(July 17, 2023 at 9:22 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Its not reasonable to expect a social movement that spans the globe and centuries to be consistent over time or distance. It's gone through the same changes that the societies which have hosted it have, and syncretism never stopped. To put it even more bluntly, the religious movements that stopped changing for any significant period of time are the ones that ceased to exist, often replaced by a time and region appropriate version of abrahamism.
When I talk about christianity here in the states (and broadly across the west) splitting off into two distinct and post-christian christianities..that's not criticism, that's a sign of their continued success and relevance. That people still think they can take the stories and make them useful, make them fit to a contemporary ideology...whether that's stone cold authoritarian hate or wishy washy new age healing and tolerance.
Fair enough. That's just what I think of when I, perhaps too rigidly, think of Christianity, but I see what you're saying; it evolves and its continued success depends on its ability to evolve/be reinterpreted to fit any ideology. That's not a great selling point though, that it's vague enough to be able to so drastically change its meaning, but I guess from the perspective of its adherents, that is a selling point, making their religion basically Plug and Play
