Christian Carnival: Renaissance Edition

Posted January 16th, 2008 by Jen in carnivals, religion

Welcome to the 207th Christian Carnival, the Renaissance Edition! Renaissance comes from the French, meaning “rebirth.” What a fitting word for a Christian! This period of European history spanned roughly from the 14th-17th centuries, but the 15th and 16th centuries best represent the Renaissance.

Life in the Renaissance by Marzieh Gail is a fascinating look at this cultural movement, and left me with several impressions of Renaissance Life. I’ll do my best to arrange our posts this week according to these central themes. There is no way to cover the vast details of the Renaissance in this small space, but I hope your interest is piqued and you study further.

The first impression of Renaissance life is that it was a rediscovery of the ancient civilizations of the past - the great works of Greece and Rome. Emerging from the Middle Ages and its emphasis on the spirit, the Renaissance man was very interested in learning and in life. Scholars hunted out ancient texts long forgotten, and scoured about for the works of classical authors such as Plato and Cicero. Sculptors dug up old statues and once again were fascinated with the human body. Explorers eagerly poured over maps from antiquity, and all the intellectuals sought to improve the secular and the worldly.

Beyond the Rim presents Thinking Christians? Are you a thinking Christian? If so, consider yourself a rare person in the modern world in which we live. This post touches on that problem, which just about guarantees almost no one will read it. ;-)

Crossroads presents A Review of Everything Must Change-Part 5: This is the last in a series reviewing and comparing the books, “Street Saints” and Brian McLaren’s new book, “Everything Must Change.”

The Veil Away presents What It’s All About: I will tell you right now what “it’s all about”–the thing that human life is about, and without which you may be human but you are certainly not alive. I will tell you simply and I will tell you shortly.

JR Madill at Theology for the Masses presents Creating a Universe of Certainty, or, If You Remove Reason, You Remove Doubt (Part 2 of 2)

Notes From Off-Center presents What if Belief in God is Just a Delusion After All…What Then? Let’s say that “God” is a poisonous and vile belief in itself - a problem to the degree that it is the very source of most, or at least an awful lot, of human harm in the world. And let’s also humbly admit that it is a mass delusion reinforced by socio-political groups called religions. What is the suggested solution to treating people with this delusional belief?

A Frank Review presents BoC’s Watershed Moment: After 9-11, the term “fundamentalist” has taken on new connotations. Need Christians and other religions be concerned about the public perception of what it means to be a fundamentalist?

The second impression is that the Renaissance focused on Italy. Florence is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and scholars have considered several factors unique to Florentine culture. This was the heartland of the ancient Roman Empire. Florence brought in wealth as a capital of silk and jewelry. The ruling Medici family were great patrons of the arts, and apportioned enormous sums of money to commission works from the leading artists of Florence, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo. Some historians adhere to the Great Men theory - it was pure luck that great men were born there. Da Vinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany. It’s more likely that the cultural conditions present in the region are what allowed these men to rise to their potential.

Henry Michael Imler at Theology for the Masses presents Question of the Day: The Naked Truth: What is one “truth” that is not a) contextual, or b) discovered/conditioned through experience inside a particular culture?

Observation and Principles presents In the Beginnning, Jesus: I wonder if John 1:1-4 is describing who Jesus was in the beginning, at creation?

Thinking Christian presents What Christ Does For Us, Part 5: Who Christ Is: We will indeed all bow to Him. We will all, someday, recognize His divine majesty, and part of our worship will be based on recognizing how He sacrificed Himself on our behalf.

Dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos presents Last Harvest: For the last harvest, the churches will need to re-tool their marketing.

A third impression is that the Renaissance was a dazzling spectacle. The splendid dresses with great balloon sleeves and rich fabrics, the magnificent chapels and palaces and ships, books streaming from the newly-invented printing press. This was an age of display and extravagance.

Had it not been for its explosion of great art, the Renaissance would surely not seem as splendid as it does. The very name of the age - Renaissance or rebirth - was coined by Vasari, an artist of the sixteenth century. Suddenly, large sums of money were being paid out to buy objects of beauty: furniture, clothes, jewelry, buildings, public and private, gardens, city squares. Wherever the eye gazed, it must behold a work of art. Art to enrich life became the order of the day. Men seemed to comprehend that even if they themselves were forgotten, their works of beauty would remain. p. 114

Homeward Bound presents Prosperity Preachers Consistent: As we hear the stories of opulent homes and antique-adorned offices, we should remember that this is exactly what they teach.

Tom Fuerst at Theology for the Masses presents Contra-Dispensationalism: The White Horse in Revelation 6: Contrary to this popular interpretation, though, this figure in chapter 6 is hardly some eschatological anti-messiah. This figure really is the actual Messiah, Jesus Christ. He comes forth to conquer, but does not do so with violence – again, the lack of arrows in his bow.

Enigmania presents Genesis 3: The post is about the story of the Fall, which seems literally fabulous nowadays (whence, via Aesop’s Fables, the connection with the Renaissance), but I feel that the earliest Monotheistic account of Creation ought to have some deeper meaning, and so I wonder what that could be.

Royally Redeemed presents Way 2: Life Savers: Discipline and self control are crucial in the life of a Christian. These are the very things that force us to crucify our flesh, because if we are going to talk the talk of a Christian, we must walk the walk of a Christian.

C.Orthodoxy presents Of Sin and Judgment: I had a dream last night: A man finds himself in a dark place. There are skeletons lining the walls around him, each bearing a name and a list of sins.

And finally, a few quotes from Life in the Renaissance that seemed to fit with particular posts.

To the Renaissance man-in-the-street heaven was static. Those who ascended there were supposedly blissful, standing throughout eternity, arranged in rows according to rank….The average person, seeing the grandeur of the heavenly hosts as shown in church paintings, could have little doubt as to where he was likely to end up. His future was made even clearer by the Mystery plays put on by his guild, where hell was shown as a monstrous yawning mouth with sharpened fangs, crowded with people much like himself. p. 112

Bounded Irrationality presents Heaven is better than a story: Does Heaven seem boring to you? Do you make comments like “I don’t want to be sitting on a cloud playing a harp for eternity”? Perhaps as a Christian, Heaven just seems good in comparison to Hell. If that’s your perspective I’d suggest you think about why Heaven is better than a story.

As we have seen, the Renaissance was an explosion of interest in human learning, in the knowledge of this world rather than the next. Although men still remained devout believers, they turned from religious studies to “human” ones. They became “humanists.” p. 92

An Accidental Blog presents A Fox in sheep’s clothing? Matthew Fox’s creation-centred spirituality.

In Italy anyone could attend the University of Florence regardless of age, class or finances if he was a registered Florentine citizen of legitimate birth. He received one gold florin, about four dollars, a month. Medical students also had an allowance of red wine and spices “to keep up their spirits.” In Venice, too, there were no class distinctions at the university and private charity housed the deserving. p. 97

Principled Discovery presents Student, Interrupted: How universities are treating the mentally ill. Well, they’re certainly not giving them red wine and spice; read this post to find out more.

The music of the Renaissance, once lost, has in recent years been uncovered in monasteries and ancient castles, and reconstructed from old, stained manuscripts without staff lines or indications of pitch. We now know how music sounded at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella; how widespread was the influence there of Arab poetry and song and instruments, and how many European styles grew out of them. p. 69

The Evangelical Ecologist presents 10 Tough Psalms for Worship Songs: Even Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, or Darlene Zschech would have a tough time with these.

Besides pages who could recite poetry, and choir singers, and jesters, most courts also employed troupes of actors to put on plays. The plays would be staged in a palace hall or courtyard; a temporary platform might also be set up in a church or on a cart drawn by oxen and supplied with screens of boughs. Some plays were Latin comedies (tragedies were not popular), rather immoral, and some, in Italian, referred to current events. p. 68

Nerd Family presents the Everything Skit. A musical drama.

The less holy could save themselves and their dead loved ones by applying to the church for an “indulgence,” or purchase of these merits. Wherever these indulgences were for sale, the money poured into the church. At a time when funds were thus being raised to build a new basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome, Martin Luther objected, among other things, to this outflow of German money to the corrupt church in Italy. In 1517 he invited a debate by posting a list of ninety-five points for discussion on the church door in Wittenberg. The list included an attack on indulgences. p. 113

Healing Through Words presents Am I the Only One? This is a quick article about how everything is sold to us.

Logical Consistency presents Nicaragua’s Bravery: Recently, the Associated Press wrote a twisted report on Nicaragua’s new abortion ban.

Cramer Comments presents American Idolatry: So, I missed last night’s premiere of American Idol. I hope to miss the rest of the season as well…

In the Middle Ages, ordinary people were not supposed to read the Bible, and indeed it had not been translated out of Hebrew, Greek and Latin into such local languages as English and French. The main goal of the reformers, however, was to “arm the simple layman with scripture.” A literary monument of the later Renaissance, England’s King James Bible, completed in 1611, was the work of great scholars who humbly wrote: “We are poor instruments to make God’s holy Truth to be yet more and more known unto the people. . . .” Unlike the Middle Ages, the Renaissance placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of the common man. p. 110

Weekend Fisher presents Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh? Weekend Fisher considers the current controversy over the name of the earlier books of the Bible and how the conversation provides chances to explain Christ to the world. 

Tidbits and Treasures presents Changing Our Thought Pattern: We should be going to the Word to see what our thoughts should be.

Psuedo-Polymath presents For The Christian Blogger: A prayer for blogging.

There was also much quarreling and fighting in private life. Women carried on feuds, soldiers kidnapped young girls, thieves went about in bands, men beat their wives, housewives struck their maids, and neighbors hurled oaths as well as insults at one another on the street. Practically every man and woman went armed with a knife, or was escorted by others so armed. Duelling was frequent because it was a recognized way of proving one’s manliness. p. 138

Alexander Marlin presents Do You Know if You’re a Loving Parent?

It was a time of sudden turns of fortune, of riches to rags in an hour. The mother of a disgraced official in Rome was driven out of her mansion and, left with only the clothes she had on, hurried from friend to friend seeking help. Afraid of being punished, they turned her away and closed their doors. Worse than hardness of heart was brutality. The history of Europe in the Renaissance is stained with torture scenes that are unbearable to read; torture was legally used by the authorities and all kinds of violence were common. p. 138

Parableman presents Moderate Deontology and the Problem of Evil: One kind of defense against the problem of evil seems to require an undesirable ethical theory. This post responds to that difficulty.

Thank you for visiting the Christian Carnival: Renaissance Edition. Next week’s edition will be hosted by Chasing the Wind, and you may submit your post HERE.