{"id":134951,"date":"2017-10-06T00:33:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T06:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=134951"},"modified":"2017-10-06T11:22:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T17:22:03","slug":"grinding-sectarian-differences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/06\/grinding-sectarian-differences.html","title":{"rendered":"On the grinding down of sectarian differences"},"content":{"rendered":"

It gives one hope that what seem to be profound differences between tribal camps can, sometimes, be worn away until they not only are cause for bloody wars and prejudice, but are actually forgotten as to even being<\/i> differences.<\/p>\n

The conflict between Catholics and (the many variations of) Protestants was for many centuries a literally bloody one in Europe. Even in this country, anti-Catholic prejudice was a feature of Colonial life (except in Catholic dominated enclaves like Maryland) and through the 18th, 19th, and early 20th Centuries. The Founders who believed in religious freedom always pointed out that Catholics should be considered fully American. The Klan (and the Know-Nothings) were vitriolically anti-Catholic (though a lot of that was driven by nativist dislike of Irish and Italians, and later Mexicans, as much as from theological differences).<\/p>\n

Much of the rapport between Protestants in the 19th Century of the US was in opposition to Catholics — the use of particular Bibles and Bible passages in schools, and interfaith charities were done explicitly to counter Catholics and their private church schools.<\/p>\n

Catholic presidential candidates faced a huge uphill struggle — Al Smith’s Catholic faith likely lost him the 1928 election against Hoover, and John Kennedy had to repeatedly disavow allegiance to the Pope in order to win in 1960.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Protestant animus toward Catholics only seemed to largely abate (as something active) in the 70s-80s, when GOP strategists made anti-abortion planks a major factor in Republican politics to draw in Catholics — and managed to rope in evangelical Protestant power brokers and leadership into treating abortion as a major issue (it had not been for evangelicals prior to that), creating an alliance of cause that swamped theological and doctrinal differences.<\/p>\n

And so we get to today, when — aside from perhaps some looking askance at having a Pope, or at all the statues and Marian “worship,” most Protestants except on the zany wing not only don’t consider Catholics all that bizarre, but seem to have significant problems even articulating the doctrinal differences between the Catholic Church and the Protestant movements of Luther and Calvin (per the linked article<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That’s probably a good thing.<\/p>\n

The lesson of history is that what seems to be of the greatest import and conflict of present ideology is, in a later age, trivialized at best, forgotten at worst. That doesn’t mean that good and evil are ignored, just that the definitions (or the focus) are changed. I suspect that the things that I get so torqued today about will, a few centuries hence [1], be seen as silly or missing some fundamental moral point.<\/p>\n

Not that that means I should stop being enraged today, but confusing my personal morality with some timeless, eternal, objective ethos is demonstrably a mook’s game. It’s hubris, which never ends well.<\/p>\n

——
\n[1] Whether in a high-tech arcology or sitting in the ruins of civilization bar-b-cuing lizards.<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nwashingtonpost<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It gives one hope that what seem to be profound differences between tribal camps can, sometimes, be worn away until they not only are cause for bloody wars and prejudice, but are actually forgotten as to even being differences. The conflict between Catholics and (the many variations of) Protestants was for many centuries a literally … Continue reading “On the grinding down of sectarian differences”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,108,378],"tags":[1248,1249,1169],"class_list":["post-134951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-history","category-intolerance-persecution","tag-catholic","tag-protestant","tag-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Luther-castle-church.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31267,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/07\/where-was-the-religious-right.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":0},"title":"Where was the Religious Right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Nov-12 11:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, the excuse-makers are saying that they stayed home, turned off by an economic conservative with a dubious social conservative record ... and a (ew!) Mormon to boot. \u00a0This despite the urging and cajoling of Religious Right leadership, Catholic leadership, etc., that this was an Apocalyptically Necessary election to win.Sarah\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27605,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/26\/careful-paul-or-the-bishopsll-getcha.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":1},"title":"Careful, Paul, or the Bishops'll getcha!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Apr-12 5:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Ryan is smarting under criticism of his comments that his draconian austerity budget was inspired by Catholic teaching. Speaking out against his Catholic critics, he said:\"I suppose that there are some Catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly of sorts, not exactly on heaven, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":640,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/09\/theological_chi.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":2},"title":"Theological chit-chat","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 9-Sep-01 2:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was raised Catholic. My family stopped being avid church-goers around the time my brother was born, but we remained at least Christmas\/Easter Catholics, and there was always an understanding...","rel":"","context":"In "Love & Marriage"","block_context":{"text":"Love & Marriage","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/love-and-marriage"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137869,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/19\/oh-you-mean-religious-freedom-means-people-can-discriminate-against-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":3},"title":"Oh, you mean "religious freedom" means people can discriminate against ME?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Feb-19 10:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, lots of people love pounding the \"religious freedom\" drum -- \"I shouldn't have to associate with \/ offer services to \/ dispense medicine for \/ accept customers who are those types of people\" -- when they think that they're part of \"Us,\" not one of \"Them.\"So there are certainly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27194,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/21\/a-birth-control-flashback-from-fifty-years-ago.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":4},"title":"A birth control flashback from fifty years ago","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Mar-12 11:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I have no right to impose my thinking, which is rooted in religious thought, on those who do not think as I do.\u201d and \"Catholics do not need the support of civil law to be faithful to their own religious convictions and they do not seek to impose by law\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27454,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/19\/the-vagina-manger-dialogue.html","url_meta":{"origin":134951,"position":5},"title":"The Vagina Manger Dialogue","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 19-Apr-12 7:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"So I heard about the \"Catholic League\" (Bill Donohue) having a hissy fit about a Jon Stewart segment, which actually led Margie and me to track down the piece on our DVR (thanks for giving it more publicity, Catholic League!).While not the most hysterical Daily Show bit I've ever seen,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134954,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134951\/revisions\/134954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}