Oh so politically uncorrect!

Where I worship, St. Davids Episcopal Church Columbia, SC

The question I chose to answer today is so taboo these days that even bringing it up in certain places and circumstances could get you fired!  We have become so hyper-sensitive that to ask a person what race or religion they are is verboten.  You are welcome to take a stab at surmising, but to flat out ask is boorish at best and  actionable at worst.  So why did I choose to bring up such a touchy subject here?  I want it entered into the record.  This is supposed to be a personal history to be passed down to my descendants, so I set aside the silly moors of my society to deal in the facts.  Of course the political correctness that is so irksome to me is only the fallout of past discrimination and in an attempt to put a stop to it, we have over corrected and hopefully the time will come when openly asking about race and religion will not be seen as an attempt at singling someone out for negative treatment but rather a chance to celebrate our differences and share our similarities.  

So with no further ado, I will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.   I am a WASP, a White Anglo Saxon Protestant.  I am the walking talking definition of a WASP, and me and my kind have been so for many generations, at least 9 that I know of for sure.  I have had my DNA tested as part part of the National Geographic Society genographic program and have traced my genetic lineage back to the cro magnon of Europe.  I share DNA with Oetzi the ice man found frozen for millennia in the alps.  Interestingly enough, I share the same Haplogroup with the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe and though I have yet to have the testing done, there is a strong statistical possibility that I am not only a WASP, but may be Jewish too!  They do seem mutually exclusive, I agree, but the genes don't lie and I harbor a small hope of being genetically linked at least, if not culturally linked to God's own chosen people.  Maybe one day I will fork over the money to find out for sure, until then I will just bask in the possibility.

What I do know for sure is that many of my ancestors were part of the reformation in Europe.  I have Huguenots, Pilgrims, Puritans, and German religious sects all present in my family tree.  But I also know that the lines were not so black and white for some of my ancestors.  My 9Great  grandfather Epke Banta was brought before the prosecutor  in Friesland and fined for having a Catholic Priest into his home to baptise his child.     Zealots are Zealots and intolerable no matter what they ascribe to or in whatever age you find them.   Epke was a protestant but apparently not protestant enough.  I think he and I would see eye to eye on the whole Church thing.  Protestant, Catholic...what does it matter if you are in a sincere and earnest relationship with your creator.  A Godly man or woman is a Godly man or woman regardless of what set of human ecclesiastical contrivances  they choose to adhere to.  I guess the political correctness was going on then just as it is today, it just keeps spiraling into ever broadening circles.  I suppose it is better today than it was back then, we can be Catholic or Protestant without having to fear for our lives and fortunes.  And things have even starting coming back full circle.  We protestants split from Rome because of the excesses, immorality and a departure from scripture that we saw in the Roman Church, and now protestants are returning to Rome, my own family included, for the very reasons their ancestors left over 9 generations ago.  Would they, our ancestors, be rolling over in their graves at the thought of their progeny returning to Rome?  I think not.  I think they would be proud of their descendants for doing just what they themselves did in leaving behind the "Church" in order to follow God.  So now my Mom and my sister have followed God to the Roman Church and I have chosen to stay in the mission field that is the Protestant Episcopal Church Of the United States.   So that is the answer to the question what is my race and religion.  I am white and hopefully Jewish, I am a dissapointed protestant with Catholic sympathies and if current science is correct you can add a dash of neanderthal to the whole thing, stick a fork in it and call it done.