IMO criticizing the Church is cool and good and some Protestant branches are broadly okay, e.g., the New England Puritans became mild liberals... after their witch-killing/genociding/Christmas-is-too-pagan/fun-is-sin period, and there are some other Protestant churches which are basically enlightenment deists/pantheists.
But many of "the core ideals" of Protestantism were shit. Martin Luther declared the right to interpret the Bible for yourself - but then encouraged the princes to suppress Anabaptists and other peasants who took their interpretations beyond his own (the latter were all over the place, from ultraconservative to anarchist). Calvinism is just Fuck You, God Gave Me Mine. Anglicanism is Catholicism, but with the King instead of the Pope and no monasteries.
In broad strokes, I'm with Max Weber - Protestantism is Capitalist Christianity. It swept away some feudal backwardness, which is good, but it made money-making moral and made poverty sin. Without universalism, it promotes individualistic, solipsistic morality, moral indifference towards the suffering of other humans. It is the ideological justification of Capitalism.
High Church Anglicanism is Catholicism that wants to fuck the Queen. Low Church (this last few decades) are Evangelical Mega-churches that want to fuck the queen
IMO criticizing the Church is cool and good and some Protestant branches are broadly okay, e.g., the New England Puritans became mild liberals... after their witch-killing/genociding/Christmas-is-too-pagan/fun-is-sin period, and there are some other Protestant churches which are basically enlightenment deists/pantheists.
But many of "the core ideals" of Protestantism were shit. Martin Luther declared the right to interpret the Bible for yourself - but then encouraged the princes to suppress Anabaptists and other peasants who took their interpretations beyond his own (the latter were all over the place, from ultraconservative to anarchist). Calvinism is just Fuck You, God Gave Me Mine. Anglicanism is Catholicism, but with the King instead of the Pope and no monasteries.
In broad strokes, I'm with Max Weber - Protestantism is Capitalist Christianity. It swept away some feudal backwardness, which is good, but it made money-making moral and made poverty sin. Without universalism, it promotes individualistic, solipsistic morality, moral indifference towards the suffering of other humans. It is the ideological justification of Capitalism.
Is there a reason why Scotland is relatively "left" liberal today in spite of Calvinism? I feel like that would make for an interesting history.
High Church Anglicanism is Catholicism that wants to fuck the Queen. Low Church (this last few decades) are Evangelical Mega-churches that want to fuck the queen