Do We Really Want To Go Back?
There are at least 24 articles on the Puritans at CRN. I am not questioning whether these men or women were Christians, I’m just wondering why anyone would want to go back to that time. Sure, their doctrine was pure but their laws were brutal.
Like here:
Here the civil law laid its hand upon the citizen in his business and social relations; it regulated his religious affairs, it dictated his dress, and even invaded the home circle and directed his family relations. One law forbade the wearing of lace, another of “slashed cloaths other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back.” The length and width of a lady’s sleeve was solemnly decided by law. It was a penal offense for a man to wear long hair, or to smoke in the street, or for a youth to court a maid without the consent of her parents. A man was not permitted to kiss his wife in public. Captain Kimble, returning from a three-years’ ocean voyage, kissed his wife on his own doorstep and spent two hours in the stocks for his “lewed and unseemly behavior.”
The Puritan conscience was painfully overwrought. Nathan Mather wrote that in his youth he went astray from God and did dreadful things, such as whittling behind the door on Sunday. Sometimes a child would weep and wail in the fear that it was not one of the elect and would go to hell.
Or here:
Puritans in Massachusetts set up a religious police state in which deviation from their religion could result in flogging, pillorying, hanging, banishment, having one’s ears cut off, or having one’s tongue bored through with a hot iron. Four Quakers were hanged in Boston after repeated whippings and banishments failed to drive them away.
Massachusetts Puritans also had a law, based on Leviticus 20:9 from the Old Testament, that a child who curses his or her parent shall be put to death. Calvin would have approved, for his government used the same verse to justify beheading a small boy in Geneva for striking his father.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I guess it depends on what type of “kiss” and if it is “ODM” approved.
LOL!
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I think some people pay good money to have this done in some areas of the country now…
January 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
While I don’t think the ODM’s would advocate the violence of the last section of evidence here, I bet they’d still back the puritanical ways of the first half, all those extra rules, heavy yokes and etxtrabilical hoops sound right up their alley.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
ingrid likes to quote the Puritan views and even stated she promoted the Puritan contemplation… which stated…
The whole story is here..
Funny how she can push contemplative prayer “that we can learn from such people the importance of quiet reflection and prolonged meditation.” having the person she promotes stating that it is people in “false religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism”… yet condemn other Christians for looking at “Christian forms of worship” in the past and doing them… such as lectio divina as a form of reading, worship and prayer…
But that is Ingrid and the ODM’s missing the obvious!
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Just so that it is on record… I am in moderation… so Chris P should not have such solo boast!
LOL!
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
damn Calvinists …
January 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“It was a penal offense for a man to wear long hair” if that included ponytails on men over 30 ,they may have a point.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Rick,
That last sentence hit me a bit harsh also…
even as anti Calvinist as I am = )
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
A little “floggin’” never hurt nobody. It sure made Michael Fay think twice about tagging another car!
January 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Matt, I was with you until that last sentence. I realize you were only quoting someone else, so please recognize that I am not directing this at you when I say that that is one of the most asinine things that I’ve ever read. Let’s genercize it a bit:
If I had a dollar for every time my government did something of which I don’t approve…
January 25th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Brendt,
Matt B is a Calvinist, as well, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t trying to pick a fight
I do agree with your generecized version, as well…
January 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Well, let’s be a little fair, Brendt. John Calvin pretty much formed the government in Geneva, so he had a teensy-weensy bit of influence. Whether or not he advocated beheading children, is another thing.
He was probably too busy eating babies to care…
January 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Yeah, I am a calvinist and I was quoting someone else. If I had written that, I hope I would have worded that better, especially the last sentence.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Oh Brendt, do you deny that Calvin killed upwards of 70 people. That he had it done for “heretical” activity? It’d be like George W trying to distance himself from this war….
January 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
OK, now that I’ve said that I was with you til the last sentence, I’ll go back on that and disagree with this one.
Many opponents of blue laws and such say “you can’t legislate morality”. (Note: I’m not attributing this to Matt or anyone else here.) This is just silly, as nearly all laws inherently legislate morality; it’s just an issue of whose morality you’re using to create your laws.
So, in a sense, I’ve got no beef with the Puritans establishing their laws based on their morality. What I do have a beef with is their morality itself, which generally grows out of one’s doctrine.
I don’t know how pure a doctrine is that is so externals-focused. Seems very works-based salvation to me. Which is kinda ironic, since many of Puritanism’s strongest proponents are also major Romophobes.
Can we learn good things from the Puritans? Certainly. But the papal-level exaltation that they receive in some circles is frightening.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I was being a little facetious with my “pure” comment. Puritan = pure.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
No, but I do deny any logic behind tying someone’s approval of something to their government’s actions.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I can definitely see that in today’s context…
January 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Fair enough. I guess my point was that I had a bigger problem with their morals than how they “executed” them. (Pun very much intended)
January 25th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Why do I keep forgetting who the other of the 2 of us infidels on this board is?
January 25th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
If that person is the one exercising the will of the government his approval would seem to be inherent in that activity, no?
January 25th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
OK guys,
I think the only point that Rick is making, (not speaking for him but practising my own sensitivity here) that the sentence was a bit harsh in that it was tossed on top of the Puritans… (which were Calvinist in their beliefs)
Yet, that does not mean the we toss all “Christians” in the pile or label all the the Puritans and Calvinists do as fundamentalism… by the fundamentalist standards of today…
I think in that the post is well written… no one wants to be put in stocks for kissing their wife in public… (though I think a few should have their tongues pierced for their unrepentant lying and slander!)
I just confess I winced a bit at the last line… and thought of my Calvinists friends… who know I hate them all so! LOL!
(I don’t… I just disagree with a few things Calvin taught… and I do not even care to be a “any number pointer” as I find the Bible sufficient enough and I get enough issue from some calling myself a “Christ Follower”…
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Obviously a belief in TULIP isn’t necessarily going to lead you to believe that a man should be put in stocks because he kissed his wife in public. However, focusing on the externals could.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Amen, and amen.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
But that’s not what the quote was saying. It was saying that Calvin approved of an action that he had no part in, simply because his gov’t carried it out. Which is silly.
But even when exercising the will of the gov’t, that doesn’t mean that the exerciser inherently approves of it. There are a lot of things that I do to exercise my govt’s will that I don’t approve of. But seeing as how the alternative is jail…
January 25th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Personally, I don’t want to go back because it was 19 degrees this morning. I like my central heat.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
19 degrees - that’s a heatwave! It was 2 degrees in Indiana this morning (which the Michiganders will probably laugh at as ’short-sleeve weather’)…
January 25th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
2 degrees! Ha! It was so cold here every thermometer broke!
January 25th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Billings was -23 with the wind-chill factored in 2 days ago… today it is 30 degree.
ig
January 25th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I almost turned the furnace on this morning……
January 25th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which NEITHER our fathers NOR we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:10,11 KJV).
The just shall live by faith….
F Whittenburg
http://www.christiannewbirth.com
January 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Matt B,
Please email me ASAP
January 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I also have to confess that I was just feeling silly in a stupid (and crude) sort of way. I am sorry if I offended or stirred up some ’stuff’. My bad.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Yeah, yeah, I know. I mostly put in the “19 degrees” comment to get a laugh and a rise out of you Yankees.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Rick,
I guess that is what Calvinists do best… (spoken like Tiger for Winnie the Pooh.)
Ahhh for some reason I still love ya man!
iggy
January 25th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I was just informed by my 4 year old I spelled Tigger wrong…. as he yelled “T-I- double G- err, I bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bounce!”
LOL!
iggy