Europeans don't actually understand "American Protestantism" is one...
R.Сам 🦋🐏@Logo_Daedalus
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Mar 22, 2025
~1 min read
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Europeans don't actually understand "American Protestantism" is one thing I've come to realize-- they make all these assertions about Lutherans & Calvinists & I'm always thinking "What does that have to do with America?" -- from the beginning America completely severed itself from all of "European Christendom" -- America is what happens if Müntzer could have escaped Luther. The American Puritans & Pilgrims are not understood at all, but they are the key to the whole thing, considering that they were Separatists from the Anglicans. They were often called "Independents" -- which is also the most common self-identification for Americans in almost all domains of thought-- Independent. We have "Christian Independents" -- which was also synonymous with "Christian Congregationalists" -- ie: the Church was the Fraternity of Believers, which was simultaneously the Polity. What is often described as the "Individualism" of American Protestantism is actually the Communism of American Protestantism-- or the "Independence Movement"
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Free Thinkers -- Puritan Alchemists
Charismatics -- Evangelists
Nonconformists -- Dissidents
&c. This is where the very paradoxical spirit of America is forged-- being defined by Open Contradiction-- being a field for Revelation-- the Paradox of a "Tradition" defined by Revolution. Freedom as explicitly the Freedom to Protest.
This is a double-edged blade as well, in its excesses, its demonic parodies. Side by side reside Christ & the Antichrist in America. Freedom is not without danger, it is, if anything, an opening to both revelation & seduction. The White Lodge & the Black Lodge in a Lynchian psychedelic nightmare prophecy etc.
That is the American Spirit.
Charismatics -- Evangelists
Nonconformists -- Dissidents
&c. This is where the very paradoxical spirit of America is forged-- being defined by Open Contradiction-- being a field for Revelation-- the Paradox of a "Tradition" defined by Revolution. Freedom as explicitly the Freedom to Protest.
This is a double-edged blade as well, in its excesses, its demonic parodies. Side by side reside Christ & the Antichrist in America. Freedom is not without danger, it is, if anything, an opening to both revelation & seduction. The White Lodge & the Black Lodge in a Lynchian psychedelic nightmare prophecy etc.
That is the American Spirit.
