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Archiver > TMG > 2001-05 > 0988714677


From: "Darrell A. Martin" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Early marriage records and established religion
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 05:57:57 -0500
References: <00c901c0d1b8$51d253a0$6fd1e4cf@sau35.k12.nh.us>
In-Reply-To: <019301c0d222$99184700$24907cd1@carolsimpson>


At 01:39 AM 5/1/01 -0800, Carol Simpson wrote:
>Christopher Brooks wrote:
>
> >When I was a boy we used to challenge each other to spell
> >"antidisestablishmentarianism." The word refers to the eventual
> >movement to overthrow state-sponsored religion in the various
> >states.
>
>Actually, it means the opposite of this.
>anti- = against, opposite
>dis- = away, apart, deprive of, lack of
>disestablish = to deprive (a state church) of official sanction and support
>by the government
>establishmentarian = a member or supporter of the Establishment
>-ism = a doctrine, theory, system or devotion to a system
>
>establishmentarianism is a devotion to a system, the Establishment
>DIS-establishmentarianism is the LACK of devotion to the Establishment, or
>more specifically, to deprive the state church of that state support
>ANTI-dis-establishmentarianism is to OPPOSE that deprivation of government
>support, i.e. to OPPOSE the eventual movement to overthrow state-sponsored
>religion in the various states. :-)
>
>Carol Simpson
>Homer, Alaska

Hi, all:

I believe Carol's reverse engineering of the word is absolutely correct.
However, I believe the word has little or nothing to do with the U.S.A.
Interestingly enough, the word itself does not appear in the Compact
Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971 (don't let "Compact" fool
you, it is a monster in two huge volumes set in microtype). "Disestablish"
does appear, however, and the examples of usage cited point to a debate
going on in the U.K. in the late 1860's regarding the disestablishment of
the Irish church. It does not say so, and please someone correct me if I'm
wrong, but I believe the church being disestablished was the Irish branch
of the Church of England, which was the church of the landlords and the
settled Scotch-Irish and, in the eyes of the Gaelic Catholic majority,
simply another means of English oppression. (I am Protestant by birth,
choice, and conviction, if it matters; I do have a little Irish Catholic
ancestry, of which I am inordinately proud.)

From the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, there was no established
church. A lot of effort went into removing the long-standing traditions of,
for example, New England, where statements in e.g. Vermont town records of
the very early 1800's by persons declaring "I do not agree in religious
opinion with the majority of the inhabitants of this town" have significant
genealogical value, besides at the time absolving the declarant of any
responsibility for supporting the "settled minister" in the town. These
were practical issues; often, the town church and the town meeting hall
were one and the same, and it was impossible to sort out what body had
erected it and therefore "owned" it, for just one example.

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois


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