Through His Good Works: Martin Bucer's Reformation

WI Martin Bucer had been able to jump-start the Reformation in his native Germany, instead of being forced to flee to England as in OTL?

In real life Bucer was a proponent of religious unity and seemed to believe in real reform as opposed to strict interpretation of doctrine.

"If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be the enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well."
-Martin Bucer, c. 1530

From Wikipedia:

"Bucer believed that the Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire could be convinced to join the Reformation. Through a series of conferences organised by Charles V, he tried to unite Protestants and Catholics to create a German national church separate from Rome. He did not achieve this, as political events led to the Schmalkaldic War and the retreat of Protestantism within the Empire. In 1548, Bucer was persuaded, under duress, to sign the Augsburg Interim, which imposed certain forms of Catholic worship. However, he continued to promote reforms until the city of Strasbourg accepted the Interim, and forced him to leave.
In 1549, Bucer was exiled to England, where, under the guidance of Thomas Cranmer, he was able to influence the second revision of the Book of Common Prayer. He died in Cambridge, England, at the age of 59. Although his ministry did not lead to the formation of a new denomination, many Protestant denominations have claimed him as one of their own. He is remembered as an early pioneer of ecumenism."

So-what if he had succeeded? Would he have been able to create a kinder, gentler version of Protestantism (no Puritans, for example) if his work had been accepted earlier on?

(I just recently found out about this guy, which was why I was intrigued-any further information from actual Protestants is welcome! ;))
 
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Susano

Banned
Im not an actual Protestant, but I guess an actual German might do well enough :D

Yeah, Bucer sought to achieve the "Via Media" between Catholics and the forming Protestants. Of course, both Luther and Charles V (do say nothing about the Catholic clergy) were quite stubborn, of course, so that was more or less doomed to failure. Now, Bucer as leader of the Protestant Reformation, though... you see, in the South German cities (including his Strassburg, which at that time was a German city), which were the main source of coin for the protestant Schmalkaldic League (though of course the princes state were the main source of manpower and political power) he was the dominent religious scholar, more so than Luther, and Philip of Hesse (more or less spokeman of the South German cities in the League anyways, and the vice-leader of the League) leaned towards him, too.

Philip even invited Bucer and Luther to the Marburg Disputation, which by all accounts Bucer won. However, the Leagues main power, Saxony, was already firmly behind Luther, which generally had more influence, and Philip did not want to endager the political unity of Protestantism, and hence followed Luther.

So it seems to me that without Luther, Bucer seems like the most likely candidate to fill the vacuum. Of course Luther still needs to to give the initial spark... So if Luther were to die early after having started the business - say, he is indeed killed on his way back from the Diet of Worms, instead of being spirited away...
 
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