alt.education

Nicklas@Click.com wrote:
>On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:34:46 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
> wrote:
>
>>The big rise of Christian evangelism came as a result of the Second
>>Great Awakening in the early to mid 1800s.
>
>There have been repeated "elevations" of chrisitan
>doctrine throught the centuries.
>
>The split of Luther and Rome produced variations on the
>theology of Christ---but the GOD remained the same

Is Christ God, part of God, son of God, tool of God? Different
answers yield a different God. Either that or Islam and Judaism are
also part of Christianity, since if you ignore the theology of Christ,
"the GOD remained the same".

>Earlier (without checking) I suspect the rise of a more
>stringent view of "dispensationalism" was done to
>consolidate power of the church when the HRE was
>running Europe. (I'm not sure, but I think probably in
>the 13-14th century)

There was no such concept in the middle ages. As the following article
shows, about the only feature of dispensationalism that existed before
1800 was the occasional division of history into a number (usually 7)
"ages", though I don't think a lot of significance was attached to the
division.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism
< Biblical interpretation that became popular during the 1800s and
< early 1900s and is held today by many conservative Protestants.

But I have no idea what you think dispensationalism has to do with
anything we are talking about.


>The Pilgrims were a horrific band of ultra-conservative
>religous fundamentalist---didn't even celebrate
>Christmas as I understand it.

In those days, no one celebrated Christmas in the sense that we use
the word "celebrate". The pagan holidays of Yule and Oestre, where
those had been celebrated, had been made over into Christian holidays,
and the symbolism redefined to make it seem like they were Christian,
but the celebrations were still those of the pagan holidays. In areas
where those pagan holidays weren't celebrated, I don't think that
there was any special celebration of Christmas.

The politics and religion of the Puritans (of which the Pilgrims were
merely the first emigrants) is more complex than the label
"ultra-conservative religious fundamentalist" can convey. The purpose
of the colony was religious separatism, and later, religious
utopianism. But even the Mayflower contained some passengers who were
not of the sect.

>Most of the early settlements were religous in nature-

Not really. That can be said about Massachusetts Bay and the earliest
Quaker settlements (before Pennsylvania was founded)

>--and if you did not pay taxes to the church,

No one paid taxes to the church. They paid taxes to the state and
tithes to the church.

>or refused their doctrines----you were dealt with very
>harshly.

If you were a member of the sect.

>However, Christians have only one god.

Or two (dualistic Gnosticism) or three (Trinitarianism), depending on
how you count. Islam and Judaism and Zoroastrianism and arguable
Hinduism all have one God, as does pantheism and deism. But being
monotheistic doesn't necessarily mean that the God they worship is the
same. I believe that Bahai religion says that all concepts of one God
refer to the same God.

lojbab