A 2000-Year Journey in Interfaith

[rug]

August 15, 2014
by Carol Kirk

I have just returned from my annual vacation in Pennsylvania where my husband and I attend Pennsic War, the world’s largest medieval re-enactment event. This year nearly 11,000 of us who are fascinated by the Middle Ages camped together at Cooper’s Lake enjoying two weeks of friendship and learning in the hills of Western Pennsylvania. During that time we took classes on medieval arts and skills, fought mock battles, danced, sang the hours away, renewed friendships and made new friends. All of this took place in an atmosphere of respect and tolerance.

What, you ask, has this anything to do with interfaith?

What we see at Pennsic is the modern culmination of a 2000-year journey filled with religious warfare, hatred, and genocide based solely on disagreements over whose religion was “true” and which was “false”. In the period of the Roman Empire we saw the persecution of Christians by Pagans, then the reverse of that after Constantine the Great converted to Chrisianity. The great Pagan religions of Europe were undermined and then destroyed either by peaceful conversion or, if they were stubborn, by the sword.

In the later Middle Ages we found the Church itself divided and doing battle against what were perceived as heretic sects throughout Europe. One of these, the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the 1200’s, resulted in some one million dead primarily in France.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildgarden/2014/08/a-2000-year-journey-in-interfaith/