While not a complete parallel to modern life or all modern Protestants, I certainly see a direct line of succession from this viewpoint to attitudes on the modern hard conservative right, particularly evangelistic notions like the Prosperity Gospel and the drive to dissolve Social Security.
Not to mention welfare reform, the slow starvation of public education, public broadcasting, public just-about-anything. - sigh -
But I'm forced to wonder whether these conservative religious values are the cart, or the horse. I suspect that credulous religious conservatives are being manipulated by plain old greed. The end result of much of this moralizing is a trend toward privitization. In other words, if I can't own it, it's bad.
Mature modern Christians, Catholic, Protestant or otherwise, would agree that there is a balance to be struck between faith and works.
And please indulge me for a moment. The term "evangelistic" isn't really synonymous with the conservative right. Especially if I'm right about the holy rollers being jerked around by big business. There are some liberal Christians who are also quite passionate about "evangelically" sharing their faith. Especially in the Catholic camp, coming back to your original point. But some Protestants also.
In the Reagan years the term "fundamentalist" was used to describe the religious right, but that wasn't precisely correct, either. Progressive thinking Christians like me need to do what we can to restore the balance.
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Not to mention welfare reform, the slow starvation of public education, public broadcasting, public just-about-anything. - sigh -
But I'm forced to wonder whether these conservative religious values are the cart, or the horse. I suspect that credulous religious conservatives are being manipulated by plain old greed. The end result of much of this moralizing is a trend toward privitization. In other words, if I can't own it, it's bad.
Mature modern Christians, Catholic, Protestant or otherwise, would agree that there is a balance to be struck between faith and works.
And please indulge me for a moment. The term "evangelistic" isn't really synonymous with the conservative right. Especially if I'm right about the holy rollers being jerked around by big business. There are some liberal Christians who are also quite passionate about "evangelically" sharing their faith. Especially in the Catholic camp, coming back to your original point. But some Protestants also.
In the Reagan years the term "fundamentalist" was used to describe the religious right, but that wasn't precisely correct, either. Progressive thinking Christians like me need to do what we can to restore the balance.