But whatever it may please you to do in a matter which concerns your crown, your soul, and your kingdom, we sons of the Church cannot wholly keep silence about the injuries done to our mother [church], and the way in which she is despised and trodden under foot; for we perceive that these evils, besides those which we lament piteously have already fallen upon her, are again partly inflicted afresh and partly threatened. We will certainly make a stand, and fight even to death, if need be, for our mother with the weapons allowed us, not with shield and sword, but with prayers and lamentations to God…
– Bernard of Clairvaux, “Letter to King Louis of France” (1142).
Was it easier for the church to see its injuries at the hand of the state in the middle ages? Is there a reason it’s so hard for much of the American church to see the wounds now being inflicted upon its multi-racial Body?
David W. Swanson 