Lutheranism Seperate from Christianity?

What if Luther's followers continued on a more extreme path, and eventually decided that they thought that Luther was a prophet (no matter whether he agrees or disagrees in this instance) so that Lutheranism sprang out of Christianity like the latter sprang out of Judaism? First off, would this even be possible, and what kind of effect would this have on Christianity and how Europe as a whole operated?
 
I think at most it would become something like mormonism. They would still be christian though luther would be afforded a more special place then he did OTL.
 
What if Luther's followers continued on a more extreme path, and eventually decided that they thought that Luther was a prophet (no matter whether he agrees or disagrees in this instance) so that Lutheranism sprang out of Christianity like the latter sprang out of Judaism? First off, would this even be possible, and what kind of effect would this have on Christianity and how Europe as a whole operated?

It would probably mean that luthernism is less widespread in the north. Protestantism or at least luthernism becomes one of the fring sects that pop up from time to time but not widespread.
 
It would probably mean that luthernism is less widespread in the north. Protestantism or at least luthernism becomes one of the fring sects that pop up from time to time but not widespread.

Indeed.

Uplifting Luther to the status of a prophet may make Lutheranism far less palatable to Europeans. Protestantism as a real faction of Christianity would be butterflied away -- things like Calvinism would just be a faction of an already small religious denomination, if they exist at all.

But it would still probably be somewhat Christian, like how the LDS is. I don't see why they'd throw out all the stuff about Jesus.
 
Uplifting Luther to the status of a prophet may make Lutheranism far less palatable to Europeans. Protestantism as a real faction of Christianity would be butterflied away -- things like Calvinism would just be a faction of an already small religious denomination, if they exist at all.
Yes, Lutheranism would definitely be much less palatable. Protestantism as a whole would probably be less-widespread than iOTL; we probably wouldn't see the mass conversions of Scandanavia (for example) to Lutheranism. However, why would other Protestant sects develop as offshoots of Alt-Lutheranism rather than Christianity? I think that Zwingli developed his proto-Calvinism completely independent of Luther, I know that Anglicanism was fully independent, and let's not forget the Hussites, Waldensians, and Lollards who were already quite active.
 
Ummm... this looks really close to trolling, to my eye. And no, im not lutheran.

Still. It didnt happen to calvinists, to anabaptists, to baptists, even to hussites.

It is such a huge uturn in theology that you would really have to come up with a pod to justify it. Remember that Luther wanted to reform the RC church. He, of all people, is highly unlikely to end up as a semi deity.

Highly marginalized groups like the anabaptists never did this. No way lutherans are.
 
I am really sorry if this came across as a stupid question, I just wanted to see the opinion of some people who were probably more educated on religion than I. It just seemed like there was a very slim chance of it happening when some of the violence and death rates in Europe really escalated to become problematic and chasm-opening.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I think you get things like a much nastier German civil war. Realistically, they either have to win big in war (say all Germans become this new religion and are so strong that the Catholics and to lesser extent Orthodox can't threaten them or they are slaughter in holy war or they are expelled to other parts of the world if late enough colonies exist. Heretics are always treated worst than people who are simply of other fates. So it is either a case of genocide or a Lutherian wank, and a big wank.


So how big a wank does it take. It means for example that the Hapsburg (Spanish) and French and Italians can't do anything about it. Since we are talking a region of Germany that starts Lutherianism, we could need all Germans (say all of HRE, Dutch, Swiss, all Germanic peoples plus few others) to immediately convert and unite under Lutheranism to strong state. Then win the great war. It would have a brutality level that we associate with the Nazi, IMO. Ugly TL, but if you can write the POD, it is plausible.

And if we look at Mormonism, which to me deserves separate religion status of Abramhamic religions along with things like Druze and Alawite, the I think we can get some ideas of what happens. Lutheranism will pick up some elements from other religious traditions to justify the new prophecy. In this case, it is from the pre-Christian German traditions which I can't really give any real good details of what would even be likely.
 
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