American Christians keep reinventing God — one author tries to explain why BA: So where does the story of Americas God begin, generally? MPT: With the Puritans. The Puritans came over with a grandiose vision: they were New Israelites, they were on their way to the Promised Land. Reverend John Cotton presented a sermon to them called Gods Promises to his Plantation a few days before many Puritans started to leave for the Americas. It was a deep sermon, heavy theologizing of why this was not just the right move for them — it was Gods ideal move for them. Cotton borrowed the story of Israel, specifically II Samuel, and began to create a narrative about where God was planning to take them. So thats where we start: a very in-control God who is, in some ways, repositioning his entire way of doing things around this small group of Puritans. They believed God was uprooting them and hed plant them in a new land, and take care of anything in their way. They were appointed for a time such as this. This Puritan God was very strict and rule-oriented and had right ways and wrong ways of doing things. BA: You talk a lot about how influential Calvinism was to the founding of America. Why is that? MPT: In Calvinism, theres the doctrine of predestination: God elects you to spend eternity with him. Theres also total depravity, that theres nothing good that men and women could do to make God happy. So that caused a lot of depression. There were a lot of angry, dark ideals about God, which leant themselves to different ideas, like limited roles for women. However, because the theology was so rigid, it really held the community together. Many suggest without Calvinism, early America would not have happened as successfully as it did.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:58:38 +0000
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