The well-worn analogy of
falling dominoes applies to just about all historical developments and the development
of how Americans arrived at their view of governance and politics is no
exception. Where to begin? One specific place can be when Europeans, in
the 1500s, realized that by going west one was not going to find a short cut to
the Far East and the promising trade routes European merchants were
seeking. There, smack in the way, were
what came to be known as the Americas.
So, initially the investment in finding that route came to mostly zilch.
But as with most historical events or developments, more
than one result is possible and usually materializes. In this case, these discovered lands – to
Europeans – offered opportunities to certain groups. One such group was Calvinists who were being hassled
in England for not falling in line with that nation’s dominant religion, the
Anglican Church.
And that points to another line of dominoes, a stream of
events falling from King Henry VIII’s split with Rome and his establishment of
England’s own hierarchical church. This
latter factor seems to be often overlooked and disregarded, but it proved to be
important in determining how this nation, the US, looks at governance and
politics. With its vertical structure,
the Church of England mimicked how the Roman Catholic Church was/is organized
and administered.
This, some years later, ran
into another Protestant arrangement, that of the Puritans, a Calvinist group,
and how they preferred to organize. The
Calvinists set about organizing their churches on a congregational basis. That is, each church stood independently and
was arranged by local worshippers.
And
this tradition added its name, yet another stream of dominoes, to what had been
going on prior to King Henry’s split.
That is, starting in the early 1500s, a grand revolt within Christianity
took place with the protestation against Catholicism initiated by Martin Luther
in Germany. Once that took hold, the
legitimacy of falling away from Catholicism became recurring in certain European
countries and various religious theologies and other resulting beliefs sprouted
within those countries.
And
in terms of the story being told here, one was that of John Calvin in
Switzerland. Along with Calvin’s
objections to Catholic theology was a rejection of the Roman church’s
structure. The historian Allen C. Guelzo
describes this shift:
In Switzerland, a French
protestant named John Calvin reconstituted the organization of the church. The church had always been a hierarchy, with
the bishop of a diocese at the top – with the Pope in Rome as the bishop of the
bishops, the priests below, and the laypeople underneath. Calvin refashioned this hierarchy into
something more nearly resembling a committee, with priests redefined now as
elders or presbyters, ruling the churches jointly with lay leaders.[1]
Of
special note and of relevance to American civics instruction is the formation
of the congregational structure which will prove highly influential in the
development of the US government.
While the above had lasting effect on how
government should be structured, Calvin theology also had a strong influence on
initial American attitudes as the early arrivals from Europe faced the
challenges of a frontier environment.[2] In that, Calvinism, through the Puritans,
added a strong sense of discipline. A
quick review of that theology’s main tenets can portray this initial thinking
that turned out to help those settlers meet the dangers and other challenges that
the unforgiving wilderness presented.
And here an acronym might assist one’s
recall of those beliefs and that is TULIP.
Guelzo points out that this aid refers to the following:
“T” stands for total depravity;
that is, humans are born highly deficient, sinful, and depraved and can only be
saved – meaning eternal happiness in heaven and even a better life on earth –
by God’s grace.
“U” stands for unconditional election;
that is, humans are subject to God’s determination as to who is saved and who
is not. Humans, through their behavior,
have no effect on those determinations.
“L” stands for limited
atonement; that is, what grace God bestows on humans is a result of the freely
given sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ.
But not all are recipients of this grace, it is limited to those God
chooses.
“I” stands for irresistible grace;
that is, once chosen, a person will not reject God’s grace. And
“P” stands for perseverance of
the saints; that is, the chosen people will be active in this grace and it will
be apparent to all who encounter the elected that they are in a state of grace.
All
this theology took some time to work out and a final theological system was
mostly finalized fifty years after Calvin’s death, or the early 1600s.
While at first glance this notion of
grace-allotment by God and grace reception by humans sounds like a grand
lottery, in effect, what became important for believers was demonstrating one
was chosen for that grace. Outwardly,
one did so by exhibiting a strict moral code – one chocked full of what people should
and should not do – so that others would conclude that they were among the chosen
ones.
Later,
that was what encouraged the eventual Puritan settlers in America to exhibit the
discipline demanded by the challenges these people confronted. As it turned out, history illustrates that that
approach, at least in North America of the 1600s, proved to be effective.[3]
Now, back to England of some years
earlier and the reign of Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth I, 1558-1603, where the government’s
bestowal of legal authority to the Church of England – the Anglican Church – was
firmly established. Included in that
authority were automatic membership to that church upon being born in England
and the tithes (donations) and taxes English people were mandated to pay that
church.
Structurally,
the church just carried on the organizational elements inherited from Rome, but
many Protestants in England saw all of this as being too Catholic and began
demanding further departure from Roman ways.
And those groups included the Puritans, a Calvinistic sect. Initially, while Elizabeth deemed these
Protestants to be as treasonous as Catholics, her time was taken up with
dealing with a Catholic rebellion against her religious policies.
This
gave the Puritans the opportunity to gain accommodations within the government,
the English church, and universities. As
such, these other Protestants were able to exert various levels of influence
within the institutions of England. And
this burrowing was assisted by the fact that their demands were, for the most
part, relatively not so demanding.
But as is often the case with such movements,
there were those who sought more radical change or expressed heightened
discontent with the established modes of religiosity. These radicals began demanding wholesale “reforms”
to the existing, established church including a heightened adherence to the
theological beliefs (TULIP) reviewed above.
And this abbreviated story will be continued in the next posting with
the addition of how some of these disgruntled believers decided to leave
England and eventually arrived at their promised land, America.
[1]
Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I
– transcript books – (Chantilly, VA: The
Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 23.
[2] While native Americans inhabited the Americas when
the first Europeans showed up, the vast land mass was, by standards today,
sparsely populated. Estimates vary, but
at the time of Columbus’ first voyage, 1492, they range from seven to ten
million people. Then, that population
was seriously reduced due to the spread of diseases often originating from
imported African slaves. Again,
estimates range as high as 90% of that indigenous population. Those diseases included smallpox, measles,
and the flu. See “The Story of …
Smallpox – and Other Deadly Eurasian Germs,” PBS (n.d.), accessed March
2, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html
.
[3]
George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in
American Philosophy,” in The Annals of
America, Vol. 13 (Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1968/1911),
277-288.
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