What Denomination is Father Tim?

[PrivateTim]

What denomination is Father Tim? I mean to be called "Father" he kind of needs to be an orthodox religion, Catholic, Anglican or Orthodox like Russian or Greek Orthodox. Most Protestant religions call their head a pastor or reverend and they don't wear clerical collars or go to seminary in the same way Catholics do, they go to Bible colleges or if they go to a place like Dallas Theological Seminary, it is just a graduate school, it isn't a cloister the way a Catholic seminary is.

[Tiger]

I don't remember it being stated. Perhaps he is a Unitarian. That's the most gay-friendly church, so it seems like a good candidate.

[methodwriter85]

I'm pretty sure it's Unitarian.

[PrivateTim]

I'm pretty sure it's Unitarian.

 

Unitarianism wouldn't square with Fr. Tim's theology.

 

While the collar and title are orthodox, the theology is Protestant, more akin to United Church of Christ, Methodists or something like that. Could be Anglican (Episcopalian) or Lutheran except most Lutheran groups call the head a pastor, but Lutheranism does have different groups with different beliefs so some could have a leader they call Fr.

[B1ue]

He may be a former or very liberal catholic that has moved away from his original beliefs due to what he percieves as his higher calling. With no parishoners to give the game away, he can call himself whatever he pleases.

[mmike1969]

I am almost positive he's a pastafarian...

[GLH]

I'm going to go with Episcopalian. I am a Methodist and I've also attended a local progressive United Church of Christ congregation and I don't recall them referring to their pastor as anything but Reverend.

 

http://www.goodshepherd-ucc.org/index.html

Edited December 18, 2010 by GLH

[Mark Arbour]

I'm going to go with Episcopalian. I am a Methodist and I've also attended a local progressive United Church of Christ congregation and I don't recall them referring to their pastor as anything but Reverend.

 

http://www.goodsheph....org/index.html

 

I should have answered this before. The model religion is Episcopalian, and for validity I recruited a retired Episcopalian minister onto my team to help with the theological issues. His name is Harry. Be nice to him or you go straight to hell.

[methodwriter85]

Since Darius is now going to Santa Clara University, it made me wonder about their religion. Brad is an atheist; but I'm not entirely sure his kids followed suit. I'm assuming that the Cramptons and Schluters are/were some Protestant religion. I would have assumed the Hayes were Irish-Catholic or something like that, but Steven in the Box mentioned going to church with Aaron Hayes. Jeanine is supposed to be from an Italian-Catholic family, but it does not look like she really immersed her kids all that much in religion. I'm assuming that Darius at least got baptized/Christened, and I know JJ did, but I'm wondering if Will got any kind of christening when he was born, or if Brad wouldn't let her do it. Will seems like he's atheist the way his dad is, but I can't see Darius as an atheist if he's willing to go to a Jesuit school, and if he does wind up in Iraq I think the boy's likely to find religion pretty quickly. JJ might be secretly atheist but he'd never publically admit it because good figure skaters are supposed to be good Christian heterosexual boys who wait til marriage, apparently. My guess would be that after 9/11, JJ meets some fellow figure skaters who are going crazy on religion and convince him to join a church group or something like that. A LOT of people suddenly got very religious after 9/11, and it'd be interesting if one of the kids reflected that.

 

I kinda wonder how religion might play into what happens with the babies- will Jeanine have her daughter baptized? Mark's also envisioned Tiffany as being Catholic, so I'm guessing the son would be baptized as well. Except, if it DOES wind up being Elizabeth Danfield's grandson, I can see her hitting the roof because he's supposed to be Southern Baptist like the Danfields.(I'm assuming they're Southern Baptist,but I could be wrong.) There's no way a Southern political family, especially post-Rise of the Moral Majority, would ever want to look like atheists, so I would think that if Wade is the father, Tiffany's going to be pressed into having the child put into whatever religion they're supposed to be in. Although if the Danfields are Southern Baptist, that would be an adult baptism, wouldn't it? Maybe the Danfields are Anglican instead? They would fit with them being an old-school, elite Southern family.

 

We do know that Father Tim is Episcopal, and that the Carrswolds switched to the United Methodist Church after they came to terms with Matt being gay, right?

[Mark Arbour]

Just because someone goes to a Catholic School, doesn't mean they're Catholic.

 

The Carrswolds and the Danfields are Episcopalians, the staple religion of the American East Coast Brahmins.

[methodwriter85]

Just because someone goes to a Catholic School, doesn't mean they're Catholic.

Right, but it's not a given that Darius is an atheist, either. And since he's required to do at least one course on religion, I would imagine it might make him curious to see what's out there. And, of course, he's going to make a lot of friends that are pretty Catholic. Never underestimate peer pressure.

 

What are the Schluters and the Cramptons supposed to be, with the exception of atheist Brad and JP? I would guess Mainline Protestant.

 

I'm just curious as to whether or not Will would have been baptized/Christened, or if Brad would have asked Jeanine not to do it. And of course, with the babies now, I'm curious as to what religion they'll be, since Jeanine and Tiffany don't seem to have any strong atheist leanings. I'd assumed they'd at least get a Christening. Which, if Elizabeth Danfield winds up being the grandmother, I can imagine hell being raised if Tiffany's baby isn't put in the "right" one.

 

Then there's JJ, who is in a sport that seems to like it when their skaters go to church and talk about God, so I'd imagine he'd at least play lip service to being Christian. JJ would certainly never say he's an atheist- his coach and handlers would kill him.

 

There IS an increase in religion in young people, especially after 9/11 hits, so it'd be interesting how that gets reflected here.

 

The Carrswolds and the Danfields are Episcopalians, the staple religion of the American East Coast Brahmins.

 

Are the Danfields really Brahmins, though? I would have assumed that was more of a Yankee/Boston thing, which I'm assuming the Carrswolds are sprung from. I thought the Danfields were supposed to be an old tidewater Virginia tobacco plantation family, one of the first families of Virginia. Still, it would make sense if the Danfields had stubbornly persisted on Anglicanism during the Great Awakening, which then became the Episcopal church, instead of jumping ship to the Baptist religion.

Edited September 23, 2011 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

VA ain't the Deep South in fact the Southerners of VA considered a lot of their brethren in the Deep South (GA, AL, MS) as crude and backwater. There was a lot of sentiment against slavery in VA even among slave holders and if they had been driving the bus in the Civil War, or more precisely before it, a compromise might have been reached that avoided war, but SC forced the hand of the rest of the South.

 

Point being, the old elite of VA are most definitely Episcopalian (Anglican). My grandmother, despite being a life long Californian was sent to a girls 'finishing school' in Fairfax after high school and before starting at USC. It was an experience that deeply affected her in many ways, especially when it came to segregation, which she had never seen before, but also with the gentility of VA society that still existed in the 1940's.

[methodwriter85]

Right. I didn't say that they wouldn't be Anglican- I'm also saying that it makes sense that they didn't jump to one of the other religions after Evangelicalism hit the country in the mid-18th century and again in the early 19th century. That's why I guessed the Danfields were a Tidewater Tobacco colony family that made their money in the 1700's, who then diversified into other investments after the Virginia soil went belly-up, not a Cotton-Plantation family. I'm betting someone in that family was clergy who was instrumental in setting up William and Mary.

 

It would also make sense that was an indeed an anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia, because of the fact that the soil wasn't suited to cotton-growing. The Tidewater Tobbacco areas of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware were never quite as virulent in slavery values as had states that had raised themselves around labor intensive crops like cotton and such.

 

I was just questioning if they would actually be East Coast Brahmins, which is based around Boston. The Danfields feel less like a Massachusetts Bay colony family who then migrated to Virginia and more like one of the Founding Families of Virginia. I think that it'd be more likely the Cramptons who developed from the Boston Brahmins- a branch moved off to Ohio after the territory was opened up in the 1780's.

 

The Schluters are the French ones, right? I would guess they immigrated to the country in the late 18th century during the French Revolution, eventually winding up in Ohio.

Edited September 30, 2011 by methodwriter85

[Mark Arbour]

When I used the term "Brahmin", I wasn't thinking of Boston, but of the social caste. I can see where that may have been misleading.

 

The Schluters were originally German, as I wrote of them in "The Box". They've been in America so long, though, that they're heritage is probably so broad that it may be hard to pin it to one nationality. Until, that is, we get to Stefan, who is half French.

[Gene Splicer PHD]

If Mark modeled Claremont after Zanesville Ohio, its mostly Methodists.

 

Fucking Zanesville

[methodwriter85]

See, I would have pegged the Hayes family as being Irish Catholic, but then Mark wrote that they went to church with Steven Hayes, so they couldn't have been. I think Methodist is most likely for them.

[Mark Arbour]

I don't have time to look it up right now, but in 1968 at Jeff's funeral, they were in some sort of church. That would be the Hayes' church.

 

Fuck. I had to go and bring up Jeff's death.

[sat8997]

Jeanine is supposed to be from an Italian-Catholic family, but it does not look like she really immersed her kids all that much in religion. I'm assuming that Darius at least got baptized/Christened, and I know JJ did, but I'm wondering if Will got any kind of christening when he was born, or if Brad wouldn't let her do it.

I'm half Italian half Irish. I am also not Catholic. Neither I nor my sisters were baptized and/or christened and we turned out just fine.

 

Just because someone goes to a Catholic School, doesn't mean they're Catholic.

 

Right, but it's not a given that Darius is an atheist, either.

Why does it have to be one or the other? You can be non-religious and also not an atheist.

 

I don't have time to look it up right now, but in 1968 at Jeff's funeral, they were in some sort of church. That would be the Hayes' church.

Baptist.

[methodwriter85]

Baptist? That seems really off for the area.

 

I'm going to fanwank that the Hayes were originally Methodist, which is why they used to attend church with the Schluters and the Cramptons, but then switched over to Baptist after Aaron "died".

Edited October 4, 2011 by methodwriter85

[Mark Arbour]

 

I'm half Italian half Irish. I am also not Catholic. Neither I nor my sisters were baptized and/or christened and we turned out just fine.

 

 

That's debatable.

 

 

 

 

 

Baptist.

 

Thanks. People like the Hayes would be vulnerable to the bible-thumping fire-breathers like the Reverend White.

[methodwriter85]

double-post

Edited October 4, 2011 by methodwriter85

[methodwriter85]

Thanks. People like the Hayes would be vulnerable to the bible-thumping fire-breathers like the Reverend White.

Particularly after dealing with the death of their beloved war hero son, Aaron. It makes total sense.

 

Which again makes me think that 9/11 and the Iraq War are going to have some pretty interesting effects on the broader soap canvas. You just know that Darius is going to get crap from the closeminded people in Claremont for looking middle-Eastern, and some of the Hayes should enlist, and at least a few people are going to jump on the religion bandwagon. Reverend White is going to get total mileage out of 9/11, and the political climate is going to veer very sharply towards the right because of who got Bush into the White House.

[sat8997]

 

That's debatable.

 

 

 

Bitch!!

[Daddydavek]

 

Particularly after dealing with the death of their beloved war hero son, Aaron. It makes total sense.

 

Which again makes me think that 9/11 and the Iraq War are going to have some pretty interesting effects on the broader soap canvas. You just know that Darius is going to get crap from the closeminded people in Claremont for looking middle-Eastern, and some of the Hayes should enlist, and at least a few people are going to jump on the religion bandwagon. Reverend White is going to get total mileage out of 9/11, and the political climate is going to veer very sharply towards the right because of who got Bush into the White House.

 

 

Given J.P.'s reaction to the SE Asia debacle in the '60's, could it be any less for the S.W. Asia debacle that Bush-Cheney got us into? I could see J.P. being ok going after O-B-L in Afghanistan, but getting us into Iraq is going to really raise his ire. His entire extended family will be fully informed by his incisive acumen. You also are also right about Claremont and the right wing. Way too much of America has bought into that without really doing much thinking for themselves.

[methodwriter85]

Would it really be just Claremont, though? Prop 8 does happen in California, and from what I understand, was driven and funded by the conservatives in places like Orange County. THAT will piss off so many CAP characters. '08 is going to be an insane year for Mark to cover. The decade in general is insane. These characters really have no clue.

 

My guess would be that Ace and Claire are going to be Bush supporters, but Claire will then get eventually turned off by the evangelical undertones of the administration. Mark really can't ignore religion once the CAP characters are under the Bush administration. It's plays too big of a role in what kind of legislation gets passed and just the general undertone of the country.

 

As for Iraq, I think JP's going to be absolutely frustrated that JJ and Will's high school/college friends are going to be more interested in Facebook/Myspace, updating their Ipods and freak-dancing to the Black Eyed Pea's

at parties than they will be in protesting the war. Edited October 5, 2011 by methodwriter85