OOC: Planning Thread for the Reformed Hosian Church RP

[Locke1342]

I know there was some discussion about whether this should be made or whether private planning could be arranged between John Cracker and everyone else who wanted to get involved in the RP of the Reformed Hosian Church but following the Dolgavian delegation stating something about the Reformists attacking them, and (I think) saying they had actually killed some Reformists I figured it would probably be best to set up some kind of central planning just so we all know where everything is at.

As far as I know the Reformed Hosians haven't actually been violent in any form so far. In fact I seem to recall that "John Benton" has made some statements regarding the peaceful nature of his movement so I'm not sure why there seems to have been so many misunderstandings on the matter (maybe there is a post about Reformist violence that I've missed: if there is could somebody show me). Obviously IG characters might say one thing and do another but up to this point I haven't seen anything.

Also there seems to be some level or misunderstanding surrounding what the church actually believes in so I figure this thread could be used to make sure everybody is up to date with that.

But I feel mainly this thread should be used to kinda plan where the direction of the Reformed Hosian Church is going. Like are we going to get to a point where it becomes widely spread enough that in 50 IG years time or something people are putting "Reformed Hosianism" into their cultural protocols or is it going to fizzle out due to the worldwide opposition to it? Obviously different people will have different views on that, but this allows us to try to find some kind of clarity for where RP is all going.

[jamescfm]

I hope you'll excuse my intervention given that I've not been directly involved in this role-play. Just wanted to respond to the last part of your post about whether this will be a significant religious change within the game world. According to the Real-Life Equivalents Index, there are at least twenty existing branches of Hosianism established within the game-world. As far as I can tell there is absolutely no reason why we need yet another branch of the religion in the game. From a distance, the ideal outcome for me would be that whatever this new church is supposed to be (I don't know how it relates to real-life Christian churches or movements), it merges back into one of these existing institutions.

With that said, I don't want to discourage role-play, especially since religious role-play can often be overlooked. My feeling is just that the more and more churches that we arbitrarily conjure up, the more off-putting it becomes to players (new and existing) who want to engage with those institutions.

[Locke1342]

My feeling is just that the more and more churches that we arbitrarily conjure up, the more off-putting it becomes to players (new and existing) who want to engage with those institutions.

I'd be inclined to agree. I also feel it prevents religious rp which isn't Christian in nature which appears to be significantly less developed (or at least as far as I can tell from looking into some of the non-Hosian religions). My personal opinion is that a mixture of the OOC factors you've given above alongside the level of IG retaliation would mean that the most likely/practical scenario is that the movement would die out.

I know that in Jelbania, for example, it would struggle to continue growing past a certain point, due to the fact that the much of the population is syncratic and henotheistic (or at least monaltrist) which would clash with the movement's "no saints" position. However, what I'm intending to do at some point with the Reformed Hosianism is take its binatarianism and combine it with Tanhrism (which believes in a Sky God) which will be interesting. So potentially there is some scope for it to survive but maybe not as a significantly large religion?

I would suggest that John Cracker look for a type of Christianity which isn't yet represented in Particracy to pair Reformed Hosianism with as I feel that would give it a bit more legitimacy (this seems like a pretty exhaustive list of different Christian churches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations).

[John Cracker]

Indeed I based this off of my real life views, you see, I don't believe in saints which eliminates most churches, and I also don't agree with patriarchalism, the bishop system, or confessionals. My RL basing of this church, is a puratinistic/penacostal church, my goal is for this to become widespread yes as I disagree with all the large scall churches on many issues. My goal was first to start a reformation within the Hosain Church, but now my goal is to spread it to everybody, it is a peaceful church, and violence is only acceptable in self defense, their has been no violence from the church.

As for were we want to go with this, I want to make this widespread (as I stated above I disagree with all the major churches), and as for getting to a certain point, I am no longer focusing on convertying Hosians, I want to convert people from every sect, every creed, and every religon. I did honestly see problems with the bishops, the saints, the patriarchs, the confessionals, I felt it had gone to far away from real Christianity, I want to bring it back, that is my purpose, thanks for starting this thread it will help.

these are the church views, many have lied about us, such as saying we believe salvation can only be achieved through good works.

Pneumatology: Binitarian
Scripture and Tradition: Follows only the Katub, and Annunciation
Means of Salvation: Through Faith alone
Sacrifices: Baptism, Holy Revelation, and Fasting, those are the main ones, other sacrifices are fine.
View of Holy Revelation: Memorial Revelation
Practices: Veneration of God, does not believe in saints

[John Cracker]

It grabs from Evangelism, Pentecostalism, Puritanism, and Protestantism, I figured we might be able to RP some smaller churches, such as charismatic churches, could merge into the reformed one, what do you guys think?

[jamescfm]

Remember that we're talking out-of-character here so there's no need to defend the "Reformed Hosian Church", it isn't a real organisation. While it would be nice if each person could have a church that totally reflected their religious views, we would end up with hundreds of churches if that happened and that clearly is not practical for such a small community of players.

As I have already said there's a least twenty churches/movements within Hosianism already and there are bound to be dozens more that haven't been catalogued. The current role-play that I have seen could easily have taken place within one of these movements (Charismism seems well suited in my view). We've had so many "reformations" in the Hosian church already that this just seems unnecessarily confusing.

[John Cracker]

I think I would like to not only spread this to non Hosians, but also to use this to stich the church back together, possibly by brining smaller movements into the Reformed Church what do you guys think?

[Locke1342]

Just a couple of quick questions regarding the theology of the RHC. The first is what do you mean by “memorial revelation”? And secondly what does the RHC think about the infallibility of the Bible/Katub?

I feel like one of two things should happen. Either we slow it down a little because let’s be honest the concept of countries shutting borders for one rogue preacher who has happened to get some prime time in the spotlight seems ridiculous especially given we are still talking thousands in countries of nearly 100 million in population. Or we justify through RP the extreme response for such lockdowns either through beefing up John Benton to a prophet-like figure or by adding a potentially slightly violent element to the movement. I know these won’t match your RL views but the use of artistic licence might allow us to create a bit more of narrative.

But first I do think you’re right about there being misinformation about the RHC’s beliefs (though I wouldn’t go as far as saying others were lying - rather just misinformed). Hopefully this thread can help John Cracker to answer questions for anyone who doesn’t quite get the position of the RHC. Then again I would also think that very religious countries would try and paint the RHC in a bad light and twist it’s interpretation of RHC theology to justify travel bans and the like.

In terms of where you see the RHC going I feel like we should justify the conversions of non-Hosian people more. It’s difficult, in my opinion, to just accept that you can post that a Hosian preacher went to a majority Ahmadic country and converted large numbers of people. For example, Badara wouldn’t strike me as the next stepping stone for RHC from Likatonia (to be fair neither would Jelbania but as expressed in my previous post I’ve laid out the limits of how far the RHC could realistically go there). But yeh some justification for that would be good I think.

It would be interesting to get the POV from a player from Keymon, Dorvik or Dolgava who have implemented travel bans on the direction you think this should go.

[Locke1342]

Yeh scratch what I’ve just said I didn’t see the new posts. I agree with what has just been said. What might be quite helpful from the perspective of there being so many Hosian religions is if the Reformed Church became a big tent church for that more puritanical/Pentecostal churches in Terra together so that there aren’t 20 different types of church anymore and the RL Index can be simplified somewhat.

[John Cracker]

(don't know if the questions still remian)Memorial Revelation means that the wine and the bread are not literally turned into the blood and the body, rather that it represents it, the Bible is confusing on this matter. (hope on of these answers your question I don't fully understand what you mean) The RHC believes that the whole Bible is true, the new convent replaces the old, but the old law matters to, we believe that reading other books other than the Bible is fine, those can be used for better insight, but durign services preachers preach from just the Bible.

I think we should slow it down I agree, but do remember as one religion goes through generations, each generation tends to be less attached to it, thats how Christianity spread so fast, people were not attached to their old religion (namely romans) and were happy to find a new faith, I would like just to slow it down rather than make benton a profit.

What do you thin the next steps should be? I think having a Reformed Hosian band would help the movement. I agree big tent is a good idea