“It was sharpest of all for Protestants who did not belong to tightly organised and disciplined churches, in which there was either formal confession of sins (as in many Lutheran churches) or systematic oversight of the moral status of church members (as in many Calvinist churches). Those systems did not solve the problem of belief logically, but they did solve it emotionally, since anxious Christians could outsource their concern about themselves to the ministers who policed them. It was a kind of fideism: you cannot be certain of your own beliefs, but you can place your trust in your community instead.”