Lots to upset the observant reader at MSNBC today. Let's start off with the witches. I have no energy to debate the figures. No -my objection de jour is to the lazy translation that as the first commenter points out is terribly confusing to the modern English speaker.
False friends time, Freunde
What we in the US would refer to as Mainline Protestant denominations in the States are referred to as the "evangelische Kirche" in German. There are lots of exceptions - the Methodists for instance are a Freikirche. (I am not going to speak for Switzerland here.)
Historically you got shoehorned into whatever religion the guy who ruled your neck of the woods decided was most profitable for him in year X (treaty of westphalia??). If he felt his ties to Austria or Rome or whatever were useful to him, you stayed Catholic. If he had his eye on some monastery property you were free to reform if you were doing it yourself and if not a reformer could be imported.
Prior to that, some poor slobs had made up their own minds, but territory went back and forth (some towns near where MG comes switched back and forth between some flavor of Reformed Chritianity and Catholicism 7 times. Seven times!!) But anyway, after year X, your leader decided and you could like it or lump it. He was free to switch after that. You, peasant farmer in the town of XYZ-heim, not so much.
There were lots of Reformers though, and once having made the decision to split off from the Western Church, they continued to split (e.g. Christianity in the U.S.). Soon there were many varieties of the new Reformed Christianity. Unlike the US, though, the government's big ol' mits were stearing this process the whole time, and because religious freedom brought so much chaos, you weren't even allowed free to be the particular flavor of Protestant that you wanted. In the North - way Calvinist, middle Germany Lutheran, down by us, some kind of mish-mash. The point being in each location there was only ONE Protestant church with the locally acceptable seasoning - and they joined together to form (drum roll please) the evangelsiche (Gospel) Kirche (church) after the collapse of the monarchy.
This has absolutely nothing to do with modern Evangelical Christians.
If I meant "evangelikal", I would have said "evangelikal".
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3 comments:
Great to read an entry on this.
Raised in the U.S. somewhere to the right of evangelical, I was surprised to find that protestants in Germany are in surprising points theologically much closer to Roman Catholic.
On another note, your entry title reminded me of the problem when a witch has twins: it's tough to tell which witch is which.
If it's any comfort, the Catholics are a lot more Protetant (a story about that some time) than in the States, at least in our neck of the woods. I am very comfortable in non-Catholic settings - went to Friday night fellowship with friends all through college, but I want Mass to be Mass. Feeling alone religiously is the second worst thing about living here.
I hear you. Actually, I deconverted from fundyism about six weeks after I arrived here. Spent a lot of time reading the Bible while I was going through my Aufenthaltserlaubnis stuff. Thought I could finally figure out some of the internal contradictions that are a big problem for someone presuming literal inerrancy AND fighting to avoid intellectual bankruptcy. Had my road-to-Damascus moment and realized that Jesus wasn't coming back for me, certainly not the way I'd believed. Bummer of a bait-and-switch for the man who thought he'd arranged himself a surrendered wife ... ack.
One of my sisters is now RC ... part of me suspects part of her did that b/c it was the only thing she could do that would be "worse" (in our parents' eyes) than all my sins. On one visit, I drove her to work to spend time with her, and since she went to church every morning, I went to Mass with her. To my surprise, I truly enjoyed the services. Their authenticity was a welcome contrast to the state-protestant cynical ick I experienced in UnGroom's church.
Um, sorry that was a bit long ... and probably OTT TMI ...
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