Could Anabaptists Be Right That Reformation was a Meiji Régime for the True Christians?

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: First Half of Heschmeyers Video Against Mike Gendron · Heschmeyer Refutes "Trail of Blood" · Great Bishop of Geneva! Could Anabaptists Be Right That Reformation was a Meiji Régime for the True Christians? · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: I May Feel Like Exonerating Mike Gendron, But I Won't Admire Him

Here is a story about the secret Christians in Japan, and what has happened since the Meiji régime, starting in 1868 (by the way, Hirohito was not part of it, the Meiji era* ended in 1912). Obviously, in this case, the secret Christians were Catholics.

Japan's Holy War on Christianity
MARYLINE ORCEL WORLD, 5 Jan. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEXzoSANtzE

Now, if you hear of things like Trail of Blood or Ruckman, you will get the impression, Constantine started a much longer Shogun era, which applied much wider, and which persecuted true Christians to the point of making them socially invisible, as the Japanese Christians were under the Shogunate.

You will get the impression that the Reformation Churches, like the Meiji régime, were not embracing Christianity. But they were still, also like the Meiji régime, lifting a very heavy yoke from the Christians.

There is a reason why this could not work on a whole world scale.

Matthew 5:15.

The reason why secret Christians could be part of the Church of Christ was that there were open Christians. I don't mean primarily the ones who got martyred in Japan. While they got martyred, they were, unlike the Church in Antiquity, not giving instructions to the Heathen. Justin Martyr wrote an Apology he sent to Caesar. Here are his works before Pagans:

1. The First Apology addressed to Antoninus Pius, his sons, and the Roman Senate;[31]
2. A Second Apology of Justin Martyr addressed to the Roman Senate;
3. The Discourse to the Greeks,[a] a discussion with Greek philosophers on the character of their gods;

I do not know, have so far not heard, of the secret Christians in Japan doing anything like this.

Hence, they were not fulfilling the Great Commission, and as such, they could not be by themselves, the true Church. By contrast, they were in Communion with people fulfilling it, and were as such, part of the true Church.

Similarily, a hypothetic Anabaptist Church in 1300 AD could not have been the true Church, because it was clearly not fulfilling the Great Commission, either the Catholics and Orthodox were fulfilling or misfulfilling it, but no Anabaptist Church was fulfilling it. Waldensians existed, and they were not writing to Wenceslaus II of Bohemia, also king of Poles and Hungarians, nor to Albert I of Germany, nor Frederick III, Duke of Lorraine, nor Robert II, Duke of Burgundy, nor Philip IV of France, nor Edward I of England, nor to anyone else, not even to Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, who was ruling, I presume the Marca di Torina, the Marquisate of Turin, where they lived.

And, this time unlike the Japanese secret Christians, neither could they be even part of the true Church, because they were not in communion with others who elsewhere were fulfilling it.

No, there was not a Shogunate for 1260 literal years, spanning all countries or all Christian countries. There will be be only one thing close to the Shogunate, but on a world wide scale. According to prophecy, it will have 1260 literal days. Three and a half literal years. That's time enough to make the Christians hated, before making himself so, even by non-Christians, but not time enough to make them forgotten or totally invisible, or their teachings unknown.

Back when I was a reader of manga more than now, I was a fan of 1. Rurouni Kenshin. I have heard, he was based on a man who was a Christian after the Meiji Restoration. When I look up Kenshin Himura, I find he was based off someone more probably not a Christian, Kawakami Gensai. But what's definitely true is, his first relation, like that of Catholics, with the Meiji régime was release from captivity.

The video also speaks of how Catholicism is still often seen as shameful in Japan. This is for different reasons, also the case with Catholicism in Sweden or England, though Australia is where Cardinal Pell got his fake trial and years in prison.

And that's a reason to relish France.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Ember Friday after Epiphany**
12.I.2024

PS, as the video underlines, the Shogunate was an exaggerated nationalism. Here is what Las cinco quiebras de la Cristiandad medieval, by Roberto Moreno says about Antichristian Nationalism:

Más allá de los avatares heréticos, con la noción de libre examen Lutero introduce ya el mecanicismo formal subjetivista que caracterizará la modernidad; aunque él lo recorta a escala individual, otros lo ensancharán a la escala estatal. ...

Actually, it was already Luther who introduced "free enquiry into Scriptures" on the state level, rather than the individual one. He did not want a peasant to challenge him, he thought he could stand approved by princes, which he made the new popes of his true religion. What Catholics have suffered a few centuries from the Reformation in Northern Europe is a better parallel than Waldensians in 1300 living in separate valleys to what the Japanese Christians went through./HGL

Notes:

* The Meiji era was exactly the personal reign of Emperor Meiji, previously known as Mutsuhito.

** I was wrong. Ember Days are in Latin called Dies Quatuor Temporum, and that means they are four times a year, not five. I treated the Octave of Epiphany as the Octave of Pentecost (which actually has Ember days). This kind of mix-ups you can arrive at when you live the Catholic life without the support of a parish. A bit like the Japanese Catholics, except I was not obliged to hide. So far no Mass in Paris is celebrated "una cum papa nostro Michael" (II). Meanwhile, I've made up for the unnecessary fasting.