Return of the Reformation?
Providence has decreed that my current consumption of literature is centered on Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, a work of historical fiction that takes place during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in England and around Europe. One of the central themes running through both that period of history and Stephenson's novel is the horrific human cost exacted by the periods' many religious wars and plots. Protestants vs. Puritans. Catholics vs. Protestants. And, to borrow a line from Tom Lehrer, "everybody hates the jews." Remembering this as the backdrop against which our Founding Fathers enshrined the principle of separation of church and state helps to illustrate the grave disservice and threat to our country posed by the Republican strategy of fashioning George W. Bush's second administration as a religious institution.
/culture_wars | permanent link | ( ) | edit | trackbacks ()