Posted on 04/25/2007 4:41:04 PM PDT by NYer
What an intelligent rebuttal! I must remember it.
For proof that translators of the Bible into English were hunted down and executed, google “William Tyndale”
Perhaps. But there is also, often, poverty, tyranny and political corruption. For all three, think the Catholic countries of South America, Mexico Central America. For two out of three, think Philippines. The politically incorrect truth is that free, stable, representative political institutions arose in and out of Protestant countries. My protestant (Hugenot) ancestors fled Louis XIV's Catholic France because he was a dictator. The America settlers fought the French in the French and Indian Wars for the same reason - to defend themselves against Catholic authoritarianism. Today, immigrants are flooding north out of Mexico and South America because their catholic cultures may have offered plenty of "good red wine," but little in the way of political stability or safety or prosperity.
What affected Europe during the 19th century, affected Latin America during the late 19th century and 20th. The ills of that region have more to do with revolutionary ideology from Europe than Catholicism.
Why did they fight the British?
“Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes”
I’ll repeat: The politically incorrect truth is that free, stable, representative political institutions arose in and out of Protestant countries.
A significant contribution, at least in New England, was the granting of wider religious freedoms for those French Catholics by the French government in 1774.
Ooops, make that the British government.
Isn’t that Wycliffe?
“Don’t read the bible, son, we’ve got our own faith tradition.” (Just a line I heard once.)
tell that to the Greeks
Nope. The Magna Carta was a product of a Catholic England.
So what? The Catholic Church saved civilization during the Dark Ages when Europe was being overrun by Vandals. There would be no opportunity for “free, stable, representative government” were it not for the Catholic Church. You do realize, of course, that the Catholic Church also developed the concept of the university (everything in the universe centering around God) and kept learning alive during the Dark Ages. Your Protestant heroes wouldn’t have even known how to think critically if it hadn’t been for the disciplines developed in Catholic universities.
nah, Wycliffe died of old age
I googled “William Tyndale” and found that he incurred the wrath of Henry VIII and was arrested and tried on a charge of heresy and treason and was executed in 1536.
Henry VIII was most decidedly NOT the Catholic Church. He was the head of the Church of England.
Try again!
Oops, it was Tyndale! I got the two mixed up. I just saw a PBS “documentary” on Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Cranmer last night. It was junk.
This must be a Freeper First! I’ve never before seen a post against someone’s tag line. I’m sure you’d have strong opinion on my other one: “Our Lady’s Hat Society.” Would you care to comment on that one, too?
That can just as easily be an indictment of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism as it is of Catholicism. It's debatable whether an authentically Catholic culture was ever established in Latin America or the Philippines.
Christianity preserved the classical heritage of Europe, yes. However, the Celtic monastaries in which so many of the old texts were saved were independent of Rome. The church at that time was not the monarchical top-down institution that Roman Catholicism became centuries later. More like the geographically-based Christianity that the early Church of England divines advocated.
My point is that political freedom developed in countries where the Reformation took root. You answer, "So what?" As someone who values liberty and the Anglo-American heritage of free institutions, I have to respond, "BIG what."
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