The Christian church has left a legacy, a world view, that
permeates every aspect of Western society, both secular and
religious. It is a legacy that fosters sexism, racism, the intoler-
ance of difference, and the desecration of the natural environ-
ment. The Church, throughout much of its history, has demon-
strated a disregard for human freedom, dignity, and self-
determination. It has attempted to control, contain and confine
spirituality, the relationship between an individual and God. As
a result, Christianity has helped to create a society in which
people are alienated not only from each other but also from the
divine.
This Christianity — called "orthodox Christianity" here — is
embedded in the belief in a singular, solely masculine, authori-
tarian God who demands unquestioning obedience and who
mercilessly punishes dissent. Orthodox Christians believe that
fear is essential to sustain what they perceive to be a divinely
ordained hierarchical order in which a celestial God reigns
singularly at a pinnacle, far removed from the earth and all
humankind.
As it took over leadership in Europe and the Roman Empire
collapsed, the Church all but wiped out education, technology,
science, medicine, history, art and commerce. The Church
amassed enormous wealth as the rest of society languished in the
dark ages. When dramatic social changes after the turn of the
millennium brought an end to the isolation of the era, the Church
fought to maintain its supremacy and control. It rallied an
increasingly dissident society against perceived enemies,
instigating attacks upon Muslims, Eastern Orthodox Christians,
and Jews. When these crusades failed to subdue dissent, the
Church turned its force against European society itself, launching
a brutal assault upon southern France and instituting the Inquisi-
tion.
The crusades and even the early centuries of the Inquisition
did lMe to teach people a true understanding of orthodox
Christianity. It was the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic
Counter Reformation that accomplished this. Only during the
Reformation did the populace of Europe adopt more than a
veneer of Christianity. The Reformation terrified people with
threats of the devil and witchcraft. The common perception that
the physical world was imbued with God's presence and with
magic was replaced during the Reformation with a new belief
that divine assistance was no longer possible and that the
physical world belonged only to the devil. It was a three hundred
year holocaust against all who dared believe in divine assistance
and magic that finally secured the conversion of Europe to
orthodox Christianity.
By convincing people that God was separate from the physical
world, orthodox Christianity — perhaps unwittingly — laid the
foundation for the modern world, a world believed to be
mechanical and determined, a world in which God is at most a
remote and impersonal creator. People came to attribute their
sense of powerlessness, not so much to their sinful human nature
as to their insignificance in such a world. The theories of
scientists and philosophers such as Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes
and Charles Darwin reinforced orthodox Christian beliefs such
as the inevitability of struggle and the necessity for domination.
Such beliefs, however, are now proving not only to have serious
drawbacks, but also to be scientifically limited.
Orthodox Christianity has also had devastating impact upon
humanity's relationship with nature. As people began to believe
that God was removed from and disdainful of the physical world,
they lost their reverence for nature. Holidays, which had helped
people integrate the seasons with their lives, were changed into
solemn commemorations of biblical events bearing no connection
to the earth's cycles. The perception of time changed so that it
no longer seemed related to seasonal cycles. Newtonian science
seemed to confirm that the earth was no more than the inevitable
result of the mechanistic operation of inanimate components; it
confirmed that the earth lacked sanctity.
The dark side of Christian history can help us understand the
severing of our connection with the sacred. It can teach us of the
most insidious and damaging slavery of all: the control of people
through dictating and containing their spirituality. This ignored
side of history can illuminate the ideas and beliefs which foster
the denigration of human rights, the intolerance of difference,
and the desecration of the natural environment. Once recognized,
we can prevent such beliefs from ever wreaking such destruction
again. When we understand how we have come to be separated
from the divine, we can begin to heal not only the scars, but the
very alienation itself.
The tyranny inherent in the belief in singular supremacy accompanied explorers and missionaries throughout the world. When Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) landed in America in 1492, he mistook it for India and called the native inhabitants “Indians.” It was his avowed aim to “convert the heathen Indian to our Holy Faith” that warranted the enslaving and exporting of thousands of Native Americans. That such treatment resulted in complete genocide did not matter as much as that these natives had been given the opportunity of everlasting life through their exposure to Christianity. The same sort of thinking also gave Westerners license to rape women. In his own words, Columbus described how he himself “took (his) pleasure” with a native woman after whipping her “soundly” with a piece of rope. (For more refer to Columbus 'sparked a genocide' - BBC and The genocide and atrocious acts committed by the Spanish against the natives (the Tainos in particular) are well documented in terrifying detail by Bartolomé de Las Casas in his letters and book A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.
The Inquisition quickly followed in their wake. By 1570 the Inquisition had established an independent tribunal in Peru and the city of Mexico for the purpose of “freeing the land, which has become contaminated by Jews and heretics. Natives who did not convert to Christianity were burned like any other heretic. The Inquisition spread as far as Goa, India, where the late 16th and early 17th centuries it took no less than 3, 800 lives.
(source: The Dark Side of Christian History - By Helen Ellerbe)
https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Chr.../dp/0964487349
