As western Christianity was subsumed by the Dark Ages, the medieval era of European history, the traditional bonds of secular rule disintegrated to the local feudal lord. At the same time the bonds between Rome, diocese, and local parishes and abbeys also fell apart. When came the time to appoint a new church leader, the conditions were ripe for an investiture controversy of epic proportions. Theology was not a leading issue….yet. The major actors were wealth and land. Continue reading →

Last Saturday I posted that I was about to begin a series of Saturday morning posts on the part of western Church history know as the Protestant Reformation. There are some who would note that their resulting denomination was not protesting anything, but simply reforming a church gone astray. It would be fair to say that it was a protest when the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the chapel in Wittenburg Castle. Later leaders of denominations would simply note that they were reforming the errors of the Catholic Church and Martin Luther. Continue reading →