iv) It’s the community, not the family, that counts
In Catholic countries, the family was (and often still is) everything. One would regularly give jobs to relatives, help out indolent uncles and lightly swindle the central authorities for family gain without too much compunction. But Protestants took a less benevolent view of family. The family could be a haven for selfish and egoistic motives, running counter to Jesus’s injunctions that a Christian should be concerned with the family of all believers, not his or her specific family.
For early Protestants, one was meant to direct one’s selfless energies to the community as a whole, the public realm where everyone deserved fairness and dignity. To stick up for one’s family over and against the claims of the wider group was nothing less than a sin; it was time to do away with narrow interests and clan loyalties.