...from the mouth of a nineteenth century skeptic

The following, a short excerpt taken somewhat out of context from a book entitled "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" by Jacob Burckhardt says better than I could have said myself some of the reasons that I am passionate about history.

"The belief in God at earlier times had its source and chief support in Christianity and the outward symbol of Christianity, the Church. when the Church became corrupt, men ought to have drawn a distinction, and kept their religion in spite of it all. But this is more easily said than done. It is not every people which is calm enough, or dull enough, to tolerate a lasting contradiction between a principle and its outward expression. But history does not record a heavier responsibility than that which rests upon the decaying Church. She set up as absolute truth, and by the most violent means, a doctrine which she had distorted to serve her own aggrandizement. Safe in the sense of her inviolability, she abandoned herself to the most scandalous profligacy, and, in order to maintain herself in this state, she levelled mortal blows against the conscience and the intellect of nations, and drove multitudes of the noblest spirits, whom she had inwardly estranged, into the arms of unbelief and despair." (290)

I think that speaks for itself. I read it as a powerful account of the historical failures of Christianity...and there are so many ways in which the Church is always in danger of walking down this path. May we never again see our faith as a means of power and exploitation.