My Antonia Religious Differences
Religious Differences in My Antonia During the nineteenth century many Bohemian immigrants left their homelands in search of a sustainable life, and to be able to survive with their families. The Catholics and the Protestants/ Lutherans showed many differences between the two religions, and this caused many issues in many communities. At this time in the nineteenth century the Protestants/ Lutherans made up the majority of the citizens in the United States, which proved to cause religious differences with the Catholics because of their different ways of practicing their religion. Between the two religions many disagreements have come from certain topics in their religions. For the Catholics they believed suicide was sinful to god. They believe that your soul would suffer in purgatory, and to help that soul you must pray through icons. However for the Protestants/ Lutherans believed suicide was not as sinful as the Catholics. The Protestants/ Lutherans do not believe in Purgatory, and they believe you can pray directly to god. Throughout the novel My Antonia, by Willa Cather the Protestant/ Lutheran Burden family was not able to accept the Catholic Shimerda family’s beliefs in suicide, purgatory, and iconography. The idea of committing suicide was a controversial topic because many of the citizens in their area were protestant, and few were Catholic such as the Shimerda family. Daniel Doyle, Jesse Rushing, and Rodney Stark in their article “Religion and Suicide”, write about the Catholic faith believes that taking your own life or committing suicide was considered to be a “mortal sin” (p. 121). The Catholics believed that if anyone was to consider taking their own life that individual would be deciding that life was meaningless, and not worth the effort to continue living. Many Catholics believed that individual would be “living in eternal damnation” to account for their sins (Doyle, Rushing, and Stark, p. 121). The Catholic Church thought suicide was horrible
Cited: Bradley Binau, Pennebaker James, Janus Mark-David, VandeCreek Larry. "Praying About Difficult Experiences As Self-Disclosure To God." International Journal For The Psychology Of Religion 12.1 (2002): 29-39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. Print. Sahas, Daniel J. "Iconoclasm And Iconoclash: Struggle For Religious Identity." Catholic Historical Review 95.3 (2009): 578-580. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2012 Stark, Rodney, Doyle, Daniel, and Jesse Lynn Rushing. “Religion and Suicide.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: 22 Feb. 1983: p 120-131. Print. Thiel, John E. “Theological Studies”. A Reading of the Development of the Doctrine of Purgatory: 2008: p 741-785. Print.