Religious institution that appears good and charitable

Someone in one of the That Guy threads mentioned something usable, or so I would think.

>Church is generally full of good people.
>But has absolutely batshit tenets, often causing great personal inconvenience to members.
>Justifies it by dubious theology that everyone outside the cult thinks is nonsense
>Everyone in the cult is super-serious about it and will probably get upset if you call them out on their logical errors
>Constantly trying to push their literature on everyone.

>one side is hyperconservative and goes by the original dogma even though most of it is clearly designed as a government tool
>the other side strifes to reform the church into putting enlightment, peace and a harmonical society before all
>and yet another side jumps on the reformation-bandwagon and does scientology-tier stuff as a small and obscure organization

>the church is using their wealth and power to consolidate both military forces and build fortress monasteries along the marches
>they do this by granting indulgences in exchange for massive donations and essentially extorting tithes
>the monasteries along the marches are the only organized military force present to defend the peasantry against the invading foreign nations with their heathen religions
>ultimately, life for the peasants under the heathens wouldn't actually change much. They aren't murder-rapist insane pagan stereotypes. Work, pay taxes, marry the baker's daughter, die of typhoid.
>but they'd force the peasants to convert and the priestly class knows, by their faith in the true god, that this would condemn the peasants to eternal suffering in the afterlife

No matter how assholish the corrupt church stereotype might be, no matter how greedy, corrupt, lewd or hypocritical they might be, they also know that for all their failings, theirs is the only path to heaven, and turning people away from them, no matter the reason, is the cruelest thing imaginable.

>No matter how corrupt the ministers are, the churchs work always has an overall relly positive outcome
>Nobody wants yo to actually take them out because they don't give a fuck about corruption as long as it works

Make sure the name of the faith is unrelated to any real world tie ins. Give it a fun fantasy name like "Crosstianity"

>hurr durr what is all religions

>>institution that appears good and charitable
>>Filled with corrupt ministers that abuse the community's trust
>>Probably covering up a satanic cult of some sort
You could say the government, but sometimes they don't even bother with keeping appearances.

>"appears good and charitable"
The faith's outward tenets are intended to keep the lower classes in their place and were designed to present this facade of benevolence.
The real teachings of the church are only gradually revealed to the clergy as they become cynical with age and experience...

>How do we subvert this boring old cliche without just having an equally boring always-good religion?

I'd like to see it done like this once
>The church appears good but is actually corrupt to the core
>They manipulate a group of fanatics into doing their bidding
>The group of fanatics figures out they're being used
>Said fanatics now purge the church from the inside
I'm pretty sure *someone* has written this before at some point, I've just never seen it done like this. It would really get across the idea that it's mostly the leadership fucking up what's inherrently good, or at least okay.

>"Crosstianity"
Heh, Croisstianity. The French version of Christianity where Jesus handed out croissants during the Last Supper.

Sounds like Game of Thrones, though I stopped reading a long time ago since 5th book took forever to release (and HBO brought normies to the series).

It's been a long time, but if I recall, it went something like this:
>The priests of the 7 gods were basically just puppets of the queen
>Evil queen
>Gets involved in a scandal
>Decides to let the church put her on trial to prove her innocence, since she knows that she controls them
>The church officials are found out by the peasants to be corrupt
>Massive peasant revolt at the capital
>All the religious officials are cast out and humiliated
>New high priest is a fanatical peasant
>He finds the queen guilty and sentences her to the same punishment

Split it in three, one evil cult side, one good anti-cult side, and the majority of the organisation doesn't know about the shadow civil war going on.

The cult side is weak, but the anti-cult side cannot simply leroy jenkins their way out of trouble, because that would bring attention to the cult side, weaken the organisation as a whole and allow other organisations to wipe them out. The cult side realises this, and has many contingency plans that will kill off the organisation as a whole if they are exterminated, forcing the anti-cult side to carefully dismantle the cult side.

This is basically what I do.

The Church is generally good, whatever God they worship is good and benevolent, but there's always a few bad eggs that abuse their position and power, either for their own gain or just because they're fucking nutso.

I like this one.

Split the church into factions, like any real church. The Catholic Church is a great example. The Jesuit-like faction provides your shadow government plot hook, the central administration is riven by political dispute, there are good, kindly, charitable and saintly priests alongside venal, corrupt, and lustful priests, and then there are REVOLUCION priests who think shooting up the elected government in the name of justice is a good idea.

Also, like, satanic cults and shit I guess

>What are cathodox
>What are protestants
>What are Calvinists and anabaptists

So .. Judaism?

>ywn kill corrupt clerics with the church's blessing
why even live?

Have schisms in the church, have the church persecute actual honest to god heretics but give each sect a good reason for their actions and beliefs. That sort of thing

FFT did it best.

>Church is evil
>turns out the pope was just doing realpolitk
>demons hijack his plan
>the church was acting the normal way at the time

have it be somewhat sketchy, but still full of good people

even if it is corrupt, its unliekly everyone inside is evil, or knows of the extent of the corruption

for every judge frollo, there are 2 or 3 of the bishops like the one who gave valjean food and shelter and turned the other cheek

By making the religious hierarchy a matriarchal organization with each matron being spiritually bonded to an innocent young Shota boy to remind them of goodness, charity, and love?

I don't know if it would solve anything, but it sure as hell will make a lot more people on here happy with the church in question.

bump

Hooray, an excuse to post this!

Don't make the institution a monolith. Not every part of the church will necessarily be full of shitheads, but neither will every part of the church be full of saints.

People might claim the church adheres to either extreme, but that's because they have limited information and experience.

Give the people being good or bad within the church solid reasons for what they do, independent of the overall culture that the church promotes.

So...Like the Catholic church?

Could make them not necessarily corrupt or cult like, but just extremely strict and overbearing, but still good to those who follow their rules.

Warhammer style.

The church holds religious views that your players find reprehensible but the priests are generally good people

>subvert

This is why people hate leftists.

Religious institution that appears to be CE but in fact are goodie two shoes that want the edgy teen market niche.

>Church provides spiritual guidance, medicine, basic education, and disaster relief to all the peoples
>Church is wide spread and powerful enough that leaders of state fear going against the church

>Church lays claim to ALL artifacts and has absolutely zero tolerance towards anyone not giving up any artifacts they find
>Church does so in order to protect the people from the power of the artifacts, arguing that power corrupts
>Church secretly uses the artifacts in their work anyway

>Church does not fear technology
>Church actually has some of the most advanced technology around

>Church has secret elite force that fights its enemies with ruthless force, including the use of previously mentioned artifacts and technology
>Those enemies tend to include demons, murder cults, and worse

I love the church in Trails so much. They're every bit as frightening as anything the worst villain could ever throw at you, but at the end of the day there's never any concrete evidence that they're not just protecting the world.

>Church is kept around as a holdover from previous generations.
>Their place in politics are largely ceremonial and hold no real power.
>Their teachings become more fanatical and harsh with only true devotees persisting.
>They suddenly get proven 100% correct in everything they preach.
>Society must conform to an unchecked cult-like church where once powerless fanatics are thrust into positions of power who dictate the law of the land.

And if you need demons:
>Demons are made as a response of faith.
>The zealots' conviction is what unknowingly spawned them.
>Actively strengthening the faith of others inversely strengthens the presence of demons.

>having sects in your tabletop games
Just fade to black like everyone else

Go with reality?
>religious institution that appears good and charitable
>uses donations and tax-exempt status to build mass ostentatious houses of worship and own their own country
>filled with corrupt ministers that abuses the community's trust
>actually covering up a child rape ring
>directly oppose players/law enforcement looking into it because they're the church so their decisions clearly supercede the law
>never have them properly punished for obstructing justice and using religion to threaten and intimidate victims into silence
>guy in charge of cover-up is never charged and gets promoted soon after

Have a church that's generally full of decent people trying to do/be good, but have there be a few corrupt individuals secretly trying to take advantage of their clergy position. The church may also struggle at times to retain some modicum of political power needed to get things done.

Making this harder is most laymen who either don't care beyond "keeping up appearances" or don't understand/deliberately misinterpret the church's teachings for their own dumb reasons.

go back in time and fix the fact that every organized religion has been institutionally corrupted at some point in time or another

I don't think portraying any hierarchical organisation as completely corrupt is ever a particularly sensible thing to do.

I mean, an individual priest, sure, a sect within the religion proper, absolutely, but the entire thing being a front for a demon cult? It stretches belief and makes things less interesting.

>strengthening [faith] inversely strengthens [demons]
This means that making faith more powerful weakens demons, which I doubt is what you mean. "Strengthening faith correspondingly strengthens demons", is what I assume you meant

>if the god gains enough followers, he will manifest in the world
>this would actually be disastrous for humanity as the god is in fact a massive bastard
>the church's inner circle, having studied the god's literature closer than any other, know this
>but if the church wasn't there, another organisation could successfully bring about the god's manifestation
>they must therefore walk a tightrope, gathering enough followers that their god believes they're working toward its manifestation, but with enough scandals etc. driving people away that they never actually reach critical mass
Subverted enough for ya?

I think it's actually better that faith weakens demons.

It presents sort of a morton's fork. On one hand you have the church which is far from perfect, on the other hand "lol, your village got eaten by demons, should have paid that 30% tithe"

Reminds me of Zakarum, as well as Cult of Triune in Diablo series

>>the other side strifes to reform the church into putting enlightment, peace and a harmonical society before all
>>What are protestants

>Implying protestants wanted to do or did anything good in the first place

>Religious institution appears sinister and oppressive
>Filled with fanatical zealots who go around hunting heathens and always good mages
>They're actually a bunch of jaded academics using religion and its divine powers a means to get rid of dangerous cults and foreign ideologies.

Also make the church do church things, like educate people and give sanctuary to those without anywhere else to go.