I'm willing to concede there's some benefit in centralising religious decisionmaking, but like any form of centralisation it can go too far. If these institutions are allowed to grow to the scale of millions of people they will inevitably attract men who seek power for it's own sake, while the genuinely righteous will give up in frustration at the weight of corruption bearing down on them.
Centralised institutions must be bound to dunbar's number. If you don't at least know where the man deciding your doctrine sleeps then he's too far removed from you to be doing that job.
It's worth keeping in mind that originally christianity was much much more balkanised than today. The Romans did manage to unify them for a long time, but the result was all kinds of corruption, nepotism and political interference. I'm not sure it's a model worth pursuing.
The Roman civic religion probably worked perfectly when they were a single small city-state but by the time they'd turned into an empire it was in crisis.
Interesting article.
I'm willing to concede there's some benefit in centralising religious decisionmaking, but like any form of centralisation it can go too far. If these institutions are allowed to grow to the scale of millions of people they will inevitably attract men who seek power for it's own sake, while the genuinely righteous will give up in frustration at the weight of corruption bearing down on them.
Centralised institutions must be bound to dunbar's number. If you don't at least know where the man deciding your doctrine sleeps then he's too far removed from you to be doing that job.
It's worth keeping in mind that originally christianity was much much more balkanised than today. The Romans did manage to unify them for a long time, but the result was all kinds of corruption, nepotism and political interference. I'm not sure it's a model worth pursuing.
The Roman civic religion probably worked perfectly when they were a single small city-state but by the time they'd turned into an empire it was in crisis.