There is a
unique connection between low-church religion and leftism. As I said, ecclesiastical leveling often becomes political leveling (democracy) and economic leveling (socialism). You see this with the revolutionary groups of medieval Europe (Taborites, coercive Anabaptists); the radicals of the English Revolution (Diggers, Fifth Monarchy Men: even the mainstream Parliamentarians); the republican-leaning Huguenots in early-modern France; the French philosophes that generated the revolutionary ideology of the 18th century (e.g. Rousseau); and the 19th century American Republicans (soon to become Progressives). There's nothing comparable for high church Christianity, whether Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or even relatively high-church Protestantism (e.g. Anglicanism). I should note that this high-church/low-church distinction isn't unique to Christianity (it really has nothing to do with Christian theology). The same trends are evident in
Mazdakism, a low-church version of Zorostrianism that generated a communist movement in ancient Persia.
If by decentralization you mean egalitarian tendencies, then yes, that's precisely my point.
How so?
Martin Luther was separated from Christ by fifteen centuries; does this mean there's no relation?
Once again, teachings such as those of Hus (i.e. low church teachings) tend to generate political and economic egalitarianism.
Hus (church leveling) --> Taborites (political/economic leveling)
Yankee Pietism (church levelling) --> Progressives (political/economic leveling)
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