History & Religion: An Uncomfortable Relationship

A QUICK SKETCH

Two hundred and ninety-five years after Jesus died on the cross, the Emperor Constantine began the process of blending Christianity with politics in the Greek-speaking world around Constantinople. At much the same time a quieter sort of Christianity was growing in the deserts of Egypt and Syria. By the fifth century something of this quieter, monastic style of Christianity was beginning to appear on the western coasts of Ireland, Scotland and Wales - We seem to have both a Political Christianity, and a Contemplative Christianity.

Destruction and death were to follow as Viking raiders crossed the sea in pursuit of gold and silver and slaves. Christian Head Office (now moved from Constantinople to Rome) lost the plot from 896 to 1049, a hundred and fifty-three years during which Pagan Vikings became Christian Normans and, after 1066, Kings of England.

The Viking Normans did not do things by halves: a new church in every village; a new cathedral in any important town, and monasteries all over the place. Huge expense. Christianity as a building enterprise! Daughters, wives and nuns all became subjected to a male-dominated Christianity for the next nine hundred years.