daveb@pogo.UUCP (Dave Butler) (09/19/86)
The net has been filled lately about how christian church was the
driving force behind the making of America and how the Puritan ethics
made this country great. How they escaped from tyranny and persecution
to come over here. With all this talk about how all the puritan came over
to escape persecusion, its humorous to note that they immediately set up
their own set of persecusions. The following quote is from Allen Sherman's
_The_Rape_Of_TheA*P*E*_:
By the time the Mayflower arrived, America had already been
going down the uptight staircase for eight years - since 1612,
when the Jamestown Code was written. The spelling was abominable,
but the meaning was clear:
No man shal commit the horrible, and detestable sins
of Sodomie upon pain of death; & he or she that can
be lawfully convict of Adultery shall be punished with
death. No man shall ravish or force any woman, maid
or Indian, or other, upon pain of death, and ... he
or shee, that shall commit fornication and evident
proofe made thereof, for their first fault shall be
whipt....
The Puritans weren't just fooling around either. There is a
famous story of a sailor, returned from a threeyear voyage. When
his wife came to the door, he hugged her right there on the doorstep.
Unfortunately it was Sunday, and they were observed. He was thrown in
the stockade for three more years.
Condemned prisonors, standing on the gallows with their necks
already in the noose, were forced to listen to morality sermons.
One such was delivered by a hellfire preacher named Jonathan Edwards,
of Northampton, Massachusetts:
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as
one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the
fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. You are
ten times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful
and venomous serpent ... if you cried to God to pity
you, He will be so far from pitying you in your doleful
case, or showing you the least regard or favor, that
instead of that He will only tread you underfoot.
After 20 minutes of that, it must have been a pleasure to
be hanged.
After reading that, aren't you glad the Puritans escaped to America
so that they could spread their special version of "love" and "freedom"?
If that was an example of what the Puritans contributed to America, I feel
we could have done well enough without thankyou. Because of the subject
matter I thought net.singles would get a kick out of it too, by if you
going to make a strictly religeous commentary on this, post it to just
talk.religion.misc and I promise to do the same.
Enjoyed this Immensely,
Dave Butler
Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.chelsea@dartvax.UUCP (Karen Christenson) (09/22/86)
In article <2745@pogo.UUCP> daveb@pogo.UUCP (Dave Butler) writes: > [we've been praising the Puritans and their contributions; how's about > THESE apples:] >The following quote is from Allen Sherman's _The_Rape_Of_TheA*P*E*_: > > By the time the Mayflower arrived, America had already been > going down the uptight staircase for eight years - since 1612, > when the Jamestown Code was written. The spelling was abominable, > but the meaning was clear: >[sodomy and rape punishable by death, and fornication is outlawed] The guys at Jamestown weren't Puritans. (I'm not sure they even HAD religion. :-)) > The Puritans weren't just fooling around either. There is a >famous story of a sailor, returned from a threeyear voyage. When >his wife came to the door, he hugged her right there on the doorstep. >Unfortunately it was Sunday, and they were observed. He was thrown in >the stockade for three more years. Great story, but is it true? > Condemned prisonors, standing on the gallows with their necks >already in the noose, were forced to listen to morality sermons. >One such was delivered by a hellfire preacher named Jonathan Edwards, >of Northampton, Massachusetts: > [quote from what might be "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God", but basically "God thinks you're loathsome scum"] Jonathan Edwards was part of the first Great Awakening, which actually only took root along the Connecticut River valley. It was a derivative of Puritanism, but *not* Puritanism, taking place at least a hundred years after the colonization. What I think of as REAL Puritanism died out after the first few generations. > After reading that, aren't you glad the Puritans escaped to America >so that they could spread their special version of "love" and "freedom"? Hello, and welcome to Stereotypes 101. Not your fault, Dave; Puritans are maligned by everyone except some history majors (like me) who've put them into context. Which context? The Protestant Reformation, of course. We're still (at this point) operating on the idea of there's one true church. The Protestants think the Catholics have got it all wrong and THIS is what it should be like. The movement divides into two camps: reform the current church and the current church is too messed up so let's just pull out and start fresh (the Separatists). The Puritans were a part of the Separatists. They came to make a model community (the City on the Hill), not to spread love and freedom. Then they could say to the folks back in Europe, "See? This is how it's done. Your turn." Religious freedom and tolerance weren't acceptable concepts *anywhere* until after Europe suffered the Thirty Year's War. Then they decided that maybe it wasn't worth it. American Puritans saw this as a major betrayal of the cause. > Enjoyed this Immensely, Me, too. > Dave Butler Karen Christenson "Mostly harmless." ...!dartvax!chelsea Have an adequate day.
daveb@pogo.UUCP (Dave Butler) (09/26/86)
Got a response to my article on puritanism from Karen Christianson in article <5169@dartvax.UUCP>. You'll note that I am posting this strictly to talk.religion.misc since it is no longer germane to soc.singles. Basically, Karen chewed me out in a nice way informing me that the people I was talking about weren't true "Puritans" (ie: the Calvinist splinter group from the protestant reformation, that decided to completely scrap the Catholic Church and start over). I admit to using the word puritan in the other way the dictionary defines it (ie: someone who has a puritanical lifestyle. This is described as someone who practices or preaches a more rigid, austere and professedly purer moral code than that which prevails). This is why I tend to label all early American highly conservative, reactionary christian groups as puritan. When Karen said: > The guys at Jamestown weren't Puritans. (I'm not sure they even HAD > religion. :-)) she was correct about they're not being Puritan, but they were extremely religious. They were actually of the Church of England (now called Episcopalian Church in the U.S.). Allen Sherman made clear that the actual Puritans didn't arrive until 1620, but perhaps I didn't. What Sherman was trying to point out when he said: >> By the time the Mayflower arrived, America had already been >> going down the uptight staircase for eight years - since 1612, >> when the Jamestown Code was written. was that, while the Puritans hadn't yet arrived, the "Puritanical Way Of Life" had arrived 8 years earlier. This is made clear if one reads the entire book _The_Rape_Of_The_A*P*E*_ rather than just a few paragraphs, but I had to cut it off somewhere. She also points out that Jonathan Edward, the Hellfire and you scum are gonna burn in Hell while God laughs preacher, was actually part of the Great Awakening (a derivative of Puritanism), and not really Puritan. I still would hold that he was puritan in the sense that he was puritanical (Note: In my book puritanical is almost a synonym to tyrannical). She finally finishes off by saying its ok for the Puritans to have been intolerant because: > Religious freedom and tolerance weren't > acceptable concepts *anywhere* until after Europe suffered the Thirty Year's > War. While this may help us understand why they were intolerant jerks, it still doesn't excuse their being that way. Just as reading about pre WWII Germany may help us understand why Germans became Nazis, but it doesn't excuse them for doing so. It just helps us understand how they were able to rationalize their actions. Enjoyed this Immensely, Dave Butler Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. P.S. I found a reference to a book that claims to have a list of 60 commandments written by one of the leaders of the true Puritan church. I'll try to find this list, it should be both hilarious and horrifying.
hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (09/30/86)
The problem with being imprecise when evaluating people is that you can end up writing off people who had ideas that are valuable simply because they have an unsavory label attached to them. The actual Puritans were trying to do something that I think is worth looking at. They were trying to organize their lives as God would want. Most of them tried to avoid extremes. E.g. they did not ban the use of alcohol. They considered that a cop-out. Rather, it was a good that God had created, and they wanted to use it responsibly. The movement ran into a number of serious problems. But it was one of the most sustained attempts in our culture to organize society on Christian principles. As such it deserves to be looked at carefully to see what we can learn. Your comments on Jonathan Edwards represent a similar problem. I assume the evaluation isn't yours, but is merely being quoted. Nevertheless, Edwards is considered by historians of the period to have been one of the finest minds produced by America. Several of his treatises continue to be classic statements of their views. (I am thinking specifically of his discussion of free will.) Hellfire played only a minor part in his writings. It is somewhat ironic that the only writing of his that most people know these days is his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". I conjecture that it is put in high school English anthologies primarily as a way to prevent people from reading his religious writings. The excuse is that it is representative of an important type of prose. However if all they wanted to do was show his writing (which is in fact very good: his theological work is far more readable than most), they could have picked from a variety of work that would have made sense to the readers. Instead something is presented (often in excepts -- only the imagery, without the actual discussion) which is guaranteed to appall the student, because they are not in a position to realize what he was talking about. In fact Edwards says that the sin inside us would spring into flame of its own accord except that God protects us. The most striking image in the sermon is the spider dangling over the pit. But note that God is holding the spider away, providing it with time to repent. The subject of the sermon is God's grace. The view actually expressed is one that is being rejected on net.religion.christian (by non-Christians -- note that most of the intolerant statements on the net are imputed to us rather than actually said by us) as being too liberal to be representative of Christianity, namely that Hell comes out of peoples' own nature, and is not imposed from the outside by God. Again, this sermon is not what Edwards' actual scholarly reputation rests on, but even it is being misrepresented. I am not trying to convince you that you will agree with everything he says, but the stereotype you have quoted will probably be sufficient to prevent you even from listening to him. Just be glad you didn't say anything negative about Calvin. I have a diatribe prepared against stereotypes about Calvin, too...
barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (10/01/86)
From: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick): >The problem with being imprecise when evaluating people is that you >can end up writing off people who had ideas that are valuable simply >because they have an unsavory label attached to them. The actual >Puritans were trying to do something that I think is worth looking at. >They were trying to organize their lives as God would want. I think the Puritans make a fine example of what goes wrong when churches get temporal power. Things really were OK for a while. Virtually all the Massachusetts Bay colonists were Puritans, and had voluntarily undertaken to live their lives in the new City of God according to the rules under which it was organized. But the population became more diverse as time went on. Some colonists came to doubt the perfect wisdom of the religious leadership; new colonists came who never accepted the perfection of Puritan doctrines in the first place; children disagreed with parents. Heck, they'd never had perfect agreement anyway. But the Puritan leadership still had their vision, and undertook to insure that everyone would be forced to live under the Puritan code. And what began as a voluntary association became more and more a religious dictatorship. >Most of >them tried to avoid extremes. E.g. they did not ban the use of >alcohol. They considered that a cop-out. Rather, it was a good that >God had created, and they wanted to use it responsibly. The movement >ran into a number of serious problems. But it was one of the most >sustained attempts in our culture to organize society on Christian >principles. As such it deserves to be looked at carefully to see what >we can learn. Everyone needs some releases. For the Puritans the main release seemed to be gluttony, a sin which they roundly condemned, but many practised. As for alcohol, that may have been an economic necessity. I forget exactly when the "triangle trade" began, but making rum was big business in New England for much of the Colonial period. What the Puritans did *does* deserve to be looked at carefully, for it is the main competition in this land against the Enlightenment tradition under which the Nation was founded. I judge theocracy a bigger danger to our institutions than Communism, because the tradition of political fanaticism has never been as hardy as that of religious fanaticism, here. Somewhere along the way, the notion of a *voluntary* association of the elect, living in harmony with God's will, slid into a system of the elect dictating God's will to citizens who didn't always agree. >Your comments on Jonathan Edwards represent a similar problem. I >assume the evaluation isn't yours, but is merely being quoted. >Nevertheless, Edwards is considered by historians of the period to >have been one of the finest minds produced by America. T'ain't his intelligence being questioned, it's his philosophy. >Hellfire >played only a minor part in his writings. It is somewhat ironic that >the only writing of his that most people know these days is his sermon >"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". I conjecture that it is put >in high school English anthologies primarily as a way to prevent >people from reading his religious writings. The excuse is that it is >representative of an important type of prose. And representative of a world-view that's an important part of this country's history. >Instead something is presented (often in excepts -- only the >imagery, without the actual discussion) which is guaranteed to appall >the student, because they are not in a position to realize what he was >talking about. In fact Edwards says that the sin inside us would >spring into flame of its own accord except that God protects us. The >most striking image in the sermon is the spider dangling over the pit. >But note that God is holding the spider away, providing it with time >to repent. The subject of the sermon is God's grace. The view >actually expressed is one that is being rejected on >net.religion.christian (by non-Christians -- note that most of the >intolerant statements on the net are imputed to us rather than >actually said by us) as being too liberal to be representative of >Christianity, namely that Hell comes out of peoples' own nature, and >is not imposed from the outside by God. I think you are being ingenuous about Puritan beliefs. You will be hard-pressed to convince me that Edwards didn't believe in the traditional "fiery furnace" picture of Hell. And if he rationalized it as being the sinner's fault, and not God's, that's just standard Xian apologetics. God is good, so by definition, evil comes from elsewhere. Some non-Xians find this somewhat paradoxical, since God is also claimed to be the ultimate author of everything. Traditionally, Xians have mostly proselytized among the unsophisticated (the word "pagan" is from a Greek word meaning a rustic; country folk), where an ominous and literal Hell for sinners was effective PR. For the better-educated, such fiery visions are not only unnecessary as an underpinning of the faith, they are downright embarrassing in their primitiveness and unfairness. But that kind of Hell is an honest-to-badness Xian tradition, and Jonathan Edwards was not loath to preach it in no uncertain terms. Mr. Hedrick is right to insist that not all Xians share a belief in the literal, traditional Hell. But I think he is quite wrong to suggest Jonathan Edwards would share his liberal sentiments, notwithstanding their mutual admiration for Calvin. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRIC AVENUE: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,hplabs}!ames!barry