"The corruption of the church" has been exposed forever. But it never stops and there seems to be no one powerful enough to end it. We see throughout history where great cathedrals have been burned down....only to be restored and renovated a few years later. It never ends. Why not?
People rise up against the evil corruptions and they get killed. Religions are so intertwined with governments and politics that they will not stop the lies and corruption because religion puts money in their pockets.
"The Last Days" have been spoken of since the time of Jesus, as far as we know. And no matter how much people wanted to believe it, believe that all the corruption would come to an end...it did not and it has not.
Do people of today think this corruption is something they have just discovered this century? Will the solutions for it be any different than any those changes that have been tried in the past?
Here is an interesting person from the Renaissance era that preached "Last Days" only to raise himself in power and culminate in creating a more severe regime which attacked homosexuals and any enjoyment of life that people had. He blasted the church for the very same faults that we do today.
My question is this: does history continually follow a well worn pattern which is doomed to be repeated over and over? Corruption in the churches, disasters such as war and plague feeding the fear and manipulation, resentment of the elite, and finally an even stricter regime growing out of the aftermath?
from wiki:
Girolamo Savonarola (21 September 1452 – 23 May 1498) was an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498.
He vehemently preached against the moral corruption of much of the clergy at the time, and his main opponent was Rodrigo Borgia, when he served as Pope Alexander VI from 1492 to 1503.
....in 1475 his poem De Ruina Ecclesiae (On the Downfall of the Church) displayed his contempt of the Roman Curia by terming it 'a false, proud archaic wench'.
(In Florence, 1490)...he began to preach passionately about the Last Days, accompanied by testimony about his visions and prophetic announcements of direct communications with God and the saints. Such fiery preaching was not uncommon at the time, but a series of circumstances quickly brought Savonarola great success. The first disaster to give credibility to Savonarola’s apocalyptic message was the Medici family's weakening grip on power owing to the French-Italian wars. The flowering of expensive Renaissance art and culture paid for by wealthy Italian families now seemed to mock the growing misery in Italy, creating a backlash of resentment among the people. The second disaster was the appearance of syphilis (or the “French pox”). Finally, the year 1500 was approaching, which may have brought about a mood of millennialism. In minds of many, the Last Days were impending and Savonarola was the prophet of the day. [1]
He preached that Christian life involved being good and practicing the virtues, rather than religious pomp and ceremony. He did not seek to make war on the Church of Rome. Rather, he wanted to correct the transgressions of worldly popes and secularized members of the Papal Curia.
In 1497, he and his followers carried out the Bonfire of the Vanities. They sent boys from door to door collecting items associated with moral laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books, immoral sculptures (which he wanted to be transformed into statues of the saints and modest depictions of biblical scenes), gaming tables, chess pieces, lutes and other musical instruments, fine dresses, women’s hats, and the works of immoral and ancient poets, and burnt them all in a large pile in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence. [ 2 ] Many fine Florentine Renaissance artworks were lost in Savonarola’s notorious bonfires ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savonarola
Can you see reflections of modern day troubles in these past events? Has the fear-mongering of "Last Days" always been used in reference to precede a regime change? Could this be all it means?
Again, I ask: does history continually follow a well worn pattern which is doomed to be repeated over and over? Corruption in the churches, disasters such as war and plague feeding the fear and manipulation, resentment of the elite, and finally an even stricter regime growing out of the aftermath?
