From: p00168@psilink.com (James F. Tims)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Efficacy of Prayer
Date: 7 Nov 92 17:36:48 GMT
Organization: Semper Excelsior
X-Mailer: PSILink (3.2)

>DATE:   6 Nov 92 10:09:57 GMT
>FROM:   Charles Hedrick <hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu>
>
>ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
>

[...]

>It's a commonplace among Protestants to say that the Church went
>radically wrong when Constantine came to power.  At that point, the
>church became corrupted by political power.  It started a quest for
>power that got worse as time went on, and explains many of the later
>problems.  Of course standard Protestant polemic says that these
>problems were fixed by the Reformation.  I think there's something to
>that.  Despite some later unfortunate incidents, the Protestant form
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Nicely understated.

>of Christianity has generally been much less willing to identify
>church and state, and much less willing to use the power of the state
>to enforce religion.


Oliver Cromwell.  Archbishops of Canterbury, ad nauseum.  William Penn.
Pat Robertson. George Bush ... Don't sell those protestants short!
Not in a class with the Vatica, but hey, you make 'em sound like pikers.





>
>Yet I think there are more basic problems that even the Protestant
>reformation did not fix, and which go beyond Constantine.  You can see
>in Paul's letters, and more clearly in the Pastorals, the beginning of
>the issues that eventually became embroiled in the battle with the
>Gnostics: legalism, control, and authority.  For one reason or
>another, the Church very quickly concluded that it was essential to
>have clear central control.  Some of this was probably due to the
>growth of Gnostic mythology.  Another major influence was Roman and
>Jewish persecution, which people felt required strong leadership to
>fight.  But it's very clear that by the end of the 1st Cent. the
>church had adopted an ideal of a well-defined set of doctrines, and a
>clear line of authority, passed down from the apostles by the laying
>on of hands.  Rigorous ethics were encouraged by the concept that
>forgiveness was impossible after baptism.  This was relaxed by
>allowing forgiveness of one sin, after a lifetime of repentance, and
>later it was extended to two sins, but forgiveness involved a process
>of repentance that was tightly controlled by the church.  These things
>established characteristics that have survived through the centuries:
>an emphasis on the importance of doctrinal conformity, the concept
>that outsiders will burn in hell, a legalistic definition of sin, and
>a concern about unambiguous authority.  Some of the details have
>changed, as the authority of bishops was replaced by the pope, and
>later an inerrant Bible.  But many of the basic characteristics have
>tended to stay constant.
>
>I believe that these basic characteristics are in many ways a
>perversion of Jesus' message.  But they have an historical and
>institutional weight behind them that makes them hard to disclaim.  I
>believe there are branches of Christianity that are trying to get back
>to Jesus' spirit, but it's a hard fight.

-- 
jim tims 
"And if you're a miner, when you're too tired and old and sick and stupid
to do your job properly, you have to go, whereas just the opposite applies
with the judges."  Beyond the Fringe