Abstract

I was once invited to the United States to observe a meeting of scholars who studied Christianity and politics in that country. I soon realised that scholars of Catholicism perceived the comparative dimension of their work, that Catholicism and American politics had to be studied in the light of Catholicism and politics elsewhere. But scholars of Protestantism showed no such awareness; it was as if an important contemporary relationship between Protestantism and politics existed only in the USA. This belief is probably shared by most people in the developed West. But it misunderstands the reality of Protestantism globally.