Expert: Andrew Foley - 3/18/2008

Question
mr foley

saw that you had only a few questions and thought you might be lonely and may like some questions

what is the protestant ethos

what is the roman catholic ethos

what part of the protestant ethos that this nation was built upon are you a great admirer of

what country or nation that has been built upon roman catholic ethos would you admire as well

s


Answer
Hello and thanks for writing! I'm actually not that lonely. It seems like more than half of my correspondents choose to keep their questions private, so the public is only seeing a portion of the questions I answer. As to your question...

The dictionary defines "ethos" as "the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period." The more I think about the question, the more problematic I find the term "Protestant ethos" or "Catholic ethos". It's as if we were asked to define "human morality" or "African humor".  The concepts are just too variegated to allow us to define some common characteristics. For instance, at one time popular thought (at least among Protestants) would describe the Protestant ethos as encompassing hard-work, sobriety, literacy, education, democracy and tolerance while the Catholic ethos was defined by laziness, moral slackness, superstition, ignorance, autocracy and intolerance. When one really thinks about those labels though, one begins to see too many exceptions to the stereotypes as well as the difficulty in disentangling religious influences from other contributing factors.

For example, a Anglo-Saxon Protestant chauvinist would at one time point to the freedom of the United States and England as being directly attributable to the Protestant ethos. However, when one examines history, it can be seen that for various political and cultural reasons, England had enjoyed a much freer society and less powerful government than other nations even before the Reformation. English egalitarianism, which later shaped American culture, had originated in Catholic England as did many other features of the culture that created America. After all, the English Reformation wasn't even 100 years old when America was first settled. Are we to think that 1000 years of English Catholicism had no lasting effect on English culture? Similarly, the Protestant advocate would at one time attribute the literacy and prosperity of the Protestant nations, in contrast to the Catholic ones, to a Protestant cause. However, even though Protestantism does emphasize Bible reading and the vocation of work, we know from history that even before the Reformation, the northern European nations which converted to the Protestant faith were already more literate and prosperous than the southern European nations that remained Catholic. In a similar vein, even though Catholicism emphasized the visual arts, the countries which later stayed Catholic were already predominant in the arts before the Reformation. Also, looking back in history we can see how Protestant countries, even America, have often shown themselves to be as intolerant and bigoted as the Catholic ones. If America later became a beacon of religious freedom, I would attribute that more to our unique circumstances rather than to some intrinsic Protestant characteristic. Another inconsistency we have to face is that Catholics are at, or near, the top of the lists for the best educated and most economically successful of all Christian groups in the US. How does one explain that if we're such slackers and drunkards?  My point is that it is extremely difficult, especially these days, to 1. characterize any group with such broad, sweeping generalizations as "lazy" or "individualistic" and 2. it's especially impossible to trace some particular national characteristic specifically to a religious tradition to the exclusion of historical, geographical, cultural or political causes. In addition, the sheer multiplicity of Protestant denominations makes any attempt to define a Protestant ethos as ludicrous. When the term encompasses such diverse theological and cultural traditions as Pentecostals and Episcopalians, I wouldn't even attempt to shoehorn them into some artificial common ethos. While there are differences (apart from theological) in attitudes and practices between Catholics and Protestants, I now wouldn't go so far as to define some monolithic Catholic or Protestant "ethos".

So, I guess your question is going to force me to re-word my statement into something like "I admire the Protestant-influenced culture that created this country" which includes the system of government, the political and philosophical attitudes, the architecture, etc., all of which show diverse origins and influences, including Protestantism.