"makes me wonder how
different Christianity really felt for ordinary people.
On the ritual side, all the evidence suggests 'Not very much'."
It occurs to me that we should be careful to understand what we mean by
'feel'.
Different people get different things and feelings from their religion, or
at least from their Christianity, which is the only religion about which I
am competent to speak.
I hesitate to generalise, because someone may well write in and say, "That's
not how I feel, at all!" But that's my point: feelings we regard as
normative may be quite alien to someone else.
Many Evangelicals, for example, experience (so I am told!) great joy from
their faith, and the feeling of having a great load of sin and guilt lifted
from their shoulders by their faith in the atoning power of Christ's death.
However, many of the Christians I have had dealings with, and ministered to,
and taught, have never been aware of carrying a load of guilt in the first
place.
Many, (though not all) Catholics have very tender and loving feelings
towards the Blessed Virgin Mary; many (though not all) Protestants do not
share these feelings.
Such feelings do not, in any case, seem to have played much part in the
conversion of either England or Iceland. Bede tells us the marvellous story
of the sparrow: "So the life of man appears but for a moment; what follows
or indeed what went before, we know not at all. If this new doctrine brings
us more certain information, it seems right that we should accept it."
Christianity appealed to the Anglo-Saxons' insecurity, their fears of the
unknown.
In Iceland, the question seems to have been rather of accepting a common law
under which all could live; Christianity is seen first and foremost as a
legal system:
"Thorgeir asked to be heard, and said, 'It seems to me that an impossible
situation arises if we do not all have one and the same law. If the laws
are divided the peace will be divided, and we cannot tolerate that. Now,
therefore, I want to ask heathens and christians whether they will accept
the law which I am going to proclaim.'" (Njal's Saga, ch. 105)
Christ is presented in many ways in the New Testament: As the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world (appealing to those oppressed by a
sense of their sinfulness); as the Light of the World (appealing to those
who feel in the dark, whether through ignorance, depression or adverse
circumstances); as the Good Shepherd (appealing to those who feel lost);
as the Divine Healer (appealing to those who feel sick in body or mind); as
the Image of the Unseen God (appealing to those who feel the need to see
God), and in many, many other ways.
Just because we do not see ancient peoples experiencing the feelings we
would regard as normative for Christianity, does not mean that their
conversion was not real, or deep, or sincere. No doubt their needs were
very different from our own.
Bill.
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