Beverly Lewis Quotes
I grew up Protestant. My dad was a Charismatic pastor of the Families of God denomination. Often, we noticed that - during a lot of his evangelistic-type services - that some of the Amish and Old Order Mennonite couples would come and stand across the street from the church and look in the door.
This historical quote is important because it shows that there was great dissention about the celebrating of Christmas even among different Christian sects. Traditionally, the celebration of Christmas in a government building or school would have offended half the Christian population. In early America, Christmas celebration was legally prohibited in some states and required in others. This was one of the reasons that the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment into the Constitution. In modern times, some critics accuse the requirements that Christmas celebration in public facilities as being anti-Christian. But the problem has been with America since before the Constitution.
America is one of the few countries where formal religious affiliation and church going has increased in the last centuries. Religiosity has decreased throughout Europe and most of the rest of the world. In 1776 however, compared to the rest of the world, religiosity in the American Colonies was very sparce, especially since a number of the colonies had been founded by religious sects to obtain religious freedom. Ironically, America has become a more religious nation in large part because it did NOT have an established religion and all were free to worship or not as they saw fit. No other nation has spawned as many new religions in modern times. Mormonism, Evangelicals, Christian Science are just a few. There was room and freedom for new religions to arise.
Note that in addition to getting rid of the authority of the King, New York—over a decade before the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, provided for a ban on an established church or favoring one Christian sect over another. Even then New York was a multi religious and multi ethnic society with its strong Dutch tradition along with the English tradition. New York did not go as far as the First Amendment would do later in terms of freedom of religion. NY only mentioned Christian sects. However they did implement separation of church and state and an establishment clause. See {621429} for another clause that ensures separation of church and state.
Much of the Catholic Church was greatly influenced by Aquinas long past his death. This quotation laid the foundation for the view, that anything the Church does, even if seemingly wrong or absurd, has some positive value. Here, Aquinas refused to totally condemn the Church practice of giving indulgences (official absolution for serious sins) to the rich in exchange for money. His view assumes that there must be some good in all acts of the church, even if we can not now determine it. This view makes reform very difficult even after the evil is recognized. Some theologians argue that although this perpetuates some bad practices, it provides stability and prevents leaders of the church from constantly trying to adapt the church to meet current popular or civil criticism.
This is an excellent example of the many public insults that the Irish religious leaders hurled at each other exacerbating the intercommunal tension between the Catholics and Protestants. There were amost no Irish leaders of either religion who tried to dampen the animosity and conflict.
Beverly Marie Lewis (née Jones) is a Christian fiction novelist and adult and children's author of over 100 books.
