[HN Gopher] Wends of Texas
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Wends of Texas
Author : benbreen
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-01-08 04:22 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Try to make me go to church with the Calvinists I'll flee the
| country too
| timeon wrote:
| But why to most Calvinists influenced country?
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Probably because Texas had just recently become a state at
| that point and because of the Adelsverein and/or the number
| of ethnic Germans already there.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelsverein
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Germans
|
| Das Yehaw
| nine_k wrote:
| No, to the most explicitly religion-tolerant country. The US
| was really unusual in many regards at that time, compared to
| most of Europe.
| mjdiloreto wrote:
| I appreciate the humor but this confuses me. I also read in a
| biography of Thomas Jefferson that he reviled Calvinists, going
| so far as to say their God is not the God of the Bible. I
| genuinely do not understand what is so reprehensible about
| Calvinist doctrine. There is just so much theological noise to
| parse through whenever I research it. Is pre-determination the
| biggest issue?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Yeah, predeterminism, along with limited atonement, and
| perseverance of the saints, combines to form, IMO, a theology
| that is toxic at best, abusive at worst.
|
| If I can massively oversimplify, it's a theology where Jesus
| came to redeem only the Elect that God had already chosen to
| be saved while he had chosen to send everyone else to hell,
| so that the Elect could see His mercy (to them, not those
| poor bastards on the down escalator).
|
| And, perseverance of the saints is the icing on the cake,
| because it came to mean that if you ever disagreed with your
| church or its elders, well, you obviously weren't one of the
| Elect at all, enjoy the hellfire.
|
| So it's a great theology if you want to run a small,
| obviously better than everyone else, in-group of the Saved,
| vs. all the unsaved sinners God has already condemned.
|
| To see how perverse it could become in the extremes, look at
| the role it played in apartheid.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism
| nine_k wrote:
| Yes, the predestination. It removes from humans any agency in
| their own salvation, and any action of consequence in their
| lives. Everything is predetermined, the whole world is just a
| mechanical puppet show.
|
| It's an internally consistent view of the world. But it turns
| all the biblical events where humans appear to have agency
| into just silly scripted scenes, and it also turns the
| passion and self-sacrifice of Christ another scripted scene
| (with the Gethsemane episode thrown in for sadistic
| melodrama, apparently).
|
| I'd say that (strict) Calvinism is the least Christian of the
| various sects that have attained mainstream success.
| Paradoxically, it produced some very sober and ultimately
| successful approaches to the earthly life.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Man, multiple people were ready to "go in on" Calvin which
| really wasn't what I intended. I was recently drafting a
| little ten part quick and dirty comparison of Christian
| denominational views on the most important/relevant
| theological concepts and reading about the Old Lutherans in
| this post really made me think about how seriously they took
| these things because they were literally true to them. It is
| either an admirable or a terrifying thing depending on your
| perspective.
|
| To answer your question as well as I can from their
| perspective, the reformed understanding of pneumatic presence
| vs their understanding of the sacramental union and being
| forced to participate in the eucharist in that heretical way,
| would quite literally be grounds for leaving the continent.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| There are _so_ many people who came to Texas from that part of
| Europe. German names are everywhere!
|
| Shiner Bock, brewed by the Spoetzl brewery, also started by
| German immigrants, brewing the kind of beer they were used to.
|
| And of course between Dallas and Texas, you have the Czech Stop
| in West, Texas (which is not in west Texas) which is a great
| place to stop for some kolaches on the rip.
| _bin_ wrote:
| Yep, I grew up in Texas and tons of German-Czech influence.
| Hruska's beats on kolaches for my money, if it's on your way :)
|
| There are also some hidden historic dance halls that are great
| if you can make it by. I know one dates to 1912 and a buddy's
| family refurbished it last year; lovely place.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Gruene Hall is the classic example. If you're into red dirt
| and have not made the pilgrimage, then you're just doing it
| wrong
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruene_Hall
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Red dirt?
| dylan604 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dirt_music
| MandieD wrote:
| Just before New Years, we were headed to The Woodlands from
| my hometown in Bell County, and passed through Zabcikville. I
| decided to get a hostess gift for the high school friend we
| were visiting, so dropped into Green's Sausage House for a
| dozen kolaches. I figured I'd be out about $30-40, given how
| expensive everything else had gotten both where I live now
| and where I grew up.
|
| It was still $16.
|
| The cottage cheese and the peaches and cream are the best
| two, in my opinion, followed closely by the cream cheese and
| the apricot.
|
| If you're eating lunch behind the wheel, their sausage and
| sauerkraut "kolaches" (more like sausage rolls, but made from
| the same dough as the sweet kolaches) are an excellent
| option. One is a heavy snack, two are a solid meal.
|
| Discovering that there were kolaches over the border in
| Czechia after moving to Central Bavaria: happiness!
|
| Discovering that those are more like what Americans would
| call a danish than a Central Texas kolache: heartbreaking.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The explosion in West, Texas in 2013 attracted a lot of
| attention in Czechia and I believe also some charitative help.
| Javalicious wrote:
| A few years ago we did a road trip through that part of Texas,
| looking at the "painted churches"
| (https://thedaytripper.com/the-painted-churches-road-trip/ -
| there are other itineraries). This article sparked that memory,
| as one of the painted churches is actually a Wendish church.
|
| And yes, there's a painted church in Shiner as well! :-)
| chachacharge wrote:
| Plenty of Swedes also. Creating churches and schools.
| German/Swede congregations helped each other. Later it was the
| Irish who renovated, buying up old neighborhoods, creating
| today's hospitals and universities.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Interestingly, the diaspora is mostly concentrated around the
| same area too. New Sweden and Lund, TX are located just east
| of Austin, which is fairly close to the area mentioned in the
| article (Giddings) and the original Sweden, TX and Norway, TX
| are located south/southeast. Those towns are not terribly
| close, but also given Texas size, relatively close to above.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| Prasek's man, myself.
| croisillon wrote:
| it would be funny if they had Umgebindehauser in Texas:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Lusatian_house
| willf wrote:
| My wife is a Wend, and so we visited this area in Texas. One of
| the things I found interesting was that there was a local paper
| that printed articles in German, English, and Wendish (Sorbian) -
| there's a link in the Wiki article. The church we visited was so
| beautiful.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| Stop in at some of the antique shops in New Braunfels & you can
| find all Nazi medals the germans brought with em in their last
| wave!
| thechao wrote:
| Gruene has a fossil shop with a no returns policy. The sign
| used to say something along the lines of "you can't return it,
| no matter how much your pastor says you'll go to hell; if
| you're that worried, bury it: that's where it came from!"
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(page generated 2025-01-11 23:00 UTC)