As someone brought up roughly equally as a Methodist and a Catholic, one half of me excoriates the other for being stodgy, repressive, and ritualistic. The other half chuckles and reflects that smoking, drinking, and boxing are pretty cool.
Uh, Wendell, no offense intended, but have you ever actually been to the deep South?
I have lived in the deep South all my life, and have never once encountered a town that was homogenously Baptist, or even close to being so.
My hometown was typical. The Baptist Church was the largest denomination, but its members didn’t even constitute a majority in town. The Methodists weren’t far behind the Baptists. In addition, there were sizeable minorities of Presbyterians, members of the church of Christ, the Church of God, and several other smaller churches as well. All of these various churches argued among themselves over various points of doctrine.
I spent a number of years in my youth attending the church of Christ, which would be considered a “fudamentalist” church, in the sense that the members of the church looked to the words of the Bible as the source for all doctrine.
I never heard any Catholic-bashing, either in my own church or in the protestant churches of other denominations which I visited from time to time.
In my church, the Baptists were the usual targets of any sermons about erroneous doctrine. The attitude toward the Baptists was one of dismay that they interpreted the Bible incorrectly. (Not endorsing that view, just reporting it.)
The attitude toward Catholics was similar, but members of my church were really more flabbergasted by Catholic doctrine, since it seemed so far-removed from their own reading of the New Testament.
There was never any hatred. On those rare occasions when one encountered a Catholic, the reaction was rather one of astonishment. (As in: How can you believe that stuff? It’s just so incorrect.)
Catholics were viewed as people whose beliefs were seriously erroneous. Their souls were therefore considered to be in jeopardy, and they were to be converted if possible. Catholics were not viewed as wicked or evil, only mistaken. This also expains the dismay of some protestant parents whose children marry Catholics and convert. Looking at it from their perspective, they view their chilren as having placed their souls (and for that matter, their grandchildren’s souls) in danger. (Again, not endorsing that view. Just reporting it.)
Given all of this, I have a semantics concern about the phrases “anti-Catholic” and “Catholic-bashing.” There’s a difference between: (a)believing (even to the point of stridency) that someone of a particular faith is doctinally wrong; and (b)believing that a person of a particular faith is evil. I believe you see a good bit of the former among Southerners, but not much of the latter.
I mean doctrinally wrong.
: I have lived in the deep South all my life, and have
: never once encountered a town that was homogenously
: Baptist, or even close to being so.
Danville, Virginia must come awfully close. I had a job interview there some several years ago, and thought I’d take a look at “Churches” in the phone book. There was one church of the major Protestant denominations, but about 50 Baptist churches – probably 80% of the total.
Yes, there’s cities whose residents are predominantly one relition or another. Go to Utah, for instance. Ever hear of Kiryas Joel, New York? Little towns in northern New Mexico. Rural towns in Minnesota, where folks battle not over Ford versus Chevy, but ELCA versus Missouri Synod. Old, industrial cities in the Rust Belt and blue collar suburbs thereof.