My friend recently emailed me an article on them. He is a non-believer and started out very liberal and pro-big government. Over the last couple years of dialog he is now leaning libertarian. Check out my reply to his article as well as the letter it promted him to write to the author of the original article. God is now using me to use a non-believer, to encourage other's to read up on Calvin's Geneva - Wow!
Not to mention, he is starting to dis public education. :bigsmile:
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What I wouldn´t give to be able to sit down over chinese to discuss this one with ya"¦I´ve just been reading a tome: The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding by David Hall as well as a compend of three works on constitutionalism and resistance from the 1500´s as well. Here is a website with a ton of primary sources during that time:
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/reform.htm
On it you will notice some of the names highlighted below. I actually have all of the works listed in this book and have begun reading them. It is utterly fascinating!!! I had no idea that all of this existed until recently and it has opened up pandora´s box of questions about history both European and American, politics, current situations, just resistance etc.
For 30 bucks "“ I could see you really digging this book for a lot of different reasons. It will make the below story seem all the more reasonable. I do think secession is out of the picture in today´s government. I don´t think it was when the country was founded and when it was tried the first time. Nuff of the rambling. Buy the book "“ it will send you into convulsions. It would be a great book to discuss together in fact"¦It will make the Magna Charta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration for Independence etc. all understandable in their historical setting"¦something today´s schools aren´t even *allowed* to do.
Review from Amazon:
Some scholars say that our Founding Fathers were Deists. We hear of their freethinking and skepticism. I have been catechized about the influence of the Enlightenment on our country. Such mantras as "pluralism", "separation of church and state", and "secularism" have all been drummed in my mind by the academic elite. Oh surely, the Founding Fathers were members of the established churches, but that was as irrelevant then as now.
Thomas Paine, the infidel, molded the Revolutionary American mindset. Thomas Jefferson, the Deist, formulated the American ideal. John Locke, the secular thinker, fashioned the principles of the Revolution. The American Revolution seemingly sprang out of the soil even though the colonies had a long and rich history by 1776. But there is more to the story.
Pastor and theologian David W. Hall's The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding shows that America's heritage is Christian and Calvinistic. Reformed and Calvinistic people largely colonized America. America did not invent a new order of the ages in 1776. It continued a process of refining a Biblical and Reformational theory of government that acknowledged the sovereignty of God and resisted the sovereignty of kings. Calvin of Geneva created the mindset that governed this country. More than the Greeks and Romans, more than the Enlightenment thinkers, more than the explorers and colonizers, Calvin established America. And Calvin was not alone. Such theologians, writers, and pastors as William Farel (Calvin's co-pastor in Geneva), Peter Viret of Geneva, Theodore Beza (Calvin's successor), John Ponet of Strasbourg, the anonymous author of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos in France, and Johannes Althusius (the author of Politica) all weighed in on the theological implications of governmental tyranny, persecution of the Christian faith, and the limits of obedience to ungodly rulers.
If these continental Reformers did not say enough, from the British Isles came another regiment of political and theological thinkers. John Knox, Andrew Melville, and other Scots put their theology in action during the turbulent reigns of such tyrants as Queen Mary Stuart and her worthless son James. Scotsmen George Buchanan and Samuel Rutherford penned great treatises on government to teach rulers how to rule and to admonish and remove them when they misruled. As this Calvinist political philosophy was being debated and thought out among the Puritans in England, some opted to pack the ideas for their trek across the Atlantic to the New World.
William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Cotton and others set the norms for Biblical and covenantal civil government in Colonial America. By the time of the American War for Independence, the war for the hearts and minds of the people, the true revolution, had been completed by scores of pastors who had faithfully preached election sermons for generations. The language of the colonial charters, the resolutions preceding the Declaration of Independence, the ongoing sermons and theological pamphlets all testify to the Reformed heritage in this country's founding and the extent to which Calvinism sparked our independence. Presbyterian and Congregationalist pastors and laymen filled the ranks of both officers and soldiers in the Continental armies. The War for Independence was truly a Presbyterian Rebellion.
Dr. Hall's first major witness to testify is a surprise: Thomas Jefferson, the `creator' of the wall of separation of church and state, the arch-Deist and unbeliever among the Founding Fathers, the primary secular and Enlightenment thinker of his age. Jefferson's motto was "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God", which was a Cliff's Notes version of the political theology of the Reformers, the Covenanters, the Huguenots, and the Puritans.
As a further proof of Jefferson's wonderful inconsistency, Hall cites the case of Jefferson's efforts to move the entire faculty of Calvin's Academy of Geneva to northern Virginia. Jefferson knew that this Calvinistic faculty would flourish in this land if transplanted.
Hall's book is weighty, long, heavily documented, filled with analyses of theological and political tomes, devoid of anecdotes, plodding in its lining up the proofs of the thesis, scholarly, sober, and academic. In other words, it is the kind of book to make a Calvinist's heart throb with excitement. This is certainly no easy read; it will not fit at your bedside or near your fattest easy chair. This book calls for a desk, a notepad, strong coffee, and quiet children.
This book is expensive, but worth the cost of buying and reading it.
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His letter to the author of the original article:
I enjoyed reading your story about the evangelicals heading off to South Carolina. It's quite similar to the libertarians call to move everyone to Vermont (or New Hampshire, I don't recall) to establish a local and state government free of the shackles of big government. However, I'm writing to inquire about an effort to further explore the historical context of the pilgrims in your story. You see, only in recent years have I become aware of the true lack of teaching of our country's founding. The public schools, because of the high wall of separation of church and state, have so watered down and filtered our history, that it's no wonder many citizens embrace political leadership lacking anything but a propensity to pander. How can educators expect you to understand the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without delving into what influenced the authors of these documents?
Just because we acknowledge that religion heavily influenced our founding and continues to influence our modern society does not mean we then acknowledge being a religious state. It can be separate without being locked away from public discourse. In fact, I believe the lack of public discourse has led to the Blue vs. Red states mentality. We have essentially sunk generations of children's heads into the sand and America is actually weaker for it. For example, The Patriot Act is debated as a civil rights issue. But it's larger than that single though important issue. It's the Federal Government garnering further control over its citizens in the name of national security. In my opinion, this is where the debate should be primarily situated.
In times of national emergencies, we have given (surrendered?) powers originally reserved for state and local governments to the federal government. And each time, many of those powers have remained with the Feds. From this perspective, we could turn on its head the idea that Presidents Lincoln and FDR were great leaders. Instead, they could be recognized as great consolidators of power into the hands of the few. And George Bush has followed their lead. In fact, some could argue his administration has nurtured an environment to grab power for the few.
Now I am no evangelical. In fact, I was raised the polar opposite of evangelical. But as an adult, I have discovered on my own and through friendship the deep influences of religious thinkers on our form of government, our societal norms, our morality, the very fabric of our way of life. And I'm troubled by the fact that very little of this is taught in our schools. And I believe there's a direct correlation between this lack of public discourse in our education system, the rift within our society that the media plays up as a culture war, and the seeming ignorance of many in the general populace to what we have surrendered and continue to surrender to a central authority.
In any case, the below book is one of many I intend to read to educate myself where my state run education failed. Perhaps one of your next columns can touch upon a fragment of one of these ideas or those in the book below.
The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding by David Hall
Amazon.com review:
Some scholars say that our Founding Fathers were Deists. We hear of their freethinking and skepticism. I have been catechized about the influence of the Enlightenment on our country. Such mantras as "pluralism", "separation of church and state", and "secularism" have all been drummed in my mind by the academic elite. Oh surely, the Founding Fathers were members of the established churches, but that was as irrelevant then as now.
Thomas Paine, the infidel, molded the Revolutionary American mindset. Thomas Jefferson, the Deist, formulated the American ideal. John Locke, the secular thinker, fashioned the principles of the Revolution. The American Revolution seemingly sprang out of the soil even though the colonies had a long and rich history by 1776. But there is more to the story.
Pastor and theologian David W. Hall's The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding shows that America's heritage is Christian and Calvinistic. Reformed and Calvinistic people largely colonized America. America did not invent a new order of the ages in 1776. It continued a process of refining a Biblical and Reformational theory of government that acknowledged the sovereignty of God and resisted the sovereignty of kings. Calvin of Geneva created the mindset that governed this country. More than the Greeks and Romans, more than the Enlightenment thinkers, more than the explorers and colonizers, Calvin established America. And Calvin was not alone. Such theologians, writers, and pastors as William Farel (Calvin's co-pastor in Geneva), Peter Viret of Geneva, Theodore Beza (Calvin's successor), John Ponet of Strasbourg, the anonymous author of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos in France, and Johannes Althusius (the author of Politica) all weighed in on the theological implications of governmental tyranny, persecution of the Christian faith, and the limits of obedience to ungodly rulers.
If these continental Reformers did not say enough, from the British Isles came another regiment of political and theological thinkers. John Knox, Andrew Melville, and other Scots put their theology in action during the turbulent reigns of such tyrants as Queen Mary Stuart and her worthless son James. Scotsmen George Buchanan and Samuel Rutherford penned great treatises on government to teach rulers how to rule and to admonish and remove them when they misruled. As this Calvinist political philosophy was being debated and thought out among the Puritans in England, some opted to pack the ideas for their trek across the Atlantic to the New World.
William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Cotton and others set the norms for Biblical and covenantal civil government in Colonial America. By the time of the American War for Independence, the war for the hearts and minds of the people, the true revolution, had been completed by scores of pastors who had faithfully preached election sermons for generations. The language of the colonial charters, the resolutions preceding the Declaration of Independence, the ongoing sermons and theological pamphlets all testify to the Reformed heritage in this country's founding and the extent to which Calvinism sparked our independence. Presbyterian and Congregationalist pastors and laymen filled the ranks of both officers and soldiers in the Continental armies. The War for Independence was truly a Presbyterian Rebellion.
Dr. Hall's first major witness to testify is a surprise: Thomas Jefferson, the `creator' of the wall of separation of church and state, the arch-Deist and unbeliever among the Founding Fathers, the primary secular and Enlightenment thinker of his age. Jefferson's motto was "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God", which was a Cliff's Notes version of the political theology of the Reformers, the Covenanters, the Huguenots, and the Puritans.
As a further proof of Jefferson's wonderful inconsistency, Hall cites the case of Jefferson's efforts to move the entire faculty of Calvin's Academy of Geneva to northern Virginia. Jefferson knew that this Calvinistic faculty would flourish in this land if transplanted.
Hall's book is weighty, long, heavily documented, filled with analyses of theological and political tomes, devoid of anecdotes, plodding in its lining up the proofs of the thesis, scholarly, sober, and academic. In other words, it is the kind of book to make a Calvinist's heart throb with excitement. This is certainly no easy read; it will not fit at your bedside or near your fattest easy chair. This book calls for a desk, a notepad, strong coffee, and quiet children.
This book is expensive, but worth the cost of buying and reading it.
[Edited on 7-26-2005 by crhoades]
