XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: dd@dandrake.com   
      
   On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 23:52:16 UTC, Derek Broughton    
   wrote:   
      
   > Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >   
   > > On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:55:22 GMT, Sindamor@Pandaturion.mor.dr wrote:   
   > >   
   > >>I have always been puzzled by Tolkien's unhappiness with CS Lewis's   
   > >>conversion, instead of to Catholicism as Tolkien hoped, but rather to   
   > >>what he described as Ulster Protestantism.  Does anyone know what that   
   > >>is all about?  I've always heard CSL described as mainstream   
   > >>Christianity without overt doctrinal affiliation.   
   > >   
   > > Lewis was Anglican, and also from Ulster. In Ireland Anglicanism was a   
   > > minority religion, and tended distinguish itself selfconsciously from the   
   > > Catholics. It tended to be a bit more "in yer face" towards Catholics than   
   > > the average member of the Church of England of Lewis's generation.   
   >   
   > Naturally, but that was only because in England we were able to convince   
   > ourselves that there were no Catholics, and essentially hadn't been, except   
   > for the odd little flare-up, since Henry VIII.   
      
   Surely you mean, no *Roman* Catholics. :-) Plenty of Anglicans consider   
   the C of E to be an integral part of the Universal (Catholic) Christian   
   Church, regardless of that unfortunate problem they had a while ago with   
   the excessive assertion of authority from Rome.   
      
   A bit of my perspective on this comes from Dorothy L Sayers, whose more   
   ignorant and narrow-minded characters (in the 1920s and 30s) are   
   suspicious of any High Church pastor in their C of E, and are doubtful   
   about anything that will "give a handle to the Papists", and may refer to   
   someone too High-Church as "practically a Roaming Catholic". Naturally,   
   she did not share these sentiments, but I've no reason to doubt her   
   reportage, whether in the novels or in the social and religious essays.   
      
   Which is not to say that they C of E folk were not less in your face than   
   the Ulster Protestants; which in turn is not to say (though Tolkien   
   apparently thought it) that Lewis was that stereotypical sort of Ulster   
   Protestant.   
      
   --   
   Dan Drake   
   dd@dandrake.com   
   http://www.dandrake.com/   
   porlockjr.blogspot.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)