Re: Religion and society

["Brett W. McCoy" <bmccoy@CapAccess.org>]

> I am entering a fray with an opinion that may incense some members. Like it
> or not, the Catholic church was a major influence in both the daily lives and
> politics of the people of Europe. If people at demos ask about this important
> aspect of the middle ages, we should be able to answer them intelligently. I
> understand that some of the Fundamentalists will be against this past history
> of religion but too bad. Until the SCA is willing to truly accept and be
> willing to teach at demos the role of the Church or religion in daily life,
> it will be just a make believe group that likes to dress up and knows some
> history. It can never be regarded as a historical recreation group. Those who
> do Civil War recreation seem to have no problem acknowledging the place of
> reliigon in the time period in which they specialize to the point of even
> having chaplains for the armies.

I hope I'm not opening another tankard of worms, but even though I do
fully agree with and support the Society's policy on religion, I do think
it would be nice to create some kind of facility for developing Orders
like the Knights Templar, Teutonic Knights, Order of the Dragon: the
warrior-monk kind of thing.  I know that there are certain Orders within
the SCA for knighthood, but they are more along the lines of the Order of
the Garter and such.  Of course, as I'm relatively new to the SCA, I may
completely wrong about this, and if I am, I hope someone will tell me so! :-)

Istvan Dragosani                     | "Go not to the Elves for counsel,
bmccoy@capaccess.org                 |  for they will say both yes and no"
Minstrel, Mage, Sage, Wooer of Women |      -- JRR Tolkien
and General Friend of all Nature...  |