The Dark Ages?


I saw this on a Facebook post this morning. Like most polemical statements, it lacks balance. It does not mean it is untrue, just imbalanced. In 2013, for this blog, I am endeavor to not just note issues and make insights, but also want to provide answers in action in our conversations with others.

Here is what I mean about the true but not True deal. Besides the Dark term being perjorative, it is more appropriate to call that time of history the Middle Ages, the centralization of Church and State is a negative. 

What is happening these days in the debates between the Right and the Left, is that each side has truth, but not the complete Truth. Many corporations self-serving and its upper management selfish at the expense of workers? Yep. A lot of Government wasteful, inefficient, and even immoral in how it underwrites unhealthy practices and behavior? Yep. So, who is right and wrong? Both sides.

When someone creates an image with a statement as above, it looks as if the Church has been at best darkly dogmatic and at worst herself darkly demonic. Dark Ages? Really, is that a fair statement? The Church has provided and provides resources to meet peoples' needs: spiritual, food, health care, education, etc. Why turn a blind eye to the positives the Church brings to the world? Is it honest to say that her history is all Dark? That is factually untrue...think of all of the hospitals in the U.S. that have religious names, for instance. Unless one asserts that providing healing to the ill is a manifestation of darkness.

The Church ruled/rules in a role of service...so it is important to define what one means by ruling. It is possible to rule in a good way, to accept the responsibility to care for others. Is that really evil?  Often Christians clam up or become overly combative when people make unfounded assertions and broad statements of a critical nature towards the Church. We can agree with them to the point where truth ends in their statements and where a lie takes over. Separating Light from the Darkness as it were.



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