Cromwell was a bastard

Our subject line is a summary of one of the key points from our 12 years of history classes in the Irish education system. Since then, we developed an unwillingness to take this statement at face value and read many books about Cromwell. And came to the conclusion that our Irish history classes were essentially correct. Even with that background, we were surprised to see the following item on Andrew Sullivan's blog today. Sullivan had been blogging about a strain of extremism (represented by captured fugitive Eric Rudolph) which he was labelling Christo-Fascism -- all the more useful to insulate oneself against charges of sectarian bias having spent nearly two years ranting about Islamo-Fascism. His posts drew an approving response from a reader, who included lines from a Samuel Butler poetic tirade against Puritanism, and added:

It was of course the dictatorship of Cromwell that Butler satirized. It is no coincidence that the radical and violent people who today profess to be acting in Christian causes are almost all "dispensationalist" Christians deriving their spiritual tradition from the Calvinist or Anabaptist strains of Protestantism.[reader e-mail]

You can say that again. [Sullivan's response]

There's a phrase that one still hears in Ireland (and Britain) when someone is trying to illustrate their level of religious inclusiveness; if they want to say they are referring to all religions, they'll say "Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenter." Historically, Dissenter refers to the strains of English Protestantism that were dubious about any hierarchical church and preferred less intermediated approaches to the bible, which makes it rather specific for the "other" category which is often its intended modern meaning. But note Sullivan's clear (and very Tory) endorsement of the traditional Catholic or Anglican model over the others -- it's rare to see it stated so explicitly. Or as one of those dissenters might say, That's a pretty big matzoh ball hanging out there. We'll be interested to see the responses.