Protestantism

» pink101 - Reponding To Roger--Updated

In response to Reponding To Roger posted by pink101:

In response to The Great Awakening posted by rogerws76:
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First off, I really appreciate your appearance here in this thread.
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You have brought up the "Great Awakening" as though it were a major step toward the American Revolution. Unless, that is, that I totally misunderstand your drift here.
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What was the Great Awakening and how did it come into being? I think that two part question holds some clues for us as we try to flesh this thing out.
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The Great Awakening had some beginnings in European society. It was also related to the ideas of Calvinism in that if human beings were totally depraved, how could they possibly show any proof that they were right with God. Whitfield was the primary person who spread the awakening and while it was a popular event of the time, it was not universally accepted as a good thing among all Christians.
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In those days there was a building attitude about what sort of authority a person must have to be accepted into any church. Each community generally had one church with one pastor and every person in the community was expected to attend services. The pastors were all learned me with formal educations.
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One of the main reasons the Puritans broke away from the Church of England was the procedure that made a person "right with God" and, thereby, made a member of the Church of England. In England, every new born was christened/baptized into the church just as was done in Catholic countries.
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In the colonies, persons were also christened/baptized into the local churches and congregations; but, there came to be a change in attitudes about that and people were required to show some public testimony with evidence that they had been made right with God--a display of Grace.
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The Awakening was ALL ABOUT how a person was made right with God--nothing else.
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Think about it! Whitfield gave his sermons and members of the congregations were filled with an enthusiasm that was accepted as a public testimony they had received God's Grace in their being. That's how we get the idea of being "filled with the Spirit". Generally, the "awakening of the Spirit" took place in colonists as young as four years of age. A great revival swept across the colonies and it was all about FEELINGS and not about intellectual understandings of the Gospel. In their totally depraved state, human beings could prove they were accepted by God with a display of their feelings--not their intellect.
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That's what the Great Awakening was about in abbreviation.
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-- posted by pink101

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» pink101 - Erata

In response to Reponding To Roger--Updated posted by pink101:
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This line, "The pastors were all learned me with formal educations."
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Should have read, "The pastors were all learned men with formal educations."
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Sorry for the error. Suite maintenance was being performed and I was lucky to even get the post in to the thread.
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(Not a good excuse, right?)
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-- posted by pink101

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» Roger Saunders - Erata

In response to Erata posted by pink101:

The Great Awakening ABSOLUTELY WAS about how you became right with God BUT there was a natural outgrowth of this that made it a HUGE factor in the American Revolution.

This was the fact that religious authority became less a function of the church hierarchy and more of a personal relationship and responsibility to God alone.

This took away some of the power that the Church as an organization had over people's personal lives. This was a huge factor in the impetus that released people from their blind loyalty to a King as the anointed leader of God and gave spiritual permission to them to begin the process of political separation from great Britain.

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» Roger Saunders - Erata

In response to Erata posted by pink101:

You see.

No one here is saying that the Great Awakening was a revival that brought power BACK to or INSTALLED religion as a power that established America. In fact, it was the new "Christian" experience of freedom FROM religion that was one of the causes for the inspiration of the political freedom that ALSO guaranteed religious freedom for all Americans today!

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» pink101 - Religious Freedom

In response to Erata posted by rogerws76:
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I don't think any of us are so far apart except for the fact FACT fact that there is a strong effort to claim that America was founded as a Christian nation on Christian principles. That is absolutely not true.
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And, that does NOT mean that Christianity has never played a great role in the development of what America was and is.
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The two cooks stirring the pot that is America are Puritanism and the Enlightenment. At least, that is true in my thinking until I am able to find evidence that proves me wrong.
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I think we need to talk a little about Deism and that it was a rejection of the Judeo/Christian God.
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Please post the link to your article, Roger. I would like to read it. I am presently attending to a series of The Learning Company lectures on the intellectual history of America given by prof. Gueslo of Gettysburg College. Nice thing about DVDs is that I can play them over and over and over. I've probably watched the first 6 lectures at least six times each. Fascinating.
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-- posted by pink101

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» Roger Saunders - Religious Freedom

In response to Religious Freedom posted by pink101:

I think you may have hit on the key to this discussion and I THINK maybe Brian will agree with what I am about to say, although I obviously won't hold him to it.

I think the difference is between America being founded as a Christian Nation OR being founded on Christian Principles.

I do not believe America was intended to be founded as a "Christian Nation". The Anglican Christians of Great Britain pretty much saw to it that no thinking man would ever put a particular "Church" or "Religion" in control of any aspect of political government.

However, I do believe as I have said, that Christian "Principles" were a major aspect of our nations foundation.

Would you agree? (Assuming, for instance, that we do not rule out the unique and vital role that the Enlightenment also played.)

I think maybe this gets into a theological discussion about the difference between "Religion" (the man made synthesis of the path to God) and the actual personal interaction between a human and the Creator.

Deism is an attempt, I believe, to rationalize this possibility for interaction with the reality that "Religion", as I defined it earlier, is rather weak, ineffective, and frankly without any validity or meaningful purpose.

Oh, and the link to my blog would not do much good since it is essentially a reprint of the discussion here. BUT ... thank you for asking!

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» Brian Tubbs - Christian Nation

Pink, you're lumping me in with some of the Christian Right extremists even though I've very deliberately pointed out some distinctions I've had with them.

I agree with Roger. The United States - in particular the U.S. government - was in no way founded as a "Christian nation." The Treaty of Tripoli makes this clear.

But I DO believe the United States was founded based on a Judeo-Christian worldview and in the context of Judeo-Christian principles. That worldview included a very strong commitment toward religious freedom.

As to Roger's point about how the Great Awakening impacted the American Revolution, he's absolutely right. Religion affects people's worldviews and culture, and consequently, it affects their politics. Surely, you see this.

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» pink101 - Structural View

In response to Christian Nation posted by BrianTubbs:
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I am not one of those sociologists that discounts the structural view of society; so, in that sense I see the idea of foundation as being that upon which a structure is built.
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Foundations are not, in any way, the context in which anything exists other than the foundation itself.
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What America was built on is easy enough to see without a lot of talk; but, talk certainly has the effect of confusing the issue.
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America was built on a spirit of independence and a strong sense of individuality. It is a special awareness of one's own worth as a person. The Brits couldn't understand it nor could the Loyalists. As far as I can get it so far, this sense of individuality~~personal responsibility for one's situation~~is what drove men like Johnathon Edwards and all colonists.
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I will continue to seek the answers.
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-- posted by pink101

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» Brian Tubbs - Mark Noll

To anyone interested in studying this issue, I strongly recommend Mark Noll's America's God. Lest you think I'm recommending this book because Noll agrees with me, you're wrong. There are some points Noll makes that I'm not comfortable with (especially his categorization of George Washington with Deists). But I am able to recommend scholars, even if I don't fully agree with them. Noll's scholarship is unimpeachable. Get America's God.

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» pink101 - Mark Noll

In response to Mark Noll posted by BrianTubbs:
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I don't know much about Mark Noll other than what is available on the 'Net. Apparently he is part of the Neo-Conservative movement that grew out of the 1980s. Is that right?
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No one can deny that many of the colonies were founded on Christian principles. If we are looking to understand why the Puritans came to these shores, there can be only one answer--to establish society based on their Christian beliefs.
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But, the colonies were not the United States of America.
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And, we do have to acknowledge and understand the difference. What began in Plymouth and developed over a little less than two hundred years are far removed from each other.
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Every American owes it to every other American to learn about our history and to see how it has come to make us who it is that we are today. A great deal has been unfolded out of the mix.
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-- posted by pink101

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