I will go ahead and say, I dont know whether its proper etiquette to use all caps and the famous question mark/exclamation point combination on a blog, but I think it will make my point more clear. So bare with me here.
Last week we had a debate/comparison of the Medieval age, vs. the Age of Enlightenment, and I was on the "enlightened" side. At some point in class someone on the medieval side brought up how the God of the medieval ages was loving, kind, beautiful, etc. Though those may not have been her exact words, you get the point. And as I listened a few things went off in my head.
"If I were a medieval servant, slave, mason, or held any position outside of the church, would this have been my view?"
I say no.
Would you think you served a loving God if he made you crawl up a flight of stairs a few hundred feet, praying at each step, then putting money in a priests offering box, who gives you a promise to save your old Aunt Gertrude from a Hell that seemed so much like the Heaven he referenced as well? No.
Now first off yes, that is a loaded statement, but I feel it is true nonetheless. Even though most of us know for ourselves that the "real" God is not like that, for a servant who crawled up those stairs on her hands and knees, who had been spoon fed the bible from a corrupt priest who most likely violated her, and having been told lie after lie about God all her life, I seriously doubt she thought the God who let the bubonic plague kill her aunt to begin with and made her climb those stairs to save her was a "loving" and "kind" and "beautiful" God.
So I end with this point; that even though some of the enlightenment thinkers wanted God out of the picture, I believe that the God taught in the Medieval ages was as bad or evil enough for people to want that to happen.
Could you blame them?
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I agree with you! Even though we do know that our God is absolutely amazing that servant girl wouldn't see eye to eye with us, and yet she is forced to believe that about God! So even though in the enlightenment some people were trying to get rid of God the fact that we are still learning about God shows us how truly awesome our God is. You can't get rid of him or stop the spreading of His word no matter how hard you try! Which strengthens our witness because the Word about our God is still being spread while other religions are continuously dying out!
ReplyDeleteThe Medieval age did seem to project God as a god who punished people and made them do horrific things in order to gain access into heaven. But at the same time, I wish we had God in schools and government like we did back then. I wouldn't want it in the way the medieval period had religion, but I would want more of God in our every day lives instead of abandoned altogether.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely true. I wish that God was more intertwined with our government and schools too. But, on the issue of government, its hard to say we want our government to have more of "Our God" in it, while wanting to leave out the Islamic God etc...
ReplyDeleteSo its very tough stuff to try to find even ground, I dont even know what I would do if I was a politician.
But I still agree with you.