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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1998-03 > 0888906993


From: "Virginia W. Beck" <>
Subject: Re: Hist. (con't)
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 22:36:33 -0800


Impressive history of religious persecution. Some of my husband's forebears
were Quakers, who left England for the same reason. Now I have a question
for both those who are religious (in any degree), and those who are not.
What does this pattern of religious intolerance, all over the western world,
from three major religions that, in general, are supposed to be based upon
love of one's fellow man tell us? What conclusion are we to reach? Is each
enclave of religious belief "The Only True One", and are all the rest false
and condemned? And will we fight forever over these differences?
-----Original Message-----
From: linda Merle <>
To: <>
Date: Monday, March 02, 1998 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: Hist. (con't)

>Virginia W. Beck wrote:
>>
>> How very true! Some of our ancestors were Palatine Germans who fled
>> religious persecution, war, crop failure and famine, and were given
>> sanctuary by the English until their numbers became overwhelming.
>
>Yes indeed. In comparison with Bosnia, what is amazing is how well
>the Troubles have remained contained. A friend of mine (a Catholic
>from Northern Ireland) recently moved to Bosnia as director
>of an agency which is attempting to develop democracy there.
>His emails are horrifying. Now here is a man who was raised in NI
>and he said he never wanted to hear anyone use the term "ethnic
>cleansing" in the context of NI again -- he was witnessing "real"
>ethnic cleansing, and he said it wasn't happening in NI. I guess
>it is all in your perspective. His point was anyone who used this
>term was "politicizing" and he'd grown quite tired of it.
>
>The ethnic cleansing in Germany is horrifying. Roland
>Bainton in "The Reformation of the
>16th Century" (Beacon Press) reports that ALL the people in the
>Palatine were dead at the end of the 30 years war. All the people
>there now had to be imported from elsewhere. Switzlerland is
>a partitioned country.The cantons were religiously partitioned.
>If you converted to another religion, you had to move to the canton
>of that religion. In one case a whole town converted and had to
>move. (Sorry, don't recall which way -- not sure it matters!)
>
>The vengence with which Luther exterminated the Baptists is
>horrifying, he says. One group of them (in Holland) ran around
>naked in imitation of the prophet Isaiah. Another also in imitation of
>Isaiah placed a hot coal to his lips. He was too burned to say
>anyhing for 2 weeks. At Munster they reinstated polygamy after
>the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Catholics and
>Lutherans combined to exterminate this New Jerusalem! They put
>the Davids and Enochs and Elijahs "to the rack and the sword."
>(p 107). He continues "For the most part in Europe these groups
>could find no abiding place....In Germany they were stamped out.
>This is one of the greatest tragedies of German history....The
>Anglican Church owes an incalcuable debt to the Nonconformists.
>So completely were the Anabaptists exterminated that few Lutherans
>are aware that the principles of British dissent originated on
>German soil." (p 107)
>
>"Those who did not conform, and they were the majority,
>had to suffer repeated exiles. Some went west, some went east.
>Pennsylvania received a considerable migration. Other bands
>traversed northern German to POland, Hungary, and Transylvania
>and at length to Russia, until in the late nineteenth century
>new pressures in the east occassioned fresh movements to the
>west, to Manitoba, Indiana, Nebraska, and Paraguay. Eternal
>Abrahams, they have ever loins girt ready to go they know not
>whither." (108).
>
>Fantastic book, eh??
>
>Linda (Lutheran Palatinates)
>

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