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I wasn’t intending to stereotype Protestants at all. But I think it’s not a controversial thing to say that American Protestantism in particular has some very u

I wasn’t intending to stereotype Protestants at all. But I think it’s not a controversial thing to say that American Protestantism in particular has some very unique aspects, especially in comparison to say, German Protestantism. Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. If you look at them from a certain angle, the first two have nearly identical value systems to contemporary Silicon Valley, with the content of the belief being slightly different. I should also make clear that I’m not casting any judgment on anything I’ve listed. In fact, I’d consider myself a fan of many of them. Just pointing out the similarities and the funny hypocrisy that sometimes appears by those who are very vocal in their criticism.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. Puritanism obviously isn't particularly American (nor is it a thing anymore in any coherent, nonmetaphorical sense), Prosperity theology isn't broadly characteristic of American Protestantism (though, yes, it's origin is within American Protestantism and it is more common within American Protestantism than elsewhere; OTOH, many of it's fiercest opponents are also within American Protestantism)—and, moreover, it's a component of a belief system, not something that could be shared with another group outside of the content of beliefs—and Mormonism isn't a subset of Protestantism, or, at least by the shared definition used by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity, even strictly Christian (religion doesn't use cladistic taxonomy, which you can tell by the fact we don't refer to all Abrahamic monotheists as “Jewish”.) EDIT: To tie this back and summarize my objection to the description, “American Protestantism” is a broad, diverse group united only by a small subset of the content of their religious beliefs, so saying that some other group ends up creating something that looks just like American Protestantism except for the content of belief is using lots of individually meaningful words to concoct a description that says nothing at all.
- deleted 6y ago
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- tanseydavid 6y ago
  Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense? It is not a necessary condition for the comparison that is being made.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense? It would need to be a currently existing, non-belief, unifying feature of American Protestantism for it to be a rebuttal of the argument that saying that another thing was like American Protestantism except for the content of beliefs is meaningless because American Protestantism is a diverse community united only by a set of shared beliefs.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Just off the top of my head, Puritanism, Prosperity theology, and Mormonism all strike me as very American phenomena. Puritanism obviously isn't particularly American (nor is it a thing anymore in any coherent, nonmetaphorical sense), Prosperity theology isn't broadly characteristic of American Protestantism (though, yes, it's origin is within American Protestantism and it is more common within American Protestantism than elsewhere; OTOH, many of it's fiercest opponents are also within American Protestantism)—and, moreover, it's a component of a belief system, not something that could be shared with another group outside of the content of beliefs—and Mormonism isn't a subset of Protestantism, or, at least by the shared definition used by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity, even strictly Christian (religion doesn't use cladistic taxonomy, which you can tell by the fact we don't refer to all Abrahamic monotheists as “Jewish”.) EDIT: To tie this back and summarize my objection to the description, “American Protestantism” is a broad, diverse group united only by a small subset of the content of their religious beliefs, so saying that some other group ends up creating something that looks just like American Protestantism except for the content of belief is using lots of individually meaningful words to concoct a description that says nothing at all.

deleted 6y ago
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tanseydavid 6y ago
Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense? It is not a necessary condition for the comparison that is being made.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Why would Puritanism need to be a 'thing' anymore for the previous post to make sense? It would need to be a currently existing, non-belief, unifying feature of American Protestantism for it to be a rebuttal of the argument that saying that another thing was like American Protestantism except for the content of beliefs is meaningless because American Protestantism is a diverse community united only by a set of shared beliefs.