[krapp]

But the Church didn't believe in the universality of anything other than their own authority and correctness. Jews, Muslims, and "pagans" (even Protestants and other heretical Christians) were routinely harassed and killed, women were essentially the property of men, slavery was ubiquitous and kings ruled by divine right, all justified by Christian dogma. And they didn't believe in reasoning outside of an explicitly Christian framework or discerning any moral truth not grounded in Biblical doctrine.

Christianity may have inspired the Enlightenment, but the Enlightenment succeeded because it was able to separate philosophy, ethics, law and science (such as it was, "natural philosophy") from Biblical dogma and the Church.

[evanjrowley]

This is a skewed take.

>pagans" [...] were routinely harassed and killed

Christianity incorporated a lot of paganism in the medieval era and still maintains it today. You can see it in the old architecture, iconography, and the holidays.

>kings ruled by divine right

Paradoxically, "The Church" was against this idea and it only came about after the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years War.

>slavery was ubiquitous

The history of Christian abolitionists is well documented.

>women were essentially the property of men

Are you talking about Catholic/Orthodox church doctrine, state-run churches like the church of England, the streak of puritanism in the United States, or something else? Are you referring to the teachings in Leviticus/Deuteronomy? The gospel contains multiple instances where Jesus refused to condemn women accused of adultery.

[krapp]

>Christianity incorporated a lot of paganism in the medieval era and still maintains it today. You can see it in the old architecture, iconography, and the holidays.

Yes, Christianity employed syncretism to more easily convert pagans, but then killed or forcibly converted those who refused. Please don't pretend Christianity had some kind of equitable relationship with non-Christian religions, there are entire cultures laid waste by the Church with little remaining but what revisionist versions of their history and culture they chose to write down.

>Paradoxically, "The Church" was against this idea and it only came about after the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years War.

The belief that kings ruled through divine blessing and were given authority over people by God comes directly from the Bible. It certainly existed prior to Protestantism, even if it wasn't explicitly codified as such. And the Church disagreed because they believed the authority claimed by kings belonged to the Pope, not because they believed in separation of church and state.

>The history of Christian abolitionists is well documented.

And yet slavery was ubiquitous and firmly justified by Biblical principles. Both are true, but the principle that freedom and dignity were universal and inherent to all human beings, and should not be explicitly tied to or contingent upon religious belief, is a secular ideal. When Paul wrote that "in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free," he was talking about equality among Christians, not a universal principle that applied to all people.

>The gospel contains multiple instances where Jesus refused to condemn women accused of adultery.

I would argue that Christianity is more influenced by Paul than Jesus. I understand that's controversial but the history of womens' rights and law (based on Christian principles) around marriage, property rights, sex and womens' sufferage seems to bear it out. You can argue certain things shouldn't have been Christian values, but I would argue that Christianity is what Christians do more so than what they say.

[orwin]

> Paradoxically, "The Church" was against this idea and it only came about after the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years War.

No. Search for "Alby's crusade", directly from the Romain church, spain crusades, and Bleda's Expulsion of moriscos (it's clearly a catholic priest idea, but it's not the church as an institution here).

[krmboya]

When thinking about Christianity, I personally make the distinction between the Christian faith, and the various Churches i.e. the political institutions that grew around the Christian faith.

In its first few centuries Christianity was community-centered, until about the 4th century when it started getting institutionalized in Rome.