Posted on 12/16/2004 1:23:28 PM PST by Gamecock
An prime example of one of the many contributions of Calvinism to this Republic.
I'm going to give this a Presbyterian bump, even though the PCUSA is making it embarrassing to be a Presbyterian these days.
Come over to the PCA, we make it easy.....
The PCA: We're the intolerant Presbyterians!
bump for later read
Already have. Lately I find myself on FreeRepublic constantly posting "He's from a PCUSA church. PCA is different!"
From 1706 to the opening of the revolutionary struggle the only body in existence which stood for our present national political organization was the General Synod of the American Presbyterian Church. It alone among ecclesiastical and political colonial organizations exercised authority, derived from the colonists themselves, over bodies of Americans scattered through all the colonies from New England to Georgia.
I question this as a Virginian more than as a non-Calvinist. It ignores the Virginia House of Burgesses established in 1619. Granted, they were subject to the veto power of the Governor and up the line. But they were authorized to make laws concerning the governing of the colonies. And, in their present form as the Virginia General Assembly, they remain the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World.
George Washington and Patrick Henry were members of this body.
I should also note that my French Huguenot ancestors were here in the late 1600s...and that I have more problem with the "French" than the "Huguenot" aspect. ;-)
ROTFL!
Makes you want to get out the drums and bagpipes!
Which we will have in our processional in our Christmas Eve Service. One of the highlights of the year.
If I can find it, I will post (or at least link to) an article about the Dutch Calvnist influence on the Declaration of Independence itself. In looking for it, I did come up with this gem...
The Religious Backdrop of the Declaration of Independence
...although the fashionable eighteenth century Deism may have pervaded some intellectual circles, the prevailing spirit of Americans before and after the War of Independence was essentially Calvinistic."
Just because people who attended Presbyterian Churches in America were a predominant factor in the revolution against England does not in any way mean that it was the soteriology of the revolutionaries that led to the revolution. That jump is simply not proven in the article at all. It is a pro hoc ergo proctor hoc argument, ie, The revolutionaries were principally Calvinist, therefore Calvinism was the principal cause of the revolution.
Using that logic we could just as easily state that Lutheranism was responsible for the Holocaust.
Ping
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Probably won't bet a chance to read it today. Working on a draft petition to recall Gregoire should she steal the election. Should have that posted by this time tomorrow.
pro hoc ergo proctor hoc
gesundheit (and don't spit that stuff on the floor ever again!) :>)
A very interesting article. Thanks for posting.
I'm not ready to concede that the anglicans were automatically calvinist. Wesley was an anglican and he wasn't. Wesley's movement began because the anglicans had gone thoroughly secular and hedonist in many cases. Many of them weren't too busy believing anything at that point.
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