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of chieftains to rule by kings, ensuring the royal line was held by his heirs, known as the Merovingians.Not long after his baptism and the quick following by 3000 of his warriors, Clovis pressed other Frank nobles to convert & join the Roman church. He understood the religious unity of the kingdom was crucial in staving off assault, and to further campaigns to enlarge their borders. Wars of conquest became a means of “liberating other people from the error of Arianism.” And the church at Rome was not at all averse to having an armed force on its side.Clovis wasn’t all that successful in expanding his borders south & east into the region of the Burgundians, but he was able to push the Visigoths out of Gaul, confining them in Spain. In the Battle of Vouille {Voo-yay}, the Visigothc King Alaric II was killed. In appreciation for his service in defeating the Visigoths, the Eastern Emperor Anastasius I declared Clovis Consul, a provocative title as it was reminiscent of ancient Roman leaders.Clovis made Paris the new capital of the Frank kingdom & built an abbey dedicated to Sts. Peter & Paul.Not long before he died, Clovis called the First Council of Orléans, a synod of 33 Gallic bishops. The goal was to reform the Church & forge an enduring link between the Crown and Church. The Council passed a little over 30 decrees that brought equality between the Frank conquerors and their Gallic subjects.Clovis died in the Fall of 511, leaving the kingdom to his 4 sons. Unlike Alexander the Great who made no provision for dividing his empire among his 4 generals, Clovis carved up Gaul into 4 regions, one for each son; Rheims, Orléans, Paris & Soissons. Clovis naively thought this would keep them content & result in peace. In truth, it ushered in a period of disunity which lasted to the end of the Merovingian dynasty in the mid-8^th C.In Episode 37 we looked at the 5^th C Irish missionary Patrick. The Irish had never been a part of the Roman Empire. Though they had frequent contact with Roman Britain, the Irish Celts were culturally, economically, & politically different. When the Roman army abandoned Britain as too costly & difficult to defend, the Church filled the vacuum. The spiritual outreach to Ireland was primarily the work of Patrick, who though British, planted a church in Ireland that remained independent of the Roman Catholic Church.Patrick understood the evangelistic dynamic of the Christian faith & discerned that it alone offered what the native Druids could not: Peace to a land troubled by constant tribal warfare. Patrick’s strategy was to win the tribal leaders to Christ. Many local lords became Christians. Because of the way Celtic society was arranged, when rulers converted, so did those they ruled.Ireland was ripe for the message & offer of the Gospel. The religion practiced by the Druids was a brutal, demonic, religious terrorism that many of the common people were eager to cast off. The Gospel was about as OPPOSITE a message & offer from Druidism as one can imagine. There are estimates of as many as 100,000 genuine converts to Patrick’s ministry.On the foundation of faith & church life Patrick laid, Finnian of Clonard built a pattern for Irish monasticism in the early 6^th C. Monasteries were founded all over Ireland. As they rose in number and prestige, the ecclesiastical organization Patrick established withered away. By the end of the 6^th C the Irish church had become a church of monks. Abbots replaced bishops as the leaders of the Church. From the outset, Irish monks valued scholarship & an energetic spread of the Gospel.Interestingly, there’s evidence that the missionary fervor that stands as one of Celtic Christianity’s major traits may have been due to their system of penance. In an earlier episode we saw how the early church developed a view of repentance that included penance. The idea was that repentance needed to be demonstrated by some act showing contrition. The theology went like this: Repentance was a heart issue only God could see. But John the Baptist had said, “Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.” So, when people repented, their account before God was cleared. But how about restoring them to the Community of faith – fellowship in the Church? While man can’t see the heart, he can see the actions that flow from that heart. Penance became a system of works people could perform that would mark repentance. It didn’t take long before lists were made of what penance was due for what sins. One of the forms of penance Celtic Christians practiced was exile, banishment from their homes. Some of the intense missionary activity of the Celtic Christians was motivated by this form of penance.Irish scholar-monks ranged far and wide across Europe during the 6^th & 7^th Cs. This aggressive missionary activity of the Celtic Church eventually caused trouble since it remained independent from Rome. Churches started by Irish missionaries were often located in regions that later came under the control of Rome.In 636, south Ireland decided to fold their church community into the Roman Church. Then in 697, the church in Northern Ireland decided to follow suit. Though most of Celtic Christianity was eventually folded into Roman Catholicism, isolated communities scattered across Scotland, Wales & the British Isles continued their independence for many years.One of the Celtic-English missionaries who had a huge impact in Northern Europe was Boniface.Born Winfrid in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in the early 670’s, his family was prosperous and sent him to school at a monastery in Exeter. The life of the monks appealed to Winfrid & against his father’s wishes, he decided to pursue a religious career. He showed a mastery of the Scriptures & great skill in teaching & organization, traits sought after in monastic life. For further training he moved to a Benedictine monastery in Hampshire. This monastery was led by a brilliant abbot who’d made it an industrious center of scholarship. Winfrid soon became a teacher in the monastery school & at the age of 30 was ordained as a priest. When the abbot died in 716, the logical choice to replace him was Winfrid. In a surprise move, he declined, and left for the region of Frisia, what today we know as The Netherlands.Winfrid had a passion to take the Gospel of Christ were it was yet to be planted. He’d heard of a similarly-minded missionary named Willibrord who worked in Frisia & needed help. They spent a year together but when war broke, both returned home.A year later, Winfrid went to Rome seeking an audience with Pope Gregory II. He shared his vision of seeing the Germanic tribes delivered from their Arian heresy into the Catholic faith. Gregory replied, “You glow with the salvation-bringing fire which our Lord came to send upon the earth.”The Pope renamed him ‘Boniface’ after the 4^th C martyr Boniface of Tarsus, & appointed him as the missionary bishop for Germania. This meant Boniface was a bishop without a diocese. The realm of his ministry had no churches. It was up to him to carry the light of Christ to the superstitious Germanic tribes. Boniface never returned to England.He focused his work in the regions of Hesse & Thuringia, leading thousands to Christ. He planted scores of churches.While the Germans were nominally Arian, entire regions were in reality still pagan, worshiping the ancient German gods and practicing superstitious rites. Boniface found some supposedly Christian missionaries as he made his way through Germany but they espoused heresy. It was little wonder they’d had little impact. When he confronted them, they resisted. So Boniface had them arrested & confined. He soon gained a reputation for being stern & determined.One story from Boniface’s career is legendary. Whether or not it’s factual is unknown. It’s certainly not difficult to believe that a man who would go to Rome & ask for permission to single-handedly carry the Gospel to heretics & pagans might do something like what we’re about to hear.The story goes that Boniface went to Geismar in Hesse where the Donar or Thor’s Oak stood. As was common for Germans, they considered trees and forests to hold great spiritual power. Thor, god of thunder, was the chief deity in their pantheon. The Donar Oak was dedicated to his power and glory. Boniface knew there was no Thor & that there’d be no backlash if he chopped down a tree. Some Germans might protest & take it on themselves to defend Thor’s honor. So Boniface called them to gather round, then set them this challenge—let Thor, that mighty god of thunder, defend his tree himself. Certainly a god as great as the god of thunder could deal with a puny little Christian priest. Unless, à there was no Thor & the Christian faith was true. Boniface lifted his axe and began to strike. No lightening followed. No thunder shook the ground. But according to his early biographer Willibald, after Boniface had taken a dozen or so swings at the oak, a strong wind kicked up that knocked it over. It fell & broke into 4 pieces, revealing that it was in fact rotten. The message was clear; the old ways were like that rotten oak. The people were stunned and as though being released from a prison in which they’d long been held, renounced their belief in the old gods & in-mass converted to Christianity. Boniface used the wood from Donar’s Oak to build a church.His skill in administration brought a remarkable level of organization to the now rapidly growing German church. In 732 he was made archbishop over Germany. He worked for an educated, disciplined, & pure clergy; something he knew in other part of the Europe was not the case. He tolerated neither laziness nor incompetency among clerics & purged the lingering rites of German paganism from church rituals. The syncretism that had been adopted in many other places, whereby pagans rites were absorbed into church traditions, was not something Boniface allowed. Using missionary volunteers from England, many of whom were women, he advanced organization and structure in the German church and filled it with zeal for obedience, service, and outreach.Along with his administrative and missionary work, Boniface built monasteries throughout Germany. The most influential was at Fulda, the geographical center of Germany.No church councils had been held in the Frankish realm for decades before his arrival. Boniface convened 5 of them between 742 and 747. At his urging these Councils adopted strict regulations for clergy and condemned local heretics.Boniface was a Benedictine monk. The Benedictines emphasized poverty, moral purity, & obedience to Christ. Benedict’s Rule was the norm for monasteries throughout Europe at that time. They were places of worship, devotion, prayer, & scholarship—oases of culture & civilization in the midst of godlessness. Monks copied Scriptures and early Christian literature. Monasteries were about the only educational centers during the medieval period. Had it not been for them, there would have been no Renaissance. The monasteries are where all the learning was kept that formed the intellectual base the Renaissance came from. Sadly, over the centuries, many monasteries forsook their spiritual roots & became places of immorality & corruption. Those Boniface founded for the most part remained places of education, hospitality, & missionary outreach.Boniface understood all his work could turn to naught if war came. So he worked to nurture peaceful relations between the Franks, Germanic tribes & the Church. He was crucial in negotiating a treaty between the Pope & the Frank king Pepin that would eventually grow into a powerful church-state alliance later in the Middle Ages.After years of ministry in Central Germany, Boniface again felt Frisia in the North calling him. This was the place where he’d first tried his hand in missionary work. Now, in his late 70’s, he resigned his post as the archbishop of Mainz [Mines] to head north once again. He and his followers roamed the countryside destroying pagan shrines, building churches, & baptizing thousands.A group of new converts was supposed to meet Boniface & his 52 companions at Dorkum. While Boniface waited for them, a band of outlaws arrived. In his earlier travels, Boniface went with an armed guard commissioned by the Frank ruler. Now he was in a realm beyond Frank control. At the first council he’d called years before, he’d pressed to disallow the clergy from carrying arms. All he had to defend himself was the large wood-covered book he was reading. He wielded it as a shield. As he batted away the thrusts of the outlaws trying to stab him, I wonder if he regretted his previous position. A book makes a poor shield, even if its cover is quarter-inch thick. Boniface & his entire party were slaughtered there on the shore of a river. When the converts arrived to meet up with him, they found his body, & next to it lay a copy of Ambrose’s à The Advantage of Death, with deep slashes in it. The book is on display in Fulda.

43-Into the Middle

This episode of Communion Sanctorum is titled – “Into the Middle”Justinian I’s reconquest of Italy and liberating it from its brief stint under barbarian control was even briefer. Soon after Justinian’s eastern forces regained control of portions of the peninsula and put them back under the Empire’s dominion, yet another Germanic group invaded and put most of Italy under their jurisdiction.The Lombards were a Scandinavian group who’d emerged as the dominant Germanic tribe. In 568, they conquered Byzantine Italy and formed what is known as the Kingdom of Italy, which lasted to the late 8^th C when it was brought down by the Franks, though Lombard nobles continued to rule portions of the peninsula until the 11^th C.The Lombards conquered Italy during Gregory the Great’s term as pope. As the Lombards advanced on the city of Rome, with not a whit of hope of help from the Imperial ruler sitting in Ravenna, Gregory took control in Rome. He secured supplies for the coming siege though both famine and plague were decimating the land. He bolstered Rome’s defenses and commissioned new military leaders to lead an army into the field to meet the Lombards. Once these plans were underway, Gregory opened negotiations with the enemy and finalized a peace with them, though made without the Emperor’s approval.It’s difficult for the modern student of history to understand how the Roman popes managed to wield such political power as they did during the Middle Ages. We tend to layer back onto history the current state of affairs. And as Europe is now firmly ensconced in a post-Christian era where the Pope has little political power, it’s difficult to see how he could have been the single most powerful political force for hundreds of years.While the influence of the Pope grew ever since the days of Leo the Great, it was under Gregory the Great that the office of the Pope became a defining role in the History of Europe.Though Gregory was in his senior years and increasingly frail, what he accomplished was simply astounding! At the same time, he was dealing with the Lombards and the daily needs of the city of Rome, he administered the Church. He oversaw its estates, cared for the needs of his flock, provided leaders for the churches of Gaul and Spain, dealt with the ever-present challenge of the church at Constantinople which vied with Rome for pre-eminence, and on top of all that, as we’ve seen, planned for the expansion of the Faith into new realms like England.Gregory’s term as pope marks the transition from the ancient world where Imperial Rome ruled, to the medieval world united by the Roman Catholic Church.The Church played a major, maybe even the most important role, in the shift to the medieval world. It was the one institution that survived and transmitted Roman culture into the Middle Ages.Though altered to fit its unique spiritual emphasis, the Roman church drew its organizational and administrative structure from the old Imperial form. Each city had its own bishop and each region an archbishop. Within each bishop’s realm of oversight, called a diocese, there was a staff of assistants that closely resembled Roman civil administration.Church rules, called “Canon Law” were parallel to Roman Civil law. At first Canon Law was defined by Church Councils that met to decide both practical and doctrinal issues. Eventually, Canon Law came to include decisions of the Pope, a form of Imperial edict.Latin became the common tongue, and Roman forms of literature and education spread wherever the Church took hold. Whenever a new church was built, its form was that of the old Roman meeting-hall; a basilica.As we saw at the end of the previous episode, though the Germanic barbarians conquered the Western Empire, it wasn’t long until the Church conquered them. While most of the Germanic tribes were Arian, when they moved south into areas controlled by the Roman church, they converted to Catholic Christianity. The Lombards were the last of the Germanic tribes to invade Italy. Part of Pope Gregory’s strategy in negotiating with them was to convert them; turning them into brothers in Christ. They too began as Arians, but he supported the Lombard Queen Theodelinda, a Catholic. It didn’t take long before the Lombards were firmly planted in the Catholic Faith.Gregory appealed to other Germanic leaders in Western Europe and they shed their Arianism as well. The Visigoths of Spain became Catholic when Gregory’s letter reached their leader Reccared.There was only one Germanic tribe to enter the Empire as pagans rather than as Arians – the Franks. They occupied an area near the Rhine River. When their king died in 481, he was succeeded by his 15-year-old son: Clovis. 5 yrs later Clovis led his warriors southwest against other Frank tribes. He extended his rule all the way to the Seine. Throughout this time he worshipped and gave credit to the ancient Frankish gods.Clovis' victories moved the rulers of neighboring tribes to attempt negotiations. One of Clovis’ envoys returned from a trip to the court of Burgundy, describing his beautiful grand-daughter Clotilda. Clovis sent another envoy to the Burgundian king asking for Clotilda’s hand in marriage. The Burgundians were worried what Clovis would do if they balked so they consented and the two were wed.Clotilda was Catholic and shared her faith with her husband but he remained committed to the old gods for the next 3 years. He thought his distrust in the Christian God warranted. After all, hadn’t the Roman Empire converted to the new faith over a century before? Why hadn’t He protected them from the barbarians? Then a more personal trial struck. Clotilda baptized their first-born child, who died a week later. While Clotilda’s faith was unshaken, Clovis was enraged.Despite his suspicion of baptism, Clovis allowed Clotilda to have their 2^nd child baptized. When this son also sickened, Clovis was furious. But the boy recovered at Clotilda’s urgent requests to Christ. With all of this freshly before him, Clovis went out to meet what was the Frank’s biggest challenge to date, a fierce Germanic tribe called the Alemanni. The battle took place near the city of Bonn. The Franks were losing badly so Clovis called upon his old gods. No help came. In desperation, staring defeat in the face, Clovis cried out to the Christian God saying something like, “Jesus, if you really are the Son of God as my wife tells me, grant me victory and I will believe in you." Certainly, a dubious request and God doesn’t bargain with humans. But the fact is, the Franks turned things around and defeated the Alemanni.That day in 496 turned out to be a dramatic turning point for the history of Europe. Clovis was good to his promise. He invited Bishop Remigius of Reims to instruct him in the Faith. Then on Christmas night, he was baptized.Remigius continued to instruct Clovis in the Faith but his understanding lacked something. When Remigius told the story of how Jesus was arrested, tortured and executed, Clovis jumped up and shouted, “If I’d been there with my Franks, I would have avenged Him!”A few thousand of his warriors soon followed their king in baptism. One anecdotal story that comes from this time was that there were so many troops wanting to be baptized they had to do so in mass-baptisms at a river. A dozen of them would enter the water at a time as a priest stood on the shore and blessed them. As they lowered themselves under the surface they lifted their right hands above their heads so they never went under the water. When the priest asked why, the warriors explained; they didn’t want to baptize their sword hand. They wanted to continue to make war and didn’t want to submit the hand that held the sword to the rule of Christ. Now, to be clear, this story, while attributed to Clovis’ troops, is also assigned to other periods of history, especially the Crusaders. Whether it’s true or not is in dispute.Clovis was one of the first of the line of French kings known as Merovingians.What this story illustrates is an important feature of medieval society; Adoption of Christianity was, in essence, a royal policy. The ruler’s religion decided the religion of his subjects. And queens did much to bring about the conversion of their husbands.Clovis’ conversion paved the way for an important alliance between the papacy and the Franks. But it took decades before that alliance altered the way the Franks treated the Church. Throughout most of the 6^th and 7^thCs, the Merovingian court-appointed their own bishops to the churches of Gaul.At the end of the 6^th C, Pope Gregory began to work with them to alter this but it wasn’t until the 8^th C that Rome was able to regain control over church appointments.After Gregory, the West entered a difficult period as we chronicled in Episode 34 – The Great Recession. The Western Church suffered abuse from the Lombards and Byzantine rulers. In Gaul, the Merovingians treated the Church as a political tool and the quality of church leaders declined dramatically as church offices were sold to the highest bidder.Until this period, the clergy were men of great learning and intellectual skill. A list of the great thinkers of the 1^st thru 6^th Cs is dominated by monks and priests. But the political corruption that followed hard on the heels of the demise of the Western Empire led to a decline in the intellectual prowess of the clergy. That decline was slow at first but escalated as the decades passed. That’s what happens when church offices are filled by political appointment paying favors rather than gifted and called servants.Bishop Gregory of Tours lived in the late 6^th C and is the main source of information about the Merovingians. He describes the sorry state European society had fallen to. He wrote that it was a period when women stood almost alone in maintaining what was left of morality and virtue. Monasteries and convents became lonely islands of true religion set in a sea of moral debauchery and spiritual corruption that included many, if not most churches.This state of affairs continued all the way to the 8^th C when revival took root at the instigation of Celtic missionaries from Ireland. Other factors that led to this revival was a renewed papacy and a new Frank dynasty.Celtic missionaries had been at work in Europe since the last half of the 6^th C. Most notable of these was Columba. He was born to a noble family in Donegal, Ireland. After schooling, he was ordained a priest and planted churches and monasteries in Ireland. Then, in 563, Columba left his homeland. Why he left is a mystery but it seems it was a kind of self-imposed exile. Columba helped spark a civil war between his and the king’s clans. As penance, he left – setting himself to go where ever the winds blew.He was accompanied by a dozen friends. They landed on the tiny island of Iona on the west coast of Scotland where, against all expectations, they established a thriving monastery. Many an objective observer would assume Columba and his companions would have died within in a year due to the harsh conditions. On the contrary, while life was tough, they thrived and the monastery became the focal point for a new movement of God that would reach out to thousands of miles.Missionaries were soon being sent out to found monasteries along the coast of Scotland, back in Ireland, and along the northern coast of Europe from Gaul all the way to Scandinavia.Columba himself was war-like in the way he went about spreading the faith. At his preaching, King Brude of the Picts was converted. Columba’s spiritually aggressive posture was necessary because he was dealing with a determined and overtly evil enemy in the form of the Druids who only understood force. A weak and timid brand of Faith would only have provoked them to acts of hideous grotesquerie.Columba’s blend of mystic spirituality w/a tough-minded application of the faith in a political and social context, all shaped by a commitment to scholarship and a love of nature, marked him as that rare individual who was the right man at the right time doing the right thing for the right reason. He’s the proto-typical example of Celtic Christianity. Columba was the mold the Celtic Christian missionaries were cut from as they sailed across the sea to land in Gaul, carrying the sparks of revival that united to bring Europe out of the Great Recession.

42-Living It

This episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “Living It.”For generations, scholars have debated the cause of the Fall of Rome in the West. In his monumental work, The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire historian Edward Gibbon laid a large part of the blame on Christianity. And for decades that view dominated the popular view of the history of 5^th C Europe.Christianity certainly played a role in the course of events in Europe during that time, and I’m loath to contend with such an eminent & erudite scholar as Mr. Gibbon, but The Roman Empire did not fall in the 5^th C when barbarians overran the West. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, the Empire continued on quite nicely, thank you very much, in the East for another thousand years. What we see in Gibbons is the western provincialism typical of an 18^th C European. He largely disregards the Eastern Empire once the West fell; this despite the fact the Eastern Empire continued to identify itself as Roman for hundreds of years.And as for Christianity being the most significant cause for the West’s fall? Wait – Christianity was no less in place in the East as the West. We can make a case for saying it was even more so ensconced in the seat of power. After all, while Church and State remained largely separate in the West, in the East they merged. So why didn’t the Eastern Empire fall to the no less frequent and concerted attacks by so-called barbarians?The reasons the West fell while the East continued are numerous and far more complex than we have the time to deal with here. Besides, this is a church history, not a history of the Roman Empire podcast. For that, you want to listen to Mike Duncan’s excellent The History of Rome.Gibbon’s justifies his position by saying the Christian faith encouraged chastity and abstinence, resulting in a population decline within the Empire. That meant fewer men for the army. And those men who did enlist were influenced by a passivism taught by the Church that didn’t want to fight. They were all a bunch of 5^th Century hippies. “Make love, not war, broh.” Gibbon’s assumption is that at the same time, the Barbarians popped out warriors like rabid attack-rabbits amped to go to war as soon as they could swing a sword.Hold on Mr. Gibbon, those barbarians, weren’t they Christians too? Arian Christians to be sure, but weren’t they of the same general moral stripe as the Romans you claim were getting soften up and ready for the slaughter by a milk-toast brand of religion? So why were the barbarians different?A far better cause to look for on why the barbarians took down the West was the pressure they faced from other barbarians invading their territory. It was easier, and quite frankly far more tempting, to just vacate territory being invaded by blood-thirsty savages from distant lands, and move toward the rich pickings of a decadent and largely under-defended Empire. An Empire where the quality of governing officials had so declined the people would rather be ruled by barbarians than the rapacious, brutal and corrupt officials sent by Rome, or Milan, or Ravenna – where ever the Western capital now sat.So, did Christianity contribute to the fall of the Empire in the West?Some of Gibbon’s criticisms may have merit. But whatever factors the Church contributed to weakening the Empire were offset by the benefits the Faith brought. As we’ve already seen, had it not been for the Church and its very capable bishops, entire regions would have gone without any governance.What would have happened to Rome if Pope Leo hadn’t convinced Attila & his Hunnish hordes to turn back? What would have happened to the City had he not convinced the Vandals to limit their deprivations to looting?To be sure, the percentage of genuine believers in the Empire was small. But their influence was growing. And Christianity began to alter the culture of the Empire in both the East and West.In the mid 5^th C, an elder of the church at Marseilles named Salvian wrote a book titled The Government of God. He wanted to answer the same question the great Augustine of Hippo wrestled with, “Why did Rome fall? Why would God bring suffering on a Christian people?” You’ll remember Augustine’s answer to that perplexing problem everyone was talking about was the book The City of God. Salvian said the suffering of Christians in Gaul at the hands of invaders was not a measure of God’s just rule; it was His judgment on the wicked aristocrats and greedy officials who’d mercilessly oppressed the poor.Salvian is unique because, until that time, writers tended to denigrate the common man in favor of the rich and powerful. After all, who bought books in those days? Salvian wrote for fellow believers, to help make sense of what they saw every day at the hands of barbarian invaders. He said God had let them in because the rich landowners and civil officials were corrupt and abused the common people.While the case he makes is simplistic, it did contain a measure of truth others thought but feared to voice. Contrary to Salvian’s picture, the common man wasn’t all a mass of innocence, nor were all officials corrupt. There were exceptions on both sides. But a new note had been stuck in the old question of why Rome fell. And from that point on, the Church began to take an increasingly larger role in being the voice of the common people. The Church had always put a priority on charity and taking care of the poor, but rarely had it spoken out against the unjust policies of civil officials that deprived people of their rights and property. Now it began to.The City of Rome was in the habit of evicting non-citizens in time of famine but Bishop Ambrose worked to change the policy so they’d be provided for. A similar policy was adopted at Edessa in Greece as well as a 300-bed hospital – all at the urging and with the assistance of believers in the city.This is not to say in some places the Church was part of the problem rather than the solution. In Sicily for instance, church officials were oppressive in the way they exacted taxes from the commoners who worked church lands. But when Pope Gregory found out, he moved quickly to correct the problem.Historians have long debated the efficacy of the Christian faith on the morality of the Empire. The tendency among advocates of the Faith is to attribute too much influence to the Church while critics scoff and say the Church had no impact on morals. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.We know it was the influence of Christianity that brought an end to gladiatorial combats. But the ever-popular chariot racing, wild animal hunts, and the incredibly immoral theaters carried on despite regularly sermons preached against them. The theater was so bawdy, some Emperors banned them. But they carried on in secret, knowing that the next Emperor might very well lift the ban.One realm of morality that experienced a major overhaul was sexual ethics. The modern and popular conception of the late Roman Empire is that it was marked by lax sexual mores. TV miniseries on Rome have played this up to boost ratings. While the Imperial palace and homes of the wealthy were occasionally the scenes of moral debauchery, the common people were not given over to rampant sexual license. Society then was much like society now. What Christianity did was to elevate marriage and the status of women. Also, for the first time, virginity for both men and women was valued as a virtue. While marriage was held as sacred, the idea of staying single and choosing a life of celibacy so that a man or woman could devote themselves wholly to Christ became a regular part of the Christian Community.Pagans considered this odd and another mark that set Christians apart.Sexual intercourse outside of marriage was forbidden and violators were excluded from the Church. When the number of those excluded grew, it was decided to allow them back into fellowship after they’d demonstrated public repentance and done the required penance. As time passed and the idea of celibacy grew, even sex within marriage was edited. It was thought it should only be engaged in to produce children. Finding pleasure in marital sex was deemed by some church leaders, themselves celibate, as sinful. Sex between a husband and wife was to be endured to produce children, not enjoyed to build intimacy. Too bad they didn’t take the Song of Solomon at face value or apply what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 7.The Christian view of marriage had a significant impact of Roman customs. Because it was considered a sacred covenant, divorce was forbidden except in the case of adultery. By Roman law, a woman was not allowed to marry a man beneath her social rank. If she did, her status was lowered to her husband’s level, he was never elevated to hers. In the early 3^rd C, Pope Callistus not only eased the rule for sexual offenses, he declared as legal the marriage of men and women from any social level.Under the Roman law of paterfamilias, the male head of household had absolute authority over his family and estate to do as he pleased. Technically, he had the power to beat and even execute his wife, children, and servants. I say ‘technically,’ because while the rule of paterfamilias did grant a father that right, being an abusive brute and killing family members was certainly frowned on. What paterfamilias did was to denigrate the value of women and children.Christianity fundamentally altered that. Not only were women elevated as co-heirs of Christ with men, but children were also valued as parents were charged with the stewardship of raising them to the glory of God. The practice of exposing unwanted infants on a hillside, a common Roman and Greek custom, was forbidden for Christians, as was abortion. It’s said when non-Christians went to the hillside to leave their unwanted offspring, Christians came out from nearby hiding places to rescue them before the wild beasts could take them. They were then raised in Christian homes.As the Church grew and more people came to faith in Christ from all occupations and levels of society, the impact of the Faith began to be felt across a wider spectrum. Many believers found it difficult to live in a secular world. When a civil magistrate came to faith, how was he to order the torture or execution of someone who before his conversion he wouldn’t have thought twice for? Some thought to solve this problem by saying Christians couldn’t serve in public office. Meaning those who DID serve in that capacity weren’t followers of Christ and so were void of the virtues of a believer. This had to have contributed to the decline in morality that marked the late Empire, especially the morality of governmental administrators; who became rapacious and brutal tyrants.We think of men like Ambrose and Gregory who’d been magistrates before they left office to become leaders in the Church. The Church attracted the best and brightest who before would have gone into public office. Men like Athanasius and Augustine. There were hundreds who became bishops rather than governors and prefects. It was an ancient form of brain-drain that weakened the civil order of the Empire. These church leaders were more concerned to build Augustine’s City of God than to help shore up the sagging walls of the City of Man. And the barbarians were waiting just outside those walls to tear them down.This, more than anything else is what contributed to the Fall of the Western Empire.During the 3^rd and 4^th Cs, government policies saw a massive shift of people from being producers to consumers. By the dawn of the 5^th C, the imbalance was unsupportable. The army had doubled in size to deal with the barbarian threat. As is the nature of government bureaucracy, it had mushroomed drastically. But producers like farmers and manufacturers had dropped significantly. The costs of doing business rose steeply consuming profits, and farmland was either threatened by invasion or stolen by elites who knew how to work the system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.All of this burdened the government at the same time as impoverishing it. And wouldn’t you know it, it was right at that time that new barbarian groups decided have a go at the old girl called Rome.Many of the commoners of the Western Empire weren’t really all that worried about the barbarians. They were ready for change since their Roman overlords had become brutal and rapacious. A change in regime sounds kinda’ good. Out of frustration with the civil authorities in Rome, Pope Gregory negotiated with the Lombards. The Christians submitted to barbarian political rule, then promptly converted those barbarians to the Faith.So, Christianity may indeed have contributed in a small way to the fall of the Western Empire, but the question is – was it really worth saving? Was history set back by Rome’s demise? If Rome’s fall was Christianity’s fault, how then did the Church become the repository of culture and the treasury of civilization and emerge as one of the dominant institutions in the centuries that followed? The barbarians may have conquered the Western Empire, but the Church soon conquered them.

41-God’s Consul

This week’s episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “God’s Consul .”One of the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s most important contributions to the Empire was to divide the top-tier leadership up so that it could rule more efficiently. The Empire had grown too large to be governed by a single Emperor, so he selected a co-Augustus & divided their regions of oversight between Western & Eastern realms. Since the issue of succession had also been a cause for unrest in previous generations, Diocletian also provided for that by assigning junior Caesars for both himself & his co-Augustus. When they stepped down, there would be someone waiting in the wings, pre-designated to take control. The idea was then that when their successors stepped into the role of being co-Augusti – they’d appoint new junior Caesars to follow after them. It was a solid plan and worked well while Diocletian was the senior Augustus. When he retired to raise prize-winning cabbages, the other rulers decided they liked power & didn’t want to relinquish it.Over the years that followed, rule of the Empire alternated between a single Emperor & Diocletian’s idea of shared rule. The general trend was for shared rule with the senior Augustus making his capital in the East at Constantinople. This left the weaker & subordinate ruler in the west with increasingly less power at the same time Germanic tribes pressed in from the North.What eventually spelled doom for the Western Empire was that Rome had forged treaties with some of those Germanic tribes; turning them into mercenaries who were armed & trained in the Roman style of war. When Rome stopped paying them to fight FOR Rome against their Germanic brothers & the Goths, it was inevitable they’d join them to fight against the rich pickings of the decaying Empire who could no longer field armies against them.We’ve seen previously, as the barbarians pressed into the Western Empire from the North & East, civil authorities had diminishing ability to do anything about them. People began looking to the Church to provide order. Because the Church was gifted with some remarkable leaders who genuinely cared about the welfare of the people, they managed to hold the decaying Empire together for a time. Pope Leo even managed to meet with the Hun leader Attila as he prepared to march on Rome. Leo persuaded the Huns to turn around, leaving the City intact. But Leo didn’t have as much luck with the Vandals who arrived a few years later. He did manage to persuade them to limit their sack to plunder & pillage. The population was saved from death & rape. After a 2 week loot-fest, the Vandals boarded their ships & sailed away - leaving the city otherwise unmolested.Historians mark the year 476 as the date when the Western Empire fell. It was then that the Goth leader Odoacer deposed the last Western Emperor, Romulus Augustulus. Odoacer is called a barbarian, but he was, in fact, a military leader in the Roman army; a mercenary who led a revolt against the very people he’d once fought FOR. While historians mark 476 as the year of Rome’s fall, for the people living at that time, they would not have seen much if any difference between the reign of Augustulus & Odoacer. Things carried on much as they had from the previous decades. Which is to say – it was a mess!With the Fall of Rome, the Western Empire moved into what we know as the Middle Ages. This was a time when the Church played an ever-increasing role in society. The form that influence took varied over the centuries; sometimes being more religious & spiritual in nature, at other times being predominantly political. But there’s no denying that in Europe during the Middle Ages, the Church played a major role.During the 5^th & early 6^th Centuries, as civil society disintegrated, people looked to alternatives. Some found an answer in monastic communities. There’d been communes of Christians since the 3^rd Century, but the number of monasteries began to grow during the 5^th. Some were highly structured while others were more loosely organized.The monastic movement took off due to the leadership of Benedict of Nursia whom we’ve already talked about. Benedict’s early attempts at being the leader or abbot of a monastery didn’t go so well; the monks tried to poison him. But as he matured, Benedict applied the lessons learned from his previous mistakes & founded a monastery on Monte Cassino in Italy that became the proto-typical monastery for years to come.Benedict was a genius for administration and organization. He formulated a simple plan for monastic living that was easily transferred to other communes. Known as the Rule of St. Benedict, it became the organizing & governing principle for monastic life & under it, hundreds more monasteries were begun. The Rule held forth a daily routine of Bible reading, prayer, and work. Benedict’s sister Scholastica adopted a similar formula for convents.Monasteries became repositories & treasuries of the learning and scholarship of Greece and Rome. As the rest of Europe plunged into what some refer to as The Dark Ages, many monasteries remained places of scholarship. The monks read, studied and spent considerable time copying ancient texts of both scripture and classical antiquity. The Renaissance would eventually be fed by the work of those monks and their hundreds of years of work.What we know about Benedict comes from his biographer, Gregory, known to us as Pope Gregory I, or Gregory the Great, a title conferred on him by the Church shortly after his death.Gregory was born into a wealthy and ancient Roman senatorial family around 540. Following family tradition, he was trained for civil service. But the political landscape was uncertain. During his childhood, the rule of Rome passed through several different regimes. While in his mid-teens, control of Southern Italy was wrested from the Visigoths by the re-conquest of the Eastern Emperor Justinian. But it was only a few years till the Lombards began their campaign of terror. They burned churches, murdered bishops, plundered monasteries, and turned the verdant fields of Italy into a weed-strewn wilderness.When he was 33, Justinian appointed Gregory as the Prefect of Rome, the highest political position in the territory. Gregory was responsible for the economy, food provisions, welfare of the poor, reconstruction of the now ancient and badly decayed infrastructure; things like baths, sewers, and streets. His appointment came in the same year both the pope and Imperial governor of Italy died.A few years later Gregory resigned his office. It’s rare when someone who wields great power walks away from it – but that’s what Gregory did. The death of his father seemed to be the turning point. One wonders if it wasn’t his father’s dreams FOR his son that had moved Gregory into a political career to begin with. Once the father was gone, there was nothing holding him to his position and Gregory followed his heart, which was to become a monk. With his considerable fortune, he founded seven monasteries and gave what was left to the poor. He then turned his family’s home into a monastery. As Bruce Shelly puts it, “He exchanged the purple toga for the coarse robe of a monk.” He embraced the austere life of a monk with full devotion to the Rule of St. Benedict.As much as Gregory desired to dissolve into obscurity and live a life of humble devotion to God, his outstanding gifts as an administrator had fixed a reputation to him he was unable to dodge. In 579, Pope Pelagius II made him one of seven deacons for the church at Rome. He was then sent as an ambassador for the Pope to the imperial court in Constantinople. He returned to Rome in 585 and was appointed abbot of the convent that had once been his house.Gregory was quite content to be an abbot and would aspire to no higher office, content to finish his sojourn on earth right there. But The Plague swept thru Rome, killing thousands, including the Pope. Unlike most monks who hid behind their commune’s walls, Gregory went into the city to help the sick. This earned him great admiration. After Pope Pelagius died, it took church leaders six months to settle on Gregory to replace him. He balked and fled Rome to hide in the countryside. When he was eventually located they persuaded him to return and take up the Bishop’s seat.Gregory seemed ill-suited to the task. He was 50 and frail. 50 would be young for a pope today, but when the average life span was a mere 40 years, 50 was already an advanced age. Gregory’s physical condition had been made worse by his extreme austerity as a monk. Drastic fasting had enfeebled him and contributed to the weakening of his heart. But what some might assume his main disqualification, was Gregory’s lack of ambition for power. He simply did not want to be Pope. Coming to the belief it was God’s will that he take up the task, it didn’t take long for him to learn how to wield the influence his office. He began his term by calling for public demonstrations of humility of what was left of Rome’s plague-decimated populace. His hope was to avert more disaster. And indeed, after a while the plague abated.Gregory hadn’t been Pope long when the Lombards laid siege to Rome. This was a time of chaos throughout Western Europe. Many otherwise cool heads thought it was the end times; Gregory was one of them. In a sermon he said,Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds.It seemed every aspect of civilization was being shaken to ruins. The church at Rome was one of a few that survived the ordeals that came like hammer blows. Though Gregory saw his promotion to the papacy as punishment, he surrendered himself whole-heartedly to the task of keeping things together while everything else fell apart.Pope Gregory I was a tireless leader. He accomplished the work of ten. His volume of work is all the more remarkable in that he was often confined to bed because of sickness brought on by his frailty and overwork. Seeing himself as genuinely the first among equals with the other bishops, he kept up a vast correspondence, making sure the lines of communication between the churches kept everyone abreast of Church affairs. That alone would have been a full-time pursuit. But Gregory did more.He knew from both his time as a monk and in watching his brothers in the monastery, that the quality of one’s work FOR God, is directly proportional to the heart’s devotion TO Him. So in his book Pastoral Care, Gregory reminded spiritual leaders to never be so preoccupied with work that they forgot their own soul. But there was a much-needed counterpoint to that; they must also not become so internally focused that they neglected practical work. This was a point of balance rarely glimpsed in the Christianity of that age.Gregory was also concerned for the quality of worship in the church and encouraged the use of music. Though he did not invent what is called plainsong or plainchant, he greatly encouraged its use. In honor of his patronage of this form of worship, it’s known as Gregorian chant. Plainsong is a single melodic line without instrumental accompaniment. While a single singer may sing, it was usually sung by a chorus of voices in unison.Gregory took seriously his call to be the standard-bearer of the Faith. His contribution to theology was remarkable. He wrote more on theology than any previous and most subsequent popes. His main influences were Augustine, Ambrose & Jerome. He leaned heavily on Augustine’s work, even at times drawing inspiration from casual comments he’d made.Remember back several episodes to when we noted how the church believed baptism washed away all sins, up to that point. Well, what happened to those sins committed after baptism that were not confessed before death and had not been expiated by penance? Augustine mused on how God might, maybe, possibly -- remove these sins after believers died. It was from this speculative musing that Gregory developed the idea God purged them in a “purge-atory;” so the doctrine of purgatory was added to church doctrine.Gregory’s theology encapsulated not only the creeds of the councils and teachings of the Fathers, it also included some of the superstitious accretions of a Christianized paganism.I understand there are not a few Roman Catholics who subscribe to this podcast. I’ve been mightily encouraged by their kind remarks, and the occasional suggestions they’ve made. Even at points of disagreement, most have been courteous & used a heavy dose of tact when dialoging. I say that because in what follows, I suspect some will think I’m needlessly tweaking the sensitivities of our RC family. I hope I’m not, but am presenting an accurate view of the history here.To illustrate that, let me pose this question: How do we get from the picture of Christian Fellowship & the kind of church service we find in the NT and the earliest descriptions of them, to the elaborate, formal, highly-structured & stylized services of the Medieval & later Church? There’s an obvious discontinuity between them. When did pastors begin wearing elaborate robes and head-gear and start carrying gilded & bejeweled croziers? To put it bluntly – whence all the complex ritual? I don’t think anyone imagines Jesus conducting such a service, or even Peter. So it’s a legitimate question to ask when these things were adopted and became a part of church liturgy. The answer is, as the Western Roman Empire folded and church leaders became increasingly looked to, to provide governance, they also began to affect some of the trappings of political office. As Christianity became the favored, and then approved religion of the Empire, an all-too-common syncretism began to blend pagan and Christian practices. All Gregory did was standardize this syncretistic blend and bequeath it to the Church of the Middle Ages.He endorsed an earlier practice of appealing to past martyrs and saints for help in securing God’s aid. The idea was that a penitent sinner could never know if he/she had done enough penance to atone for sin. By appealing to those believers who’d died and gone to heaven for help, they might be able, through their special standing with God, to find assistance in having their sin discharged, kind of like spiritual brokers who negotiated a better deal for the Earth-bound.Gregory encouraged the collection and veneration of relics; strands of hair, fingernails, toe bones, or pieces of clothing from past saints and martyrs; as well as paraphernalia supposedly connected to the Bible; pieces of the cross, the spear that pierced Jesus’ side, a towel used to wipe Christ’s brow. It was assumed these relics possessed special power to heal and give the armies that venerated them favor in battle.Gregory taught that the body and blood of Christ were really present in the elements of Communion, the bread & wine. He claimed partaking of them nourished and strengthened one’s spirit, just as literal bread and wine nourished the physical body. But Gregory took it further. The real power of the Communion elements, the Eucharist, was in its renewing of the sacrifice of Christ’s death. The Eucharist didn’t just remember Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, it was a fresh enactment of it. During Communion, in the Mass, offered by a priest, sins were forgiven. What Jesus’ death on the cross did potentially for all people, the Mass applied to specific people who partook of it. So celebrating Mass replaced the need for some forms of penance. Certain sins required both attending Mass and penance. But for the average run of the mill kind of pedantic sins, Mass replaced penance. Then people reasoned, if dead saints could assist them by intercession with God, why couldn’t living believers attend extra masses for departed loved ones to lessen their time in purgatory. Light a candle, say a prayer, attend an extra Mass and you might shorten Uncle Giacomo’s sentence by a week. This theological base fashioned by Gregory would be used hundreds of years later to sell indulgences, and Tetzel’s clever fund-raising ditty – “When in the offering box the coin rings, another soul from purgatory springs.”Gregory’s realm of oversight wasn’t limited to the spiritual affairs of the Church. During his tenure, the Church owned huge tracts of land in Southern Italy & Sicily; some 1,800 square miles in all. When the Lombards invaded, sweeping away the last vestiges of civil authority, it was church leaders & their representatives who had to step in to provide governance. They took over the infrastructure of providing food and the necessary collection of taxes to maintain some semblance of civil affairs. Later arm-chair historians lament the blurring of the line between church and state. They fail to realize, had it not been for church officials stepping in following the Lombard incursions, tens of thousands would have perished. Gregory was the one who set up and oversaw this new tax and public assistance system. As the Lombards drew closer to Rome, Gregory took charge of the defense of central Italy. He appointed the military governor and arranged for a peace with the enemy leaders.Think of this now à Gregory was trained from youth for political office and had served well in that capacity until his father’s death when he resigned to seek the quiet life of a monk. When the Plague gutted both the church and civil sphere of capable leaders, Gregory was drafted to take the reins of the Church. The Lombards hammered the last nails into the coffin of Roman civil government, requiring for the sake of public welfare, that Gregory mobilize the leadership of the church to step up and follow his lead of taking on the task of civil authority. Though Gregory greatly expanded papal influence so that from his day on, the Pope was a central figure in European politics, his motive for all he did is seen in his simple concern for the welfare of the needy, as demonstrated by his refusal to stay safely behind the walls of his monastery when the plague ravaged Rome.The tension between the Eastern & Western church that had begun over a hundred years before as Rome and Constantinople vied for supremacy, grew during Gregory’s term, but certainly not because of Gregory’s personal ambition for power. His criticism of the Eastern Patriarch was due to his belief in Rome’s primacy and his resistance to the kind of pride on full display in the East. The Eastern Patriarch John IV had taken the title “universal bishop,” an honorific granted the Patriarch by emperors like Leo and Justinian. The title was confirmed in an Eastern synod in 588. But Gregory considered the title a usurpation of Rome’s primacy and a blatant arrogance God would not allow. He did all he could to have the title revoked and called down mighty anathemas on it. He threatened to break off all connection with the Patriarch and demanded the Emperor rescind the title. When someone applied the same title to him, Gregory’s reaction was immediate and vehement – no one was to be called a “universal pope”! He said, “I have said that neither to me nor to anyone else ought you to write anything of the kind. Away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!” He preferred to be known as simply – “the servant of the servants of God.”What appears a contradiction to historians is that while Gregory eschewed pretentious titles, he claimed and exercised authority over the entire Church. While in his case, that oversight was due to his scrupulous sense of duty to serve God by serving his people, later popes would accept the grand titles and use the power of the papacy to less altruistic ends.Gregory is an important name in the list of Popes because it was under his term that a great wave of missionary outreach began. If Leo the Great had sought to expand the power & influence of the office of Pope, Gregory the Great expanded the influence of the Gospel to new lands beyond the borders of the Empire. Being the first monk to become a pope, Gregory realized monasteries were like spiritual barracks that could send out an army of evangelists. If Rome couldn’t field military legions to repel the barbarians, why not send out legions of missionaries to convert those barbarians, then appeal to their faith to forestall attack? Convert war-like barbarians into daring peace-loving, then peace-spreading missionaries who instead of invading Europe would carry the cross North & East.Good plan. And Gregory implemented it well.When Gregory was a youngster, he’d watched as slave ships were unloaded at the docks. The slaves were Angles, from Angle-land, which later becomes England. The name Angle sounded like ‘Angel’ to the young Gregory and set within him the idea that where these barbarians came from needed the Gospel.Besides his interest in missions to Britain, Gregory also promoted missionary activity among the Germanic tribes. But it wasn’t until about a hundred years later that missionary work among the Germanic tribes would really take off. We’ll cover that in a future episode.If you’ve been following along with the podcast, a question may have risen that we turn to now. When did the western church, centered in Rome under the overall leadership of the Roman Bishop who’d come to be known as the Pope, really become what today we know as Roman Catholicism?There was no one day the Church transitioned from being the Apostolic church into the Roman Catholic Church. It was a slow, steady series of events that saw the Roman bishop be looked at as the mostly undisputed leader of the western church. I say “mostly undisputed” because while the eastern church centered in Constantinople, Antioch & Alexandria honored Rome’s bishop as first among equals, there were always a handful of western bishops who esteemed the lead pastor at Rome in much the same way. They didn’t see their role as the bishop of their city as in any way under a Roman pope’s authority.And don’t forget that the term catholic; which technically just means “universal” carried none of the denominational freight it does today. The word simply meant the Faith that followed the creeds set out by the ecumenical councils – those gatherings attended by a wide cross-section of the leaders of the church so they could define a Biblically faithful position on doctrines being mucked up by aberrant teachers & groups.An ultra-simple definition then of Roman Catholicism is that branch of the Christian Faith that embodies the early creeds of the church, as it coalesced in Europe, led by the church at & Bishop of Rome. As the generations passed, Roman Catholicism would take on much additional doctrine to that embodied in the early creeds. That doctrine was most often decided by the Roman bishop, whose power and authority grew so that he replaced the Councils.So while it’s difficult to name a date when Roman Catholicism became, you know – Roman Catholic, many church historians suggest Gregory’s appointment as bishop of Rome in 590 is as good a place as any to drive that stake into the church history timeline. Though Gregory refused the title “Pope,” he set up the system of church government that framed the entire medieval period & is called today the papal system. Gregory set a uniform liturgy to be used in the churches and did much to ensure all the churches walked lock-step with Rome.When he died in 604, worn out after 30 years of hard work, his epitaph proclaimed him “God’s Consul.” An appropriate description of the man who’ spent his life and career wholly in God’s service but wielding both secular and spiritual power like one of the ancient Roman rulers.

40-The Divide

This episode is titled – The Divide.I begin with a quote from a man known to scholars as Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. In a commentary on the names of God he wrote . . .The One is a Unity which is the unifying Source of all unity and a Super-Essential Essence, a Mind beyond the reach of mind and a Word beyond utterance, eluding Discourse, Intuition, Name, and every kind of being. It is the Universal Cause of existence while Itself existing not, for It is beyond all Being and such that It alone could give a revelation of Itself.If that sounds more like something an Eastern guru would come up with, don’t worry, you’re right. Dionysius isn’t called Pseudo for nothing.We’ll get to him a bit deeper into this episode.The late 5^th & 6^th Cs saw important developments in the Eastern church. It’s the time of the premier Byzantine Emperor, Justinian. But 2 contemporaries of his also made important contributions to the most important institutions of the medieval church in the West. One of them we’ve already mentioned in brief, the other we’ll devote an episode to; Benedict of Nursia & Pope Gregory the Great.By the end of the 6^th C, the unique characteristics of the Eastern and Western churches had coalesced in two different traditions. While the West remained loyal to the pattern held at Rome, the East emerged in 3 directions.The major Councils held at Ephesus & Chalcedon to decide the issue raised by the debate between Cyril of Alexandria & Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, over the nature of Christ, produced a 3-way split in the Eastern church. That split continues to this day and is seen in what’s called the . . .(1) Chalcedonian or Byzantine Orthodox church(2) Those called Monophysites or Oriental Orthodox, which follows the theological line of Cyril &(3) The Nestorian Church of the East.Without going into all the intricate details of the debates, suffice it to say the Eastern Church wasn’t satisfied with the Western-inspired formula describing the nature of Jesus adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In a scenario reminiscent of what had happened all the way back at the first council at Nicaea in 325, while they concluded the council at Chalcedon with an agreed creed, some bishops later hemmed & hawed over the verbiage. To those Eastern bishops beholden to Cyril, Chalcedon sounded too Nestorian to swallow. Chalcedon said Jesus was “1 person in 2 natures.” The balking bishops wanted to alter that to say he was “out of 2 natures” before the incarnation, but after he was 1 nature.Now, for those listening to several of these podcasts in a row rather than spaced out over several weeks, I know this is repetitious. In a brief summary let me recap Cyril’s & Nestorius’ views. Regarding how to understand who Jesus is; that is, how His identities as both God & Man related to each other . . .Cyril said he was both God & Man, but that the divine so overwhelmed the human it became virtually meaningless. The analogy was that his humanity was a drop of ink in the ocean of His divinity. Therefore, Mary was the Theotokos – the mother of God.Nestorius, balked at that title, saying Mary was Jesus human mother who became the means by which Jesus was human but that she should not be called the mother of God. Nestorius said Jesus was both human & divine and emphasized his humanity and the role it played in the redemption of lost sinners.Because Nestorius reacted to what he considered the aberrant position of Cyril, and because he lacked tact and a knew when to shut up, his opponents claimed he taught Jesus wasn’t just of 2 natures but was 2 persons living in the same body. For this, he was branded a heretic.But when the Council of Chalcedon finally issued its official stand on what compromised Christian orthodoxy regarding the person & natures of Christ, Nestorius said they’d only articulated what he’d always taught.So it’s little wonder post-Chalcedon bishops of the Cyrillian slant rejected Chalcedon. Their view left the humanity of Christ as an abstract and impersonal dimension of His nature. Because they SO emphasized His deity, at the cost of his humanity, they were branded as “Monophysites” or sometimes you’ll hear it pronounced as “muh-noph–uh-sites.” Sadly, just as those labeled Nestorian weren’t heretical as the name came to mean, the term Monophysite is also inaccurate because they did not DENY Jesus’ humanity.The Greek prefix mono implies “only one” nature. A better descriptor is monophysite. Hen- is the Greek prefix meaning one, but without the “only” limiter.But the Eastern push-back on Chalcedon wasn’t just theological; it was also nationalistic. The church in Egypt went into revolt after the Council because their patriarch Dioscorus was deposed!Then in Canon 28 of the Council’s creed, Constantinople was elevated as 2^nd only to Rome in terms of prestige, so both Alexandria & Antioch got their togas in a bunch. Those bishops who supported Chalcedon were labeled “Melchites,” meaning royalists because they supported the Imperial church.We’ve noted that while the Western Emperor was out of the picture by this time, so that the Roman pope stood as a kind of lone figure leading the West, the Eastern Emperor at Constantinople still wielded tremendous authority in the Church. We might wonder therefore why they didn’t step in to settle the issue about the nature of Christ. They wanted to. Several of them would have liked to repudiate Chalcedon, but their hands were tied, because there was one part of the Council they wanted to keep – Canon 28, setting up Constantinople as technically Rome’s second, but in reality, her equal.Now, as I studied the material that follows the debates between the Henophysites & Chalcedonians I found myself at a loss on how to relate it without boring the bejeebers out of you. I spent quite a bit of time working, editing, re-editing, deleting, restoring, and deleting again before deciding to just say that in the East during the 5^th & 6^th Cs, just about everybody was caught up in this thing. Emperors, bishops, patriarchs, metropolitans, monks, priests, & the common people. There are technical words like Encyclion, Henoticon, Severan, Acacian that are employed to define the different sides taken in the debate, and those who tried to forge a compromise. And let me tell you – THOSE guys failed miserably in working a compromise. They got hammered by BOTH sides.Regarding the long debate over the natures of Christ in the East, Everett Ferguson says that the irony is that the Chalcedonians, Henophysites, and the Church of the East were really trying to say the same thing about Jesus. He was somehow at the same time 2 somethings, but a single individual. Their different starting points gave different formulations their opponents couldn’t accept for theological reasons and wouldn’t for political reasons.Switching gears: Around 500 one of the most influential thinkers in Greek Orthodox spirituality made his mark, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. His real name is unknown. He claimed to be Dionysius, one of Paul’s Athenian converts mentioned in Acts 17. His contemporaries accepted his writings as legit. We know now they weren’t.Pseudo-Dionysius combined Christianity & Neoplatonism into a mish-mash slap-dash theology that appealed to both Chalcedonians and Henophysites. Probably because when you read it you inwardly say, “What?” but had to nod your head saying how amazing it was so you wouldn’t appear stupid. Like when I read or listen to Stephen Hawking waxing eloquent on some tangent of astrophysics; I say, “Wow! That guy’s brilliant!” But don’t ask me to explain what I just heard. He speaks English, but it might as well be ancient Akkadian.Besides being a Neoplatonist, Pseudo-Dionysius was also a mystic, meaning someone who claimed to have had an experience of union with God, not just a deep sense of connection to Him, but an actual uniting with the essence of deity. Pseudo-Dionysius became the author of a branch of Christian mysticism that was hugely influential in Eastern Christianity. When his work was translated into Latin in the 9^th C, he became influential in the West as well.Pseudo-Dionysius writings stressed a tendency already found in Greek Christian authors like Origen, Athanasius, and Gregory of Nyssa who said the goal of human salvation was a kind of making humans divine.We need to be careful here, because as soon as I say that, all the Western Christians say, “Wait! What?!!?!? Back the truck up Billy Bob. I think we just ran over something.”There is in Eastern Orthodoxy a different understanding of salvation from that of Roman Catholicism & Classic Protestantism.Eastern Orthodoxy understands that the saved are destined to a level of glory in heaven that is on an order of existence that can only properly be described as divine.No; humans don’t become gods; not like the one true and only Creator God. But they were created in His image and will be restored to & completed in that image so that they will be as much LIKE God as a created being can be and still not be God.This quasi-deification is attained by purification, illumination, and perfection, meaning union with God, which became the three stages of enlightenment espoused by classic mysticism.Okay, hang with me as we go deep. Pseudo-Dionysius identified three stages in how someone seeking the fullness of salvation can describe God:1) Giving Him a name was affirmative theology.2) Denying that name was negative theology. And …3) Then reconciling the contradiction by looking beyond language was superlative theology.The way of negation led to the contemplation that marks mystical theology, which was considered a simpler and purer way to understand God. In other words, it’s easier to know who and what God is by concentrating on what He’s not. And if that seems backward and nonsensical – welcome to the club of those who aren’t mystics and just scratch their heads when the mystics start talking.Pseudo-Dionysius’ arrangement of angels into nine levels became the basis for the medieval doctrine of angels.Reading Pseudo-Dionysius can be frustrating for those who try to parse out his logic and seek to discern in his words some profound truths. While all very spiritual sounding, they’re typical of many such mystical tomes; a cascade of words that defy interpreting. The mind is set in a place of trying to reconcile competing, and ultimately contradictory ideas. This tension causes the reader to mentally shut down, and it’s in that state of suspended reason that the soul is supposed to be able to connect to God. It’s the same effect as repeated mantras and eastern style meditation.Still, Pseudo-Dionysius was extremely influential in shaping how countless Christians of the 6^th through 10^th Cs went about seeking to grow in their relationship with God. Today, we dismiss him by calling him Pseudo-, Fake-, Fraud-, Poser-Dionysius.

39-Popes

This episode is titled - Popes.We begin with a quote from Pope Leo I and his Sermon 5 ...It is true that all bishops taken singly preside each with his proper solicitude over his own flock, and know that they will have to give account for the sheep committed to them. To us [that is: the Popes], however, is committed the common care of all; and no single bishop's administration is other than a part of our task.The history of the Popes, AKA the bishops of Rome, could easily constitute its own study & podcast. Low & behold there IS a podcast by Stephen Guerra on this very subject. You can access it via iTunes or the History podcasters website. (more…)

38-Barbarians at the Gates . . . and Everywhere Else

The title of this episode is “Barbarians at the Gates – and Everywhere Else”I live on the coast of Southern California in one of the most beautiful places on the planet – Ventura County. The weather is temperate all year round with an average temperature of 70 degrees. The beaches are pristine and most of the time, uncrowded. The County has several prime surf spots. But every so often, usually during the Winter, storms throw up huge waves that trash the shore. Some of these storms are local and wash down huge piles of debris from the hills that then wash up on the beach. Others are far to the south, off the coast of Mexico but they roll up waves that travel North and erode tons of sand, altering the shoreline.In the 5^th and 6^th Centuries, waves of barbarian invasion from the North and East swept across Europe to alter the political and cultural landscape and prime Europe for the Middle Ages.When Bishop Augustine of Hippo died in 430, the Vandals were laying siege to the city. While the Council of Chalcedon was meeting in 451, Pope Leo negotiated with the Huns to leave Rome unmolested.European history of the 5^th and 6^th Cs was dominated by the movement of mostly Germanic peoples into the territory of the old Roman Empire. The subsequent displacement and population shifting had a major impact on Christianity in the West. Medieval civilization was a result of this barbarian upheaval coupled with the vestiges of late Roman society and the impact Augustine had on the theology and practice of the Church.The incursion of Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire was just the first of 4 massive waves of migration.The Germans came in the 5^th C. The Vars and Slavs swept into the Balkans in the 6^th. The Muslims in 7^th. And the Vikings in the 8^th to 10^th Cs.The resulting societal changes created by these invasive migrations had a monumental effect on the Church. We’ll take a look now at just the first of these population shifts - the Germanic invasions.The 5^th C saw the climax of what was really a long process of mostly controlled immigration by the Germans. They settled land at the Empire’s frontier and served in the military. In truth, while the Romans referred to the Germans as barbarians, they often preserved the Empire by filling gaps in the declining population of Roman lands and by manning the legions. It was the Perfect Storm that saw things figuratively go south for Rome. Factors combining to generate this Perfect Storm were à1) The Germans were pressed by invaders out of central Asia,2) Key treaties between the Romans and Germans were broken,3) The warm weather that had seen a population boom in Northern Europe was followed by bitter cold so that the Germans were forced to move South in search of lands to sustain their larger numbers. It didn’t help Rome that the Germans now knew Roman military tactics and bore Roman arms.Note to Self: If you don’t want your neighbor to take over your house, don’t give him the keys and alarm code.Certain dates in the first half of the 5^th C are important àIn 410, Alaric, leader of the Western Goths, or Visi-goths, sacked the city of Rome. This was an understandably traumatic event for the Western Empire. His successor, Ataulf, married the Emperor Honorius’ sister.In 430, Augustine, attempted to explain Rome’s Fall to the Visigoths in his classic work The City of God. He died the year before the Council of Ephesus and the fall of his city, Hippo in N Africa to the Vandals.In 451, Attila and the Huns from central Asia, swept thru Western Europe, then were defeated by an alliance of Romans and Germans led by Aëtius.In 455, Aëtius and Emperor Valentinian III were assassinated, and the Vandals under Gaiseric again sacked Rome.The first contact the Romans had with the Goths came during the reign of the Emperor Decius. During Constantine’s reign they became allies and often entered the Legions at elevated ranks. The Visigoths were being pressured from the East by the Huns, and in 376 sought refuge on the Roman side of the Danube. The emperor Valens granted their request, and there began a mass conversion of the Goths to Arianism. Due to mistreatment by Roman governors, they revolted in 378 and killed the Emperor Valens in the famous Battle of Adrianople. Thus began the real Germanic invasions of the Empire. By 419 The Visigoths had subdued Southern Gaul and all of Spain.As we’ve noted in previous episodes, when the Goths invaded the Western Empire in the 5^th C, for the most part, they came, not as pillaging pagans but as Arian Christians. A Goth Bishop named Theophilus had attended the Council at Nicaea in 325.The missionary who carried the Gospel to the Goths was Ulfilas in the mid to late 4^th C. Ulfilas had amazing success in seeing the Germans won to faith for 2 reasons . . .1) Their native religion was in decline. Simply put, their gods seemed rather old and shabby.2) The many German tribes shared a common language.Realizing translating the Bible into German was a key to successful evangelism, Ulfilas spent considerable time on the project before his death. He left the books of Samuel and Kings out of his translation because he figured the Goths à Well, they already knew enough about warfare.In 406 when Rome recalled the Legions from the Rhine to protect Italy, another Germanic tribe called the Vandals poured into Gaul, then SW into Spain, and eventually jumped the Strait of Gibraltar to harass North Africa. Their King Gaiseric led them to Carthage which he conquered in 439 and made the capital of an Arian Vandal kingdom. Gaiseric was intolerant of other forms of the faith. In 455 he sent ships across the Mediterranean to sack Rome.At first, the Donatists in North Africa rejoiced at the coming of the Vandals. Remember they’d been labeled heretics by Rome. But it didn’t take long for them to realize that the enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend. The Vandals were not friendly. So in 484, a Donatist-Catholic synod met to try and patch up their theological differences.Catholics were persecuted under some of the Vandal kings in the late 5^th and early 6^th Cs. It was this persecution that gave the Vandals a bad name far more than any actual acts of “vandalism.” Really, the Vandals were no more barbaric than other Germans.Justinian’s famous general, Belisarius, repulsed the Vandals and reoccupied North Africa for the Byzantine Empire in 534.The Visigoths and Vandals were followed up by Suevians, the Burgundians, and the Franks.The Franks were the least mobile of the Germanic tribes. They settled in northern France and expanded their rule from there. They joined several other German tribes along with the Romans to stave off the common threat of the Huns in 451.Of all the German tribes, the Franks were the least inclined to heed the work of Christian missions. They seemed immune to conversion until their king Clovis in the mid 5^th C.Clovis’s conversion to the Faith was a significant moment in the history of Europe. Since the Vandals, Goths and Burgundians were Arian, it seemed likely Arianism would take over the West. Alone of the Germanic kingdoms, the Franks under Clovis embraced what we call Catholic or Nicean Christianity, the majority faith of his European subjects.In 492, Bishop Avitus of Vienna arranged the marriage of a Burgundian princess named Clotilda to Clovis. Clotilda was a committed Christian of Nicean-flavor. The Royal couple had a son, who was baptized but died while still in his baptismal robes. Clovis, who at that point was still a pagan, loudly declared his gods would not allow such a thing to happen. Later they had another son. This one thrived.Then, in battle with the Alemanni and things not going in his favor, the desperate Clovis asked for the aid of the Christian God. The battle turned in his favor. When the Alemanni were defeated, Clovis submitted to baptism. Bishop Remigius of Rheims performed the rite on Christmas day in 496.The source for all this is a work by Gregory of Tours titled History of the Franks. This book gave the Franks their identity and shaped their understanding of the future they were to have in forging European history.Following his baptism, Clovis was anointed in his role as monarch. This anointing of the king by a bishop became a custom among the Franks. The resulting aura of sacred Christian kingship seemed to justify Frankish control of the Church. Sadly, Clovis’s character remained little changed by his official acceptance of Christianity. It seems he adopted the religion as a matter of political expediency, but he didn’t receive the Gospel.In 493, Odoacer, the German general who’d forced the abdication of the last Western Roman Emperor a little less than 20 years before, was killed by the Eastern or Ostro-goth king Theodoric. Next to Clovis, Theodoric was the most important ruler of the barbarian kingdoms. Theodoric made Ravenna in Italy his capital. He was an Arian who adopted Byzantine culture. Though he was personally tolerant, his Nicean-Catholic subjects weren’t so much. His rule saw the last flowering of late Roman culture in the West. The Ostrogothic kingdom continued until 553, when the Eastern general Belisarius retook much of Italy for the Byzantine Empire.The cultural revival that occurred during the first half of the 6^th C has been called the “Indian Summer of Christian Antiquity.” This period saw a number of influential persons who laid the foundation of Early Medieval society.Boethius was a from a leading Roman family who became a philosopher and statesman in the court of Theodoric. Although loyal, Boethius came under suspicion and Theodoric had him imprisoned and executed. While in prison, Boethius wrote his most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy. This work is important because it marks the transition from the Church Fathers or what’s called Patristics to the Scholastics, who we’ll talk more about later. Through his translations, Boethius handed to the Middle Ages, the ethics and logic of Aristotle. The Scholastics regarded Boethius as the greatest authority in philosophy after Aristotle.Dionysius Exiguus was a Central Asian who came to Rome toward the end of the 5^th C. He collected and translated the canons of the Eastern Church into Latin. He also collected the canons and papal decrees of the Western church. His work bore tremendous ecclesiastical authority.But Dionysius had a much wider significance in that he introduced a system of dating based on the Christian era, beginning with the incarnation of Christ. He’s the one who came up with the whole BC and AD markers to divide time. Until that time, the secular method of charting the date was determined by the rule of the consuls of Rome and the Empire of Diocletian. Unfortunately, Dionysius miscalculated the date of Jesus’ birth, so that according to contemporary reckoning Jesus was born at least 4 BC.This is also the time of Gregory the Great, who’ll we’ll devote an entire episode to soon.Last in the chronicle we’ll include in the list of barbarians invasions is the Lombards. In 568 this Germanic tribe broke through the northern bounds of Justinian’s Empire and entered Italy. Gregory the Great turned them back in 593 and secured peace by dividing Italy between Lombard and Imperial land. The Lombards were a factious lot and ruled from 3 centers: The kingdom at Pavia in the north threatened the imperial capital at Ravenna; the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento in central Italy were a danger to Rome and Naples. The Lombards were Arian. Their acceptance of Catholic Christianity did not come until the 7^th C.As we wrap up this episode, let’s take a look at the effect of the Barbarian Invasions.Augustine wasn’t the only one who attempted a literary response to the Germanic invasions. While the sack of Rome in 410 seemed to many the end of the ages, Orosius, wrote 7 volumes against the Pagans to show that the pre-Christian world suffered no less than the present. The work became a kind of manual for understanding history in the Middle Ages. Orosius gave a central place to the Roman Empire in God’s plan. His history placed on the Western mind the idea of the divine role of Roman civilization. Jerome had already interpreted the 4^th kingdom of the book of Daniel as Rome and concluded that it was to continue as long as the Church did. Orosius promoted the view that both the Hebrews and Romans played an important part in the salvation of the world.Salvian’s work titled On the Divine Government in 440 promoted the historical significance of the Germans. He exaggerated their good characteristics as set over against Roman corruption. He said God used the Germans as the sword of judgment on wicked Rome.Three attitudes prevailed in Europe regarding the barbarian invasions àAugustine held that ultimately, political success or failure make no difference. His focus was on the world to come. In contrast, Orosius said Christianity was the guarantor of the Empire’s prosperity. Salvian claimed the Empire was punished for its sins.But an interesting thing happened once the German invaders settled down in the old Roman lands. By and large, they shed either their Arian-flavored faith for Nicean-Catholic Christianity and they adopted the Roman culture – or at least, what was left of it. Over a couple generations they came to identify themselves as Romans rather than as Goths, Franks, Burgundians and Lombards.But even with these adaptations to Roman culture, the old Roman and the new Germanic peoples were divided by language. The Romans spoke Latin, the Germans Goth. Customs of food and dress carried on in many places with the Latins wearing togas while the Germans wore trousers. Their legal systems differed and laws were applied to the different classes in the same kingdom. It took centuries for the 2 peoples to blend and become the nations of modern Europe. Greco-Roman civilization was based on cities. The Germanic invasions brought a decline to cities. A rural economy developed in the West, accelerating the move to what we’ve come to associate so centrally with the Middle Ages - Feudalism. While in the East, cities remained the main fixture of the social organization, in the West, landed estates rose to prominence. Rulers relied on their own lands, so there was a decentralization of government.With a decline in centralized government in the West, the Church took over many of the services once provided by the State, like education. Churches and monasteries were bound to the agricultural economy of the West and profited by a close relationship with local rulers. But one thing that saw the importance and influence of the Church grow substantially at this time was the fracturing that occurred in the political realm. When Western Europe was divided up into hundreds of smaller regions, each with its own ruler, the universal authority of the Church under Rome and the regional bishops provided a continuity that was desperately needed. No secular authority in the West was able to control the Church as an organ of state to the same extent as the Eastern emperors. So in the West, rather than kings ruling in Church affairs, it was the Church that increasingly played an role in political affairs.Once again I want to say thanks to all those who’ve gone to the CS FB page and given us a like. The comments have been a blessing.I especially want to say thanks to those who’ve given the podcast a good review on iTunes. iTunes is the main portal for the podcast and positive reviews go a LONG way in helping promote the podcast.I don’t often mention it, but need to occasionally If you’d like to make a donation to keep Communio Sanctorum online, you can use the donate feature on the website. Sanctorum.us podcast on iTunes.

37-Patrick

This week’s episode is titled, “Patrick”Last week’s episode was a brief review of Christianity’s arrival in Britain. We saw how the Anglo-Saxons pressed in from the east coast where they’d been confined by what remained of the Roman army. But when the Roman’s pulled out in 410, the Saxons quickly moved in to take their place, confining the Romano-British Christians to the western region of the Island. It was from that shrinking enclave of faith that a spark of faith leapt the Irish Sea to land in the dry tinder of Celtic Ireland. That spark’s name was Patrick.While there’s much legend surrounding Patrick’s life, there’s scant hard historical evidence for the details of his story. We have little idea when or where he was born, where he lived & worked, when & where he died, & other important specifics. What we do have are incidental clues & his own records, vague as they are.The record of Christianity in Ireland prior to Patrick is sketchy. A bishop named Palladius was appointed by Pope Celestine to the island, but he didn’t stay long. He left the same year Patrick arrived.Patrick was born into an affluent & religious home. His father was a deacon; his grandfather a priest. The family was likely of the Romano-British nobility & owned minor lands along the shores of western Britain. Several locations claim to be Patrick’s ancestral home. At the age of 16, he was captured by Irish slavers who regularly raided Britain’s coast. He was taken back to Ireland & sold into captivity.Patrick recounts little of his 6 yrs as a slave except to say he was a shepherd or swine-herd who spent long periods tending his charges. Being a slave, he endured long periods of hunger, thirst & isolation. This trial moved him to seek God in earnest. The faith of his parents became his own.Years later, in writing what is known as his Confessio, Patrick said he believed his slavery was discipline for spiritual apathy. Not only did he attribute his own slavery as the chastening of the Lord, he said thousands of fellow Britons also suffered for the same reason. He came to see the discipline as God’s grace because it led him to God. He wrote -More and more, the love of God and the fear of Him grew in me, and my faith was increased and my spirit enlivened. So much that I prayed up to a hundred times in the day, and almost as often at night. I even remained in the wood and on the mountain to pray. And—come hail, rain, or snow—I was up before dawn to pray, and I sensed no evil nor spiritual laziness within.At 22, Patrick said he heard a supernatural Voice calling him to fast in preparation for returning home. Not long after, the Voice spoke again: ‘Behold! Your ship is prepared.’ The problem was, Patrick was 200 miles from the sea. Confident he followed the direction of God, he struck out for the coast. When he arrived & informed the captain he was supposed to board, the captain recognized him as a runaway slave and refused. Patrick realized now his situation was precarious and looked for a place to hide. Seeing a nearby hut he began to make his way there when one of the crew shouted at him to hurry up and board. It seems the crew was short-handed & thought to use Patrick as extra a novice seaman, paying for his fare by the hard work of a lowly deck-hand.The ship set sail & 3 days later landed. Where is a bit of a mystery as Patrick is vague at this point. The best guess was northern Gaul. He says once they landed the crew wandered in a kind of wilderness for nearly a month. We do know that between 407 & 410, the Goths & Vandals ran amok across this region. Things grew desperate and the captain began to berate Patrick, mocking his trust in an all-powerful, all-loving God. Where was all that power and love now that they were in danger of starving to death? Patrick wasn’t intimidated by the challenge. As we’ll see, this kind of opportunity called forth from Patrick an even more determined faith. He told the captain, “Nothing is impossible for God. Turn to Him and He will send us food for our journey.” In desperation the crew obeyed. And as they prayed, a herd of pigs suddenly appeared. The sailors feasted & thanked Patrick, but they balked at embracing his faith in God.There’s a break in Patrick’s account at this point so we’re not sure what happened next. A couple years pass and he’s back home in Britain with his family. They pleaded with him to stay but he’d learned enough of the will of God to know not to make such promises. A short time later he heard the call back to Ireland. He says he had a visionary dream in which an Irishman invited him back to the land of his slavery. Patrick writes in the Confesso -His name was Victoricius, and he carried countless letters, one of which he handed over to me. I read aloud where it began: ‘The Voice of the Irish’. And as I began to read these words, I seemed to hear the voice of the same men who lived beside the forest of Foclut, which lies near the Western sea where the sun sets. They seemed to shout aloud to me as with one and the same voice: ‘Holy boy, we beg you, come back and walk once more among us.’ I was utterly pierced to my heart’s core so that I could read no more.Realizing God was calling him back to the Green Isle, Patrick began to prepare. He understood the call to evangelize the Irish but didn’t think himself properly equipped to do so. He sought training in the form of theological study & official ordination. Since both his father & grandfather had followed this course it seemed proper for him as well. There’s some confusion at this point on where Patrick went to get his education. One biographer sends him to Rome while others say he went to northern Gaul to study under Bishop Germanus.How long Patrick spent in training is unknown but he was eventually ordained as a deacon. One notable event from this time that would later be important to his life was his confession of a youthful sin to a close friend. It was something Patrick had done about a year before the Irish raiders captured him. It troubled him ever after and moved him to confess to a friend there in Gaul. The friend told him he thought it not that important an issue to fret over and that it would not prohibit him from being used by God. The friend even assured Patrick he would one day be made a bishop. Though the sin is left unspecified to us, it would later come back to haunt him.How Patrick evangelized Ireland is an important case study because it opens to us the mind of Christian missionaries during this period. It may also help us understand the troubling religious syncretism that infected the medieval church.The native Celtic religion of Ireland when Patrick returned was dominated by a pagan priesthood called the Druids. What we know of this Celtic religion is sketchy at best. Julius Caesar is one of our main sources from his encounters with them in his conquests of Gaul and Britain. The Romans loathed and at times feared the Druids. This was due to their near complete control over their people, a control enforced by abject terror. That terror may very well have been put in place by their being empowered by demonic spirits. Human sacrifice was a regular feature of the druidic system and they were attributed with the power to work the miraculous, often in cruel fashion.As I mentioned, there was some limited Christian presence on Ireland prior to Patrick’s arrival but the church had made little headway against the domination by the Druids. Patrick’s 6 year foray as a slave prepared him to know what he faced in the way of religious opposition when he returned. His plan was to confront the Druid’s on their own turf. He understood the only way to make headway among the people was by freeing them from their fear of the Druids. To do that, he’d need to look to the power of God to trump any demonstrations of demonic power the Druids conjured up.This is where the stories of Patrick’s life become difficult to discern the truth of. His medieval biographers take this kernel of truth and spin elaborate yarns about his confrontations with the Druids. Most of those stories are probably fictional, while a few may be based on real events. The larger lesson for us to glean is Patrick’s method of evangelism.The idea had grown among theologians that pagan religions weren’t so much anti-Christian as they were pre-Christian. Drawing from the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:20, they believed that “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes were clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” Paul himself applied this in Athens when spoke to the philosophers on Mar’s Hill. Paul was disturbed by the many idols he encountered in Athens, yet used them to evangelize the Athenians. He said, ‘I see how ultra-religious you are in every way. I even found an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god’. What you worship as unknown, I’m here to make known to you.” In Ecclesiastes, Solomon said God has written eternity on people’s hearts. Patrick & those who followed after looked for how to bring the Truth of Christ to the lost by using whatever elements of their native faith they could, converting it to the Truth of Christ.Patrick and his contemporaries in no way approved of paganism or considered it an acceptable variant of the Gospel. They believed there were supernatural beings behind the idols & ideals of paganism; demons who kept people in spiritual bondage. They believed miracles and magic did occur. After all, Pharaoh’s magicians used supernatural power. But à & here’s the key to Patrick’s methodology à the God of Moses was more powerful, & used His power to bring good while demonic power served only to promote ruin.So when Patrick arrived in Ireland and proclaimed the Gospel, the druids came out in opposition. Their hegemony over the Irish was imperiled. They thought nothing of moving swiftly to kill him. They were the law and could do what they wished. But: They found it harder than they thought. None of their plans or plots worked. It was as if a supernatural wall protected Patrick. He wrote of this time, “Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity. But I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty who rules everywhere.”While trusting himself to the protection of God, he also took practical measures to gain allies among the Irish by building amiable relationships with them. These allies kept him informed of the various plots against him.While Patrick does not himself record any specific confrontations with the druids, that’s the subject of many of his biographers. A turning point in Patrick’s mission came when an Irish chieftain named ‘Laoghaire’ came to faith. This chieftain had a group of powerful druids who advised him but who were unable to defeat Patrick in demonstrations of supernatural power. When a couple of those Druids fell ill, Laoghaire was convinced of the superiority of Patrick’s God and message and professed faith in Christ. As was common to that culture, with his conversion, the people of His clan also came to faith. Their alliance with other clans opened the door for Patrick to bring the Gospel to them as well and soon the entire region had converted.This then was Patrick’s method of evangelism as he made his way across Ireland. He confronted the Druids head on, showing the superiority of God’s power, breaking their monopoly on the minds of the Irish first, then going after their hearts with the Grace of God in the Gospel of Christ.Another turning point was the conversion of some of the Druids themselves.Patrick was driven to bring the Gospel to Ireland because Hibernia, as Ireland was called, was considered the end of the World & Jesus had said the Gospel would be preached to the ends of the world, then the end would come. Patrick thought he was hastening Christ’s return. In his writings, he repeatedly mentions he was in ‘the last days’, and quoted Matthew 24:14. He wrote, “It has been fulfilled. Behold! We are witnesses to the fact that the Gospel has been preached out to beyond where anyone lives.’Patrick wasn’t alone in this belief. Christians never gave up the idea Christ would return when all the nations heard about him; they just discovered more nations. About exactly a thousand years after Patrick, Columbus went to America not merely in a quest for fame and riches, but to hasten the 2^nd Coming. His Book of Prophesies shows how he thought his discovery fitted into biblical predictions of the end times.While the legend of Patrick’s use of a shamrock to explain the Trinity is interesting, there’s no historical evidence of it. It wouldn’t have been necessary because in the Celtic religion, the concept of a divine trinity was already in place. There’s also no evidence to support the story of Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland.We’ve quoted the first of the two documents Patrick left us, his Confessio. The other was a letter he wrote to a British chieftain named Coroticus. Coroticus claimed to be a Christian but sent his soldiers on raids to Ireland. They’d taken many of Patrick’s converts as slaves. In one case, just a day after being baptizing, dozens of Patrick’s converts were brutally attacked by Coroticus’ raiders. Though they were still dressed in their baptismal garments, many were killed, the rest hauled off as slaves. Patrick was outraged and wrote an open letter to Coroticus which he circulated to many others. It excommunicated both Coroticus and his soldiers, barring them from Christian fellowship and Communion until they did penance and restored what they’d stolen.Not long after Patrick was named bishop of the Irish church, that friend to whom he confessed his youthful sin, betrayed him. Though the man had earlier said what Patrick had done was no great error, he decided to brand it so by making it public and bringing shame on Patrick. Though we never do discover the nature of the thing, it was a scandal to church officials. Some called for Patrick’s immediate ouster as bishop. Misfortune is a magnet of ill-news and soon others were adding to the accusations against him. One man claimed Patrick had gone to Ireland merely to get rich, an odd charge when we considered the poverty that marked his life and the unlikely prospect before he went of the success of that ambition.The charges were serious enough to require a church synod. They commissioned an investigation. A group went to Ireland to question Patrick. Though he never testified at the synod back in Britain, the turn-coat friend who’d betrayed him thought better of his betrayal and ended up defending him. The Confessio was Patrick’s reply to the charges against him.While the official outcome of the synod is unknown, that Patrick was never censured or deposed as bishop suggests the charges were refuted.Patrick was less concerned with planting churches as he was in making converts and was tireless in his journeys back & forth across the island. Following the pattern of the time, he considered the ascetic life of the monastery as the purest form of the Faith and encouraged his converts to be monks and nuns. This led to the building of dozens of monasteries and nunneries in Ireland. The rural nature of the island also encourage this form of the Church. Without major urban centers, large churches overseen by bishops were rare. So Irish Christianity was centered in communal monastic life.Patrick died of natural causes on March 17^th, 493. Today, he’s one of the most famous figures from the 5^th C. Like so many others of the past who accomplished great things, we’d probably not even know of him were it not for the dynamic missions outreach that came from Ireland. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland was British. And the Faith he transplanted across the Irish Sea eventually came back to Britain.Many have noted how the Irish have a habit of leaving Ireland. The missionary monks were no exception. There were churches in Britain before Patrick’s day. His father and grandfather were church leaders. But the Anglo-Saxons had confined Christian Britain to a small sliver of the west. A century after Patrick, an Irish monk named Columba founded a monastery on the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. Though a small base, Iona was nevertheless responsible for a mighty wave of missionary outreach to Scotland & Britain.With this vibrant base in Ireland & Britain, Celtic monks went to the Continent. They established bases of outreach in Germany, Switzerland & Italy. These in turn became centers of evangelization and scholarship. These Celtic monasteries maintained a fierce independence from Rome, though they held the same faith. The Roman popes tried to assert authority over them but for the most part Celtic Christianity resisted such control.It was in these monasteries that much of the ancient wisdom of the Greeks & Romans was stored, laboriously copied, & assiduously studied, waiting for the day when it would re-emerge in what’s known as the Renaissance.In his book How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill says this of Patrick -The Irish gave Patrick more than a home—they gave him a role, a meaning to his life. For only this former slave had the right instincts to impart to the Irish a New Story, one that made new sense of all their old stories and brought them a peace they had never known before.

36-Did Those Feet?

This episode is titled – “Did Those Feet?” Why it bears that title is this . . .Have you ever heard the anthem “Jerusalem”, whose lyrics come from a poem by William Blake? The song was performed by the 1970’s progressive rock band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer on their album, Brain Salad Surgery.The opening lines are . . .And did those feet in ancient time -- Walk upon England’s mountains green?And was the holy Lamb of God -- On England’s pleasant pastures seen?A mysterious riddle for those not aware of the ancient legends surrounding Britain’s entrance upon the Christian faith.For centuries England prided itself that the church there was founded by Jesus himself. This tale was invoked in British disputes with France over preeminence & in late Protestant claims that Rome had nothing to do with the English church. It’s unclear how much the mystic, artist, and poet William Blake believed the tale, but his question remains famous.In the Council of Basel in 1434, the Council decreed, “The churches of France and Spain must yield in points of antiquity and precedence to that of Britain, as the latter church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea immediately after the passion of Christ.”Uh, huh?!!?Okay, so à We all know this is supposed to be a history podcast, not a wild, flight of fancy, let’s repeated every crazy thing people have believed, podcast. So, why am I sharing this? It’s illustrative of how many, maybe even most, of the churches of the ancient world laid claim to a special origin and identity. By way of illustration, let’s look at the legends surrounding England’s embrace of the Faith.According to well-established legend, Joseph of Arimathea, the Jewish leader who petitioned Pilate to bury Jesus’ body, was also Mary’s uncle. When Mary, Joseph and 12-year-old Jesus went to Jerusalem for Passover, it was at Uncle Joseph’s place they stayed. Sometime later, Uncle Joe took the teenage Jesus on a tin-trading trip to Glastonbury, in England.Other legends put the adult Jesus in Glastonbury, using his constructions skills in making a house and working as a ship’s carpenter. Older and even less reliable legends leave Jesus in Israel but send Uncle Joseph to Britain alone 30 years after Jesus’ ascension.In the 12^th Century, a monk named William of Malmesbury made a record of the history of the Church at Glastonbury. In the introduction added a century later, the story goes that the Apostle Philip sent Joseph & 11 others to Britain where they were allowed to build a church there. Then, after yet another century, John of Glastonbury said Joseph of Arimathea was an ancestor of King Arthur & bringer of the Holy Grail to England.Okay, enough of the legends. What is certain is Origen’s reference to the Gospel having been received among the Britons in the early 3^rd Century. And the faith hadn’t just come there, it was widely accepted. Even the North African apologist Tertullian wrote in An Answer to the Jews some time around ad 200 that the Faith had taken root and was growing in Britain. The first church historian Eusebius notes that “some apostles passed over the ocean to what are called the British Isles.”In AD 43, 2 years after Claudius was hailed Emperor of Rome, 40,000 Roman soldiers finally achieved Julius Caesar’s plan to invade Britain. Times had changed; Claudius invaded the island mainly because he could, and he needed the prestige of a military victory. Having landed on the coast of Kent, the legions subdued Wales and England, but found themselves overextended after a few victories against the Picts of Scotland.The British Celts adapted quickly to the lifestyle of their Roman conquerors. Celtic languages were abandoned in favor of Latin, and Celts began bowing to the gods of the Roman pantheon.It was because of this new Romanized British religion we learn the name of a British Christian: Alban.Alban was a pagan, but a friendly one. He welcomed a Christian priest fleeing persecution into his home. Which persecution is uncertain but the Anglo-Saxon church historian the Venerable Bede says it was under Diocletian at the end of the 3^rd Century. It didn’t take long for the priest’s devotion to influence Alban. He renounced idolatry and put his faith in Christ. But no sooner had Alban knelt in prayer than soldiers appeared at the door, having been informed of the priest’s location. The new convert swapped clothes with the priest. It wasn’t until Alban was brought before the judge that his identity was revealed. The judge said Alban would bear the priest’s punishment. He had only one out à to sacrifice to the idols. Alban refused.The judge asked, “What’s your family and race?’Alban replied, “What does that concern you? If you want to know the truth about my religion, know that I’m a Christian and practice Christian rites.’The Judge blustered à “I demand to know your name!”Alban answered, “My parents named me Alban. And I worship and adore the living and true God, who created all things.”Again the judge ordered him to sacrifice to the pagan gods, & again he refused, saying whoever did so was “doomed to the pains of hell.” When beatings and whippings couldn’t change his mind, he was sentenced to death.The story of Alban’s martyrdom goes on. While it’s difficult to sort out fact from legend, his tale gives us an idea of the high regard the martyrs were given in the Early Church. Supposedly on the way to the hill where Alban was to be executed, his guards were unable to cross a bridge because of the crowd that had gathered. So Alban parted the river as Moses had parted the sea. This was too much for his executioner, who instantly became a believer himself and joined Alban at the block where his head was removed from his shoulders.Alban became Britain’s first, but by no means only, martyr. Turns out Alban & his former executioner weren’t the only ones martyred that day. So were 2 others.One of the challenges historians face when reviewing the history of Christianity in England is the syncretism that often seems to mark its early years. Syncretism refers to the blending of different things. Religious syncretism is something the Church has had to deal with since its earliest days. In many places around the Roman Empire, while Christianity supplanted paganism, in a few places, pagan ideas and rituals were taken up and adopted by the Church. Old feast days were gutted of their pagan origin & made to represent Christian commemorations, and so on. It’s in England such syncretism stands out. Several artefacts reveal that conversion out of paganism into a clear NT Christianity was a slow process. Pagans and Christians worshipped side by side in the same building in Kent. Several British churches were built in imitation of pagan temples and shrines. A mosaic in Dorset includes both pagan and Christian themes. The same situation appears in Ireland, where pagan and Christian statues are found side by side.While the assumption of most historians is that all this points to a syncretistic blurring of the lines between pagans & Christians, an alternative position sees the close proximity of pagan & Christian elements as evidence of a remarkable tolerance between the two groups. It may have been that the two groups shared the same location without conflating their faiths.In 314, 3 bishops from Britain: Eborius from York, Restitutus of London & Adelphius from Lincoln, attended a church council at Arles, in southern Gaul. The Council was called to decide the issue of the Donatists in North Africa, which we’ve dealt with in an earlier episode. It was at this council Donatists were officially labeled heretics. British bishops were also present at Sardica in 343 & Armininum 16 years later.That these British church leaders were able to attend these councils suggests they were organized early, well before Constantine’s Edict of Milan. It also means they had contact with the Church on the Continent. Monasticism, which would find such a prominent place in England, was a product of the Church in North Africa.Monasticism came to England via the work of Martin of Tours. Martin was a military veteran from Hungary who, after his conversion to Christ, seems to have a hard time deciding whether he wanted to work in a church or a monastery. His real passion was evangelism. So he preached Christ to the unconverted & the asceticism of monastery-life to the already converted. One of those was a Briton named Ninian.Ninian’s story, like so many from church history, is a shadowy tale clouded in legend. We’re not even sure that’s his real name. He was a missionary to the Picts in Scotland. Probably not the first to take the Gospel north of Hadrian’s Wall, he was the first to get credit for it. Martin urged several masons to go with Ninian to build a monastery at Whithorn. Venerable Bede says it was named The White House. It became a center of monastic activity, drawing students from Ireland & Wales.Needing the legions to defend the empire from hostile Germanic tribes, in 407, Emperor Honorius recalled them to the Continent. Within just a few years, Roman rule of England was completely dismantled. In less than a generation nearly all traces of Roman culture, from philosophy to architecture was in ruins. And while many of the native Britons rejoiced as the Eagle flew south, they certainly did NOT appreciate the consequences as wave after wave of invaders washed over the land. The Picts came south from their highland homes. Scots invaded from Ireland. You might say, “Wait - Scots are from Scotland, not Ireland.” And that’s where a little known fact of history proves important. It wasn’t called Scotland at that time. Scot was the word used for the Irish. When they invaded and settled among the natives of northern Briton, it became known as the Land of the Scots.The real change for Britain came when the Saxons invaded from Germany. Then the Saxons were flowed up by the Angles & Jutes from Denmark. Foreign cultures overran Britain, snuffing out the last vestiges of Roman culture. In the eastern region of the isle even Celtic culture nearly disappeared.But it wasn’t just weapons that Saxonized & Anglicized the Britons. The British nobles who’d adopted Roman ways promptly “went-Saxon” so they could hang on to their social status. Immigration changed England’s demographics. Yet despite the large numbers of Northern Europeans who made their way to Britain’s shores, lots of ethnic Britons still inhabited 5^th C England. Now without Roman infrastructure, life changed. Communication with the continent diminished. And with less interaction with Rome, the British church became insular. Older historians emphasized this isolation, using it to explain the independent mindset that marked the Medieval English Church. But it turns out while communication did in fact fall off, it didn’t cease altogether.So while monasticism boomed in England after the Romans departed, and it took on a distinctly English form, it wasn’t utterly divorced from the monasticism practiced in the rest of Europe. And it wasn’t long before Celtic monks went forth from their isolation to carry Celtic Christianity to the mainland.

35-Overview 1

This episode of CS the first of a couple summary reviews we’ll do. My plan is to continue on as we have, pausing occasionally to in one episode catch us up in broad strokes on what we’ve covered so far.My hope is to avoid the whole, “Can’t see the forest for the trees” thing. For those listeners where English is a second language, that phrase is an idiom that means the loss of perspective behind too many details.Though I want to give a clean straight narrative for our story of the Church, we can’t help but bounce around ab it between times & places. It’s just the nature of trying to examine all of church history, instead of its course in one location. Still, I hope to build a basic sense of historical flow. To that end, stopping every so often to step back and provide a quick summary of the material we’ve covered so far seems appropriate.Overviews won’t have nearly the detail as a regular episode, but they will have a lot more names & dates since it’s a culling & gleaning of what the last so many episodes have covered.Okay, here we go with our first Overview . . .While the Christian Faith began as an inordinately tiny sect within 1^st Century Judaism, it grew rapidly, first among Jews, then among Gentiles. This growth can be attributed to two main causes. First, was the generally lethargic spiritual condition of the ancient world, most especially in those regions dominated by the Roman Empire. Several factors conspired to make people ripe for the message the Gospel proclaimed. Second, was the spiritual dynamic provided by early followers of Jesus. They demonstrated an exceptional lifestyle that attracted others. Even while Rome followed an official policy of opposition to the Faith, the number of its adherent grew.Early Christianity is divided by historians into 2 periods: the Apostolic & Post-Apostolic.The Apostolic lasts from the mid-1^st Century to the early 2^nd when the last of the Apostolic Fathers died. The Apostolic Fathers are counted not only as the original disciples of Jesus and their peers but their direct followers; men like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch & Polycarp.The Post-Apostolic period stretches from the early 2^nd Century to the beginning of the 4^th. During this time the leadership of the church moved from direct dependence on the Apostolic Fathers to local church leaders, known as pastors. As the decades passed, these local lead pastors morphed into bishops who oversaw a growing episcopal structure.This period was marked by episodic & regional persecution of Christians in Roman lands. It wasn’t until the mid to late 3^rd Century that persecution became a widespread policy. It ended with the arrival of Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313. Names associated with this time are Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen.Besides persecution, the main challenge the Post-Apostolic church faced was presented by heresy.Early Christians heeded the New Testament’s repeated call for maintaining correct belief and refuting false teaching. The Faith wasn’t just the philosophical ramblings of a sun-burnt sage. It was rooted in historical events both ancient & recent. When aberrant teachers attempted to hijack core & cardinal doctrines, bishops gathered to study what their Scriptures said and arrive at a consensus. In this way, they refuted the challenge of such groups & teaching as Docetism and its later evolution, Gnosticism. They rebuffed Marcionism, the Ebionites, Manachaeists & the aberrant teaching of Montanus. The greatest threat rose from a Bishop named Arius who denied Jesus’ deity. Though Arianism was officially quashed at the First of the Great or what are called Ecumenical Councils held at Nicaea in 325, it continued to be espoused in many regions for the next century and a half. The Council of Nicaea established the orthodox Christian position today known as Trinitarianism, which holds that God is one in essence while three in persons. While 300 bishops signed the Nicaean Creed, many of them went away from the Council unsettled about the terminology used in the Creed to define the correct view of God. The task of sharpening the terms & arriving at the proper description of the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity was left to the Cappadocian Fathers some time later.The Post-Apostolic period is also when the Church Fathers realized the need to provide a definitive list of books that comprised the Bible. The work of several councils finally closed the Canon during this time.The Post-Apostolic Period was followed by what’s often called Catholic Christianity; not to be confused with ROMAN Catholic. The term ‘catholic’ means universal and stands in contrast to the many often subtle doctrinal challenges that arose following the Council of Nicaea. This period, stretching from the beginning of the 4^th Century to the end of the 5^th saw 7 major Church Councils that all met to address some new or renewed challenge to orthodoxy, specifically as it related to the theological can of worms the First Council at Nicaea opened, and maybe we should say, sought to close. You see, once the Church settled on the Trinity as the right way to understand God, the main questions were;1) How do the persons of the Godhead relate to one another?2) How are we to understand the person of Jesus? How do we reconcile Him as both God & Man?This second issue ended up in sometimes bloody brawls as advocates of different positions used the debate to secure political favor & religious prestige.During this period of Catholic Christianity, 4 cities rose as the gravitational centers of the Christian world; Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, & the new capital of the Empire, Constantinople. Alexandria, Antioch & Constantinople were all in the East while Rome was alone in the West. The main contest for prestige & power was between Alexandria & Antioch which used 2 different ways of interpreting Scripture and understanding the Person & Nature of Christ. Alexandria had a long reputation as a center of scholarship but Antioch continually produced excellent preachers. Since the Church at Constantinople, being near the royal palace, was the premier church in terms of securing imperial favor, whoever was the bishop there tended to secure favor for his side of the debate. It infuriated many of the bishops at Alexandria that Antioch kept providing new leaders for the Church at Constantinople. The supreme example of all this is the verbal and at times physical brawl that took place between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius from Antioch, who became Bishop at Constantinople.It was during this time as well that the Church at Rome emerged to become, not just the lead church in the West, but over the entire Empire. One of the reasons for this is the generally excellent leadership the Roman Bishops provided. When the Eastern churches were wracked by debate, Rome often played a mediating influence or lent a perspective that resolved the issue.What encouraged Rome’s emergence as the lead church in the Faith was the claim of some Roman Bishops that they were spiritual heirs to Peter’s spiritual hegemony. That claim was not without considerable push-back by many, but it eventually proved persuasive so that Rome was given tacit, if not outright honor as the lead church.Again, it was during this era the Ecumenical Councils were convened. They were concerned largely with settling the Christological disputes tearing apart the Church. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 & First Council of Constantinople in 381 condemned Arianism. The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned Nestorianism and affirmed Mary as the Theotokos; that is the "Mother of God."The Council of Chalcedon just 20 years later affirmed that Christ had two natures; He was fully God and fully man, yet was one person. It specifically condemned Monophysitism, the belief that Jesus’ divine nature overwhelmed his human nature. Following Chalcedon, several groups broke with the orthodox, or what we would call from this time, Catholic position; again, not Roman Catholic. The term simply means what was the accepted position of the Church & churches of the Roman World. The churches of Egypt, headquartered at Alexandria tended to be Monophysite while the churches that moved into the East followed a distorted view of Nestorius’ & began to adopt the idea that Jesus was not only of two natures, He was two persons in a single body. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, it’s unlikely Nestorius himself believed that, though his opponents claimed he did, and his later followers do seem to have moved in that direction.One of the most significant events of this period occurred in late February of 380. Emperor Theodosius I signed the Edict of Thessalonica which made Catholic, Trinitarian Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. Prior to this the Emperors Constantius II & Valens favored Arian flavors of the Faith. Theodosius I declared the Trinitarianism of the Nicene Creed as the perennial position of the Empire. While there were going to be all kinds of problems associated with making Christianity the State religion, what ensured it would really go awry was that Theodosius went further and in effect outlawed unbelief; any belief but Catholic Christianity was deemed heretical. Heretics weren’t just put out of the Church, they were put out of life!It didn’t take long for the Church to avail itself of the Imperial organizational structure, adopting similar geographical borders. They even kept the old imperial name – Diocese. Bishops oversaw the various dioceses. The bishop’s home was known as a seat, or see.Back-tracking a bit, when Christians were being persecuted during the 2 and 3^rd Centuries in the West, many of them fled for refuge to the East and the Sassanid Empire, the long-time enemy of Rome. Though the Sassanids were Zoroastrians, they welcomed the Christians because, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.When Rome became a Christian State, the Sassanids feared the Christians would become a kind of religious Fifth Column and began persecuting them. The once vibrant Persian church was decimated and many of these Eastern Christians fled even further East, becoming what is today referred to as the Church of the East.As we’ve seen in recent episodes, Monasticism became a standard feature of Christianity during the time of Catholic Christianity and carried on for centuries after in the Middle Ages.While there are dozens of names associated with this time, we’ll limit our list to a few as we wrap up this episode.There are the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa and their friend, Gregory of Nazianzus.There’s the Popes Damasus I & Leo the Great.We’ve mentioned Cyril of Alexandria & his nemesis, the defrocked & banished Nestorius.There’s the astoundingly gifted Bishop of Milan, Ambrose and his student who eventually outshined his teacher – Augustine.This is the time of Jerome & the Golden-tongued Chrysostom.It’s the time Attila the Hun and Alaric whose Goths sacked Rome.It’s the age of the Vandals who are such brutes they give their name to bad behavior.This is also the time of an interesting character whose life has become a thing of legend – Patrick of Ireland. We’ll take a look at him soon.The Era of Catholic Christianity ends in the late 5^th Century with the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. This is of course an arbitrary line we draw, especially when we consider that the Eastern Empire saw itself as the continuation of the Empire for another thousand years.But most historians see the Fall of the Western Roman Empire as a momentous event that leveled a blow to the European mindset it took centuries to recover from. Thus, the period between the Roman Empire and the Modern Era is called the Middle Ages. And while it’s been fashionable for a long time in the popular idea of history to see the Middle Ages as Dark and a long stretch when nothing of much consequence happened, the more astute student knows the Middle Ages were a time of amazing development.

34-The Great Recession

This episode is titled – The Great Recession.I usually leave house-keeping comments for CS to the end of each episode but wanted to begin this by saying thanks to all who subscribe, listen regularly, and have turned others on to the podcast.Website stats tell us we have a lot of visitors & subscribers. Far more than you faithful ones who’ve checked in on the Facebook page & hit the “like” button. Can I ask those of you who haven’t yet to do so?Then, if you’re one of the many who accesses the podcast via iTunes, you probably know how difficult it can be to find what you’re looking for there. Millions use iTunes as their podcast portal yet the search feature is clunky. So tracking down what you want can be a challenge. What helps people find content on iTunes is reviews. So, if you’re an iTunes user and like CS, you could be a great asset by writing a brief review for the podcast. Thanks ahead of time.Okay, enough shameless self-promotion . . .Christianity more than proved its vitality by enduring waves of persecution prior to Constantine the Great. When persecution was withdrawn & the Faith climbed out of the catacombs to become the darling of the State, the question was whether it would survive the corruption political power inevitably brings. While many thousands of pagans professed faith because it was the politically expedient thing to do, some sincere believers marked the moral corruption that took place in the church & forsook society to practice a purer faith in monasteries, as we saw in our last episode.The institutional Church, on the other hand, organized itself in a manner that resembled the old Roman Imperial system. When the Empire crumbled under the weight of its own corruption, that fall accelerated by barbarian invasions, the question was, would Christianity fall with it?The story of Christianity in the West is a remarkable tale of survival. So often in history, when a culture is swept away, so is its religion. Christianity has proven an exception. As often as not it endured when the culture changed. Such was the case in Europe and the events that followed the Fall of Rome at the end of the 5^th Century.When the Gospel first came to those urban centers which were the cultural heart of the Roman Empire in the late 1^st & early 2^nd Centuries, it was regarded as a Jewish reform movement. Its first converts were Jews scattered around the Empire and those Gentiles who’d attached themselves to the Jewish synagogues. But once these God-fearing Gentiles came to faith, they evangelized their Gentile friends. Following Paul’s example in speaking to the philosophers on Mars Hill, these Gentile Christians recast the Gospel in Greco-Roman terms, using ideas & values familiar to the pagan mind.When I say “pagan” don’t think of it as the insult it is in our modern vernacular; someone void of moral virtue. By pagan, I mean those who practiced the religion of the Greeks & Romans with its pantheon of gods. In that sense, Plato & Aristotle were pagans. Zeno, the philosopher who developed Stoicism, was a pagan. These were all men who developed the philosophical framework that shaped the worldview of Greco-Roman culture & society. They asked some penetrating questions that provided the intellectual backdrop of the 1^st & 2^nd Centuries. Gentile Christians picked up these questions & used them to say they’d found their answers in Christ. Many other pagans found these arguments convincing & were won to faith. Some of the Early Church Fathers even appealed to the ancient philosophers in the formal letters they wrote to the Emperors on why persecution of Christians was bad policy. They argued for a promotion of the Faith as a boon to the health of culture, not a harm to it. Their defense of the Faith was couched in terms the Emperors were familiar with because they shared the same philosophical language.My point here is that Christianity made an appeal to the Greco-Roman worldview it was growing in the midst of. So, what would happen when that society fell?Also, the Church’s organizational structure increasingly came to resemble the Imperial structure. What would happen when that was dismantled? Would the Faith survive? Had Christianity grown too close to the culture?The answer is à Yes & no. The Empire’s demise did pose a set-back to the Church. But we might ask if maybe that was good. The institutional Church had in many ways deviated from its purpose & calling. Not a few bishops were far more concerned for their political power than for their role as spiritual shepherds. In many minds, spiritual & earthly power had merged into the same thing.Rome’s fall allowed the Faith to break away from the political attachments that had corrupted it for a century & a half. But there’s little doubt that from the 6^th through 9^th Centuries, Christianity suffered a kind of spiritual declension. Over that 400 years, the total number of people who claimed be Christians dropped, fresh movements of renewal declined, & moral & spiritual vigor flagged. While there were exceptions, overall, Christianity lost ground, giving this period of time in Church history the title, as Kenneth Scott Latourette calls it, the Great Recession.Following the timeline of Church history at this point becomes difficult because so much was going on in various places. So for the balance of this episode, I want to give a quick sketch of both the many reversals & few advances Christianity saw from the 6^th thru 9^th Centuries.When the Goths, Visigoths, & Ostrogoths moved in to pick clean the bones of the Western Roman Empire in the 5^th Century, something remarkable happened. While they helped themselves to the wealth of the Empire, they also adopted some of the Roman customs they admired. But nothing was so surprising as their embrace of Christianity. In truth, these barbarians were already what we’d have to describe as nominally Christian. Their invasion of & settling into Roman lands greatly furthered their identification with the Faith.Remember that in the ancient world, war was more than just an attempt to take land & plunder; it was a contest of faiths. The ancients believed armed conflict was a kind of spiritual tug of war. The mightiest god gave his or her people victory. This is why when one people defeated another, the loser’s religion was often wiped out.But the Germanic barbarians tended to embrace Christianity rather than destroy it. There was something different in the message of Christ from their ancient folk faiths that drew and converted them. So when they took down the Roman Imperial structure, they left the churches intact. Bishops continued to exercise oversight in their flocks.Unlike other religions, Christianity was super-cultural. It wasn’t just the faith of one group; it potentially embraced all. Even those who rejected the Gospel recognized it wasn’t merely the spirituality of a specific ethnic group. Its message transcended culture to encompass all humanity.That was the situation on the north & northeastern borders of the Empire. The situation in the south was very different. In the 7^th Century, Islam swept out of Arabia to conquer the Middle East & North Africa. The Muslims managed to get a foothold in Spain before the armies of Charles Martel stopped them pushing any further North in 732. Where Islam conquered, it replaced native religions. Enclaves of determined Jews & Christians eked out an existence but by & large, the Crescent replaced the Cross throughout the Middle East & North Africa.While there’s no specific date or event that marked the onset of the Great Recession, we’ll set the year 500 as the starting point. Here’s why …In 476 the last Roman Emperor was deposed by the Goth leader Odoacer. This marks the end of the Western Roman Empire. The capital then shifted undisputedly to Constantinople in the East.20 years later, in 496, the Frank king Clovis was baptized. This marked a new era in which Germanic rulers became the standard-bearers of the Faith instead of Romans.Then in 529, the Eastern Emperor Justinian closed the Schools of Athens. These academies were the last official symbols of Greco-Roman paganism. Justinian ordered them closed to signal the final triumph of Christianity over paganism.In that same year, 529, Benedict built his monastery on Monte Cassino as we saw in our last episode. The Benedictine Rule was to have a huge impact on the course of the Faith in the West.While Christianity seemed to stumble in many of the places where it had been installed 3 & 400 years before, it continued its relentless spread into new territory. It was during the early 6^th Century that the Faith went up the Nile into Sudan. In the latter part of that century, Pope Gregory sent missionaries to Britain and in the early 7^th Century the Gospel reached China.But the 7^th Century was when the Arab conquests began. In less than 20 years after Mohammed’s death, Islam had raised its banner over, Israel, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, & Egypt. Before the end of the Century they’d conquered all North Africa, including the capital at Carthage and by 715 had taken Spain.If you’ve been listening from the earliest episodes, you know that these lands the Arabs conquered had a rich Christian history, especially in North Africa. Alexandria & Carthage were home to some of the most prominent Christian leaders & theologians – Athanasius & Arius, Alexander, Cyril, & Augustine, to name a few.At the same time, the Arabs were spreading Islam across Christian lands, up in the Balkan peninsula & Greece, pagan Slavs moved in. In 680, Asians called Bulgars crossed the Danube River & set up a kingdom in what had been the Eastern frontier of the Empire.Between these losses to the Arabs in the South & the Slavs & Bulgars in the East, about half the total land area that had been Christian territory was lost.The 8^th Century saw large numbers of German tribes come to Faith. But the 9^th & 10^th Centuries were marked by repeated invasions of pagans from the distant north. These Scandinavians raided the shores of northern Europe, Britain, and all the way to Russia. They delighted in looting the many defenseless churches & monasteries they included in their conquests.These Scandinavian raids helped shatter the fragile unity the Carolingians had pulled together in Europe. As society broke apart into minor political regions, the quality of spirituality in the churches declined. Discipline in the monasteries grew lax. Bishops focused more on secular than spiritual matters. The clergy grew corrupt. The Roman Papacy became a political football.The Eastern church of the 8^th & 9^th Centuries was rent by a theological controversy over the use of images. In the 9^th Century, Muslims conquered Sicily & Crete, & established a beachhead in southern Italy.In China of the mid 9^th Century, Christianity experienced a wave of fierce persecution. This was due to the Faith having been too closely identified with the previous dynasty.As we come to the dawn of the 10^th Century, there were several positive signs the Faith was growing again in the regions where it had declined. Churches were planted among the Slavs & Bulgars. The Faith extended its reach into Russia & there are indications the Church in India grew during this time.One sign of a positive spiritual turn took place in Eastern France in a place called Cluny. In 910, Duke William of Aquitania founded a monastery on the Rule of St. Benedict. The abbots selected to lead it were men of tremendous character & piety. They were determined to correct the lax moral attitudes that had become all too common in monastery life.The Clunaic reforms not only reinvigorated monastic life, they established a new hierarchy for monasteries. Prior to Cluny, monasteries were connected to & in a sense answerable to local bishops & nobility. Cluny and the monasteries that came from it were directly answerable to the Pope. This became an important element of church life when during the 11^th Century, the popes tried to un-tie the Church from secular powers.While the monastic life may seem strange & at the same time stereo-typical of the romanticized view of Medieval life we have today, monasteries acted as repositories of the wisdom & learning of previous generations. As wave after wave of invaders washed over Europe, and society was shattered into a thousand bits, monasteries remained cultural lighthouses.