Journal 4 - Hill.doc

Alex Joseph 3/2/2010 HIST 4023 Hill Journal: 1) The Reformation encouraged religious radicalism by making way for groups such as the Familialists and the Ranters. These groups abandoned many basic ideals of Protestantism and Christianity. Familialists believed that ?true religious belief meant recapturing the state of innocence that existed before the Fall?all heaven and hell was contained within the earthly world, and those that claimed the perfection of Christ through faith and the Spirit would experience heaven immediately, and be incapable of sin.? The ranters believed that faith and belief were a purely internal state, so outward actions did not signify anything. Basically, the Reformation was based on groups of radicals rebelling against society and the church. This led, and encouraged, plenty of religious radicalism through all the radicals of the time. 2) The concept of sin and religion went hand-in-hand with private property in the sense that in this radicalist society, the radicals wanted more freedom and equality. When it came to sin, radicals sought to be more sexually free and open, this of course, was a sin according to Protestant ethic, and thus led to the groups like familialists and ranters who expressed their religion individually, rather than being confined to the social norms of religion. The case is the same when looking at the ownership of private property ? there was always a ?landlord? type figure that ruled over the resident, and the resident was forced to adhere to every rule the landlord set. There wasn?t much freedom in owning private property, nor was there freedom concerning that act of sin or the practice of religion. 3) The radicals were, to put it bluntly, radical. They wanted to be different. They had the notion to, as Hill points out in his title, turn the world upside down. They wanted to break away from the social norms. This is the world that these groups wanted to create. A good comparison would be to that of the Futurists, circa the early 20th? century. Unfortunately, their vision failed. Protestantism and Christianity were still an overwhelming opposition, and the radicals failed to match their level of influence.