Okay, that is how you see “it” … that is, how you think I think. I’m not sure of where you get the idea, but okay. That is your interpretation of what you think I said. I’ll try again to portray (from a source that I failed to note) the very hard times (sometimes called the dark ages) and the benefit that the church brought:
There is no doubt that in these hard times, not everything was going well, but it was the spiritual oases that formed small pockets of hope that kept things moving. I’ve been impressed by this statement by Fr. Richard Rohr (a Franciscan): “Many of us have little ability to carry our own shadow side, much less the shadow side of our church, group, nation, or period of history. But shadowlands are good and necessary teachers.” The Church has always had the teaching of forgiveness at its core, because biblical teaching taught us what Jung finally called the shadow, is always with us. It is when we forget this, that we lose the plot.
The was a group called the Desert Fathers, who were rediscovered some time ago, and their writings were translated. It turns out that their studies present a curiously modern sounding psychotherapy. There is also a close link between traditional Greek culture and the rise of monasticism, which exercised a powerful influence on medieval society, culture, and art and was one of Christianity’s most vigorous institutions. These were the teachers of the peasants and farmers.
We have a fundamental different opinion of what spiritual teaching constitutes, perhaps because I have practised it and you have not? It is particularly my experience in nursing the dying that made me appreciate the teaching from the past, which I may have overlooked without the experience. It made me turn towards contemplative and meditative traditions and perform rituals after the death of a loved one for relatives, which were very thankful. I think there is a place for this, and it is to be found outside of the marketplace, not blurted out in disrespect. There is room for such spirituality, a quiet prayer, an embrace, an assurance of solidarity, instead of loud consolation or a pious presentation that everyone feels is empty.
I am as critical as anyone of the misuse of power and the suffering of young boys at the whim of Lords and Princes, but you are mixing things up. It is an ignorance of the darkness that besets us when we hate something so much. There has been so much done to conflate politics and religion in public opinion, that we can hardly imagine the inspiration that composers gleamed from biblical stories, despite themselves being gentle people. They felt the drama that was so lifelike that the stories of the Bible portray. When I see the atrocities that are nowadays portrayed for entertainment, with vampires, zombies and werewolves at the fore, it is this fascination with darkness and the abyss, that the quiet Friar or Priest tried to oppose with their portrayal of goodness.
That isn’t your best evidence considering the returning of old ideologies in new clothing. I believe that the insecurity that people are experiencing at present, in particular with reference to the future, is speaking louder than for a long time.