AHC: Deist British Empire

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to have a British Empire that is officially Deist, and believes spreading Deism around the world is part of it's civilising mission. POD can be any point after 1700.
 
That's a nasty one.
How about a failed wave of Enlightenment-inspired revolutions all over the place with failed revolutionaries running to the UK? Still hard...
 
Almost impossible I would say.
Even at the hight of Reformation the Church of England was formed, just about as close to the Catholic Church as it could be and not report to Rome.

To become Deist it would need the overthrow of the state religion, and if the head of the church is the monarch then that means the over throw of the monarch.

The only thing that I can think of would be some form of proof that at least Genisus is made up - which would mean the rationalists may look for other forms of worship - but this is streching and would have massive butterflies world wide.
 
Bump. Let's get creative here people! Surely 1700 as a POD gives plenty of time for all sorts of religious revivals... it doesn't even have to be the whole population - just the elite!
 
Even if the King is Deist, you need to convert the normal people. That will be very hard to say the least. Especially considering how central Christianity played a part in British life back then.
 
The primary problem is that Deism is very much the "meh" of religions.

It's agnosticism for an age where out-and-out non-belief was social suicide. So even if you can turn many of the UK's movers and shakers into Deists, how do you convert the people of the UK, let alone instil a great evangelizing mission in them to go around the world, for the greater glory of the non-descript deity?
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
It has to be centred around the Reformation. Say Henry VIII cuts ties to the Catholic Church, paving the way for Protestantism as per OTL. However Henry becomes more and more power-mad, not just as a King but a self-proclaimed Pope in his own right. The Revolution is bloody, and basically all remnants of the hated church are destroyed in a civil war to rival the OTL war of the roses or the english civil war. Out of the ashes rises an extreme form of Protestantism which rejects not only crosses and 'idolatry' but the churches themselves, any organised hierarchy and is deeply suspicious of preachers, even much of the Bible is very heavily questioned and criticised. The ruling classes who led the religious crusades and witchhunts are mostly dead, leaving a sense among the common people of all religions having caused them nothing but misery. Added t this is a very real fear that if they show any outward signs of following any 'side' they will be targetted by the other, especially if they are suspected to be Catholic.
As the enlightenment continues, scientists and freethinkers fleeing Catholic Europe add to an overall sense of religious freedom, the resultant surge in technological progress and industrial revolution is seen as a sign of gods 'approval' rather than the work of the devil.
 
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