Those who like George R R Martin should look at R Scott Bakker’s _Prince of Nothing_ series starting from _The Darkness That Comes Before_.

You might also find Glen Cook’s _Tales of the Black Company_ series worthwhile.

Really? Any evidence? Remember, we are talking about the Inquisition here, and if you talk about the Spanish Inquisition, hooboy.

oops.

Matters of Doctrine are established through the church’s heierarchy of Presbyteries and Synods, which are sort of the district and state levels, and each successive layer is made up of representatives from the level below. The Final layer is the Assembly, which meets annually (I think). All of this is governed by the Scriptures and the Book of Church Order. The Book of Order is the Constitution of the Church and can only be amended by action of the Assembly and a certain number of the Synods (again, I think).

There are a suprising number of similarities between Presbyterian church organization and our Constitutional system. The former is far older than the latter, btw, and had a significant influence on the Founders. It is not for nothing that the American Revolution was sometimes known in England as the “Presbyterian Revolt.”

Now that we have gone significantly off topic, I will get back to work.

I like the NoI:Islam::Mormonism:Christianity analogy; unlike the commenter above, I agree that the NoI’s specifically American mythology, its science-fictiony cosmology, its attitudes toward women, its explicit yearning to reproduce the lives of the Biblical patriarchs, and its insularity actually make the analogy pretty apt. (Although Christian Science does share some of these, my run-ins with the three groups give me impression that Mormonism is the closer fit.)

That said, I’m not all that comfortable with your characterization of Farrakhan and the NoI generally. Yes, he’s an anti-semitic demagogue, and that’s unfortunate, and perhaps its does make him a “terrible person”. I have to admit that I never understood the function of anti-semitism, as opposed to more general antipathy toward whites, in the NoI. But I’ve had a lot of run-ins with the Nation, mostly while growing up as a white kid in DC, and while I’m obviously not on their guest list, it’s hard to deny that they’ve done a world of good for black communities in the US. I suppose the same might be said for evangelical Christian churches in poor communities, and perhaps I’m guilty of using a double standard. But I do think that being black in America is different from just being poor, and I have a lot of sympathy for what the Nation is trying to accomplish and what they have already accomplished. If you can find a copy, James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” describes his ambivalence upon meeting Elijah Mohammed and is, IMO, perhaps the best single work written on race in America.

He was phenomenal, eye-opening, inspirational and very much a Christian minister.

How ridiculous this attack is.

I don’t know that “decentered” and “democratic” necessarily go together. While decentered would mean not needing to obey mandates of a disassociated cetral authority figure, it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of the congregation being hijacked by a preacher and core of supporters, which is still decidedly non-democratic.

On the other hand, a denomination like the Presbyterians have a very elaborate democratic system that never gives the majority of power to ministers, and divides power at the upper levels between ministers, elders and lay people… but there is a top level, and decisions get made there which are carried out in the various congregations. So it’s not decentered.

So I think my answer is really that you had two questions, not just one… heh… hope my rambling helped.

Actually that is not entirely true. But what is factual is that Martin is a much better writer than Jordan. The Wheel of Time series falls so short of the mark.