The Evangelical Universalist Forum

So, say you were a ruler in the Dark Ages or Early Medieval.

Practices Christian Living
#1

Just how easy, or even feasible, would it have been to put Christian universalistic principles into play as a ruler during the 4th century (not long after Constantine, around the time of Julian the Apostate), or the 5th (during the invasions and fall of the Western Empire), or the 6th (during the rise of Islam and the denuncuation of Christian universalism by the Eastern Emperor Justinian), or the early Medieval periods? Or the middle or late medieval periods for that matter? Or the Reformation/Rennaisance periods? Or the Enlightenment period, roughly 18th through 19th century? Or during the two world wars of the 20th century?

As a strategy gamer who reads up on Mediterranean history from the period, I can sympathize with how hard it had to be to try to keep a salient nation going, when any grace allowed to enemies (and Christian universalism is nothing if it is not an ultimate expression of grace to one’s enemies) could result in brutal deaths or enslavement for your own people: the people you are responsible for protecting.

On the other hand, treating the people better and not being a glutton about living richly and self-aggrandizingly at their expense, is something that ideally any Christian ought to have been in favor of: and yet it was still hard for those who weren’t in charge to see other people as being fundamentally worthy (as children of God) to be treated with fair-togetherness and respect. How much moreso the rulers, naturally cut off from normal interaction with the people.

Anyway. These musing were prompted by my recent acquisition of Crusader Kings 2 (plus the first couple of major expansions, concerning Islam and the Eastern Orthodox Byzantines). A good Dark Ages game is currently lacking, but (despite some buggy problems) Great Invasions is almost good and quite in-depth.

Would anyone be interested in acting as an advisory council of sorts while I play one of these games? :slight_smile:

(Or, y’know, you could just talk about the topic below. Whichever. :wink: )

#2

not being ‘‘a gamer’’ but I can appreciate it !, I was drawn to the interesting topic thinking you were posing a seriously moral dilemma question ! and perhaps the conversation could drift in that direction precisely because it is an interesting topic :smiley:

#3

Well, it is a seriously moral dilemma question!

I’m just saying I’ve found that trying to work it out in practice under detailed “simulation” conditions helps me appreciate the problems better–and getting hold of those games recently reminded me of that (thus the thread topic).

So if anyone wants to try that experience with me this time, I figured I’d make the offer. :slight_smile: Both games are extremely historically detailed, and neither game necessarily (in theory) requires aggressive warfare, or even warfare at all, to win (or anyway to survive).

But if not, please feel free to discuss in the thread anyway. It’s a tough topic and I don’t have any easy answers for it.

#4

Jason; Sadly I don’t have the time these days for said games, although back in the day when hours were less of a premium, I certainly would have taken you up on the offer!

At any rate, I suspect my answer to your conundrum here would be no; I don’t think the conditions that existed were particularly conducive to promoting views like universalism, which may in fact be a major player in why they were not. It would seem that exerting as much control over people as possible would be the most advantageous line to take in the situations you’ve described.

I do think it is interesting that this mentality continues on in a much more subtle form (to the point of being subconscious) these days, which is probably a large part of why universalism is not yet accepted as a mainstream view in the church, if it is accepted at all!

#5

Its an interesting question tho—just when did ECT become the “politically correct” viewpoint and was it really needed for the church/state alliance to keep power? I think Christianity becoming the state religion (for all practical purposes anyway) was probably the worst think that ever happened to it. Doctrines were warped to keep that power including ECT, adding the Divine Right of Kings, huge wealth for upper Churchmen, services held in mystical language (latin), decreasing belief in the equality of all people before God and on and on.Presumably non Christians entered the church to gain political power. Classism was not new, but Christianity promoting and endorsing it was.

Was all that necessary to keep your people willing to fight for you? Do you have to have a high ‘fear point’ level to keep loyalty? Or maybe a high superstition level? Do you have to have a peasant/serf/slave underclass to survive.

It will be interesting to see how the game goes for you Jason. Oh–I bought your book, then I polished my magnifying glass. :smiley:

#6

Mel,

Oh, I’d be the one doing the “playing”; but I’d make reports to a special thread here on the forum about what’s happening, maybe post some screenshots for context, and when there was a major descision I’d poll the counselors for advice on how to proceed (with of course general guidelines set up ahead of time by us in discussion: don’t use poison to weaken enemies, that kind of thing.)

So it would be like reading any other thread, really.

I realized earlier today that even though GI and CK2 aren’t the same game system, so a saved position cannot be strictly ported over, there is an editor available for creating custom rulers to start a game with in CK2 (which I bought as part of its package), and that would very probably allow us to port a faction (if it survived) into CK2.

So theoretically, we could try to manage a culture from 350 (the year western empire first began to split from the eastern thanks to a coup attempt that resulted in the death of the heir of Constantine) up through the 1960s!

#7

Lizbeth,

While I generally agree with your assessment otherwise, to be fair Latin was not a mystical language at the time of its promotion in church use. Greek was the mystical language to the western parts of the Empire; people were having a hard time understanding church services, so Jerome created the Vulgate translation–providing the scriptures in “the tongue that men do commonly use”–and the Pope implemented reforms to insist that church functions and rituals be carried out in common street/trade Latin rather than in Greek (or in Old Italian).

It was only much later, after Latin ceased to be a unifying language in western Europe, that it became a stumbling block to common understanding. But even before then, an insistence on keeping functions in proper Latin made evangelism difficult. (The same was happening in Greek of course, although the Eastern Empire did authorize the virtual creation and propagation of Slavonic literacy for evangelical purposes, the descendent of which is the Russian language among other things.)

Anyway. i happened to see my Amazon sales rank momentarily improve, and wondered who had bought a copy! Take heart, the smaller font doesn’t last forever. :slight_smile: (My typesetters were supposed to use a different font that would read clearer despite being smaller for those portions, but they kind-of got lost and decided to just use the same font one size smaller. Can’t say I blame them. But lesson learned: invest in my own copy of Adobe and typeset my own text next time.)

#8

Also, I think it’s worth keeping in mind that if Christianity hadn’t become a state religion (and the state religion of more than one state eventually), we probably wouldn’t be Christians now! In fact Arian Christianity did become the state religion (for all practical purposes) during most of the 4th century (when the game starts, an Arian Christian emperor in the west has just been murdered in a coup and his Arian relative on the throne in the East is trying to figure out what to do), and many of the feudal “barbarian” states that emerged in the West after the fall of Rome were neo-Arian. But they didn’t survive as such, which is a main reason why most Christians are trinitarian now and unitarian Christians (of various varieties) are minorities. (Except for Islam in its own special-exception not-actually-Christian way.)

The Oriental Orthodox Christians (based around Alexandria) were universalistic, or have had an important history of it anyway, but they were overrun and denied state support even while in the Empire, and barely survive now. The Church of the East was massively succesful at evangelism despite a lack of official state support, and was generally universalistic; but they were progressively overrun by Mongols and Muslims and barely survive now.

How many of us are Syrian Orthodox, or Coptic Orthodox? Not many. But these were super-important and super-influential groups in their day, direct heirs of the chief catechetical schools of all Christendom–founded and run by Christian universalists! if they had had state support, Christian universalists might today be as numerous as, say, Southern Baptists.

I do think it’s interesting that in the 6th century (the 500s), having suffered 200 years of encroaching barbarian raids–raids which had long since effectively dismantled the Western Empire–it was the Emperor Justinian, a powerful ruler determined to protect the remaining Empire and to reclaim the people now under oppression by barbarian invaders, who tried to stomp out Christian universalism among the Eastern Orthodox. And largely succeeded. That the Roman Pope was willing to ratify Justinian’s anathemas is something we may regret, but at the time the Roman Catholic Church was the last unifying force of civilization in the West, and had to choose (in the shadow of Augustine’s broodings over the fall of Rome as punishment from God) how best to try to keep Christendom from lapsing either into paganism or into something they would have regarded as tantamount to paganism (the neo-Arianism of the feudal lords who regarded Christ as a mere man elevated to heroic demigod status by God. I realize the Arians on the forum won’t like that description, but that’s how the Catholics saw it. The Arians, who had been in control during most of the 300s and had now in a backhanded way triumphed at last, saw it the other way around of course: it was trinitarianism which promoted an absurd and dangerous polytheistic paganism.)

Promoting the belief that God would save those people after all despite their lack of loyalty to proper orthodox belief and “Christian” behavior, must have seemed a harder and more dangerous row to hoe; after all, hadn’t Christendom gotten into this position by being accommodating to the beliefs of pagan barbarians to begin with?! Final hopelessness provided stimulus to retake what had been lost, and to not give further ground.

This wasn’t an academic or speculative question. It was a painful emergency situation, and it wasn’t only the “hierarchs” in the church who were suffering and going to suffer if they chose a path that led to the loss quite literally of Christian civilization. (Which of course was a superior civilization having inherited and borrowed it from the Greco-Romans, but still it had brought benefits to people generally. It would do so again in the overrun East when Muslim conquerors appointed Christian and Jewish scholars as advisors and intellectuals for transmitting the benefits of culture that had been obtained in the classical world.)

#9

Hmm. That might be interesting…

#10

What Jason has said about Latin certainly holds, but I do agree that Christianity becoming the state religion was clearly detrimental. After all, it was persecution that was largely catalytic for the rapid spread of the gospel!
After becoming a state religion was when we started having issues with things like the Crusades.

#11

Yes, Crusades, converting others by force, witch hunting, burning, incorporation of Pagan customs (not all of that was bad but it did change the presentation of the Gospel) and, as I said before, on and on it goes eventually to Inquisitions and more splitting of the Church. Also the development of the idea that Priests were needed to intercede between ‘the people’ and Jesus/Father/Holy Spirit.

I didn’t realize that many non-Rome area people knew Latin–sorry.

An interesting modern look at this question is implied in a series by SF writer S.M. Stirling in his “The Change” novels. What happens when for unknown reasons, gunpowder and other explosive materials no longer work and neither does electricity. Guns don’t work, cars and airplanes are useless and most of civilization dies off rapidly. Many of the laws of physics are majorly messed with. Only a few people survive.

Now, suspending your disbelieve that anyone would survive, its a good read but DO NOT READ IF YOU OBJECT TO THE IDEA THAT CHRISTIANITY IS NO LONGER THE DOMINANT RELIGION. Remember, this is fiction–but it also has an interesting take on how a non-tech society could develop and how perception of reality might change.

Of course, I also want to read how Jason does with his game.

#12

Another big conversion pressure factor during the pre-medieval period (less so afterward): wives.

:mrgreen:

Seriously, this is true. I tend to forget it, but I noticed it again when working on finishing the book on The Barbarian Conversions yesterday. As general rules:

1.) The husband rarely is noted as converting his wife to Christianity (although no doubt that happened a lot, but it was considered nothing special).

2.) The husband practically never converts a Christian wife to paganism.

3.) A pagan wife almost never converts the husband from Christianity to paganism. (I can only think of one example, about halfway through the Dark Ages, which was notorious precisely for its rarity–and the husband had been only recently converted to Christianity in the first place.)

4.) A Christian wife almost always converts the husband from paganism to Christianity.

Situations 2 and 4 were notable for running surprisingly (yet also surprisingly common) against the expected grain, while situation 3 indicates that men weren’t simply being yanked around by their wives. :wink: (Although sexual politics were often a factor in #4: no front hugs for you! :laughing: )

The sociologist and Christian convert Rodney Stark has famously noted similar patterns in pre-Constantine marital evangelization, too.

So not all the pressure involved marginalized people being taken advantage of. :slight_smile:

#13

Meanwhile, still researching the game. Read over the rules last night. Will experiment with some opening positions (and maybe some light game modding) this afternoon I hope. The feasibility of making this a cooperative forum opportunity (for anyone wanting to participate) looks promising!

#14

A game thread has now been created, so henceforth this thread should be reserved for discussing the historical principles and situations. :slight_smile: