When I was a boy out in the sand hills, I didn’t know about any denominations except Baptists, my mother’s family, and Methodists, my father’s family, and the general category of “holy rollers” that we could hear a mile away on Sunday night as we sat outside.
I guess I was about five when we went to a Lutheran wedding out in Lexington County, which was once German-speaking. About that time I realized that every Sunday, in the Apostle’s Creed, which all of us knew by heart by age three, in the list of things we declared we believed in was “The catholic church and the communion of saints.”
By that time I was truly aware that a Methodist is not a Catholic. But I didn’t understand what the Trinity was, either, nor did most people.
That was my fist lesson in the critical difference between a word that is capitalized and one which is not.
Through the years it became second nature to realize that while a Catholic priest will refer to ‘An Orthodox priest,” he is convinced that he is the one who is orthodox. That “Orthodox priest” will call him a Catholic priest, but he is absolutely convinced that the only truly catholic church is the Orthodox faith.
“Episcopal” just means a church has bishops, but the Methodist Episcopal Church had as permanent a rule by bishops as did the Anglicans, the Catholics, and the Orthodox.
The names of churches are a study in themselves. Most churches, and most political parties, bear names which they once fervently objected to. “Methodist” was originally an insult. “Mormon” was originally an insult. “Quaker” was originally an insult.
Especially in America, the time came when a Catholic got tired of being ridiculed for eating fish on Friday, stood there, crossed his arms, and said, “You’re damned right I’m a mackerel snapper and I’m proud of it.”
That happened so long ago in the Methodist Church that practically no Methodist is aware that it was once a term used only as ridicule by their enemies.
Vanishingly few of the Loyalists who proudly called themselves Tories were aware that the a “Tory” was originally the term for a highway robber in Ireland, and was used as an insult.
Vanishingly few of the proud “Whigs” in the same war were aware that Whig was a Scottish word for a highway robber, with exactly the same evolution.
Which may be an important lesson about those groups who stay the course.
There are so many churches and political and other groups who proudly bear the names their enemies hurled against them that it may be that a group simply does not survive for long if a label can make its adherents back down.
Respectable conservatives all whine and grovel when labels like racist or isolationist are used against them.
No group that can be cowed by a label should be in the vicious game of political power.
#1 by Simmons on 06/25/2011 - 3:04 pm
Speaking of losing at wordism, at altright there was a losers lament posted by Richard and I offered the self defeated a hand up.
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/hbd-human-biodiversity/is-immigration-reform-still-relevant/#disqus_thread
#2 by Epiphany on 06/25/2011 - 7:38 pm
The whole History of Christianity, a dying religion, is one of the most unexplored things in all of Western Civilization. I am glad that Robert Whitaker can speak of these things. I always thought it intriguing how most denominations of this religion would refer to themselves as the True Christians, and all the rest, as . . . Pagans!
#3 by Frank on 06/26/2011 - 12:09 am
I keep wondering why some people confuse this site with a place to fish with long lines from the back of a slow-moving boat. Epiphany indeed.
#4 by Epiphany on 06/26/2011 - 5:35 am
They seem to look forward to the day when the percentage of people, in America, is mostly non White. This could be a symptom of anti–Whitism!
#5 by Epiphany on 06/26/2011 - 5:38 am
The whole thing seems to be working for their evil plan. Integration was not supposed to work! Those who wanted there to be integration KNEW that once Blacks and Whites were FORCED to go to the same Schools, they would fight with each other.
#6 by Epiphany on 06/26/2011 - 5:40 am
Colleges and University degrees do not necessarily get one good careers, nowadays. It is basically a waste of all one’s time and money!
#7 by Genseric on 06/30/2011 - 1:33 am
Proud to be a ‘Nazi.’ But, I’m not ready to commit to this six million figure I keep hearing about.
History has ALWAYS been a spoil of war,
Genseric