Quote:
Originally Posted by MS Fowler
Kerry,
Those feudal times were called "the dark ages" by some. The church ruled thru superstition and intimidation. The church was at its low ebb and run by unscupulous characters. The church was most unchristian.
To see the true effect of Christianinty, you must look just beyond the feudal age to the time when chrisitianity was in its Reformation. There, in the aftermath of Luther's work you see the rise of the individual. The Reformation emphasised several doctrines that had been obscurred--"The individual priesthood of all believers" was one such teaching.
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I agree Protestants are individualists but I don't see Protestantism as a Reformation of a corrupted version of Christianity and a return to an earlier more true Christian individualism.
Since Christianity was quite happily connected with feudalism, it seems to me far more likely that the cause of Protestantism lies outside of Christianity itself and that Christianity was changing in response to other social forces. I think it's more likely that the development of the printing press should get more credit for modern individualism than Christianity. Once books can be mass produced, learning does not depend on a small set of books available in Latin to elites but can be spread out in the vernacular to masses of people. This undermines elite hierarchical control of knowledge and opens opportunities for masses of people. Protestantism develops in this context, and creates an individualistic religion but even so, still has lots of feudalism left in it. The widespread use of 'Lord' is a good example. Nobody would begin to accept the view that "The CEO is my Shepherd' but we don't think twice about the Lord being our Shepherd.