What happened to the Christianity that gave us the Holy Roman Empire...

Inkfingers said:

...the Crusades, the Templars, and the Inquisition?

Where has it gone and why did it go, only to be replaced by a kind that seems ashamed of (and opposed to) this history?

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Are you, by any chance, an Atheist trying to show up the egregious contradictions of Christianity?

Lol. We are talking about wars from centuries ago and yet since the "enlightenment" we've had civil wars, world wars, and quagmired in middle eastern wars for over a decade. Not to mention the many people who have a hard on to go to war with Russia and China in the name of "justice".
The real question is why has Christianity become such an effeminate faith. The answer is simple; secular humanistic democracies have replaced monarchies.

buzuxi02 said:

The real question is why has Christianity become such an effeminate faith.

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Was Jesus effeminate as he died on the cross? Was he effeminate when he prayed for those who killed him? The real question is, "When did Christians forget that we are to be like our Lord and not like the world?"

Inkfingers said:

...the Crusades, the Templars, and the Inquisition?

Where has it gone and why did it go, only to be replaced by a kind that seems ashamed of (and opposed to) this history?

Click to expand...

The Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The term refers especially to the Eastern Mediterranean campaigns in the period between 1096 and 1271 that had the objective of recovering the Holy Land from Islamic rule. The term has also been applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns fought to combat paganism and heresy, to resolve conflict among rival Roman Catholic groups, or to gain political and territorial advantage

The Holy Roman Empire was an attempt by the pope to revive the Western Roman Empire. (The eastern half of the Roman empire was still around as what we call the byzantines). Basically, Charlemagne had united what is today France, Germany, and northern Italy, so the pope crowned him Emperor.

The Holy Roman Empire had survived over a thousand years when it was finally destroyed by Napoleon and the French in 1806. It may not have been holy or Roman or an empire, as Voltaire remarked, but whatever it was, it had survived for more than a thousand years since the coronation of Charlemagne in the year 800.

The Inquisition

The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims

What was the main purpose of the Inquisition?

The Inquisition, in historical ecclesiastical parlance also referred to as the "Holy Inquisition", was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians.

How long did the Inquisition last?

Roughly 700 years. The official start is usually given as 1231 A.D., when the pope appoints the first “inquisitors of heretical depravity.” The Spanish Inquisition, which begins under Ferdinand and Isabella, doesn't end until the 19th century — the last execution was in 1826.Jan 23, 2012

Why did the HRE fail?

The Holy Roman Empire became so big that it couldn't keep up with all the nations it englobed in that it failed to withstand barbarian invasions and became a victim of its own success.

Why were the Templars disbanded?

The Templars were closely tied to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. ... In 1307, he had many of the order's members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip.

Violative times ... and hopefully will never be repeated.


Sources: Wikipedia, History.com, quora

Inkfingers said:

...the Crusades, the Templars, and the Inquisition?

Where has it gone and why did it go, only to be replaced by a kind that seems ashamed of (and opposed to) this history?

Click to expand...

Most are ashamed of the great pride, egotism, and arrogance, among many other things that that led to and/or created, or gave rise to, or caused back in those times, etc...

The Christianity we are heading to or toward now (but is not yet) is a far superior and way, way more "pure" one, etc...

Or will be in the end, etc...

But it is still working itself out right now, etc...

And so is not perfect yet, etc...

God Bless!

The Christendom of ages past was not all bad. Don't overreact. It definitely had its faults, but we have our faults today as well. I believe God used the reach of the empire to reach the lost just as he uses our reach today to reach the lost.

As has been said, empires rise and fall. God is not concerned with sustaining an earthly government, but he does use them.

Some Christians mourn the loss of the influence the empire once gave. I can understand that. Some mourn the abuses done in the name of Christianity. I understand that as well.

But what has been said is correct. Don't conflate Christianity with Christendom. Israel fell into that trap, and it didn't work out well.

Inkfingers said:

I'm asking about the Church which created the HRE, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Templars.

Where has IT gone?

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It hasn't gone anywhere.

Inkfingers said:

So was that Church wrong and this one right?

Or, was that Church right and this one wrong?

It wasn't a flash in the pan after all. We are speaking of 1,000 years of Christian history here.

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Well I think they’re both “wrong,” and the HRE was an often oppressive, immoral institution. But that’s true of all empires, right?

Inkfingers said:

It is against the rules here to question anyone's Christian status on the forum.

Do not do so again.

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Thoughts are free. Do your worst.

Inkfingers said:

...the Crusades, the Templars, and the Inquisition?

Where has it gone and why did it go, only to be replaced by a kind that seems ashamed of (and opposed to) this history?

Click to expand...

Since the time of Constantine, when the RCC took hold politically, it continually changed its doctrine, heeding to the "doctrines of men" rather than the will of the Father. Personally, I am pleased that the inquisition was abolished. Be blessed.

The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman and some dispute that it was an empire.

Inkfingers said:

That has to be the strangest post so far.

Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor.

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This is incorrect. Otto I was the first Holy Roman Emperor.

-CryptoLutheran

Maria Billingsley said:

Since the time of Constantine, when the RCC took hold politically,

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This never happened.

it continually changed its doctrine, heeding to the "doctrines of men" rather than the will of the Father.

Click to expand...

This general narrative isn't historically accurate. Or more accurately it is wildly oversimplified to the point of being wrong.

For one, Constantine can be credited with only about two major things:

1) The legalization of Christianity with the Edict of Toleration which ended State-sponsored persecution against Christians.

2) Invited bishops from across the Roman Empire to gather to the city of Nicea to address the controversy surrounding Arianism.

Beyond this, Constantine became a major patron sponsoring the building of churches and the publishing of Bibles, passed laws which granted to Christian clergy the same rights which had been afforded to pagan priests (e.g. Christian clergy were exempt from serving in the Roman military).

Now, do we see a growing closeness between the Christian Church and Roman imperial power? The answer is yes, by the time we get to Theodosius I, Christianity had went from legal to official religion of the Roman Empire, and the emperor in essence came to be viewed as the defender of the Church, a role which would continue to shape Roman, and later Byzantine, policy, politics, and the complicated relationships between church and state.

With the fall of the western Roman Empire to the migrating Germanic tribes, and many of those tribes having previously converted to Arianism through Arian missionaries, the circumstances became ever more complicated. While many of the Germanic tribes would convert to orthodox Christianity, others held out longer (such as the Visigoths who eventually established a kingdom in former Roman Hispania). In the absence of Roman political leadership in Western Europe, the power vacuum was filled mostly with Germanic tribes and nations, with the Ostrogoths and Lombards in Italy, the Vandals in North Africa, the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in Gaul and Germania, etc. Even Roman Britain would eventually be invaded by waves of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who would eventually form the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which later were unified as England).

In this power vacuum and in the turbulence of the collapse of the western Roman Empire there was basically only the bishop of Rome left to provide some semblance of stability. But then there emerged a power struggle between the Germanic nations and the Byzantine Empire, eventually under Justinian Rome and portions of the Italian peninsula did come back into Roman (Byzantine) possession, and Justinian assured the bishop of Rome safety. But this would change in time leading to Rome again being under pressure from invaders. But here the Frankish king Pepin came to Rome's aid, which created a bond between the Kingdom of the Franks and the bishop of Rome, indeed Pepin granted the bishop of Rome a parcel of territory around Rome, thus making the bishop of Rome an land-owning sovereign--this small territory would come be known as the Papal States.

With the death of Pepin, Pepin granted his kingdom to his two sons in the hopes that they would jointly rule. That didn't happen, and eventually a struggle between Pepins sons Charles and Carloman ensued, with Charles taking full control of the Frankish kingdom. Charles, like his father, would come to the bishop of Rome's aid, which resulted in the bishop of Rome crowning Charles "Emperor of the Romans", thus signifying a recognition that Charles was the legitimate successor to the Western Roman Empire. This Charles became known as "the Great", and hence his Latin name Carolus Magnus, or as we know it from the French, Charlemagne. With the crowning of Charlemagne emperor in of the Romans in the West, the bishop of Rome put the future of the Western Church into the hands of western European powers for centuries to come; whereas the Eastern Church (which was still in Byzantine lands) looked to the Byzantine Emperor (the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire). The Byzantine Emperor did not recognize the validity of the "emperor" in the West. And so, even more political upheaval.

This is the situation going in Western Europe in the late middle ages. Yes, the bishop of Rome did gain political power in time, but not from Constantine, but through Pepin and succeeding European powers; yes the bishop of Rome's ecclesiastical authority increased in the centuries of this period, eventually leading to a strong centralized church based in Rome with the bishop of Rome evolving into what we would eventually call the papacy.

But this is complicated history. No, the "Roman Catholic Church" did not come to power from Constantine, nor did the Church in the west have much power at all for most of the middle ages. The Church was, mostly, at the whim of warring and rival political powers, and seeking to find stability by recognizing strong kings. And all of these various historical forces eventually resulting in the conditions of Western Europe that we see in the late middle ages and the Renaissance, and more instability coming from within the Church by the Papal Schism during the Avignon Papacy, the controversies surrounding the Conciliarists and their opponents. And these are the things we see after the Great Schism of the 11th century between East and West, the crusades which ultimately soured relations with Byzantium and the Christian East even further with the sacking of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, the creation of the Latin kingdoms in the east, the return of the Byzantine Empire, the bad attempts at reconciliation at Florence, the fall of Constantinople later to the Ottomans. Etc, and so on and so forth.

Eventually providing fertile soil for something massive to happen when a devout German monk and professor of theology decided he wanted to have a university debate over indulgences being sold in Saxony in 1517.

-CryptoLutheran

The circumstances that lead to a Holy Roman Empire are quite different than today's. That was a world of feudalism after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The need for a great Emperor to counter East Roman pretensions led the Pope to invest such an authority as Charlemagne. The need to continue the legacy of Rome even if it was an invention was a powerful motive.

As for why we don't have great Christian empires today, it's mainly because Christians stopped believing in themselves and their ability to rule. You can see it in this thread, all the old so called christian empires are called abominations or not really representative of authentic Christianity. The Kings and Queens and Emperors of Old were immoral hypocrites, best forgotten. The irony that sort of sentiment is that it was those very Kingdoms and empires that became great Christianizing forces. Christianity didn't convert solely by pacifism but the concerns of Monarchs that their people adhere to the one true faith. Back when we could dare call our faith such a thing.

The enlightenment effectually destroyed that notion and thus in turn destroyed the notion of the Christian Kingdom. We are not governed by Christian morality but secular morality which deliberately sets itself above any concern of Christianity. Even the Old Christian Monarchies of Europe are shells of themselves. The Queen calls herself the defender of the faith but it's a title which is a farce like the monarchy itself.

Christianity today is afraid to defend itself or attack other ideologies for fear of excess or retribution. It may be that the current situation is something that God is using to remind Christians of the need to constantly be evangelizing, to constantly be at war with the world (not literally). I think we can learn alot from the Crusaders or the old legitimately Chrisitan Monarchs. We don't have to buy into this modern world's narrative but rather should have our own.

ViaCrucis said:

This never happened.



This general narrative isn't historically accurate. Or more accurately it is wildly oversimplified to the point of being wrong.

For one, Constantine can be credited with only about two major things:

1) The legalization of Christianity with the Edict of Toleration which ended State-sponsored persecution against Christians.

2) Invited bishops from across the Roman Empire to gather to the city of Nicea to address the controversy surrounding Arianism.

Beyond this, Constantine became a major patron sponsoring the building of churches and the publishing of Bibles, passed laws which granted to Christian clergy the same rights which had been afforded to pagan priests (e.g. Christian clergy were exempt from serving in the Roman military).

Now, do we see a growing closeness between the Christian Church and Roman imperial power? The answer is yes, by the time we get to Theodosius I, Christianity had went from legal to official religion of the Roman Empire, and the emperor in essence came to be viewed as the defender of the Church, a role which would continue to shape Roman, and later Byzantine, policy, politics, and the complicated relationships between church and state.

With the fall of the western Roman Empire to the migrating Germanic tribes, and many of those tribes having previously converted to Arianism through Arian missionaries, the circumstances became ever more complicated. While many of the Germanic tribes would convert to orthodox Christianity, others held out longer (such as the Visigoths who eventually established a kingdom in former Roman Hispania). In the absence of Roman political leadership in Western Europe, the power vacuum was filled mostly with Germanic tribes and nations, with the Ostrogoths and Lombards in Italy, the Vandals in North Africa, the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks in Gaul and Germania, etc. Even Roman Britain would eventually be invaded by waves of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who would eventually form the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (which later were unified as England).

In this power vacuum and in the turbulence of the collapse of the western Roman Empire there was basically only the bishop of Rome left to provide some semblance of stability. But then there emerged a power struggle between the Germanic nations and the Byzantine Empire, eventually under Justinian Rome and portions of the Italian peninsula did come back into Roman (Byzantine) possession, and Justinian assured the bishop of Rome safety. But this would change in time leading to Rome again being under pressure from invaders. But here the Frankish king Pepin came to Rome's aid, which created a bond between the Kingdom of the Franks and the bishop of Rome, indeed Pepin granted the bishop of Rome a parcel of territory around Rome, thus making the bishop of Rome an land-owning sovereign--this small territory would come be known as the Papal States.

With the death of Pepin, Pepin granted his kingdom to his two sons in the hopes that they would jointly rule. That didn't happen, and eventually a struggle between Pepins sons Charles and Carloman ensued, with Charles taking full control of the Frankish kingdom. Charles, like his father, would come to the bishop of Rome's aid, which resulted in the bishop of Rome crowning Charles "Emperor of the Romans", thus signifying a recognition that Charles was the legitimate successor to the Western Roman Empire. This Charles became known as "the Great", and hence his Latin name Carolus Magnus, or as we know it from the French, Charlemagne. With the crowning of Charlemagne emperor in of the Romans in the West, the bishop of Rome put the future of the Western Church into the hands of western European powers for centuries to come; whereas the Eastern Church (which was still in Byzantine lands) looked to the Byzantine Emperor (the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire). The Byzantine Emperor did not recognize the validity of the "emperor" in the West. And so, even more political upheaval.

This is the situation going in Western Europe in the late middle ages. Yes, the bishop of Rome did gain political power in time, but not from Constantine, but through Pepin and succeeding European powers; yes the bishop of Rome's ecclesiastical authority increased in the centuries of this period, eventually leading to a strong centralized church based in Rome with the bishop of Rome evolving into what we would eventually call the papacy.

But this is complicated history. No, the "Roman Catholic Church" did not come to power from Constantine, nor did the Church in the west have much power at all for most of the middle ages. The Church was, mostly, at the whim of warring and rival political powers, and seeking to find stability by recognizing strong kings. And all of these various historical forces eventually resulting in the conditions of Western Europe that we see in the late middle ages and the Renaissance, and more instability coming from within the Church by the Papal Schism during the Avignon Papacy, the controversies surrounding the Conciliarists and their opponents. And these are the things we see after the Great Schism of the 11th century between East and West, the crusades which ultimately soured relations with Byzantium and the Christian East even further with the sacking of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, the creation of the Latin kingdoms in the east, the return of the Byzantine Empire, the bad attempts at reconciliation at Florence, the fall of Constantinople later to the Ottomans. Etc, and so on and so forth.

Eventually providing fertile soil for something massive to happen when a devout German monk and professor of theology decided he wanted to have a university debate over indulgences being sold in Saxony in 1517.

-CryptoLutheran

Click to expand...

At the risk of oversimplifying, Constantine united the empire under the guise of Christianity. He effectively set the stage for the earthly representation of the kingdom of heaven with Emperor as Gods Viceroy. This eventually led to the change from Bishops to Popes the "vicar of christ" .