Return of the dark side – Part 1

TimeWatch Editorial
December 11, 2015

Given the recent events that have occupied the consciousness of the world, I was driven to take a new look at a book published in the late 1900s. The author Hellen Ellerbe is a writer, researcher and public speaker, living in California. We have all been recently drawn to the extremism of religious violence that has sown terror in the hearts of so many. The absolute, unconditional heartlessness with which the emotionally unexplained bitterness has been pursued; The literally bloody hands of those who claim to be acting upon a profound conviction has embedded a new kind of fear in the very souls of those who worry that they might be the new victims.

Hellen Ellerbe in her book, “The Dark Side of Christian History,” describes a time when this fear existed before. She relates the motivation for her book this way:

“While historians have certainly written about the dark side of Christian history, their words have largely stayed within the confines of academe. Without understanding the dark side of religious history, one might think that religion and spirituality are one and the same. Yet, organized religion has a very long history of curtailing and containing spirituality, one's personal and private relationship with God, the sacred, or the divine.” Hellen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, Preface, Page ii.

Hellen Ellerbe describes a time when Orthodox Christianity believed that fear was essential to sustain what they perceived to be a divinely ordained hierarchical order. She then proceeds to specifically identify this Orthodox body this way.

While orthodox Christianity originally represented but one of many sets of early Christian beliefs, it was these Christians who came to wield political power. By adapting their Christianity to appeal to the Roman government, they won unprecedented authority and privilege. Their church became known as the Church. This newly acquired power enabled them to enforce conformity to their practices. Persecuting those who did not conform, however, required the Church to clarify its own doctrine and ideology, to define exactly what was and was not heresy. In doing so, the Church consistently chose tenets and ideologies that best supported its control over the individual and society. Hellen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, Preface, Page 2.

Here, Hellen Ellerbe clearly identifies The Papacy, and its controlling motivation. Then she continues to identify its method of establishing unequivocal obedience.

“As it took over leadership in Europe and the Roman Empire collapsed, the Church all but wiped out education, technology, science, medicine, history, art and commerce. The Church amassed enormous wealth as the rest of society languished in the dark ages. The Inquisition took countless human lives in Europe and around the world as it followed in the wake of missionaries. And along with the tyranny of the Inquisition, churchmen also brought religious justification for the practice of slavery. Hellen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, Preface, Page 2.

Ms. Ellerbe’s identification of the time of fear during the rulership of the Papacy is truly amazing; especially her analysis of the Inquisition. She bluntly says that there has been no more organized effort by a religion to control people and contain their spirituality than the Christian Inquisition. Developed within the Church's own legal framework, the Inquisition attempted to terrify people into obedience.

But Ms. Ellerbe is not the only recent writer to describe the actions of Rome. Henry Kamen, author of “Inquisition and Society in Spain” (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) 161 says:

"The Inquisitor Francisco Pena stated in 1578, We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others." Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain, page 161.

The fear that is already being confronted today is but the introduction to the troubles to come. Perhaps we need to heed Ecclesiastes 1:9 - The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

We should understand that if the methods are the same, and the objectives are the same, hence the source must be the same.

Cameron A. Bowen

An example of that behaviour can be seen below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLbMxcYJBk&feature=youtu.be