#American Protestantism

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

People, especially USian Protestants, are so weird about assuming everyone believes in god. And they are so weirdly comfortable about assuming their viewpoint is 100% the truth. My coworker felt it was entirely fair and justified to tell a child visiting our station that automation was a problem because it took jobs and "god made us to work."

Like excuse you. You are assuming a whole lot by telling that specifically to a random child you've never met before.

[mask131]

Well the short answer would be: Protestantism by definition is a much more fragmented and "branched out" part of Christianity than Catholicism or Orthodoxism, precisely because the very basis of Protestantism was to "protest", "reject" the strict, clear, rigid structure that had been imposed by Catholicism. As such, Protestantism actually covers all the religious currents that tried to change/reject/reform/oppose Catholic Christianty while staying Christian... but nobody agreed on one specific way to do this. They were united by a same rejection, not by a same building-effort - and as such the various Protestant faiths and churches are all very diverse.

And THAT must be added to the Europe vs American divide. Because when it comes to Christianity, from an European point of view, Americans are SO FRIGGIN' WEIRD. Precisely because of how the religions reinvented themselves there. European Protestantism was at least still in line with the varous historical currents and evolutions of Christianity, since the whole point of Protestantism was originally to return to an "older", "purer", "simpler" form of Christianity. But the USA? The people who went there not only tended to be most of the time religious fanatics that nobody in Europe agreed with and who pushed things way further than actual European Protestantism ever did ; but you also have to take into account the whole "building of a nation", "free land" idea that was ingrained in the settlers and colonizers' minds.

For the people of the colonies that would become the USA, America was the "free land" and "new land" for a fresh start new start, outside of any convention or heritage from the old Europe - and this was especially obvious in the religion domain. Protestantism was already an effort to rebuild a religion/build a new religion ; but American Protestantism moved it even further since they saw the opportunity to literaly recreate religion in a place where they wouldn't be "checked" and where the old authorities could not go contest them.

In fact, the very history of the differing religious currents and trends among the 13 colonies is a quite fascinating one, and explains a LOT about how Americans view Christianity vs how Europeans view it. You literaly had small religious wars in the proto-United States as almost each colony had its own dominating religious ideology, which often entered in conflicts with each other (for example, I am pulling out vague memories of the history lessons I received on the early USA literature here so it is very vague - but some colonies had a very misogynistic take religion, while others banked everything on female religious leader or an openness of clericalism to both genders)

And still today the American Christianity has so much weird differences to European Christianity (like how there's the whole "Rapture" myth that is so big in the American mindset, while barely existing in Europe).

I’m not knowledgeable enough about the differences between American Protestantism and Nordic Protestantism to say anything deep or groundbreaking about it but hearing the way Americans talk about Protestantism makes it sound like an entirely different religion.

To be clear I’m not religious. The only thing that passed for a religious upbringing was my Religions class in high school. Like most Danes I don’t have any strong feelings about Christianity. It’s just there, Christmas is nice and we get days off from work around Easter.

But just the sentence “Protestant work ethic” as a way to explain why Americans are so overworked sounds kinda humorous to a simple Dane like me. Protestantism is the state religion in Denmark (Evangelical Lutheran to be precise) and we have the highest number of Protestants per capita in the world and yet Americans who move over here often comment on how lazy we are. We leave work early, we have an ungodly number of paid days off (most of them religious), all parents get paid maternity leave and we will break our bosses’ arms if they try to make us work paid overtime too many days in a row. I’m not saying that to brag, it’s just to illustrate what the “Protestant work ethic” looks like in the most Protestant country in the world.

This is super interesting and I need to dig deeper into why Protestantism turned out so differently in our countries.

[trendynewsnow]

The Clash of Evangelical Ideals in the Presidential Election

As the presidential election reaches its climax, a unique conflict has emerged between two candidates who seldom reveal their personal religious convictions. Central to this dispute is the legacy of an itinerant evangelist, born in 1918, whose teachings have ignited a fervent debate within the ongoing civil war over the direction of evangelical Christianity in America. This clash took a notable…

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

The French Protestant Church Boston 1716

618J  Andrew Le Mercier, (1692-1763.) The church history of Geneva, in five books. Wherein the state of religion in that place before Christianity is described; and also how the Gospel was first preached there, and by whom. A catalogue of all the Bishops of Geneva, to the time of the Reformation. The state o that church in times of popery. An exact account of the blessed Reformation. The history…

[pissmoon]

There isn't a take as useless and naive as 'jesus was actually a socialist' coming from leftists. Most christian churches of all denominations all around the world are very hostile towards all sorts of anticapitalism and its not ~despite~ their teachings on 'blessed be the poor'. Their interpretation is that being poor and not fighting against it is a moral ideal and 'taking up your cross', these beliefs serve the status quo and the capital. Poverty is essential to their masochistic sense of 'spirituality' and their scam charities and 'missions' in third world countries and other shady business running! They have no interest in systemic change for a reason

[and-her-saints]

as a kid who was forced to watch Heaven Is For Real maybe every six months for three years … this painting haunts me

[realbeefman]

it is so funny to me that chase cut his hair off after he killed that guy on purpose. samson ass mentality. "ohhh i killed someone and to represent my moral corruption i must chop away my luscious locks" shut up

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Nothing has shown me how exceedingly lonely protestant american exceptionalism is than joining my jewish community.

We're having torah discussions about the part where you are commanded to help your neighbor before they're destitute - that it is a moral imperative to care for people in personal ways such as this, and it reminded me of a conversation I had a few years back that stuck with me.

In this conversation, my dad was discussing with a coworker who said it was your duty to help neighbors if they are not fortunate. "Bullshit!" my dad, essentially said (though he doesn't swear), "I worked hard, we aren't obligated to each other like that!"

And the way he said how dumb that was, to think that you should feel compelled to help a neighbor. He doesn't contest that there is no shortage of people who he would help, but his problem is feeling a duty to others. And something feels... emblematic about that.

In my community, it's just accepted that part of being in community is work. We explicitly ask, "do you need help?" because that's what community is - community is help.

It's normal to ask g-d for help, for strength, but it's weird how often american exceptionalism posits that community cannot help you. It's absolutely lonely, and I say this as someone who is very independent, who is very protective and interested in my sense of freedom and my individualism.

I don't think you need to be jewish to have a strong sense of community - what I am saying here is that being in my offline jewish community, doing jewish things with them, has truly made me see how desolate I feel in my broader, non-jewish community.

[natequarter]

[nunlolita]

Kinda don't like how the term "Puritanical" started being used as shorthand for "anyone who disagrees with me is a conservative" instead of you know. What that word actually means. And that people don't want to examine how cultural Christianity actually works and affects mainstream western culture, especially American culture, and instead opt to use it as a bludgeoning tool to shut down anyone who doesn't agree with them.

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

The Qun is just atheist communism as american christians see it. This idea that they're waiting for an opportunity to convert you to their ideals possibly by force if necessary. That your individuality and freedoms will be stripped away so that everyone is made the same. Religion will be outlawed. You won't even have a name. Those are literally all things I've heard in actual youth church services and events growing up.

[thepopculturearchivist]

LITERARY DIGEST, August 20, 1927

[marbleheavy]

i love love watching things and thinking critical thoughts! it i so much fun! i am being so garfield /srs rn! it is so exciting and fulfilling to be able to engage with what i watch and think about what it does & means

[prossima-nebulosa]

I'm finally playing night in the woods and i can say it kinda hits too close home and at the same time i feel it's even more relevant now that I'm almost near thirty than when i was in my first 20's and it says a lot.

[realbeefman]

i know chase obviously wins the religious trauma competition but can we please talk about how foreman was not only raised by a deeply religious father, but was most likely raised BAPTIST. no wonder he’s so repressed. the baptist experience is like. you’re in church every sunday listening to a man scream about how love is something that should hurt. you believe in a good, loving god - but to believe, you have to accept that true love is painful. that to be a good person, you must suffer. to love is to endure it, to work mercilessly. you’re not worthy of the love of The Almighty, and you never will be, and that sense of unworthiness is fundamental to having faith. when you sin, you don’t just hurt Him, you hurt everyone around you. you make the world worse because you have dared commit the sin of existence — to be human is to be sinful. to be loved is to feel unworthy and pathetic and hopeless. like YEAH no wonder foreman self isolates and is emotionally closed off. he was taught from BIRTH that he is fundamentally unworthy of love, and that in accepting love, he is also accepting that he truly is worthless.