Sunday, December 18, 2011

Protestantism's weak link

For many years now mainstream Protestant sects, e.g., Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, et al, have been losing communicants while Evangelical sects have been growing. There are no doubt many and complicated reasons for this development;  however,  at least one obvious explanation lies in thinking of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who as the head of the Church of England putatively speaks as the religious voice of the state of England and its worldwide offshoot, the Episcopal Church.  Williams embodies the secular and politically correct "social justice" philosophy reflected in the leftist politics of Barak Obama and his minions.  Briefly this philosophy is anti the values embodied in the American Constitutional, anti the concept of American exceptionalism,  anti-Western values in general, specifically Capitalism's embrace of the importance of self interest, private property rights, competition, and all the rest that goes with an economic system that has raised millions of people out of poverty over the last two hundred years.  Communitarians like Williams and Obama want  an economic system that produces equal outcomes and a society in which all group political and religious rights and values are accepted and respected equally.  The only real difference between the Obama-Williams and communist philosophies is the acceptance of a role by religion by the former.  Of course those religions must embrace the relativism and social justice values inherent in communism to be acceptable. Clearly the protestantism of shared values with Capitalism, to wit: the importance and significance of the individual person and the attendant values of  hard work, self discipline, competitive spirit, individual good works, and the like, has given way in the Obama-Williams world to a group rights, non competitive cooperative feel good, equality above all else, Protestantism.  Roger Kimball provides some interesting insights into the thinking of Rowan Williams here.

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