Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the state’s GOP-led Legislature has disbanded a maternal mortality committee, failed to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage and turned down federal grants for child care.
It’s not only hierarchical church groups that can be repressive.
The witch-hanging Puritans of New England were Congregationalists, who recognize no church authority higher than the congregation itself – but who compelled everyone in their colonies to pay church taxes and attend services. Likewise, the Southern Baptists – a denomination literally created to defend the sanctity of slavery – don’t have bishops or a church hierarchy.
Meanwhile the Episcopalians do have a church hierarchy (originally rooted in the Church of England, founded by Henry VIII), but are generally considered the most liberal of the “mainstream Protestant” churches.
Any given church denomination may not be hierarchical, but conservatism itself (and thus conservative denominations) favor rigid social hierarchies. The church itself, as the deliverer of God’s word on earth and thus the sole arbiter of what’s moral and right, naturally should be at the top of that hierarchy.
You know, as long as you don’t belong to one of those other denominations. They’re heretics.
It’s not only hierarchical church groups that can be repressive.
The witch-hanging Puritans of New England were Congregationalists, who recognize no church authority higher than the congregation itself – but who compelled everyone in their colonies to pay church taxes and attend services. Likewise, the Southern Baptists – a denomination literally created to defend the sanctity of slavery – don’t have bishops or a church hierarchy.
Meanwhile the Episcopalians do have a church hierarchy (originally rooted in the Church of England, founded by Henry VIII), but are generally considered the most liberal of the “mainstream Protestant” churches.
Any given church denomination may not be hierarchical, but conservatism itself (and thus conservative denominations) favor rigid social hierarchies. The church itself, as the deliverer of God’s word on earth and thus the sole arbiter of what’s moral and right, naturally should be at the top of that hierarchy.
You know, as long as you don’t belong to one of those other denominations. They’re heretics.