A People\u2019s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story.<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=orant-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002XULZKY\")
For those of you who don\u2019t know Bass I posted a little on her a while back.\nI can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever run into this myself, but I do think it\u2019s difficult for many of us who come from churches of the reformation to square our view of the church, an![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=orant-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002XULZKY\")
d the reality that for much of Christian history people simply didn\u2019t think that way.<\/p>\n
Listen to what Bass writes:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 1990s, I taught history and theology at an evangelical college, a place where the students were serious young Christians. One day, lecturing on the medieval church and the Crusades, I explained how in 1095 Pope Urban II launched a holy war against Muslims. Most of the students took notes. One young woman, looking very worried by the idea of Christians starting a war, shot up her hand. \u201cProfessor,\u201d she began, clearly wanting to blame Roman Catholics for the affair, \u201cwhat did the Protestants say about this?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d I answered slowly, \u201cthere were no Protestants in 1095.\u201d I did not have the heart to tell her that Protestantism would not exist until more than four hundred years later.<\/p>\n
Puzzled, she blurted out, \u201cBut where were they?\u201d<\/p>\n
At the present juncture of history, Western Christianity is suffering from a bad case of spiritual amnesia. Even those who claim to be devout or conservative often know little about the history of their faith traditions. Our loss of memory began more than two centuries ago, at the high tide of the Enlightenment. As modern society developed, the condition of broken memory \u2014 being disconnected from the past \u2014 became more widespread. Indeed, in the words of one French Catholic thinker, the primary spiritual dilemma of contemporary religion is the \u201closs and reconstruction\u201d of memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
How much do you know about where your brand of religion came from? Theology doesn\u2019t drop from the sky. Much of the theology that makes Protestants distinctive come out of bloody history, and cultural particularities.<\/p>\n
What background are you? What\u2019s your story?<\/p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass\u2019 book A People\u2019s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. For those of you who don\u2019t know Bass I posted a little on her a while back. I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever run into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Where did your brand of religion come from?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where did your brand of religion come from?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Orant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B002XULZKY&tag=orant-20\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Billy Kangas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Billy Kangas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html\",\"name\":\"Where did your brand of religion come from?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/2c17428b1556df23f5982263d9dbd58d\"},\"description\":\"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Where did your brand of religion come from?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/\",\"name\":\"The Orant\",\"description\":\"Conversations About Following Jesus\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/2c17428b1556df23f5982263d9dbd58d\",\"name\":\"Billy Kangas\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c62caf5013b1314de00735bfe5204a74?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c62caf5013b1314de00735bfe5204a74?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Billy Kangas\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/author\/bkanga\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Where did your brand of religion come from?","description":"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Where did your brand of religion come from?","og_description":"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html","og_site_name":"The Orant","article_published_time":"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B002XULZKY&tag=orant-20"}],"author":"Billy Kangas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Billy Kangas","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html","name":"Where did your brand of religion come from?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-07T00:17:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/2c17428b1556df23f5982263d9dbd58d"},"description":"Fellow blogger and Orthodox know-it-all Silouan Thompson recently pointed out the following story to me from Diana Butler Bass' book A People's History of","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2010\/05\/where-did-your-brand-of-religion-come-from.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Where did your brand of religion come from?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/","name":"The Orant","description":"Conversations About Following Jesus","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/2c17428b1556df23f5982263d9dbd58d","name":"Billy Kangas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c62caf5013b1314de00735bfe5204a74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c62caf5013b1314de00735bfe5204a74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Billy Kangas"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/author\/bkanga"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B002XULZKY&tag=orant-20\")
<\/a>