Antiquity and Christendom

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This section of the website doesn't provide an overview of all or western civilization but does address common  perceptions about the past that we commonly hold today and impact the way we see ourselves and our time. The content on Antiquity has not been completed at this time but will address such topics as ancient religion and the role of the temple, ancient empires and military campaigns, taxes and tithes, the origination and spread of credit and interest, and religious controversaries that are still impacting us today.

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Content on Christendom will address common beliefs about the period from the early church through the reformation. Content on discovery of the new world will deal principally with non-English colonization which features the Spanish and French both of which were Catholic empires and both of which had significantly different objectives in the New World than did the English. The modern Nation States in Europe formed during this process and large scale wars in western Africa made it possible for the African slave trade to expand to the New World.

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Also during this general time period the printing press was created dramatically changing human communication (as the internet has in recent history), the reformation occurred effectively splitting the western or Catholic Church in two groups, Protestant and Catholic, and then into an ever expanding number of Protestant groups. The exploration and development of the new world and these political, economic, social, and religious shifts are closely related.  Of particular note, perceptions of the history of the Christian Church (generally referred to as Christendom) in a broad sense and the Catholic Church in particular were extremely important in the formation of the English colonies, the development of the American Republic, and in understanding political and cultural divisions since that time.

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Key Questions

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• Why is Christendom relevant to American history?

• Did Christendom retard the development of Western Civilization or create it?

• Were the “Dark Ages” as dark as they are commonly believed to have been or were they a myth designed to justify a corresponding myth of the enlightenment?

• Did science and technology develop suddenly with the “Enlightenment” or gradually across a longer period of time?

• Was the Catholic Church against scientific discovery and did it impede learning?

• Did the Reformation really create a religious revival?

• When and how did the modern nation states come into being and what was their relation to the either the Catholic church or to protestant groups that developed in the different regions of Europe?

• Did people in the era of discovery and the Catholic Church in particular really think the earth was flat?

• Were the Spanish responsible for an Indian genocide?

• What role did faith honestly play in the discovery and colonization of the new world?

• What was the affect of Spanish and French colonization on Indian populations during the colonial period and to what extent were new belief systems readily accepted?

• How were the concepts and motivations of colonization and empire for the Catholic monarchies (Spain, France) different from the English?

• Is the common presentation of history in the modern western world purposely anti-Catholic or, in a broader sense, anti-Christian?