Christendom Era

The Christendom Era is marked by a radical reversal in the way man conceived of himself, his place in the universe, and his relationship to God: in the religious sphere, Luther and the Reformers fractured Christianity into multiple confessions: the political sphere, Machiavelli and Hobbes rejected the noble aspirations of Plato and Aristotle, and based their political vision on the base desires of man; in the scientific sphere, Bacon and Descartes overthrew a more holistic approach to understanding nature and focused on getting practical results from manipulating nature to conform to their own ends. Though the Modern period inspired, and was accompanied by great achievements in art, science, and exploration, it also stripped the cosmos of its connection with divinity and made meaning, order, and truth a relative matter. This resulted in the secular materialism and naturalism that characterizes our contemporary world.