This will make much more sense if
you read it as continuation the previous blog entry, which is below this post since
blogs go bottom up.
Going back to the Middle Ages one
finds that Centuries of religious intolerance reigned. The terrors of
the Inquisition started with the medieval inquisition in the 12th
century. This lasted well through the 14th century.
Overlapping was the Spanish Inquisition that started 1478 and lasted
until 1834. Special abilities brought someone easily the blame to be
a witch. Visions or divinely inspired dreams known as gifts were not
something people could advertise. One example is Joan of Arc. She had
had visions since the age of twelve and professed to talk to saints
and angels openly. She received divine instructions to help the
French army in their war against the English and with her help, the
French won.
Joan was
imprisoned and brought before an Inquisitional tribunal where she was
charged with 'cross dressing.' She wore man's clothing so she would
not be raped. She also was accused of witchcraft by claiming that her
banner (which had the image of the cross on it) had been endowed with
“magical power”. The saints and angels, she saw, were dismissed
by the tribunal as demons – despite the fact that those beings had
told her to go to church. Joan was condemned to death.1
Many saints who had visions or God-encounters were in fear of the
Inquisition.
This kind of treatment, which many of
us can only imagine, would cause fear of any such manifestations of
Godly gifts such as dreams and visions for a long time to come. This
fear caused people to hide them or even suppress them. Many people
were tortured, burned alive or hanged either for heretical claims or
because of such special gifts. The disagreements and heresy claims
between Catholics and Protestants eventually accelerated causing a
thirty-year war in Europe.
After these
desolate thirty-years, came a time when people were tired of the
fighting and destruction. In 1648, complicated negotiations led to
the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, which put an end to this
terrible war.2 “The modern secular
state began to develop. People could not help but ask the question:
Could any doctrine be true that produced the atrocities of the
Thirty-Year War? Was there not a more tolerant, more profound, and
even more Christian way to serve God, than simply following the
dictates of orthodoxy, be it Catholic or Protestant?”3
Rational thought at that time was a relief from all this 'craziness'
and the time of the Enlightenment dawned. No one cared about dreams and visions. Everything that could not be seen with one's eyes or touched was relegated to superstition.
1Www.archive.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_short_biography.html
(accessed 6/12/13)
2Justo
L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, The Reformation to the
Present Day, VolII. (USA: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1985),
135-141.
3Justo
L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, The Reformation to the
Present Day, VolII. (USA: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1985),
135-141.
© 2013 Angelika Mitchell
© 2013 Angelika Mitchell
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