Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

The divine right of kings was widely assumed; slavery in various forms common, and
tyranny and intolerance by rulers was normative. “One of the chief issues confronting the
age was the problem of authority, and it affected the church at every turn” (Cragg,
1960:11). State governments increasingly flexed their greater socio-political influence
over the church, at times relegating religion to the status of a department of state.
European rulers both protected and managed the church, most often for the attainment of
personal, or state ends. “The long-term effect was to diminish the cultural and political
power of the church” (Guder, 2000:6). The push toward national churches further tested
the central authority of the Roman Church.
Though the church was still the principal
agent of social welfare, it could no longer
meet the demands which were laid upon it..
It was everywhere powerless to remedy the
basic needs of the peasants when the
dislocations of capitalist agriculture
overwhelmed (Cragg, 1960:11).
Churches routinely taught church traditions instead of the Bible, and clerical
corruption was widespread, though hardly all encompassing as is sometimes reported.
“Within the inner circle of the church, ill-conceived paganism was raising its head and in
practice if not in word, the Christian faith was denied by many of its official
representatives” (Latourette, 1975:2:641). Church and state leaders of the period became
“persuaded that the first concern of imperial authority was the protection of religion and
so, with terrible regularity, issued many penal edicts against heretics” (Water, 2001:599).
The Inquisition eventually became the primary means of silencing critics, but well before
this, secular and sacred leadership went to whatever lengths deemed prudent to protect
both state and church.
Everywhere and always in the past men
believed that nothing disturbed the
commonwealth and public peace so much as
religious dissensions and conflicts, and that,
on the other hand, a uniform public faith was
the surest guarantee for the States stability
and prosperity. The more thoroughly religion
had become part of the national life, and the
stronger the general conviction of its
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa