Reply #6: Smith criticizesSchweitzer in particular

[BurtWorm]

as one scholar who has misled a whole slew of scholars after him by making the claim that Roman Catholic Christianity betrayed the "true," "pure" Christianity of the earliest decades. Smith says those Christianities--and there have always been many Christianities-- are permanently unavailable to us. Any Christian--or any scholar of Christianity--who claims to know the essence of the earliest "Christianity" is blowing smoke.

I remember now that Smith says the whole field of comparative religion is permeated with the Protestantisms of the first CR scholars. Even the Catholics are indoctrinated in the Protestantisms of the CR canon.