Is Protestantism necessarily liberal?
Is Protestantism opposed to racialism and anti-Semitism?
Is Protestantism opposed to nationalism and authoritarianism? These questions have drawn my attention lately. We’ve already seen how church and state used to be integrated in Lutheran Europe before the Napoleonic Wars and how Protestants supported the Third Reich. We have also seen how apartheid in South Africa was a form of Calvinism.
The following excerpt comes from Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution: Nordic Political Cultures, 1740-1820:
“Like many other early modern churches, the Swedish church made effective use of the concept of Israel to create a sense of politico-religious belonging and national consciousness among the people. In Protestant discourse, ‘Israel’ could refer to various levels of political community, ranging from localities to the national or international community of Protestants, but in Sweden the concept was only used in reference to the Swedish realm as a whole. As a result of nearly complete confessional uniformity, the concept was inclusive and constituted a more realistic basis for the maintenance of the ideal of a unified politico-religious community than parallel concepts in the more pluralistic Dutch Republic or Britain. The confessional uses of the concept and the idea of Israel as a model political community were very much interwoven, so that Bishop Olaf Osander addressed the estates as ‘the citizens and inhabitants of our Swedish Zion’ in 1756, after a failed attempt by the royal family to regain power. Few preachers questioned the existence of a covenant between God and Sweden, but most entertained notions that Swedish Israel enjoyed special divine favor. Not even the sometimes radical atmosphere of the 1760s removed the relevance of the concept of Swedish Israel; the two wrangling political parties (the Hats and the Caps) took the debate on the state of Swedish Israel to the pulpit.
The connection between the state church and the fatherland was very strong in Sweden. Whenever ‘true religion’ was defended, it was the Evangelical-Lutheran doctrine of the domestic church – not that of just any international Protestant community as often in the Calvinist tradition. ‘Swedish Christendom’ was a unique community from which all non-Lutheran Swedes were excluded. Such notions of the correspondence between the borders of the religious community and the realm – and a nationalized concept of Christianity – contributed to the construction of a unified conception of the politico-religious community, particularly as the Finnish minority was also effectively integrated into it.
Swedish sermons at the Diet often made no distinction between religious and political questions. Bishop Andreas Forssenius advised the Estates in 1769 to love their fatherland not only by appealing to the Israelite model and natural reason but also to Jesus’ teachings and example, presenting patriotism as a religious and not merely a political duty. For him, a collective fear of God was true patriotism, and patriotism was a key to salvation. As part of their duty to uphold the positive image of authorities in the eyes of the lower orders, the clergy also continued to present the monarch as a kind of religious leaders as well as a model and object of patriotism.
Despite the so-called Age of Liberty, the Swedish clergy did not really advocate ‘liberty’ and in this they differed from the secular estates. For them, the established religious and political order constituted Lutheran liberty under law and order but no freedom to deviate from the Lutheran norms. Political liberty appeared to be a less relevant concept. The ideal Lutheran citizen contributed to the welfare of the realm by being upright, moderate, helpful, loyal, honest, sincere, loving, charitable, gentle, peaceable, conciliatory, non-partisan, unselfish, consensual and hard working, as the Court Preacher Gabriel Rosen put it in 1762.”
Sweden used to have an integrated church and state.
The period above was during the Age of Liberty which was sandwiched between two periods of absolutism in Swedish history. The ideal of Israel in Protestant Sweden was a model of exclusive nationalism. Denmark-Norway also had an absolutist government. Jews were banned from Denmark-Norway by King Christian V. They were only allowed to return in 1851.
Note: How is Sweden faring today under liberalism and atheism?
A little something to keep in mind: The Pope had interfered in Swedish/Norwegian politics to the extent of sending hit-men to murder pretenders to the Swedish throne.
Also it’s worth remembering that Jews are not allowed to be members of the Swedish Rite Masons to this day.
Sweden during its imperial period from the reign of Gustav Adolf to Charles XII was probably as close to perfect as Northwest Euro Christians have ever gotten in terms of temperate, manly and God-fearing government.
“the Swedish church made effective use of the concept of Israel to create a sense of politico-religious belonging and national consciousness among the people. In Protestant discourse, ‘Israel’ could refer to various levels of political community, ranging from localities to the national or international community of Protestants, but in Sweden the concept was only used in reference to the Swedish realm as a whole.”
WHOA. This is as close as I have ever seen to the Truth that the Church supersedes Apostate ‘Israel’ and has, thereby, BECOME NEW COVENANT ISRAEL.
The statement above, however, still holds to the FALSE PARAGIDM that the ‘Jews’ have ANY LEGITIMACY AT ALL, since AD 70. Sweden (indeed all Europe – Belloc’s ‘Europe is the Faith; the Faith, Europe’ is of note, here) WAS ONE OF THE “TRIBES OF YAHWEH” – not just a ‘concept.’
The Church was predestined by YHWH God and his Son, Jesus Christ, as King (I use the Tetragrammaton, not in fear, but to rub jews’ faces in it) and HAS BECOME, FOR ALL TIME, the “Israel of God.” [ Gal. 6:16]
NO OTHER RACE, NO OTHER “NATION” has God known (Amos 3:2) since Calvary, but the ‘nations of Christendom.’ i.e., Europe.
THIS IS THE TRUTH behind that quote that opened the comment. Europe’s White Folk ARE the ‘Tribes of Yahweh.’
And it is only the apostasizing of the Papacy, and her dominance as ‘first among equals’ that led to the fallacy that ALL HOMINIDS should come under that moniker, BECAUSE Papal paradigms saw universal Jurisdiction (false) as Universal Rule (true). The White Man SHOULD rule over the other races on the planet, as the O.T. and the perverted Talmudic rationales make clear, but NEVER as equals, but only as the South saw it, as a slave/servant class and nothing more.
That is the silent witness of history, the praxis of most of antebellum Southern USA, and the reality of all attempts to ‘help’ the non-white. They are all a form of twisted rule and reign, because, even if pagan, Whites know they are Superior to all other races…. Jews included.
Cantwell put it clearly, using the framework of a well-known piece of paper:
“Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Jewish overlords. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their International corporations to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our shared and, frequently unfortunate, history, to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of coexistence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the White men of this Country, and speaking on behalf of our wives and daughters, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of this Race, solemnly publish and declare, That these White people are, and of Right ought to be a Free and Independent people, who may and shall establish amongst themselves a Government whose forms are in line with their nature and preferences; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to International Jewry, and that all political, economic, and cultural connection between them and International Jewry, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
https://radicalagenda.com/2019/12/06/radical-agenda-s05e089-intercourse-of-human-events/
There is no returning to the Swedish Lutheranism of Gustavus Adolphus, HW.
This is part of a broader series about illiberal Protestantism.
I’ve been writing about this for the last couple of years. Zionism proper started only in the 20th century. Before that, to European Protestants, Historical “Israel” in Palestine may as well have been “Atlantis” or “Narnia” or “Middle Earth.” It was a far away quasi-mystical kingdom in the distant past.
The concept of “Israel” was applied to their own ethno-national group and justified their nationalism vs. the European empires, whether it was the various political Empires (like the Holy Roman Empire) or the imperial Catholic church.
You see much of the same thing in Southern/American Bible Protestant cultures. The religious right would say “no King but Jesus” to defend their “conservative limited government republicanism.” The various “Christian Identity” and “British Israelism” cults would even claim a direct ethnic line to their people from “the Lost Tribes of Israel.”
If you only have one book, one myth, you interpret that in a way that is useful to you. Even today the “Rebel Yell” podcast guys do much of the same thing.
If you read all of those old Protestant “Confessions of Faith” you will see that they were essentially politico-religious Constitutions. Often they merely used the Bible as proof-text – they could just as well have proof-texted from Homer or the Aeneid or the Prose Edda.
The Church is civil society. Since the state, having the monopoly on violence, is a blunt tool, you want it to be used minimally. But humans need far more organization and enforcement of social norms than just criminal law. That is where civil society institutions, like the church, come in.
But you aren’t going to get anywhere in 2020 trying to build “an American church” or even a “Church of Dixie.” The closest you are going to get in the Southern Rebel podcast guy’s idea, which is basically local churches as organization nodes.
A network of local, mostly independent churches, with an educational system and a culture of gift economy and, say, silver coins, could be quite useful.
It’s always about organization, and the keys to organization is communication (education) and coordination (money) – build those two things and the institution builds itself.
Protestantism *was* nationalism as opposed to Catholicism which *was* imperialism. Anglicanism started off national and grew to imperialism as the British empire grew.
No ideology is really inherently anti-white. Wordism is just that, words.
Many ideologies have become anti-White, though. And those anti-White views have become laws, regulations, rewriting of history and theology, and even institutions of influence and power such as the EU and the Open Society “charities.” Words have effect, have influence. The meanings we give to words can upend reality. You’re hoping to influence others with your words. Your philosophy seems to be self-negating. What am I missing?
(BTW, I also see the way out of centralized control through developing local, parallel alternatives to our overarching institutions of education, media, religion, etc.)
The difference between Lutheranism and other forms of Protestantism can’t be stressed enough. The very concept of Protestantism is very much an Anglo concept; probably because the confessional documents of Anglicanism are so broad, and open for interpretation, potentially including everything from Roman Catholicism without the pope to Puritanism.
In Sweden Calvinism and Zwingliansm was banned together with Roman-Catholicism at the Uppsala Synod 1593. Sweden was called “the Spain of the North” in the 1850’s because of its religious intolerance.
As late as the 1850’s Baptists was exiled and their children was forcefully baptized. They were also forced to stand on their knee in church during mass. ¯\_(?)_/¯
1. Actual scripture in favor of ethnonationalism would bolster your case, especially from the New Testament.
2. Can it really be called atheism if Jews are still hanging around pretending to be white and influencing policy?
3. There’s the question of why Jews persisted in Europe even though hundreds of thousands of pagans were killed for not converting to Christianity. Why were Jews largely protected despite the occasional pogrom or expulsion?
4. Chinese and North Korean leadership are atheists.
The Swede’s took on Russia back in their heyday ! Now they need Moscow’s or Kyiv’s help?
On a lighter note those old sailing ships were beautiful. A lot more beautiful than modern ships. In Primary School I used to draw sailing ships all the time. I had/have no desire to draw the current ships.