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Posted on 06/16/2007 10:02:47 PM PDT by Coleus
For many Americans, Sunday is unlike any other day of the week. They spend its luxurious hours curled up in bed with the paper, meeting friends for brunch, working off hangovers, watching golf, running errands and preparing themselves for the workweek ahead. But Sunday is also, for many, the Sabbath--a special day for religious reasons. Not that you would notice.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," we are told in Exodus. Of all the gifts Jews gave the world, that of a weekly day of rest is certainly one to be cherished. And yet the Sabbath is now marked more by its neglect than its keeping. Or so says Christopher Ringwald in his new book "A Day Apart."
Mr. Ringwald notes that in the late 18th century, states banned entertainment, hunting or unnecessary travel on Sundays. The Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s spread Sabbath-keeping to the frontiers. Church membership doubled, Sunday schools proliferated and long sermons dominated the morning. It was unthinkable that the general store would remain open on the Sabbath. "Nothing strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than the regard paid to the Sabbath," Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1840. "Not only have all ceased to work, but they appear to have ceased to exist." The so-called blue laws that were a part of American culture--closing down bars and preventing the sale of liquor on Sunday--were commonplace well into the 20th century.
But the Sabbath today is at odds with commercial culture. To generalize shamelessly from personal experience: My brother-in-law, who manages a national retail store in Colorado, works on Sundays, following church. He was shocked recently to find out he is now required to open the store on Easter Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Sabbaths have often been used to divide people. The ifs, when, and wheres.
The day of rest is a good one. However, some will do it and some won't. Paul said don't judge concerning the Sabbath.
The Scots Presbyterians (especially the "Wee Free" variety) were particularly concerned with "Sabbath-keeping" and "Sabbath-breaking". My maternal grandparents were Scots Presbyterians of the rock-ribbed variety.
George MacDonald Fraser (the "Flashman" author) once asked one of his soldiers in the Far East, a Wee Free, how he could bring himself to kill Japanese on the Sabbath. He replied that it was a work of necessity and mercy . . . .
That doesn't change the fact that Sunday is not the Sabbath. And the OT laws about the Sabbath don't apply to Sunday. Misinterpretation in the past doesn't make obligation in the present.
I hold no brief for them or the Pilgrim Fathers, whom I found to be a particularly dour and joyless lot.
But the historical fact remains that many of the Calvinist adherents adopted the name of the Sabbath for Sunday. And that permeates their writings and those of their successors. Particularly in 19th century America among all Protestants, not just Calvinists, as well as the state legislatures that passed Blue Laws. You may consider it a misinterpretation, but it is now a significant part of history and one can't simply ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist.
America is filthy wealthy. Man's normal inclination is that when he is 'wealthy' he doesn't need God, it's only when someone is down to their last dregs that they finally come crawling to their maker.
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