In the 1700s, Waldensians were persecuted for their faith and murdered, why do Christians not know about this?

Question

Christians should know who their forefathers were when they joined their religion and why they believe what they do. The Waldensians were persecuted by the Church during that time and killed for preaching the word of God without the Church's permission to do so, only the clergy could interpret the bible. But in that, the church suggested that salvation was by penitence, according to what they made believe about purgatory. 'PAY and BE SAVED'. So sad... Christians don't know about this, they haven't heard of who the Waldensians are. How can we not have heard about these people that went through a lot during the middle ages and have them for non-existent? They could set an example for us today, in the modern world... couldn't they?

Answer 1

Some of us know about the Waldensians. Yes, I think they could set an example for us today.
Unfortunately, outside of seminaries, you won't find very many people teaching about the Waldensians, or any of the other sects in the early days of the protestant church.

Answer 2

And there is good reason.

They were uneducated, and influenced heavily by the Cathars. They abused the trust of their flock with their ignorance of scripture and the history of the faith. You could divorce your spouce without consent on notification. The leaders never worked, and received donations of food, money, etc. from their followers.

A wealthy businessman decides it is better for ignorant peasants to give him food. So he starts a "faith" wherein the peasants give him everything he needs, and then some, and he doles it out to them the crumbs. He justifies his actions with "spirituality" nonsense that is not biblically based, and procedes to underine the Church.

They had a bad start. They redeemed themselves a bit in ww1 and ww2, but for the most part, they were founded by a greedy and sexually obsessed merchant. They kinda remind me of the Branch Davidians.

Answer 3

*** g82 7/22 pp. 18-19 Were Christendom’s Methods of Conversion Christian? ***

The Conversion of Heretics in Southern France

There were two groups of heretics in Languedoc—the Cathars, or Albigenses, and the Waldensians. The former were the most numerous and their beliefs had elements of Christianity and Oriental ideas. The Waldensians were more orthodox and very zealous in preaching the Bible among the common people.

Peaceful methods of conversion were tried first. When this failed, Pope Alexander III declared at a Lateran Council: “The Church . . . must . . . invoke the aid of princes, that fear of temporal punishment may force men to seek a spiritual cure for their shortcomings.”

However, Pope Innocent III tried another preaching campaign. Prominent in this was a Spanish priest, Domingo de Guzman. But in spite of his zeal conversions of heretics were few. A Dominican writer credits him with saying: “Where a blessing fails, a good thick stick will succeed.” What was this “good thick stick”?

In July 1209, a powerful army of knights, men-at-arms and mercenaries set off from Lyons to Languedoc. They were soldiers of the Cross. They had mustered at the bidding of Pope Innocent III to conduct a Crusade against the heretics. Their leader was a papal legate. On July 21 this force camped near the city of Béziers in southeastern France. A suggestion that a group of heretics should be given up to the Crusaders was rejected by the citizens.

The next day the Crusaders attacked and soon overwhelmed the small body of defenders. The mercenaries, vicious desperados, and the knights, all eager for plunder, were ruthless. Many people fled to the churches for safety. Historian Oldenbourg, in the book The Massacre at Montségur, describes the outcome: “The doors of the churches were forced open . . . All inside were slaughtered wholesale—women, invalids, babies, and priests. . . . In a few short hours the wealthy city of Béziers was a city of bleeding mutilated corpses, and nothing else.” And this shocking display of brutality was done by men led by the papal legate, who triumphantly wrote to the pope: “Nearly twenty thousand of the citizens were put to the sword, regardless of age and sex.”

Did this “thick stick” get results? Hundreds of Cathars and Waldensians were burned at the stake, but by 1229, after twenty years of war and misery, the heretical groups were still well supported in Languedoc.

In 1233 two Dominicans were given special powers as Inquisitors. Their method was to announce a “period of grace” during which heretics or sympathizers could come and confess. But to prove their “conversion” they had to denounce others. This crafty scheme, backed by the fear of torture or the stake, caused many to collaborate. Denunciations snowballed and set off a reign of terror. In just one place, Moissac, 210 heretics were burned alive in a monstrous holocaust. The Holy Inquisition succeeded in suppressing the Cathars. The Waldensians still survive.

A few centuries later the fair country of France was convulsed with the struggle between the Church and the Reformation. In England, when King Henry VIII proclaimed himself head of the Church of England in 1534, those Catholics who refused to be converted to his new politico-religious system were in great danger. “The creed of the king” still had to be “the creed of the people.”

Protestantism made progress during the reign of his son, Edward VI, but the pendulum swung the other way during the following reign of Catholic Queen Mary. Sir Winston Churchill commented, in his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”: “Here were the . . . living beings who composed the nation, ordered in the name of King Edward VI to march along one path to salvation, and under Queen Mary to march back again in the opposite direction; and all who would not move on the first order or turn about on the second must prove their convictions, if necessary, at the gibbet or the stake.”

Can you imagine Jesus Christ or any true Christian condemning people to the gibbet or the stake for their beliefs?

Answer 4

Time someone told you...any sort of history that might tend to lead a child into investigating religion, especially Christianity, either are not taught in history classes at school at all, or are taught from an atheistic viewpoint.
Remember, we allowed one atheist woman to kick God out of school back decades ago...

Answer 5

If they were being killed for interpreting the Bible them selves, they should have become Eastern Orthodox and moved to Mother Russia.

Answer 6

This is par for the course with any religion. They like to murder infidels

Answer 7

Most people don't study history, so they are not going to know this.

Answer 8

Too long. Edit, edit, edit

Answer 9

The figment of your imagination is quite rich! ;-)

Answer 10

(Shhhhh! We're not interested in knowing anything that might make us question.)