A friend shared this quote recently. If (like me) you’ve often pondered the massive contraditions that make up Christianity, here they are, set out clearly:
The contrasts it embraces are extraordinary. Let us list a few of them. It has been a rather unritualistic religion, both in it’s origins and in forms such as that of the Quakers, but it has also at times been reduced to a pattern of almost ceaseless ritual, whether in the monastic liturgy of Cluny or in a Byzantine cathedral. Christianity has been a very apolitical minority religion, yet it has been no less an imperial and persecuting one…. In some forms it is exceptionally activist, evangelistic and missionary, in others predominantly monastic and contemplative…. It has pursued poverty as an ideal, yet become intricately linked with the growth and triumph of capitalism. It has been both pacifist and originator of holy wars. It has on one side produced the most lasting, centalized and complex ecclesiastical system of government in Rome and on the other been intensely fissiparous, sectarian and multi-centred. One could go on and on. How does one portray the history of such a many-faced monster?
Adrian Hastings, in A World History of Christianity.
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