In the USA the opposite of evangelical Protestantism is mainline protestantism, which is associated with the social gospel movement of the early 20th century, and many of those churches carry down some element of social responsibility, to the extent that many religious conservatives will call them not true Christians and devil churches. Those churches are where you’ll find like gay pastors, a greater focus on social issues, etc.

The classic “seven sisters” of mainline Protestantism are the Episcopal church (Episcopalianism), PCUSA (Presbyterianism), ELCA (Lutheranism), UCC (a merger of Congregationalist churches and the old German evangelical church in America - not to be confused with evangelicalism in the American sense), UMC (Methodist), ABCUSA (Baptist) and DOC (American Restorationism). Nearly all of these churches are associated with WASPs which might turn some off, but they generally hold more progressive and more social positions than their conservative and evangelical counterparts in Protestantism.

For example, if you take it back to American civil war times, the German Evangelical church (predecessor of the UCC) and the Lutheran predecessors of the ELCA are all linked to abolitionist positions, while what becomes the LCMS (largest conservative Lutheran church) is linked to pro-slavery positions. So you can see these political splits within Protestantism carry down to today. Evangelical Protestantism is extremely conservative because of historical reasons, not anything particular to Protestantism. And although Protestantism can be often thrown under the bus because of Max Weber or Engels hatred of his parents pietism, at the end of the day it’s a religion like any other, there are good aspects to it and bad.

catholicism sucks a heap of shit too, pal! 1,000,000,000 heretics must burn

protestant/catholic, while an important distinction in the history and lineage of a religious practice, isn't actually very helpful for figuring out what a religious sect does. a bit like sunni/shia within islam. protestants run the gamut from the greatest death-worshipping chuds to hippie churches with gay ministers. evangelical is usually used for deathcult freaks but the word is pretty meaningless and can be seen as a self-identification of less freaky cults occasionally.

specific cults are best judged on what politics they're supporting and crimes they're commiting instead of their technical classifications

A lot of the protestant experiments you might describe as egalitarian and/or humanitarian happened early on, at the start of Europe's early modern period. A lot failed to internal contradictions, a lot failed because they were besieged by Catholic institutions trying to protect their base of power. By and large, what survived is what tailored itself to the emerging industrial markets, what gave the capitalists the justifications to do what they were going to do anyway.

There's still some Protestant factions that have a soul to them. Friends (or as you might recognize them historically, Quakers) seem pretty alright. Whenever there's something half-way decent happening in US history, they're usually a part of it.

Take everything I say with salt. I was raised Mormon, a lot of other christians dont think they're christian let alone protestant.

I’m hoping to witness a hexbear struggle session on catholism vs protestantism

For the most part, I agree. Obviously it glosses over a lot and specific cases will vary.

You touch on what I think one of the biggest examples of this: the difference between how the Americas were colonized. In both cases, Catholic and Protestant, the colonization occurred. It was brutal, genocidal and one of the worst things to happen.

But at least in the Spanish/Catholic invasions, there was a real attempt at dealing with how to justify doing what they were doing to other peoples just as endowed by the creator with thought and reason. There were full out religious enclaves that helped or at least sheltered the native populations. Top thinkers in the Catholic Church back in Europe often came down against colonization and the interests of both the state and capital, creating a friction.

In North America, there was none of this. Almost everyone in protestant England was on board to just go whole hog taking over villages, land, killing, etc. The notable exceptions were the Catholic Irish, who were just getting over their own dealing with British Protestant colonization, and the French Jesuits, who wrote some of the better philosophical and anthological work of the period on the North American Native population.

Even this summary is obviously glossing over a lot of specifics, but I think it's pretty illustrative of how even compared to the relative evils of Catholicism, Protestantism is just on a whole separate level of justifying, if not outright supporting, atrocity.

Usually, Quakers have been historically very cool. Idk what they are like today but it can't be awful. Mostly I know the American experience of protestantism and I truly believe most of the horribleness of American protestants comes from evangelicalism and/or capitalist capture of religious institutions.

I think protestantism is uniquely vulnerable to capitalist capture specifically because of its malleability in belief and lack of strong central organization. The Catholics haven't been as affected because they have the vatican. The Amish haven't been as affected because they have a strict ideological core. Etc.

Anything based on worshipping the god of the Bible is doomed to suck to varying degrees

This is mostly anecdotal but I’ve heard Evangelical protestantism has made such in roads in Puerto Rico that I think a majority of the island might actually be Evangelical. I know this is pretty much the case throughout the rest of Latin America. This phenomenon coincides with the rightward shift of the entire region.

yes

Not saying Catholicism is without its skeletons but as the world becomes more cruel, violent, and evil, I can’t help but draw a parallel. I remember reading about de las Casas in High School and the at times moderating influence of Catholicism in Spanish territories, whereas I can find no history of redeeming qualities in the Protestant faith, particularly evangelicism.

yes

This is baby’s first attempt at analysis of Christian theology, so please bear in that mind. My brilliant insights into this are along the lines of ‘the Brazilian national football team is ass now because the players are no longer alcoholic womanizing Catholics’. I’m sure all you Evangelical freaks on hexbear dot net will be foaming at the mouth

yea. But this wasn't always the case, the old protestant organizations were mostly left-wing in LatAm, it's in the 1980s when the US and Israel started supporting them and it's by the 2010s that they go all to the right. There are still left-wing evangelicals (some are even far-left) but they also have some really weird brainworms, at least they hate Israel.

Like 95% of all organised religions are anti-science, anti-materialist, and reactionary. (As always, caveat to say that doesn't mean all the people, nor all the beliefs, are those things. Nor is to say joining your local religious community is necessarily a bad thing.).

Taking sides in any 'x religion is better/worse' is just not energy well spent, and I would discourage fellow socialists from doing so.

Protestantism has like thousands of sects that can be comically evil or relatively chill, in a way that at least to me seems completely independent from their doctrinal differences. Turns out it's easy to believe whatever you want when you ain't got a Pope in ya ear telling you it's heresy.

The dominant forms of every religion are going to be those that fit the ruling ideology, which means they are going to serve the ruling class. You can sometimes find rebellions driven in part by misgivings with the ruling ideology that were fit into religious frameworks, like the German Peasants War, which was partly inspired by the Reformation but condemned by Martin Luther himself, or the Ikko-Ikki in Japan, a rebellion of priests, peasants, merchants and others against feudal power framed on Buddhist grounds but condemned by others in nominally the same sect.

There are progressive denominations too

In northern Europe I think it's basically the same with the lutheran state churches sort of being analogous to a more down to earth catholicism including the troubled past (and to some degree present although I think they are usually more progressive than the catholics) with the imported US lay/"free" churches having more wild beliefs and outrageous xenophobia

i think Catholicism is worse but I'm very biased having been raised Catholic

Protestantism isn't monolithic. Even from the beginning, even from before the beginning. You have pressures for theological reform throughout the late medieval period that co-occur with peasant revolts and anti-monarchic movements.

From the 16th century you have the big 3: Lutheranism (widely taken up in the Nordic/Germanic world), Calvinism (or "Reformed" theology, majorities in Switzerland and the Netherlands, minorities from France to Hungary), and Anglicanism. The first two were made by theologians, the other was made by an opportunistic king. But even at that time you have smaller branches, like the Anabaptists, the Arminians, the Baptists, the Friends, and some others. After American independence you get another explosion of denominations, some of them on the frontier.

The main thing in common is the rejection of a minority priesthood (thereby ruling out the Catholic sacraments of Confession, Anointing, and Holy Orders), and the expansion of reading and interpreting the Bible to all. Many (but not all) have scripture as the only source of authority, as opposed to scripture + priesthood/tradition in Catholicism. Some believe in salvation by faith and also works, some believe in salvation by faith alone. Some believe that salvation is a choice made by God (predestination), some believe that it is a choice made by both God and each individual.

The idea of predestination, and all other theologies that assert that everything that happens on Earth is to be accepted outright as the will of God, are very close to reactionary politics because there is the premise that things are as they are in a state that is immutable to humanity. It also has the assumption that the majority of people are destined to be excluded from divine favor. This manifests in a "might makes right" mindset, framing the wars and crimes of the ownership classes as the will of God. It is not limited to Protestantism or Christianity; it spans many religions.

If you believe that what happens on Earth is 100% the will of God, you will have a lot fewer ethical barriers, and you can swindle, deceive, and slaughter people while keeping a sort of moral conscience that says "God ordained it".

Most of the denominations that are fueled by the US, and operate hand in hand with imperialism and neoliberalism, are Charismatic and/or Literalist. "Evangelical" just means "[spreading] the Good News". "Fundamentalist" is a little closer to what we're looking for. But the true enemy is essentialism in every form above the molecular level.

They are demon worshipers and heretics. Most of them are irredeemable

Sorry Christcucks but the only people to get it exactly right was a Gnostic Cult that died out in the Syrian Desert in 265 AD

Everyone else is going to hell

(they are evil people thus they are evangelical).

(black churches aren't an exception, although they are significantly better, but that distinction would disappear more and more, with good churches being as popular as quakers)

It's probably fine except for the parts the CIA made in a lab.

And Catholicism with its organized child r*pe and cover-ups doesn't? With its massive corrupt banks and institutions? Catholicism just is able to exercise a bit better centralized control and so manage its image better. You won't have some rogue Catholic priest just saying the wildest shit for years on end because there's a chain of command and they can kick them out or shuffle them off to some remote place where they're never heard from again.

It's like the difference of the tyranny of the massive corporation that cares about image and does have some restrictions on itself vs the small business fascist maniac who has no such restrictions, hasn't ever heard of not alienating a portion of their customers by building part of their image off of 'murder trans people and make women slaves'.

Both are part of capitalism, both are bad. The small tyrant aspires to be the giant corporation. It's better in many cases to work for the giant corporation because they're less likely to try and screw you by not paying you or engaging in other petty bourgeois antics shit because it's not worth the time or trouble to the smooth operation of the machine. Protestantism is a hundred thousand squabbling voices, Catholicism is a centralized dogma with some allowed amounts of dissent but one brand image.

One of those new millennium atheists I think basically said the free market made Protestantism the monster it is. Catholicism grew lazy thanks to having state money, being intertwined with the state and not having to fight hard for its membership or next meal. It went out with the soldiers to do imperialism and convert the natives and it stayed at home and decreed the monarchy was valid. Protestantism by contrast was 'hungry'. It was something trying to grow in an already filled space and it grew vicious for it. It sought the lowest denominator, it sought cheap tactics, it sought shock and through market forces it evolved itself in ways Catholicism was never pressured to evolve into a highly virulent, vicious thing.

In particular American Protestantism (which is now the dominant kind) grew up in the context of a slave society, of a deeply racist society that justified and participated in slavery. It was shaped by the material forces and interests that upheld slavery, racism, etc in a way Catholicism as something that was preached to the "savages" that were colonized did not and could not. Those more egalitarian minded Protestants were more than century ago pushed aside. In some cases killed. One example was of an anti-slavery preacher who was murdered in the US south and his bones hung up outside a general store where children played with them.

Yes, but also all denominations of christianity do too.