Scots Taffer on 12/4/2010 at 00:23
I just wanted to say to all involved, this has been an interesting discussion. It's also interesting to see how intractable some views are, especially those who are keen on the shout-down path of least resistance.
scumble on 13/4/2010 at 19:12
Quote Posted by Nicker
Was that cohesion a result of the monastic tradition or would the presence of a warlord, a small town, an industry do just as well?
I'm not particularly recommending monasteries above other forms of social organisation, but they did play a part. I suppose it is a little ironic that they were arbitrarily wiped out by others calling themselves Christians under the recently formed Church of England.
Brian The Dog on 13/4/2010 at 22:40
The Church of England was originally different to the other Protestant denominations, in that it was very much a "top-down" revolution - in Germany the Lutherans were the general population who demanded change. In England it was the Monarchy (and hence the rest of the aristocracy) who wanted change. Henry wanted change for personal reasons, and made the Dissolution of the Monasteries etc, but he couldn't force through radical change of the church since the general population were uneasy about this "new" religion that was being forced on them. It took a few years before Cramner could move the CoE to a "real" Protestant religion, but he still borrowed heavily from Catholicism. So a mid-Anglican service today still looks and sounds pretty similar to a Catholic service, much more so than other Protestant groups.
Scumble also mentions the church feeding people, and that's something that has been overlooked in this thread - before the rise of Social Security in the West in the 20th century, the church effectively was the social care for communities (and still plays a similar but subserviant role in many countries today).
