Providence Points: Special Edition: Reformation Day Politics
shawn...@gmail.com
Biblical, Devotional & Informational
October 31, 2007
Vol. 2, No. 16
>From the editor: As a Presbyterian minister, if I claimed that
Calvinism, and Presbyterianism in particular, was key to the creation
of America, people would laugh at me. But what if I nonchalantly
quoted some secular source stating the same fact? People might
actually listen....
"He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of
Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American liberty"
The above sentiment appears arrogant. When the public schools
ardently claim that generic "Christian" Deists and unbelieving
Enlightenment thinkers founded America, Christians decry this farce,
pointing to historical facts that our founders were specifically
conservative Christians (cp. Eidsmoe, Christianity and the
Constitution). Yet, how many conservative Christians know that it was
not a generic conservative Christianity that substantially created
America but rather Calvinism? Lutheran minister Eidsmoe acknowledges
it (p.19). Hopefully, more people will.
In a letter dated Oct, 31, 1776, Rev. Inglis, rector of Trinity
Church, New York, wrote to fellow Anglican leaders:
"I have it from good authority that the Presbyterian ministers, at a
synod where most of them in the middle colonies were collected, passed
a resolve to support the continental congress in all their measures.
This and this only can account for the uniformity of their conduct;
for I do not know one of them, nor have I been able, after strict
inquiry, to hear of any, who did not, by preaching and every effort in
their power, promote all the measures of the congress, however
extravagant."
American historian and founder of Annapolis, Bancroft, asserts:
"The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the
moral war fare for freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor
and his never-failing support. The Puritans... planted... the undying
principles of democratic liberty. [He further claimed]:...Calvin
infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva, and made it
for the modern world, the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the
fertile seed-plot of democracy. We boast of our common schools; Calvin
was the father of popular education, the inventor of the system of
free schools. We are proud of the free States that fringe the
Atlantic. The pilgrims of Plymouth were Calvinists; the best influence
in South Carolina came from the Calvinists of France. William Penn was
the disciple of the Huguenots; the ships from Holland that first
brought colonists to Manhattan were filled with Calvinists. He that
will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows
but little of the origin of American liberty." [A History of the
United States, p.464; Literary and Historical Miscellanies, p.405]
Yale history professor, George Fisher, who thought the similarities
between Roman Catholics and Protestants greater than their
differences, wrote:
"How is it, then, that Calvinism is acknowledged, even by foes, to
have promoted powerfully the cause of civil liberty? The reason lies
in the boundary line which it drew between church and State. Calvinism
would not surrender the peculiar notions of the Church to the civil
authority. Whether the church, or the Government, should regulate the
administration the Sacrament, and admit or reject the communicants,
was the question which Calvin fought out with the authorities at
Geneva, in this feature, Calvinism differed from the relation of the
civil leaders to the Church, as established under the auspices of
Zwingli, well as of Luther, and from the Anglican system which
originated under Henry VIII....A second reason why Calvinism has been
favorable to civil liberty is found in the republican character of its
church organization. Laymen shared power with ministers... Men who were
accustomed to rule themselves in the Church would claim the same
privilege in the commonwealth...Another source of the influence of
Calvinism, in advancing the cause of civil liberty, has been derived
from its theology. The sense of the exaltation of the Almighty Ruler,
and of his intimate connection with the minutest incidents and
obligations of human life, which is fostered by this theology, dwarfs
all earthly potentates. An intense spirituality, a consciousness that
this life is but an infinitesimal fraction of human existence,
dissipates the feeling of personal homage for men, however high their
station, and dulls the luster of all earthly grandeur. Calvinism and
Romanism are the antipodes of each other." [The Reformation, p. 07]
A modern Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics summarizes thusly:
"In general it may be claimed for Calvinism that its influence has
been an elevating and invigorating one. Abasing man before God, but
exalting him again in the consciousness of a newborn liberty in
Christ, teaching him his slavery through sin, yet restoring his
freedom to him through grace, and leading him to regard all things in
the light of eternity, it contributed to form a grave but very noble
and elevated type of character, and reared a race not afraid to lift
up the head before kings." [Hastings, 153]
Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, an Austrian Roman Catholic aristocrat
intellectual and National Review contributor asserts:
"If we call the American statesmen of the late eighteenth century the
Founding Fathers of the United States, then the Pilgrims and Puritans
were the grandfathers and Calvin the great-grandfather...the prevailing
spirit of Americans before and after the War of Independence was
essentially Calvinistic in both its brighter and uglier
aspects." ["The Western Dilemma: Calvin or Rousseau?" Modern Age,
1971, 5]
Historian James G. Leyburn, of Washington & Lee University, wrote a
book on the Scotch-Irish and summarized it in an essay in the American
Heritage Magazine:
...Scottish Presbyterianism was unique in its intensity, even in those
religious days...A Hessian captain wrote in 1778, 'Call this war by
whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is
nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion.' King
George was reported to have characterized the Revolution as 'a
Presbyterian war,' and Horace Walpole told Parliament that 'there is
no use crying about it. Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian
parson, and that is the end of it.'...Such testimony to enthusiasm for
the American cause was not given to any other group of
immigrants." ["Scotch-Irish: The Melting Pot" online]
On May 20, 1775, the Presbyterian Synod was the first religious body
to send a public letter to the churches encouraging general submission
to the deceived Crown and specific submission to the Continental
Congress and to prepare their lives and souls for war.
Daniel Elazer, a member of presidential committees and of the
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, eloquently summarizes:
"A majority of the delegates to the Convention were affiliated with
covenant-based churches...The Presbyterians, however, were already
moving toward full-scale federalism. As Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.,
noted: "More than either [the Congregationalists or Anglicans] the
Presbyterians in their reliance on federalist and representative
institutions anticipated the political makeup of the future United
States." Indeed, as the first government came into office under the
U.S. Constitution in 1789, the Presbyterians held their first
nationwide General Assembly. In the Presbyterian system, congregations
in a local area formed a presbytery; several presbyteries in a region
formed a synod; and then came the General Assembly. As a result, the
system of federal democracy established by the U.S. Constitution has
often been referred to as Presbyterianism writ large for civil
society..." [The Covenant Tradition in Politics, pt.3, p.77]
More can be written. But this should be enough to challenge the modern
stereotypes and misconceptions. If we want Reformation again, we have
to go to the roots.