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Western Civilization · Chapter 8

Build a Church, 1525

Once scripture alone was the authority, nobody could control who read it — and within a decade the movement had split into princely Lutheranism, disciplined Reformed churches and hunted radical congregations. Answer these five questions the way a reformer had to. The right-hand panel tells you which church you have just assembled, where you could legally live, and who would have killed you for it.

Five decisions, and no neutral answers

Load a historical figure to see their answers, or work through it yourself. Every option below was actually held by somebody, and people died for each of them.

Why that answer follows

Start anywhereEach choice you make drags the others with it. That is the whole point: these were not five independent preferences but one interlocking system, which is why a disagreement about bread could split a continent.

The church you have built

Worth remembering. The overwhelming majority of sixteenth-century Anabaptists were pacifists who refused office and weapons, and they were killed in the thousands — by Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed alike — precisely because a church of voluntary adult members implied that the state could not command belief. The ideas that got them drowned are now standard in most Western constitutions.