Kay

Mark,

I believe that in an earlier post you mentioned comp as being the model traditionally held by the church. But I submit, that the church has been in error for long periods of time on many issues. Isn’t that one reason for the Reformation?

Would anyone really want to have Inquisitorial trials back? No, I think about 700 years worth was more than sufficient. What about the Geneva Council with John Calvin burning “heretics” at the stake? How would we like that out on the church lawn after Sunday services this week?

Don’t forget the Puritans and the Salem witch trials in the 1690’s. The patriarchal beliefs that Puritans held in the community added further fuel to suspicion. Women, they believed, should be totally subservient to men, because by nature, a woman was more likely to enlist in the Devil’s service than was a man, and women were considered lustful by nature. Courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen were hanged. In 1695, Thomas Maule a noted Quaker, publicly criticized the handling of the trials by the Puritan leaders stating, “it were better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a witch, which is not a Witch”. For publishing this, Maule was imprisoned twelve months. Church error dies hard.