Saturday, June 14, 2014

Let's Not be Beastly to the Protestants

The next leader of the free world thinks he knows the secret:
 “Give me a country in 1600 that had a Protestant led contest for ... power and I will show you a country that is rich today,
My guess he is probably thinking of England, if "Anglican"is "Protestant," and if you count "England" as "rich," and if you blind your eyes to the extent that England has fallen from the preeminence it enjoyed in the Land-of-Hope-and-Glory days of yore.  You might also want to finesse over the role played by he 200-plus years the English spent hoovering up the wealth of the antipodes in the creation of perhaps the most extensive empires in the history of humankind

But I wouldn't want to be quick to blame the culture of loot and pillage on Protestantism alone.  The Vikings had their moment; the plains still thunder with the hoofbeats of the Mongol horde.  Not to mention the other great Jewish heresy.  Heck, it was the Assyrians who virtually invented the idea of empire hundreds of years before the Sage of Bethlehem ever touched the hem of his garment to the latchet of his shoe.    Grant that the professor is right when he says that Protestant influences had much to do with the shaping of the English character.  But don't be too hard on them, boys, they're not alone.  

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