Misuse of Religion

2.) How did the Christian Church enhance its power and create new institutions and religious practices? Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, European kingdoms began to carry more control over the Catholic church. The king and nobles would bribe the church officials with fiefs in exchange for their loyalty.

The influence churches had on Europe was massive. Catholicism was the main religion at that time and people stopped to make the churches the center of everything. Its power had been built up over the centuries and relied on ignorance and superstition on the part of the populace. It had been indoctrinated into the people that they could only get to heaven via the church. Each Catholic church consisted of a priest. Everyone that practiced this religion thought that the priest was their way to heaven, giving him an enormous power. However, the relationship between people and churches was essentially based on money. If people didn't have the same religion as the church they either lied, fled, or they died.

For instance, political leaders only had local power, the Church was the most powerful institution. Also, two parts of the Code of Chivalry really talked about the Church. They were, “Thou Shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and shalt observe all its directions” and “Thou Shalt defend the Church” (Doc. 5). In other words, people valued the Church’s teachings and directions, so they had to protect it with all they had. This proves that the Church was important to all the people, the peasants, the kings, the nobles and the knights. Furthermore, “the Church became very powerful, and it often used this power to influence the kings to do as it wanted” (Doc. 3). In summary, the Church had even more power than the kings. As you can see the Church had the most political

The church had so much power that people were afraid that they would take control of the county. This led to The Great Awakening. This was a religious revival in the United States that encouraged people to think for themselves and believe in whatever they wanted to believe. This would make religion between the person and God. People did not have to depend on the Church to explain to them what their religious beliefs should be, they could think about it and believe in what they thought was right. This had an impact on the bill of rights where as it says in the First Amendment, that people have the right to exercise his or her own religion and have the freedom of speech. This provides people with personal freedom where people are free to act, believe and think the way they want. This makes people happier and therefore proves that the government did a good job in providing these

     The government controlled the religion of ancient Rome. Priests were government officials, who were either elected or appointed to office. But by A.D. 100, many Romans had lost interest in their religion. They became attracted to the religions of the Middle East, which appealed strongly to the emotions. Christianity, one of the Middle Eastern religions, gained many followers.

The church in the Medieval era, however, was incredibly powerful and mostly unopposed. Salvation, to the religious, was and remains the most important aspect of faith. Religion without a fate after death is almost entirely hopeless and borders on nihilistic. The Catholic church used this incessant fear to fuel their political vendettas. This is made evident by the attempted squelching of the Reformation sparked by Martin Luther as well as the expulsion of the Moriscos, Jews, and Protestants from Spain. The church had successfully convinced an entire continent that the only true way to attain eternal life was through the doctrine of the church. This gave the Pope authority, power, and uncontested control over the Christian people, for a

The Church had a lot of power over the government(OI). For example the church had so much power that the Code of Chivalry has rules that talk about the church. In the Code of Chivalry it states “Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, and shalt observe all its directions”(Doc 5).The Code of Chivalry is important because that is the code the knights followed.That is how the politics of the Catholic Church influenced the Middle Ages of Rome.

-The promise of salvation attracted many, and it highly advanced the Christian church and then Christianity slowly became the official religion. At first, persecution was done to non-believers, but as time went on it became the

It was felt to have a monopoly on the church and it basically meant that they could control of who went to heaven or hell. This made a huge impact on people’s lives and made more people go to the church. The catholic church played a lot of huge roles back in the day and still does to this

For many years, Christianity was illegal. Often, it was essentially ignored, but there were time periods where the Christians in all the conquered areas were persecuted for not making sacrifices to the ancient gods. Finally, when Theodosius made Christianity the favored religion of the state and decided the orthodoxy of the New Testament, the era of European Christianity began. The idea of a fully human and yet fully divine messiah began at this time and also the idea of a Bishop in Rome presiding over the entirety of Christianity. All of this set the stage for the Christian beliefs still held today.

The Christian religions rise to supremacy in the middle ages was the result of several factors. Christians had long been persecuted by the Roman Empire because the Romans felt that Christianity challenged and offended the Greco-Roman Gods and the Christians were prone to revolt against Roman rule. Christianity survived because it had many teachings that appealed to the downtrodden in Roman society, these teachings being that even though they were suffering they would gain equality and possibly superiority in the next life, Christianity gave them hope.

By the late 1500s, Christian denominations had been popping up all over Europe. This was in response to the reports of indulgences (selling of freedom from purgatory), clerical immorality, abuse of money, along with many other bad actions that were rampant among the Church. It was these problems that Luther and others rebelled and created their own religions. With the rising of these Reformation movements, the Church needed to make some reforms itself. These reforms took the form of educating the clergy, opening monasteries, the Inquisition, and the organizing of councils. In fact, even though Protestant attacks brought these reforms, many of these reforms were needed anyway. The problems in the Church were so bad that the Church would not

The Enlightenment during the eighteenth century challenged each of the traditional values of the Catholic Church in that age (“Faith & Reason: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church During the Enlightenment”). Europeans were undergoing a constant change; unfortunately Europe’s religious organizations were not keeping up to par with these continuous changes. During that time period, the most prominent and conservative institution of Europe, the Roman Catholic Church, was completely forced into a direct conflict that at the time did not seem to have an end (“Faith & Reason: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church During the Enlightenment”). The Church was under attack by non-believers. The rest of the community who did not agree with Catholic beliefs were out to get them, they wanted to prove that nothing is “real” if it could not be proven through science. Nevertheless, the Church did not cease their fight. They continuously insisted that they were merely a source of truth through God. They also confidently claimed that all those who lived with disbelief were to be damned in their afterlife (Catholicism History). It was very apparent that the rest of the world was not having it and they did not care what the consequences were for not believing; they refused to be Bible huggers, basically. They were questioned left and right on their intentions and still, to this day are not supported

People faced the rise and the fall of the Catholic Church during the medieval time. The Popes used to hold the final authority for the church and over the state. Pope Gregory VII asserted the Pope had granted the divine power from God because Saint Peter was the first of getting this

Religion was discovered back in 2000 BC and is considered to be a trait common to cultures worldwide to this day. Some use religion as a way to cope, to connect, but few could use religion as a weapon against others. Since religion began, over 195,035,000 lives have been lost in tragedies brought on in the name of faith. Regardless of the brutality religion has created, it has also caused others to come together in order to speak out. As a result of religions regression in society, humans are able to progress for the sake of defending human rights.