There is one obvious point to be made on Palm Sunday. Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem by the fickle crowd who cry ‘hosanna’ and a few days later shout ‘crucify him’. The obvious point is that the relationship between Jesus and society is ambiguous. So to for us as Christians.
In my last sermon, I looked at the contribution of the Judaeo-Christian tradition and how it has been formative of Western culture. Today I would like to look at and even more surprising contribution of the church in the Middle Ages.
- Christ and Society
It is helpful to recognise the relationship of the church to our culture. Basically, it can take three forms:
- Politically dominant when church and state align. This happened with expressions of papal power. Also when the monarchy and church become essentially one power. While we can see remnants of this, for example in the Anglican Church in England or the Chr right and the Republican party, but it is not generally the case. Possibly, Iran would be a contemporary Islamic version of this.
- Mutual tolerance of church and state. I think that most people would believe that this is the case in Australia, but I think we’ve seen a shift in recent years. Fewer and fewer people now label themselves as religious and the critics of religious beliefs are more vocal.
- Christianity is seen as toxic in the culture. I believe that this is the direction in which we are headed, and increasingly it is the intellectual elite which form public opinion through the media, universities, and cultural expressions. Increasingly the words and tone are hostile to faith. Arguably, the most influential novel of the early 20th century was James Joyce’s Ulysses and in the first chapter Stephen’s ritual of shaving mocks the priest celebrating the mass. Joyce is more than ambivalent ? he is hostile.
Rather than accept this, my sermons are a modest ‘pushback’. I am saying you can’t dismiss the Christian faith that easily!
- The Middle Ages
Roughly the period between the sacking of Rome by the ‘barbarians’ AD 410 and the Renaissance (14th C+), has been characterised as a Middle Ages or less generously the ‘Dark age’. It is seen as a feudal period with little scientific progress until the recovery of classical learning in the Renaissance. However, this is a caricature which bears little resemblance to the reality of nearly 1000 years of Western history.
If we take this much maligned era, what advances can we recognise in which the church played a significant role? Let me list three:
- The birth of universities.
Scholarship was preserved in monasteries and especially the libraries. It has been estimated that over 50,000 books were copied or produced in this period. This included many of the classical authors including the Greek philosophers and authors such as Sophocles. Christianity did not destroy the classical tradition, it preserved it. I should also add that Islamic scholars also contributed with important mathematic and medical texts. They also made a strong contribution in mathematics, medicine and philosophy.
Universities were something radically new. They differed from the Greek and Roman philosophical schools which were founded by a single teacher or school of thought. They were different to from the Chinese academies for training court officials. Their purpose was not just to pass down received wisdom or to train people in vocational skills, they were established for the pursuit of higher learning. In the 1200’s Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge had universities. Another 20 were established in the following century. Today universities are universal. The motto of Oxford University is “God is my guiding light”.
- The Magna Carta and parliament
In the Middle Ages church lawyers were busy applying theological concepts to political realities. If people have rights, then rulers could never be thought to have unlimited powers. The Magna Carta was an expression of this and remains of fundamental importance to English law. It was first drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton (1215). This is a statement of rights agreed by King John and the barons who resisted his rule. The charter was revised a number of times, but successive monarchs agreed to versions of it. The documents are widely seen as preserving the rights of people in face of the power of the crown.
Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III (r. 1216–1272). By this time, the king required Parliament’s consent to levy taxation. Parliament was established (in 1275) and extended to commoners twenty years later.
In the Old Testament God’s relationship to the people was a matter of covenant. The example of Christ is a powerful reminder that those who rule need to first serve.
- Science
There is no question that Aristotle, and other philosophers, were significant for the eventual development of modern science. But there was the Biblical understanding that God was free to create. God did this in a way that was intelligible. There are regularities which can be described with scientific laws. Einstein was so amazed by this that he called it a miracle! Mathematics is astonishing effective because of the inherent logical nature of reality. In the first universities Aristotle was required reading and the basic BA degree included maths, geometry and astronomy (as part of the foundational 7 courses).
In the middle ages there were significant advances in agriculture and architecture (as the great cathedrals demonstrate).
Medieval theologians talked about the two books: The Bible and nature. Both need to be read alongside each other. There were countless discoveries in the period including William of Ockham at Oxford that space was a frictionless vacuum, Nicole d’Oresme who established that the earth turned on its axis, and Nicholas Copernicus (d 1543) argued that earth circled the sun. Though he believed it was circles, elliptical paths were later validated. It was rightly said of his book On the revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, that he got everything wrong except that the sun was the centre of our solar system. The persecution of Galileo was a consequence but the sun-centric view was a minority opinion at the time and the church simply sided with the majority view.
Now we accept a scientific view of reality. I remember when my oldest daughter Rowena was five years old. I was putting her to bed and she asked, “Does the tooth fairy really exist?” I said that it was a game we played. She said, “No, I want to put the tooth in an envelope and leave it under my pillow. And don’t you put even one cent in, then we will find out!” Rowena is now about 50 years old and is a clinical psychologist. And discussions at Oasis a few weeks ago established that inflation has affected the tooth fairy with children expecting a gold coin at to two!
Conclusion
The church as an institution has lasted nearly 2000 years. It is a long story with some dark chapters including crusades, inquisition, repression of minority opinion (at times) and lately scandals with sexual abuse. The critics will always have ammunition. There is no question that the Judeo-Christian tradition has shaped Western civilisation in many and diverse ways. There has been a contribution of saints and sinners, but mostly from the common people like ourselves. Here at GUC we worship in a centre open to the community, we reach out to the poor through Mustard Seed, help with the playgroup, the community garden and an outreach through Boys and Girls Brigade. We do with the church is always done and try to make a difference.
The Rev’d Dr Bruce Stevens is the supply minister at GUC 2022-2023.