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Confessions of a Reluctant Moderate
How a trip to Scotland and some reflection on the Protestant Reformation made me rethink my political identity.
During a recent trip to Scotland, I was visiting the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral and, I felt profoundly stirred by the tumbled stones that are all that’s left of what was, by many accounts, a truly awe-inspiring piece of religious architecture. Standing there, buffeted by the winds coming in off of the North Sea, I felt a longing to see this building as it must have been in the height of its glory, before the fires of the Revolution burned through Scotland and it was slowly abandoned. This feeling recurred several times during my stay in that country as I visited the ruins of several abbeys and monasteries that dot the landscape: Holyrood, Melrose, Jedburgh…time and again I saw the ravages that the Reformation had left behind.
When I returned to the States, I decided that I wanted to learn more about the Protestant Reformation and, as I read about it, I found myself more than a little horrified by the extremes to which the reformers went in their efforts to purge the faith of impurities. The more I read about this period of history, the more I saw the parallels between then and now. Then, as now, there was an establishment that was flawed and, far too often, corrupt…
