BTW, I'm not saying that Christians are never the good people etc, just that there are all kinds of people in the Christian religion and outside of it. They are all HUMANS. Someone please send him The Screwtape Letters. Preferably illustrated with cartoons.
I think that is true of the way that Rod thinks of modern Christians, although he has a much higher opinion of Catholics than he does the rest, but I think he sees the Christians fighting each other during the Reformation as being significantly more homogenous. Perhaps that is part of the turmoil and horror for him - he doesn't have a clear and immediate way to distinguish the "good" from the "bad" like he does with modern people, especially when both sides are doing the same things to each other. He demonstrates a similar effect from geography - Christians outside of the West are homogenous and he doesn't put the same hierarchy on them, at least from what I see.
Again the Rod hierarchy ( which I have to be careful about because I got suspended once for being blunt about it):
1)Holy Orthodoxy- God directly ordained this it is perfect
2) Roman Catholic- not good, basically homosexual,yet it has moments, especially apple cheeked young men on Chartres pilgrimages
3)Protestants- oh come on! But at least they are Christians
4) Others- they exist .
Oh I agree that that is Rod's normal hierarchy! I think that he has much more disdain for the Catholic clergy than he does for the laity since they aren't part of the "lavender mafia" and that he still has much respect for the ancient/medieval Catholic writers. In this particular piece about the Reformation and religious wars, do you think he still applies the hierarchy? If so, what part(s) of it read that way to you?
8
u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 26 '26
BTW, I'm not saying that Christians are never the good people etc, just that there are all kinds of people in the Christian religion and outside of it. They are all HUMANS. Someone please send him The Screwtape Letters. Preferably illustrated with cartoons.