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Man is a pliable animal, a being who
gets accustomed to everything.
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Fëdor Dostoevsky (1821-1881),
The House of the Dead
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We have seen how material from the Bible has been manipulated
in the past, but many Christian teachings and practices are
not mentioned in either the Old or the New Testaments. The Church
has traditionally justified these teachings and practices as
God-given, absolute, binding and immutable. In this section
we assess how well this claim stands up against the alternative
theory that the Church has adopted, amended and discarded practices
as a matter of convenience.
We have already seen that some of the most important doctrines
date from the third or fourth centuries — for example the
doctrines of the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Harrowing of
Hell, Original Sin, and Mary's perpetual virginity. Some
doctrines were hammered out only in the Middle Ages — for
example transubstantiation and the sacraments. And many of these
were abandoned by Protestants, whose own doctrines were fluid
for centuries. Some teachings have been recognised as dogma
by the Roman Church only in recent times. Examples are the Immaculate
Conception (1854), papal infallibility (1870), and the bodily
Assumption of Mary into Heaven (1950). The lack of a firm historical
basis is often reflected in the disparate views of different
modern Churches.
Churches even disagree over the number of grades of the Christian
ministry ("Major Orders" or "Holy Orders"):
Eastern Churches 3, traditional Western Churches 2, some Methodists
1, other nonconformists 0. Some doctrines have never been fully
defined. For example the Atonement, grace, and whether or not
the human soul and the spirit are identical or separate. Nevertheless,
it must be said that the Eastern Churches have changed their
views much less frequently than the Western ones over the last
millennium, and this section therefore concentrates on the Western
Churches. The following are examples of other teachings and
practices that have changed, or are still in the process of
changing.
The
Status of the Bible As we have already seen, the
Western Church regarded its own Latin translation of the Bible
as divinely inspired and infallible, despite its known errors.
In early times vernacular translations were also used, often
to help missionary activity, but as doctrines diverged more
and more from the biblical texts, it became expedient to permit
translations of only selected parts (for example the psalms).
After the reign of John VIII (pope 872-882) the use of local
languages was banned so that all Church business, including
services, was to be conducted in Latin , the language approved
by God. The Vulgate was the only permitted version of the Bible,
and only clerics were permitted to read it. Western Church Councils
forbade the laity from possessing bibles, especially vernacular
versions. Reading the Bible for a layman was contrary to the
faith, and thus an invitation to the Inquisition of the day.
Following the Reformation all this changed: it became acceptable
for anyone to read the Bible, and more accurate translations
were made into English, French, German and many other languages.
Today, translations can be made into any language and even into
dialects: there is one in Yorkshire dialect and another in the
dialect of Harlem in New York. Inexplicably, the Catholic Church
no longer seeks the death sentence for the translators or even
seeks to condemn them at all.
Following the Church Fathers, the Church taught that the Bible
was written by God and was therefore infallible *.
The Roman Church confirmed at the Council of Trent that God
was the true author of the Bible (Session 4) , and so did Pope
Leo XIII in the encyclical Providentissimus Deus of
1893. According to Leo, every part of the Bible was written
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and this precluded
all possibility of error, since God must be incapable of teaching
error. Until recent times a number of translations were held
by various Churches, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, to
be the divine word of God. Each Church claimed that its version
was free from error and that it was to be interpreted literally.
Under pressure from scholars, historians and scientists, this
position became untenable during the course of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. One by one, the mainstream Churches
were obliged to abandon their positions. Now only edenists,
or fundamentalists as they have come to be known, hold to the
traditional teachings. Others talk about the divine inspiration
of the human authors, but the stark fact is that the mainstream
Churches have all shifted their ground. They no longer interpret
the Bible literally, just as they no longer burn lay people
alive for reading it for themselves.
Hell Belief in eternal hellfire was taught
by Jesus and was once universal among Christians. Those who
denied the reality of hellfire, or doubted whether it was eternal,
were heretics. As the infallible Second Council of Constantinople
put it in 553 "Whosoever says or thinks that the punishment
of demons and of the wicked will not be eternal, that it will
have an end .... let him be anathema". The only questions
concerned matters such as the range of punishments available
there, and whether the damned shed real tears.
For centuries children and peasants were terrorised by the
promise of eternal damnation. Theologians assured them that
they would be crushed in giant wine presses, torn to pieces
by wild animals, fed with the gall of dragons, burned for eternity,
tortured by demons, and so on. As Cardinal Newman pointed out,
belief in Hell was central to Christian theology, it was "the
critical doctrine — you can"t get rid of it —
it is the very characteristic of Christianity". The existence
of God was held to prove the reality of eternal hellfire, so
denial of eternal hellfire amounted to denial of God. The reality
of Hell was simply not open to question. Well into the twentieth
century children were encouraged to read works such as that
of Father Furniss, a Roman Catholic priest known as the "children's apostle". He, like his contemporaries, had no doubt about
the reality of eternal damnation. Here he is describing a boy
in Hell:
His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames
come out of his ears…Sometimes he opens his mouth,
and breath of blazing fire rolls out of it. But listen! There
is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really
a kettle which is boiling? No; then what is it? Hear what
it is. The blood is boiling in the scalding veins of that
boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow
is boiling in his bones! *
And again
The little child is in the red-hot oven. Hear how it screams
to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the
fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps
its little feet on the floor.... God was very good to this
little child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse
and never repent, and so it would have been punished more
severely in Hell. So God in his mercy called it out of the
world in early childhood
This booklet is full of descriptions like this - you can read
the whole thing here.
It was not the product of a maverick. It represented mainstream
Roman Catholic thought and sold over 4,000,000 copies. Here
is the text of the approbation on the inside cover:
I have carefully read over this Little Volume for Children
and have found nothing whatever in it contrary to the doctrines
of Holy Faith; but, on the contrary, a great deal to charm,
instruct, and edify our youthful classes, for whose benefit
it has been written.
William Meagher, Vicar General, Dublin, 14 th December, 1855
The horrors of Hell were taught to countless generations as
the literal truth, Roman Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist
alike. Now belief in Hell seems to be no longer necessary. Certainly
the Church of England does not require it. The Privy Council
decided many years ago that belief in it is optional*.
Theologians have now started to redefine Hell. In fact, according
to the Church of England's Doctrine Commission, traditional
teachings of hellfire and eternal torment are "appalling
theologies which made God into a sadistic monster and left searing
scars on many"*.
According to recent theories Hell is not a place at all. It
is, as the heretic Origen suggested, a condition of being distant
from God. Alternatively, if it does exist it is probably empty!
This solution attempts to reconcile the traditional doctrine
of the reality of Hell with the requirement for a modern, caring,
God. It is a classic example of the way in which teachings change
when doctrine starts to become unteachable because of widespread
disbelief. The Church cannot bring itself to agree explicitly
with the atheist Lucretius (c.96-55 BC) and admit that "There
is no murky pit of Hell awaiting anyone"*,
but that is really what churchmen have come around to after
2,000 years.
Purgatory and Indulgences
The idea of Purgatory has no foundation in scripture*.
It has never been well defined, especially in the Eastern Churches.
The Western Church developed the doctrine and confirmed it at
the Council of Trent. According to Roman Catholic doctrine,
Purgatory was a place where the dead atoned for their venial
(pardonable) sins, though they were sometimes permitted to return
to the world of the living, where they appeared as ghosts. An
individual's suffering in Purgatory could be reduced by
the actions of the living. The theory underlying it is that
the Pope had the power to redistribute the merit of the saints
in Heaven to those less worthy. It was once common practice
in the Roman Church to sell or exchange this merit in the form
of indulgences. In practice it was a sort of contract: a simple
Christian would pay money or perform some service in exchange
for a piece of paper letting his or her soul off some of the
punishment due to it after death. Pope Boniface XI is said to
have instituted an indulgence, Boniface's Cup,
for those who drank a toast to his health after grace.
It was common practice for the building of cathedrals to be
financed by the sale of indulgences, and this practice became
a scandal in the Middle Ages. Professional fund-raisers (Pardoners)
were employed on commission to sell indulgences, much like travelling
salesmen. These indulgences (or pardons) from the Pope were
hot property to Chaucer's Pardoner:
His walet, biforn him in his lappe,
Bretful of pardoun, comen from Rome al hoot*
Indulgences were also used to benefit the Papacy financially
in other ways. For example one condition inserted into indulgences
after 1462 was that they were invalid for anyone importing Turkish
alum (as the Pope was trying to establish a monopoly within
Christendom for his own newly discover alum deposits at Tolfa)*
Matters came to a head in the sixteenth century when a Dominican
called Johann Tetzel (c.1465-1519) undertook a sales tour of
Germany, hawking indulgences. Proceeds were to be used partially
to pay for the building of St Peter's in Rome and partly
to discharge debts incurred by the Archbishop of Mainz. As soon
as a coin rang in the bottom of Tetzel's coffer so soon
was a soul released for Heaven, or so he said. Better still,
Tetzel sold the right to sin in the future. It was this sales
tour that so outraged Martin Luther, lighting the touch-paper
of the Reformation.
Protestants reject the doctrine of Purgatory, holding that
the dead proceed immediately to Heaven or Hell. The Church of
England is scathing about it. The 22nd of the 39 Articles of
Religion for example says:
The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory .... is a fond [i.e.
foolish] thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty
of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.
The Roman Church has also backed off recently. For centuries
it had set tariffs for certain virtuous actions. Specific pilgrimages,
relics, prayers or gifts to the Church bought specific reductions
in one's sentence. It was possible to read off the reduction
of suffering against specified acts: so many days for a certain
prayer, so many days for a certain pilgrimage, so many days
for joining a crusade, so many days for acquiring a holy relic,
and so on. Pope Leo X calculated that a pious German who collected
over 17,000 holy relics had saved himself 694,779,550.5 days
in Purgatory. More recently, in 1991, one considerate believer
organised a campaign to induce 200,000 people to say a certain
prayer five times a day for a year. He pointed out that St Gertrude
the Great had been told by Our Lord nearly 700 years ago that
this prayer would release 1000 souls from Purgatory. It was
thus believed that 365,000,000,000 souls could be released each
year. The challenge was to empty Purgatory altogether.
After many centuries of acceptability the authorities are now
embarrassed by this sort of thought, and tariffs have generally
been abolished. The sale of indulgences is now universally regarded
as corrupt and inimical to Christianity. No longer is it possible
to tick off the days of one's sentence in Purgatory as
one collects holy relics.
Clerical Dress The earliest priests wore the
same clothes as everyone else. Then they took to wearing white,
imitating the garb of priests of pagan religions. Later their
dress became more and more colourful and distinctive. In 428
Pope Celestine I censured bishops in southern Gaul for wearing
distinctive costumes. Bishops and other clergymen found a way
to circumvent such prohibitions. They did not adopt new costumes;
they simply continued to wear old ones after they had fallen
out of fashion. Nearly all modern clerical vestments are remnants
of antique upper class secular Roman dress. The traditional
Eucharistic vestments of amice, alb, girdle, maniple, stole,
and chasuble are all secular clothing of the second century.
Cassocks were ordinary everyday clothes up to the sixth century.
Much later, they came to be colour-coded to show ecclesiastical
rank: currently black for priests, purple for bishops, red for
cardinals, white for popes.
During the Reformation, Protestants rejected the wearing of
distinctive costume and made it illegal for clergymen to wear
the chasuble, alb, tunicle, biretta, girdle and stole. English
clergy were required to wear a simple surplice, though even
this offended Puritans. Over the years, various gorgeous vestments
have crept back into the Anglican Church, but are clearly unlawful.
Decisions of the Privy Council have confirmed that it is even
illegal for an Anglican bishop to wear a mitre and carry a pastoral
staff*. Nevertheless, they
are now standard equipment. Nonconformists also rejected special
vestments, and for the same reason as the Anglicans had done,
but all this did was to reset the clock. The Moderator of the
Free Church of Scotland, for example, wears clothing that was
fashionable in late eighteenth century Scotland.
Women Priests In the earliest days of the
Church women played a full role: "…there is neither
male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians
3:28). There were helpers in Jesus Christ such as Priscilla
(Romans 16:3), whose designation was indicative of official
authority, but who are never given a formal title in translations.
Again, Phebe had been a Christian teacher. Had she been a man
she would probably have been regarded as a bishop on the strength
of Romans 16:2, but because she was a woman she became a mere
deaconess (Jerusalem Bible) or servant of the church
(Authorised Version). Similarly, at some time in the Middle
Ages, a person with a woman's name, Junia (Romans 16:7),
acquired a man's name, Junias (Jerusalem Bible), though
earlier authorities unanimously regarded her as a woman*.
She had been counted among the apostles, but the Church did
not want to know about female apostles, so her name and her
gender were changed.
When a system of Holy Orders and a hierarchy of bishops, priests
and deacons were established, deaconesses were accepted into
Holy Orders. There were no fewer than 40 of them on the staff
of the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople in the year
612. In time the hierarchy decided that it could do without
them. Deaconesses disappeared in the Western Church in the fifth
century and in the Eastern Church in the twelfth century. Women
were excluded from lesser functions as well. They were prevented
from serving at the altar and even debarred from church choirs.
For centuries it would have been heretical to claim that women
could be priests or deaconesses.
In recent times women have once again demanded, and have gradually
been granted, a greater role in Church affairs. Girls have been
accepted into Church choirs and given minor official roles.
The office of deaconess was restored, although initially without
Holy Orders. The first Protestant deaconess was appointed in
1836, the first Anglican one in 1861, and the first Methodist
one in 1888.
The position is similar with regard to the ordination of women
as priests. Not long ago the mainstream Churches universally
held that women could not be ordained, indeed such an idea was
plainly heretical. But public opinion shifted during the twentieth
century. Anglican, Lutheran and other Protestant Churches changed
their minds and now ordain women priests. Some have consecrated
women bishops. As soon as the volte-face was complete
in 1991, the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that "The
idea that only a male can represent Christ at the altar is a
most serious heresy"*.
Yesterday's heresy was today's orthodoxy, and yesterday's orthodoxy was today's heresy.
As popular opinion continues to change, more Churches may follow.
In North America and parts of Europe there is already significant
pressure within the Roman Catholic Church. At the time of writing
it is still likely to be many years before the pressure becomes
strong enough for women priests to be accepted in all denominations*.
Whether or not there are more changes to come, there have already
been enough to compromise any claim to constancy.
Marriage
Christian teachings on marriage have changed continually since
the time of Jesus. In its early years the Church simply followed
Roman law, which was based on the maxim consent constitutes
matrimony. If a couple declared to each other that they
were married, then they were married. They did not
require witnesses, or a priest to officiate. Such marriages
were described as "clandestine" but there was never
any question about their validity.
Marriage was essentially a civil contract, sponsalia,
which in medieval England generally took place at the church
porch (in facie ecclesiæ). Chaucer's wife
of Bath makes reference to this practice in her Prologue
(l.6) when she says "Five husbands have I had at the church
door". There was no great religious significance to this;
the local church was simply the social centre of the village
and the natural meeting place for people to negotiate various
kinds of personal business and conclude contracts. The couple
would simply plight their troth with a ring outside the church,
after which they might or might not enter the church for a nuptial
Mass. Often the priest's role was confined to blessing
the marriage bed. There was an ecclesiastical counterpart of
marriage, called matrimony, but this was optional.
Sponsalia created a legal bond, even before consummation.
The Western Church started to secure control of marriage ceremonies
at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 , but it was not until
1563, at the Council of Trent, that an obligatory form for matrimony
was introduced. Suddenly, a priest and two witnesses were indispensable
conditions of a valid marriage *.
The Council of Trent also declared matrimony to be a sacrament.
It had not previously been a sacrament but now it was. Later,
Anglicans decided that matrimony was not a sacrament after all,
as Article 25 of the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church confirms.
In Protestant countries civil marriages continued to be recognised.
Courts would uphold sponsalia in preference to holy matrimony,
if for example one party subsequently married someone else in
Church *. In England
these civil marriages were valid up until Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1753. In Scotland they continued until 1940 *.
They live on in the popular imagination as “common law”
marriages.
The whole topic of marriage is a confusion of changing views
and regulations. For centuries the Church argued with itself
about whether marriage was a contract authenticated by a ceremony,
or whether sexual intercourse was required to consummate it.
At different times the Western Church reached different conclusions,
although in the end it was decided that sexual intercourse was
required. In 1982 a priest refused to marry a man suffering
from muscular dystrophy and his visually impaired fiancée
until they could prove that they were able to have children
*.
Another area of confusion is the marriage of Christians and
members of other faiths. As soon as it could do so, the Church
had prohibited marriage between Christians and Jews, making
such a marriage a capital offence. For centuries the marriage
of a Christian to one of another faith was treated as a crime.
Similar feelings were expressed after the Reformation about
marriages between Roman Catholics and Protestants (or between
members of any two sects opposed to each other). Now mixed marriages
are not such a great tragedy, and Churches no longer insist
on capital punishment for those who "marry out". Some
Churches now even recognise same-sex marriages.
The Sacraments Different denominations recognise
different numbers of sacraments. To cite just a few examples
— Salvation Army Nil, Church of England 2, Roman Catholics
7. Eastern Churches have mysteries instead of sacraments
and their number has varied between 2 and 10, and is still not
fixed *. That there are
seven sacraments was first suggested in the twelfth century
*. There was still disagreement
as to what they were. Some held an oath to be a sacrament, others
the Incarnation, others holy scripture.
The list of seven now accepted by the Roman Church (baptism,
Confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, Holy Orders, matrimony,
and anointing of the sick or last rites) was first recorded
by Peter Lombard in the second half of the twelfth century,
and received papal sanction in 1439 *.
The Eastern Churches accepted the list at a Council of Constantinople
in 1642 but in practice disagree on a number of points. Protestant
Churches rejected the list as lacking biblical authority. The
Church of England accepts only two sacraments, baptism and the
Eucharist, although there is some ambiguity on the matter in
the wording of Article 25 of the 39 Articles.
The Eucharist, Communion, or Mass has proved particularly problematic.
We have already seen the difficulties associated with the doctrine
of transubstantiation, but there is more. When Jesus invited
his followers to remember him as they ate bread or drank, he
seems to have envisaged them doing so at ordinary meals, as
in their own homes. The Church was soon turning these meals
of remembrance into rituals, and insisting that priests conduct
them. The ancient Church provided both bread and wine at the
Mass, apparently as part of a full meal. The full meal seems
to have disappeared during the first few centuries, leaving
just the bread and wine.
After a further 1,000 years, by the thirteenth century, the
Roman Church took to reserving the wine for priests only. This
practice had no biblical authority and was rejected by the Eastern
Churches and later by Protestant Churches. Offering wine to
the laity contributed to the appeal of Protestantism and so
to its popularity. In an attempt to stop the slide into Protestantism
in the sixteenth century, Pope Pius IV authorised the Communion
of both kinds (i.e. both bread and wine) to the Roman Catholic
laity in Germany, Austria and other regions. Once the Protestant
threat had passed, the faithful were soon back to bread only.
To Christians it is a matter of the greatest importance whether
or not they should be permitted to share fully in the Lord's Supper, and yet the Roman Church changed its mind for political
rather than doctrinal reasons. In recent times there has been
a widespread recognition that there is no real reason for denying
the wine, and since the Second Vatican Council it has become
common for both bread and wine to be given to communicants in
the Roman Church.
Other sacraments have been just as variable. For many centuries
only a bishop could give absolution. Confession (penance) took
place only once, just before death. Then it could be made after
any grave sin, then once a year*
(on Shrove Tuesday), then once a week. Now confession can be
made more or less at will. Baptism originally required immersion
in cold running water. Total submersion in warm water or still
water was permitted only if cold or running water was not available*.
For the Eastern Churches and for Western Baptists immersion
is still required. Other Western Churches offended the orthodox
by abandoning the practice of total submersion. At one time
total submersion was required not merely once, but three times,
and in the earliest times the practice was for candidates to
be baptised in the nude. St Augustine was baptised naked by
St Ambrose as late as 387. Again, baptism was once routinely
preceded by an exorcism. At the Church door the priest would
blow in the child's face and instruct the "unclean
spirit" to leave it. During the baptism the North Door
of the Church was (and sometimes still is) left open to allow
the Devil or the unclean spirit to leave the building. The formal
exorcism however was dropped from the second Edwardian Prayer
Book of 1552.
Sacraments have varied enormously over the centuries, which
tends to suggest that they are merely human constructs. This
suggestion is supported by the differences between the practices
of different denominations today.
 Church
Festivals. There is no evidence that the early Church
celebrated any of the festivals that are now such an integral
part of the religion. Important observances such as Pentecost,
Ascension Day, Lent, Holy Week and Christmas were unknown before
the fourth century. They are all accretions that have acquired
a patina of antiquity in the course of centuries. Once a date
was fixed for Christmas it was possible to create a number of
other annual festivals. For example the Annunciation must have
taken place nine months before Christmas Day (25 th March);
the Feast of the Circumcision seven days after Christmas Day
(1 st January), and Epiphany, when the magi were supposed to
have arrived, a few days later*
(6 th January). The only festival that is likely to date back
much earlier than the fourth century is Easter.
The Churches of Asia Minor preserved the oldest method of calculating
Easter. They simply used the date of the Passover, the 14th
of the Jewish month of Nisan. Alexandrian Christians chose to
hold their celebrations on the Sunday immediately after the
Passover. No one seems to have minded about this innovation.
The Alexandrian Church was autocephalous and entitled to decide
such matters for itself. Around AD 160 an annual Easter festival
was adopted at Rome, and the Alexandrian practice was adopted
there. Within 30 years the Bishop of Rome was claiming that
everyone should adopt this method of reckoning Easter. Since
the date of the festival was arbitrary, and the Bishop of Rome
was the Patriarch of the West, many in the West did so, though
others did not. The Celtic Church was less than enthusiastic,
but eventually decided to fall into line with the rest of the
Western Church at the Council of Whitby in 664. Those in Asia
who kept to the old ways — Quartodecimans as they
were nicknamed — came to be regarded as heretics. If the
date of Easter seems a minor matter it is well to remember that
people have been executed in the past as heretics for disputing
it.
Burials Since
early times Churches have taught that dead Christians will be
bodily resurrected on the Day of Judgement. In anticipation
of this, Christians have traditionally striven to ensure that
their bodies are buried in one piece. They have apparently wanted
to make God's job that much easier when the great day arrives.
Some Christians still retain amputated limbs and surgically
removed internal organs, and even extracted teeth, so that they
can be buried along with the rest of their bodies, to be reassembled
later by God. So too, eunuchs were buried with their severed
genitals in the hopeful expectation of a bodily reunion. All
good Christians were encouraged to keep their bodies as intact
as possible for burial, in anticipation of their bodily resurrection.
Criminals on the other hand could not expect Christian society
to help them in this respect and thus were publicly gibbeted
or dissected. As late as 1752 a British Act of Parliament stated
that "in no case whatsoever the Body of any Murderer shall
be suffered to be buried"*.
So too heretics were traditionally burned, and their ashes scattered
into a river.
Good Christians had to be buried, preferably in sacred ground,
along with their fellow good Christians. In the Middle Ages
the requirement about burial became inconvenient. In times of
plague the requirement to bury bodies ensured that virtually
everyone came into contact with a deadly disease. A theological
excuse was therefore found to change the rules, and cremation
suddenly became an acceptable alternative, in direct contradiction
to previous ideas. Many survivors were convinced that their
dead relatives had missed the chance of eventual resurrection.
When the plague had passed, burial became obligatory again.
It was not until 1884 that cremation was permanently permitted
in England, against the wishes of bishops of the Church of England.
The Roman Church has permitted cremation only since 1965. It
still earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burial be
retained, and seems to imagine that people might be cremated
for "anti-Christian motives"*.
Greek Orthodox Christians, like Muslims and Orthodox Jews, still
prohibit cremation.
The Church once found it enormously important to ensure that
certain sinners were not buried in consecrated ground. The motivation
seems to have been to make God's job of separating the
sheep from the goats on the Day of Judgement a little easier.
Mothers and babies who died in childbirth were sometimes denied
a Christian burial because of the sin associated with conception.
Such practices would cause outrage now, and so have been completely
abandoned and almost totally forgotten.
Suicides Many
martyrs of the early Church were really suicides, since they
sought and welcomed their own deaths. (Whole sects were wiped
out because of this). Later, suicide was discouraged and came
to be regarded as a mortal sin. Up until 1824, suicides in England
were buried on a highway (often a crossroads) with a stake through
the body (usually through the heart). Since 1882, the Anglican
practice has been merely to deny to suicides a Christian burial
service*, unless the
suicide was found to have taken his or her own life while of
unsound mind. Such conventions could always be ignored when
they did not suit. Thus, in 1988 a host of Anglican bishops
and priests officiated at the funeral service of the Rev. Gareth
Bennett, an Oxford don who had committed suicide after being
revealed as the author of an anonymous attack on the Archbishop
of Canterbury. The same flexibility is evident in the Catholic
Church. In 1981 Catholic priests found no doctrinal difficulties
in offering communion, absolution, final unction, and funeral
masses to ten convicted prisoners who starved themselves to
death in jail in Northern Ireland. These prisoners were explicitly
committing suicide as a form of protest because they did not
like being treated as common criminals, regarding themselves
as political prisoners and therefore entitled to privileges
such as not having to wear standard prison clothes. Again, when
Fr Sean Fortune committed suicide in 2003, having been accused
of multiple sex crimes against children over many years, his
bishop, the Bishop of Ferns, Dr. Brendan Comiskey, found no
difficulty in delivering the main homily at the funeral*.
Immutable rules proved sufficiently elastic to accommodate changing
mores and personal preferences of the Church hierarchy.
Diet Jesus and
his disciples followed the traditional Jewish dietary laws.
The following foods, amongst others, were prohibited: pig, camel,
hare, shellfish, ostrich, various owls, cormorants, pelicans,
storks, herons, hoopoes, bats, and most arthropods except locusts,
crickets, and grasshoppers. Also banned are weasels, mice, geckos,
chameleons and other lizards*.
These rules were soon abandoned by gentile Christians, and in
time were replaced by entirely different rules about eating.
For many centuries Roman Catholics were not permitted to eat
meat on certain days. To do so invited a visit from the Inquisition.
Roman Catholics generally ate fish on Fridays. Rather disingenuously,
a number of animals were classified as fish. The Barnacle Goose,
for example, was regarded as fish on the erroneous grounds that
it developed from a goose barnacle. Beaver's tail was regarded
as fish for no better reason that it was hairless, and beavers
spend time in water. When Christianity arived in South America,
large indigenous rodents prized for their meat, capybaras, were
also classified as fish because they spend much of their lives
in water.
Pope Pius XII did away with the need for such deceptions in
1953 when he announced that Roman Catholics could eat meat on
Fridays after all. Fast days in the Roman Church are now reduced
from well over 100 to a mere two (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday).
Fast days were mentioned in the 1969 canons of the Church of
England, but no one seems to know what is required for their
observance.
How can the rules be so uncertain and flexible if fasting is
so important to God? And if it is not important to God, why
were people tried and executed for failing to follow arbitrary
temporary rules?
Natural Phenomena
For many centuries the Churches taught that God was responsible
for natural phenomena. He caused earthquakes, floods and volcanic
eruptions. In the seventeenth century, and later, many thought
it heresy to deny God's personal involvement in such phenomena,
since they were known to be signs of divine disapproval against
a sinful world. God controlled the weather too. It was for
this reason that Christians opposed the innovation of fitting
lightning rods to church buildings: if God wanted to burn down
his own churches, it was no business of ours to stop him.
Celestial phenomena such as comets and eclipses were known
to be divine warnings, a belief that was still common, even
among educated classes, when a comet was observed in 1677. It
was also necessary to believe that (with God's permission)
witches and demons were active in disturbing the weather. Church
bells were routinely rung to frighten off the demons that caused
storms. To deny the existence of witches or demons was an attack
on Christianity itself and was treated first as heretical and
later as atheistic.
Churchmen verified for many centuries the idea that God actively
managed events on Earth and in the skies. Today such ideas are
generally regarded as primitive (although insurance companies
still refer to natural disasters as "Acts of God").
Having spent so long controlling every aspect of all natural
phenomena, God is now relegated to the role of disinterested
observer. The 180° shift has taken place without the least
visible trace of embarrassment.
Excommunication In earlier centuries whole
communities were excommunicated. Pope Adrian IV excommunicated
Rome in 1155, and Pope Innocent III excommunicated the whole
of England in 1208. Even comets were occasionally excommunicated.
To carry out such an excommunication now would be seen as absurd.
Again, prayers of cursing were once quite acceptable. Curses
and anathemas were distributed liberally. They were laid upon
those who disregarded the decrees of Church Councils, or read
the contents of papal letters, those who failed to pay their
tithes, those who stole, those who committed murder, and indeed
all enemies of the Church. Now they are watered down to anodyne
services of commination. Can it really be that those excommunicated
in the past for failing to pay tithes will burn in Hell for
eternity, while those who fail to pay them now will not?
Church Architecture
and Furniture Jesus" early followers worshipped
in the Jewish Temple and attended synagogues, as Jesus had done.
Gentile Christians met in ordinary houses. The first Christian
buildings to adopt a distinctive architectural style seem to
have first appeared in the fourth century. In an attempt to
return to ancient simplicity, various sects have rejected the
use of church buildings. George Fox dismissively called them
steeple houses, and Quakers still prefer their own
meeting houses to steeple houses. One of the
fastest growing sects towards the end of the twentieth century
was the house church movement, which holds its meetings in ordinary
houses, just as Christians did for the first few centuries.
The use of candles, and other Church props, also dates from
the fourth century or later times. Incense was used in many
religions to mask the smell of burned sacrifices. Its use was
severely prohibited in the early Church, but like many pagan
practices it was popular. By the fifth century it was being
used in Christian places of worship. Because it had been banned
in the early Church, its use at services of the Church of England
and other Protestant Churches was made unlawful at the Reformation.
Altars, also inherited from religions that practised sacrifice,
were employed in Christian Churches because masses were sacrificial
in nature. This idea too was rejected at the Reformation. Stone
altars were physically destroyed, and replaced by wooden Communion
tables. Other traditional Church furniture, such as pulpits,
appears to have been introduced only in the Middle Ages. Confessional
boxes were introduced later and pews later still. Pews are still
rarely found in Orthodox churches, and congregations are expected
to stand throughout the service, as they did previously in Western
churches.
Churches routinely ignore the canons of ecumenical councils,
which are believed to be divinely inspired and thus infallible.
Canon XX of the First Ecumenical Council, for example, forbids
people from kneeling on Sundays or on any of the 50 days between
Easter and Pentecost, yet this canon is disregarded by the Western
Church and increasingly disregarded in the East. Ideas as to
the acceptability of Church music have also changed from time
to time. In early times singing was always unaccompanied, as
it still is in traditional Eastern Churches. Western Churches
have varied their practices many times. At one time harps were
favoured (there were supposed to be harps in Heaven, but the
rest of the orchestra was condemned to Hell). At other times
all manner of instruments have been permitted, but in recent
centuries they all gave way to organs. Many in the West came
to imagine that organs in Churches dated from biblical times.
When guitars and other instruments were introduced in the 1960s,
many Christians complained that almost 2000 years of tradition
were being overturned.
Conventions as to who may enter churches have also changed.
People are no longer allowed to set up shop in churches, as
they did in medieval times, and dogs no longer roam freely inside
the naves as they once did. Changing moral concepts are highlighted
by the bouncers at St Peter's in Rome, who refuse admission
to women with bare arms, despite the fact that inside are numerous
nude female statues, including a famous one of a papal mistress
(now fitted with a discreet metal corset).
***
Few, if any, practices have been consistently upheld since
apostolic times, just as few, if any, doctrines have been consistently
taught since those times. There would be nothing remarkable
about an ordinary organisation changing its teachings and practices
to suit current conditions. In the case of the Christian Church,
however, such changes are remarkable because they undermine
the Churches" claims to represent a perfect, infallible
and unchanging God here in an otherwise imperfect, flawed and
ever-changing world.
It is difficult to believe that Churches were right to execute
thousands of people in the past for their opinions, while they
make no effort now to punish people with identical opinions
— and have even adopted some of those opinions themselves.
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