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You make it sound as though the pastoral and spiritual care of their congregations was worthless. In a world where belief in God was widespread and living condi

You make it sound as though the pastoral and spiritual care of their congregations was worthless. In a world where belief in God was widespread and living conditions tough, the value of a parson was not just in their scientific or artistic contributions.

cpill 3y ago
[flagged]
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
But most barely did that. Of course there were good spiritual leaders, but imagine you went to every US Ivy League college, took all the trust fund students for the next decade and replaced all the priests in all American churches with those trust funded students. Would they have a sense of mission - or would they feel entitled and frustrated at the same time? Some would do well of course. But without training, without a calling, it’s not great. That’s the situation - the social elite of a nation simply sat as mid level church managers.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  As far as you've shown us so far, you have absolutely no facts to back any of this up, and you just hate the church and English society back then. OK then.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Seems more reasonable and likely to me than not. Easy enough to look up. Shall we bet before we do?
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    Oddly the front page of HN shows “diary of a country parson” which Bryson referred to liberally. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004). We assume Woodforde (the parson in mid 18 early 19 century England is fairly representative. Yes weddings christenings and burials but mostly … nothing much beyond weather and food. Did he support a new school, improve the unionisation of the farm workers, yadadada Society grows or stagnates. Having the elite supported by the majority of workers and then just sitting back and stagnating seems … worthless. How many of us are pushing in the right direction - that history will look back in two centuries and say “good”
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      Of all the worthless things one can do, picking out one aspect of society 150 years ago and critiquing it by modern standards has to rank at the very top. But you do you.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

cpill 3y ago

[flagged]

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

But most barely did that. Of course there were good spiritual leaders, but imagine you went to every US Ivy League college, took all the trust fund students for the next decade and replaced all the priests in all American churches with those trust funded students. Would they have a sense of mission - or would they feel entitled and frustrated at the same time? Some would do well of course. But without training, without a calling, it’s not great. That’s the situation - the social elite of a nation simply sat as mid level church managers.

AlbertCory 3y ago
As far as you've shown us so far, you have absolutely no facts to back any of this up, and you just hate the church and English society back then. OK then.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Seems more reasonable and likely to me than not. Easy enough to look up. Shall we bet before we do?
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  Oddly the front page of HN shows “diary of a country parson” which Bryson referred to liberally. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38992004). We assume Woodforde (the parson in mid 18 early 19 century England is fairly representative. Yes weddings christenings and burials but mostly … nothing much beyond weather and food. Did he support a new school, improve the unionisation of the farm workers, yadadada Society grows or stagnates. Having the elite supported by the majority of workers and then just sitting back and stagnating seems … worthless. How many of us are pushing in the right direction - that history will look back in two centuries and say “good”
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Of all the worthless things one can do, picking out one aspect of society 150 years ago and critiquing it by modern standards has to rank at the very top. But you do you.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]