Politics, Propriety, and "Proselytism" in Russia
Lawrence Uzzell Thursday, 1 September 2005
In one of the classics of Russian literature, Anton Chekhov's "The Lady with the Pet Dog," the title character is asked if her husband is German. Her reply: "No...he is Orthodox."
The assumptions crystallized in that episode are neither as absurd nor as alien to Western Christianity as most Americans would like to think. It was not so long ago that Protestantism was thought to be so intrinsic to American national identity that no Roman Catholic could ever be president. Though Americans now like to boast of national commitment to "tolerance," deep down we know that politics and culture are not so easy to separate, and that culture inevitably involves religion. If Catholics rather than Protestants had founded the United States, American society would be different in many ways, including ways not overtly connected to theological doctrines.
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