Skip to main content

Posts

XVIII. Lourdes

From the 1600s, France, ruled by Louis XIV, became the leading Roman Catholic kingdom fulfilling a role previously held by Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, the ideas of the Enlightenment were at work in society and in the church. The philosophes, the intellectuals of the Enlightenment, while acknowledging the church's contribution in terms of morals, social order and care for the needy, also found much to criticise in terms of the church's intolerance, authoritarianism, dogmatism, attitudes towards celibacy, and its huge wealth. This generated a groundswell of anticlerical (anti-church, anti-priest) sentiment in society. A telling moment, indicative of the change of mood was the suppression, by the Pope in 1773, of the Jesuit monastic order considered too reactionary. Another telling incident came in 1781, Louis XVI allegedly rejected one candidate for bishop of Paris saying, "The Archbishop of Paris should at least believe in God!" It all culminated in the French Revol...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

History of the Anabaptists

The Anabaptists were Christians at the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s who wanted a more radical break with the past and return to the truth of the Bible.  The Anabaptists were a very eclectic collection of different people and causes, united only by the fact that they did not align with the Roman Catholic church nor with the so-called Magisterial Reformers. "Anabaptist" means "rebaptiser" because in many if not most cases they rejected the longstanding practice of baptising infants, and instead practised believer's baptism on profession of faith.  The Anabaptists are called the "stepchildren" of the Reformation - at times disowned and unloved, but clearly the product of the time and in some ways more consistent and radical than their Protestant counterparts.  The first iteration of Anabaptism were the Carlstadt and the Zwickau prophets, who sought a more radical reformation that Luther espoused.  A second expression came in the form of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christianity in Finland - a brief history

The Finns are a people of Finno-Uguric descent, linguistically related to the Estonians and Hungarians, but also peoples such as the Evenki of Siberia. In Finnish Finland is known as Suomi.  There had been a Christian presence in Finland from the 1000s.  In 1155, Eric IX of Sweden launched a campaign to Christianise Finland, accompanied by bishop Henry of Uppsala, who was martyred in 1156. About a century later, in 1249, Finland was annexed by Sweden. The first indigenous bishop was Abo of Turku in 1298. While most of Finland became part of Sweden, to the east, Karelia remained under Russian control, and the form of Christianity planted there was Eastern Orthodoxy.  At the time of the Reformation, a follower of Luther called Mikael Agricola came to Swedish-controlled Finland and completed translation of the Bible in 1551, as well as translating other texts into Finnish. 1593 is the date when Lutheran Christianity was officially adopted in Finland.  An early figure in...
Post a Comment
Read more

The most ancient African civilisation (sub Sahara)

The most ancient African civilisation south of the Sahara is known as the kingdom of Cush or Kush, located in what is now Sudan.    The first phase of the Cushite civilisation began around 2500 BCE and was centred around the city of Kerma, which is considered the "first urban centre" south of the Sahara. The Kerma culture particularly flourished between about 1780 and 1580 BCE. The language spoken by the Kerma culture may have belonged to the Nilo-Saharan (like the modern-day "Fur" language of Sudan) or Afro-Asiatic (like Semitic, Egyptian or Berber) language family. Around 1504, the Kingdom of Kerma was invaded by its powerful northern neighbour, Egypt, and was occupied by the Egyptians until about 1070 BCE.  When Egyptian power weakened (what is known "Third Intermediate Period" in Egyptian history, from about 1069 BCE), independence was regained.  The emerging centre of the Cushite civilisation was the city of Napata, founded in 1400s and situated near ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Proto-Sapiens (the first human language)

In Genesis 11:1 it says, "And the whole world had one speech (literally "one lip")."  If you are not a Jewish or Christian believer, or maybe even if you are, that might seem "far-fetched". In fact, you might be inclined to dismiss it as an irrelevance when it comes to the study of human language. If you have a background in languages, or are just interested, you may be familiar with the idea of language families. The best known one, and by far the most spoken worldwide is the Indo-European language family. This includes a huge spectrum of languages ranging from English to Hindi, including, for example the Dari language of Afghanistan. All these languages share common vocabulary and grammatical features. A reconstruction of the original parent language is called Proto-Indoeuropean or PIE and you can listen to what it might have sounded like on YouTube. It is conjectured that this language was spoken about 5000 years ago in what is now Ukraine or possibly A...
Post a Comment
Read more

Candlemas or the Presentation of the Lord (2 February)

Luke 2:22-40 records an occasion in the life of Jesus, when, after 40 days, he was taken to the Jerusalem Temple and purification rites were performed for his mother, Mary. This was in accordance with the commandments in Exodus 13, Leviticus 12 etc. In the temple, he was met by the elderly Simeon whom God had promised "that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." Anna the Prophetess also met the infant Christ. This event in the life of Jesus is commemorated in the church calendar on 2 February, or 15 February according to the Old Calendar (40 days after Christmas). In English, this holy day is known as "the Presentation of the Lord", as well as the historic title "Candlemas". It is celebrated in liturgical Protestant communions such as the Anglican church and Lutheran church, in Roman Catholicism, in Eastern Orthodoxy (where it is known as the "Entrance of the Lord into the Temple" or, the "Feast of the Meeting of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

IV. Carthage (up to 311)

From the very start of Christianity, with the life of Christ and his Apostles, the Christian church lived as a tight-knit community, a religious minority surrounded by a society which, to a greater or lesser degree, was hostile towards it. Within Judaism, the Christian church began life as "the sect of the Nazarenes", while in the eyes of the Roman Empire it was considered an illicit religion (non-approved religion). It is customary to categorise the persecution of the church up to 311 into ten periods. Back in the times of the New Testament, in particular Emperors such as Nero and Domitian persecuted Christians. Later, even those considered "enlightened Emperors" (such Trajan, Mark Aurelius and Septimius Severus) had a dislike for the Christian church and persecuted it. Under these Emperors, there were many who suffered for their faith or were martyred, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Blandina the frail Christian slave-girl at Lyon (who throughout ...
Post a Comment
Read more