Shakespeare most certainly did not believe that thinking a sin was the same as acting it. He was the most brilliant playwright of all time and had an incredible knowledge of human nature, he wasn't a raving imbecile. (Nor was Spenser.) Many of his plays tease out the time between thought and action, and nothing is inevitable. Shakespeare cared about human beings more than anything else, about our thoughts and emotions, and about the wonderful and horrible things we decide to do based on those thoughts and emotions. If Othello had just had murderous thoughts about Desdemona, but had not strangled her, there would have been no tragedy. Lysander had murderous thoughts about Hermia at one point, but that was resolved easily enough when everything returned to its proper place.
Nor did "English Protestants" (everyone who practiced the one legal religion of the Church of England, in other words) of the time believe that thinking was the same as acting, not even Puritans (illegal but not to the degree that Catholicism was), who annoyed the bejeezus out of everyone else with their uptight doctrines. They got sent to the colonies so easily because England was trying to get rid of them. Further, the entire basis of Christianity is forgiveness (forgiveness is another theme which Shakespeare deals with a lot), which washes Helm right out.
First of all, I'm not knocking Shakespeare (nor Spenser) as a "raving imbecile." I've probably read more Shakespeare than any other writer (approximately 2/3 of the plays), and I love his work. I agree with everything you said about Shakespeare. I've also read through
The Faerie Queene, but I must admit that I didn't care for it as much, and I struggled through it because of this.
In any case, I want to make this clear: when I equated thought with sin, I was treating it as
part of the body of beliefs, not the entirety. I am fully aware that forgiveness is a basis as well, and I never said that you are damning yourself eternally for thinking an evil thought. I'm not a theologian, so I'm not claiming to be an expert on any branch of Christianity, or any religion for that matter. But I made the previous statement because I have encountered it, and I have seen evidence to back it up (which I will try to provide, given some time... see below).
Additionally, I said that this idea is "reflected" in Shakespeare (and Spenser), not that it dominates their work. I'll admit that I probably shouldn't have added "and Spenser," because I cannot, off the top of my head, think where any examples of this are in Spenser, but then again, I don't remember a whole lot of
The Faerie Queene, and I was more or less assuming that, because it is a Protestant epic, that it would contain the same theological ideas as Shakespeare. But in any case, this idea
is in Shakespeare, because I know I've encountered it. I know that it is in
Hamlet for example, but I will have to take a look at the play again to provide examples.
On the subject of
Hamlet, it is a deeply theological play. I bring this up because you made the point that Shakespeare (such as your example of
Othello) is often deeply psychologically rooted. I agree with this point entirely. However, we also can't overlook the fact that Shakespeare often contains a lot of religious content as well, and it can be true that a given play is both psychologically and theologically rooted.
Hamlet is a good example, for Hamlet's psychological problems that he deals with throughout the play are firmly based in a Protestant theological context.
Anyway, anything I say is worthless without textual evidence, so I will be back.