Thread by @owenbroadcast

a low IQ (me) thread on an extremely complex topic:

our error in making one folder called "protestantism" + what this reveals about america

some people already know about this. personally i had to read literally thousands of pages to understand it. and now, ill just tell you:

this is a guy named george huntston williams. he was a historian of christianity who specialized in the history of non-trinitarian christianity. he was born in the early 1900s and died in 2000. his dad was a unitarian minister. i suspect that partially led him into his field.

he wrote a book thats almost 1000 pages called 'the radical reformation'. in fact, he coined the term 'the radical reformation' (allegedly). this is pretty recently for a term to be coined so, thats interesting in and of itself.

the book covers the 1500s + goes through almost every european country from spain to scandanavia out into the east, poland, transylvania, places like moravia, silesia, back into italy

it largely focuses on anabaptists, but i would say the book has one subtextual central thesis

that thesis being the distinction between the magisterial protestant reformation, and the radical reformation. but this is a twitter thread and im just going off the cuff here so, lets dumb it down (for me, not you).

when we think of the protestant reformation, we think of:

martin luther, calvin, those guys, vs. the catholic church.

however in reality, there was a third group, that they both disliked.

if we imagine europe as a small video game, basically martin luther and calvin broke away, and locked down a bunch of territory pretty quickly.

so, in those realms, but mostly in places they didnt swiftly lock down, there were other groups who they themselves disagreed with. a lot. martin luther and calvin were fine using state power to enforce their views in territory we might casually say they "secured".

so if you disagreed with them, who were you? you were a third group of sectarians - meaning, mostly a coalition of the fringes. you were just part of a third folder, and lots of people in this folder had nothing to do with each other, except this odd position they were now in.

heres a twitter user correctly noticing this, by the way:

https://twitter.com/Italian347/status/1648183398546931712?s=20

so, what did these groups believe in? well, lots of stuff. there isnt one thing they all had. some had a few of these, some had only one or two. just going off the top of my head, heres some things, some major and common, some really fringe and weird:

(just to be clear no one group had all these, some may be just one weird random group. DYOR)

not doing infant baptism (i.e. believers baptism)
not using state power to enforce their beliefs
pacifism
sabbatarianism (i.e. hardcore doing the sabbath, sometimes on saturday)

...

sometimes, not being trinitarian
or, atypical beliefs about Jesus
sacramentarianism (i.e. an atypical relationship to the sacraments, maybe theyre just a metaphor or symbolic or inward or unneccesary etc.)
nonadorantism (not praying to Jesus)
extreme skepticism of priests

...

getting revelation themselves
keeping property in common or hyper communal stuff
mega apocalypticism
unitarianism
universalism (no hell)

could just keep going on here. but, lets get to the point.

theres two points:

A) the descendants of these groups, which range from full on, "yeah thats my grandfather" to "retaining a slighlt influence thats hard to spot" get lumped in with the magisterial protestant reformers

but, really,

if you think about it...

(dont get mad) the "normal" protestant reformers are almost

in a way

closer to the catholics than they are to these groups

think about what "old school" lutherans think about the sacraments and classical stuff like that

they're really really really far away from these groups

so, you often see people bring out quotes from luther or calvin on things like that, classical doctrines, and they present it as an "own", like, "tee hee american protestants dont even believe anything like this".

well, yeah.

thats why. theyre not really related in that way.

not only are they not really related in that way, if you grab two protestants, in america, ideologically its actually pretty easy to get someone whose ancestors spent most of their time trying to not get killed by the heirs of luther and calvin. they werent paling around w them.

for example, someone sent me this.

thats why.

its an error in historical categories.

point the second.

well, lets look at another comic. i like the dog in this one:

i went on a long quest to understand american christianity. i suppose understanding such a large phenomena in full is basically impossible. but this was a huge piece of the puzzle. if i was going to come out the gate with an explosive attention grabbing statement, it would be:

it kind of seems like

america isnt a protestant country.

america is a radical reformation country.

everything just makes sense after realizing this.

at the most zoomed out level, america doesnt believe (ostensibly on paper) in using state power to coerce religious beliefs. and when you go through our history, every page, theres... just weirdos. just atypical weird people.

think about all the weird groups (hey i love you guys whats up) america has uniquely produced.

they all fit this category and have some of the stuff i mentioned above.

but then, work your way back to the center. its all like this, almost all the way through.

there ARE the other (frankly more) normal groups there, but really, its more people that fit in this third category.

i mean what category do our largest "most american" (in a way) group (evangelicals) REALLY go into? people are always clowning on them on here for... what?

NOT being more creedal. NOT being more historical. NOT being more confessional. NOT being more like... any of the non radical reformation groups mentioned above. not doing the sacrament. not doing... any of that stuff.

well doesnt that kind of just totally make sense

?

the radical reformers could only really put roots down hard on the edges of christendom, where they werent going to get merked (that means killed). there was one unitarian king once, i heard. where? transylvania. they could get ground far from state power that would kill them.

theres also an english vibe of letting weird beliefs do their thing (one example, swedenborg left sweden [lutheran] to go write and publish in england).

well, theres one place that was REALLY far out on the edges of christendom when it started, and had english roots:

who founded pennsylvania? quakers. are they closer to the radical reformers or to luther? you know what else you see in pennsylvania? amish people. they're kind of anabaptist? arent they? thats just one random example

it just cuts all the way through and colors everything

i drive around my town. pass a "church of christ". who are they closer to, luther or the radical reformers?

pentecostal church, same question

non denominational church, same question

mormon church, same question

baptist church down the street (thats an interesting one)

seventh day adventist church near my house, same question

evangelical megachurch, same question

heres a weird complex one: go through a list of the founding fathers - not going to get one clear answer, but, same question

thoughts for the mind

thank you for reading my thread