Some Protestants don´t want to be called Protestants. And some other Protestants don´t want still other Protestants to call themselves Protestants. Redeemed Zoomer (a Presbyterian) belongs to the latter camp. Jokes aside, here RZ criticizes American radical evangelicalism from a more Mainline /moderate Protestant perspective.
Another sad by-product of Nominalism and the Protestant Reformation. Or no?
Not sure if this really means that much, but it´s fun listening to. Especially if you´re a nerd. It´s also a good summary of the bewildering diversity of Christian Churches and denominations. In practice, of course, even Churches that are in some sense "close" might hate each other - witness the rather rocky historical relations between Catholics and Orthodox. To mention just one example...
Now, I´m not an expert on Swiss history, so maybe this should be taken with a grain of salt or double-checked. But it kind of feels true, somehow...
What was the social base of Swiss Anabaptists? How were the Catholic cantons anti-Habsburg? Didn´t Zwingli and the city of Zürich fear that the Catholic cantons would ally with the Habsburgs?
These are exactly the right follow-up questions, because they expose how Swiss confessional politics cannot be read along simple “progressive vs reactionary” lines. I’ll take your three questions in order and then tie them together.
Swiss Anabaptism (c. 1525 onward) arose inside the Reformed cities, but its social base was not urban elites.
Predominantly:
Rural peasants in Zurich’s hinterland
Artisans and day laborers
Smallholders with limited political voice
Marginal urban workers
Geographically:
Zurich Oberland
Emmental (Bernese territory)
Parts of Thurgau and Aargau
Notably absent:
City councils
Major merchants
Guild leadership
This is crucial.
Anabaptism appealed to people who felt:
The Reformation had been captured by magistrates
Moral reform was imposed from above
Infant baptism symbolized coercive social membership
Key Anabaptist commitments:
Adult baptism
Voluntary church
Separation from the world
Refusal of oaths and military service
These positions directly undermined civic authority.
So Anabaptism became:
a protest against both Catholic sacramentality and Reformed civic discipline.
Unlike later German radicals:
Swiss Anabaptists rejected rebellion
Refused violence
Accepted martyrdom
This reflects:
Swiss communal traditions
A theological rejection of coercion
Disillusionment after the Peasants’ War
They were socially disruptive without being revolutionary.
This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Swiss history.
The Forest Cantons’ founding myth:
Resistance to Habsburg bailiffs
Defense of local liberties
Legendary origins (Tell, etc.)
Historically:
Habsburgs had been overlords in Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden
Swiss victories (Morgarten, Sempach) defined identity
So anti-Habsburgism was core to Catholic Swiss identity.
The Catholic cantons:
Opposed papal political control
Opposed imperial centralization
Maintained fierce local autonomy
They were:
Catholic in religion
Republican in politics
Anti-imperial in practice
This is late medieval communal Catholicism, not Counter-Reformation absolutism.
Catholic cantons accepted:
French pensions
Papal subsidies
But:
They avoided permanent subordination
They rejected Habsburg attempts to reassert authority
They played powers off against each other
This was defensive realism, not dynastic loyalty.
You’re absolutely right.
From Zurich’s perspective:
Catholic cantons surrounded Reformed cities
Habsburg territories lay nearby (Further Austria)
Catholic mercenary ties to foreign powers were dangerous
Zwingli feared:
Catholic cantons would invite Habsburg intervention
The Confederation would be split and reconquered
This fear was not irrational.
Because:
Catholic cantons valued autonomy over confessional solidarity
Habsburgs wanted control, not partnership
Foreign domination threatened mercenary independence
So:
Temporary coordination was possible
Long-term alliance was not
The Catholic cantons preferred confederal balance to Habsburg protection.
You now have three distinct social-political logics:
Urban Reformed oligarchies
Centralizing, disciplinary, moralizing
Rural Catholic communalism
Ritual, customary, fiercely autonomous
Anabaptist separatism
Voluntary, pacifist, anti-coercive
Each saw the others as existential threats:
Reformed elites feared Catholic foreign alliances
Catholics feared urban domination
Anabaptists rejected both as coercive
No side fit modern categories.
This triangulation mirrors what we’ve been discussing all along:
Catholic cantons = medieval participatory republicanism
Reformed cities = covenantal-juridical republicanism
Anabaptists = anti-political ecclesiology
Anabaptism is not “left wing Protestantism”; it is post-political Christianity.
Swiss Anabaptists came from marginal rural and artisan strata
Catholic cantons were anti-Habsburg by identity and interest
Zurich did fear a Catholic–Habsburg alliance
That alliance failed because autonomy mattered more than confession
The Swiss Reformation fractured along three social bases, not two
If you want, we can next:
Compare Swiss Anabaptists with Mennonites in the Netherlands
Trace how Anabaptism survives by withdrawal
Or link this to modern debates about religion and coercion
Is ChatGPT crypto-Catholic? More likely, it assumes *I* might be. Which is interesting in itself. The context is a long discussion I had with the AI about the social/class base of the Reformation, the difference between late medieval and early modern republicanism, and what have you. Here is ChatGPT´s take on the Reformation in Switzerland.
Yes. The Swiss case is unusually clear because confession tracked social structure more closely than ideology. In the Old Swiss Confederation, the Reformation split along urban vs rural, commercial vs agrarian, and elite-governed vs communal lines—more than along “theological conviction” in the abstract.
I’ll lay this out in a structured way.
Before c. 1520, the Confederation was already deeply plural:
Urban cantons (Zurich, Bern, Basel)
Wealthy
Commercial
Oligarchic councils
Literate elites
Rural cantons (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus)
Agrarian, pastoral
Communal assemblies (Landsgemeinde)
Strong customary religion
Close ties to monasteries and pilgrimage networks
There was no centralized state, and no prince to impose uniformity.
This matters enormously.
The Reformation succeeded first and most decisively in:
Zurich (Zwingli)
Bern
Basel
Schaffhausen
Its social base was:
City councils
Merchant elites
Guild leadership
Educated clergy and humanists
Why these groups?
They resented ecclesiastical rents flowing out of the city
They wanted moral discipline over the urban poor
They benefited from church property secularization
They already governed oligarchically
The Reformation was adopted by councils, then imposed downward.
In Swiss cities, Reformation meant:
Moral regulation (discipline, poor relief)
Centralization of charity
Elimination of monasteries as parallel power centers
Clergy subordinated to magistrates
This fit perfectly with urban republican oligarchy.
The Reformation strengthened the city-state.
Catholicism remained dominant in:
Uri
Schwyz
Unterwalden
Zug
Parts of Glarus
These were:
Smallholder farming and alpine pastoral societies
Politically egalitarian at the local level
Deeply embedded in ritual religion
Economically dependent on:
Monasteries
Pilgrimage
Mercenary service blessed by the Church
Catholicism here was communal, embodied, and customary, not clerical in a narrow sense.
Rural cantons saw the Reformation as:
An urban imposition
A threat to local autonomy
A destruction of traditional religious life
They associated Protestantism with:
City arrogance
Social discipline imposed from above
Economic exploitation
So Catholicism became a marker of communal resistance.
One major fault line:
Rural Catholic cantons relied heavily on mercenary pensions
France and the papacy paid Catholic cantons
Reformers condemned mercenary service as immoral
Thus:
Reformation threatened rural livelihoods
Catholicism protected an existing economic model
This is a huge reason the Forest Cantons stayed Catholic.
The split was not abstract theology:
Protestant cities tried to pressure Catholic cantons economically
Catholic cantons defended traditional alliances
Both sides saw the other as threatening confederal balance
The Kappel Wars (1529, 1531) were:
Urban Reformed vs rural Catholic
Centralizing moral reform vs customary autonomy
Zwingli himself died on the battlefield.
This often gets misunderstood.
Swiss Catholic cantons were:
Not absolutist
Not clerically dominated
Fiercely republican and anti-Habsburg
Their Catholicism was:
Anti-papal in politics
But pro-ritual in religion
Pro-local autonomy
This mirrors late medieval communal Catholicism, not Counter-Reformation authoritarianism.
Switzerland eventually stabilized as:
A confederation of confessions
With local religious autonomy
No centralized enforcement
This preserved:
Catholic communalism in the countryside
Reformed civic discipline in cities
It’s one of the earliest durable examples of confessional pluralism.
| Dimension | Reformed Cantons | Catholic Cantons |
|---|---|---|
| Social base | Urban elites | Rural communities |
| Economy | Trade, crafts | Pastoralism, mercenary service |
| Politics | Oligarchic councils | Communal assemblies |
| Religion | Disciplined, word-centered | Ritual, customary |
| View of reform | Civic improvement | External threat |
The Swiss Reformation followed social structure more than ideas
Protestantism aligned with urban republican oligarchy
Catholicism aligned with rural communal autonomy
Both were republican, but in very different registers
Confession became a proxy for who gets to rule whom
If you want, we can next:
Compare this to Germany or the Netherlands
Look at Anabaptists as a third social base
Or tie this directly into our earlier discussion of medieval vs modern republicanism
 |
| "TULIP". Get it? |
Did Calvin actually believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? ChatGPT tries to sort out this question.
Yes—Calvin affirmed a real presence, but not a local or corporeal one. He did believe that Christ is truly and really present, and he insisted that this presence is spiritual in a strong, objective sense, not merely symbolic or subjective.
The difficulty is that modern ears often hear “spiritual” as “not real.” Calvin meant the opposite.
Calvin rejected two positions he thought equally mistaken:
Rejected a local, bodily presence of Christ in the elements
Opposed the idea that Christ’s body is physically on many altars
Insisted on the ascended body of Christ remaining in heaven
This is tied to his Christology: a true human body must be somewhere.
Rejected the view that the Supper is only a mental reminder
Explicitly attacked “bare sign” interpretations
Insisted that something real is given, not merely signified
Calvin thought Zwinglians “rob the Supper of its power.”
For Calvin:
Christ is really present (vere et realiter)
But not locally or physically
The presence is by the Holy Spirit
The Spirit does not symbolize Christ; the Spirit unites believers to Christ.
“The flesh and blood of Christ are no less truly given to us in the Supper than the symbols are given to us by the hand of the minister.”
(Institutes, IV.17)
Calvin’s Eucharistic theology is inseparable from his doctrine of union with Christ:
Believers are united to Christ by the Spirit
In the Supper, this union is strengthened and nourished
We truly partake of Christ himself, not merely benefits
This is why Calvin can say we “feed on Christ.”
Calvin’s “spiritual presence” means:
Objective: Christ truly gives himself
Effective: the Supper accomplishes what it signifies
Extra nos: Christ remains outside us, yet is communicated to us
The Spirit acts as the bond (vinculum) between Christ in heaven and believers on earth.
So:
Presence is not created by faith
Faith is the means by which the presence is received
| Position | Presence | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Catholic | Real | Corporeal, substantial |
| Lutheran | Real | Sacramental union (“in, with, under”) |
| Calvin | Real | Spiritual, by the Spirit |
| Zwinglian | Symbolic | Memorial only |
Calvin often thought Lutherans and Catholics erred in how Christ is present, not that he is present.
Christ has a true human body
A body cannot be ubiquitous
Therefore Eucharistic presence cannot be local
The Holy Spirit can unite across spatial distance
The Spirit elevates believers to Christ, not Christ dragged down
Calvin famously said:
“The Spirit truly unites things separated by space.”
This surprises many people:
Calvin is much closer to Catholic realism than to Zwinglian symbolism
Yet he remains decisively non-Catholic on metaphysics and sacrifice
His view is often closer to the Greek patristic emphasis on mystery and participation
This is why later Reformed confessions sometimes flattened Calvin’s view.
Calvin affirmed real presence
He believed Christ is spiritually present, meaning truly present by the Spirit
This presence is objective, effective, and nourishing
Calvin rejected both transubstantiation and memorialism
His Eucharistic theology is participatory, not merely symbolic
If you want, I can:
Compare Calvin with Aquinas on presence
Show how later Reformed orthodoxy narrowed Calvin
Or explain why Barth reinterpreted Calvin’s Eucharistic realism
 |
| A tulip |
Sometimes I "test" the AI. Like the other day. When I asked the question below.
Provocative question overheard on the internet: "Was Calvin a Calvinist?". Is there a difference between Calvin, Calvinism and Reformed Christianity?
Short answer: yes, there is a real difference, and the provocative question “Was Calvin a Calvinist?” is not just internet trolling—it points to a genuine historical and theological problem.
I’ll lay this out cleanly in three layers: Calvin, Calvinism, and Reformed Christianity.
Calvin was:
A second-generation Reformer, not a system-builder in the later sense
Primarily a biblical exegete and pastor
Writing in response to concrete controversies, not constructing a closed dogmatic system
Key features of Calvin himself:
No “five points”
No TULIP
No rigid doctrine of double predestination as later formalized
Strong emphasis on union with Christ rather than decretal logic
Significant theological flexibility (e.g., on church polity, civil authority, even aspects of predestination)
Calvin cared less about speculative metaphysics and more about piety, discipline, and scriptural fidelity.
So in that sense, Calvin was not a “Calvinist”, if by Calvinist we mean later doctrinal packages.
“Calvinism” is largely:
A 17th-century systematization
Shaped by polemics (especially against Arminians and Catholics)
Defined retrospectively
Its classic crystallization:
Synod of Dort (1618–1619)
The Canons of Dort
Later summarized (much later!) as TULIP
This Calvinism emphasizes:
Decretal theology (God’s eternal decrees as first principle)
Sharp formulations of election and reprobation
Logical coherence over pastoral ambiguity
Many of these emphases are:
Present in seed in Calvin
But intensified, formalized, and sometimes hardened
Hence the historical joke:
Calvin would likely have found some “Calvinists” unsettling.
“Reformed” refers to a family of churches and traditions, not a single theology.
Reformed Christianity includes:
Swiss Reformed (Zwingli, Bullinger)
Genevan (Calvin)
Dutch Reformed
German Reformed
Scottish Presbyterian
Later developments (e.g., Barth, Torrance)
Shared Reformed commitments:
Scripture as supreme norm
Covenant theology (in diverse forms)
Emphasis on God’s sovereignty
Non-Lutheran Protestant sacramental theology
But within Reformed Christianity, you find:
Supralapsarian and infralapsarian views
High vs low sacramental realism
Different political theologies
Different attitudes to natural law and philosophy
Not all Reformed Christians are “Calvinists” in the strict Dortian sense.
Opponents labeled the movement after him
Followers retroactively systematized him
“Calvin” became shorthand for an entire tradition
Catholics, Arminians, and later evangelicals needed a foil
TULIP is pedagogically useful but historically misleading
“Calvinist” today often signals:
A certain spirituality
A certain politics
A certain internet tribe
Which has little to do with 16th-century Geneva.
Think of it this way:
Aristotle ≠ Aristotelianism
Aquinas ≠ Thomism
Marx ≠ Marxism
Likewise:
Calvin ≠ Calvinism
Calvinism ⊂ Reformed Christianity
Calvin is a source, not the system.
Historically: no
Theologically: partially
Polemically: irrelevant
Calvin was a Reformed Christian theologian whose thought later became one of several organizing centers for a broader tradition.
Calvinism is not identical with Calvin
Reformed Christianity is broader than Calvinism
Asking “Was Calvin a Calvinist?” is a legitimate way to expose anachronism
If you’d like, I can:
Compare Calvin and Aquinas on predestination
Contrast Calvin and Bullinger
Or explain how Barth deliberately rejected Calvinism while remaining Reformed
