Red Wolf, leader of the Cloud People, consults Answerer, the shaman, while they breathe sacred smoke. Answerer responds cautiously. His position is unique and powerful and a Time Patrol scholar must be careful not to appear to challenge him.
Later in this same novel, the Time Patrol must intervene in the medieval contest between Emperors and Popes, a church-state conflict that has its remote origins in the relationship between leaders like Red Wolf and shamans like Answerer.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
On the question of the proper balance between Church and State in THE SHIELD OF TIME, we see two extremes which Anderson plainly thought was bad. One where the Church came to dominate the State, and the other where it was the State which was dominant. Anderson's preference was for the alternative we actually got, for a time: neither State or Church dominating the other. Which in the US was codified in the First Amendment to the Constitution, forbidding the gov't to hinder the free exercise of religion.
Unfortunately, this idea of Church and State accepting limits and restraints, which goes straight back to Matthew 22.15-22, is breaking down as states becomes ever more centralized and domineering in its claims. More and more what we see with the Frederick II timeline in "Amazement of the World."
Ad astra! Sean
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