Just as when we watch a film based on a book, we substitute the action in the film for the writing in the book (at least when the film is well done,) so do we from time to time substitute myths for religion. For example, what do you think of when you think of the initial European settlement of what is now America? Guys in strange tall black hats with belt buckles on them and knickers, hose and buckled shoes. (Never understood the fascination with buckles.) Women wearing hat things looking like a cross between an old fashioned nun and a southern bonnet. Right?
The next flash is breaking bread with the Native Americans. Yup, Thanksgiving. A somewhat romanticized version of the Pilgrims. A relatively small group who came over here not to form a new nation, but to get the heck away from the old one. This small separatist group had a fairly short career as they were overwhelmed by the Massachusetts Bay Puritans on a rampage to build a city upon a hill, and have some fun burning and crushing witches in the process. (Oops don't normally mention Cotton Mather and Salem -- "We came to burn some witches and by-gosh we are going to burn some witches!)
The point this historical myth washes out everything from the mouth of the Mississippi to New York. With the Virginians so concerned that they would get whalloped with New England Puritanism they insisted in an anti-establishment clause.
The Puritans, of course, had their own problems of which Salem was a minor bump in the road (except of course for the witches that got squished between very large stones.) Their religion required some signs of elections -- you know not everybody is saved just those predestined to salvation. And who best to receive the sign you say? Oh, well the person saved. So you had a remarkable spiritual vision and you wrote it down as a testimony and the Elders looked it over and decided yes you are in, or no come back next year and bring us a better testimony. Problem was as life went on, fewer and fewer of the next generation felt they could honestly write down anything that would qualify. Major problem when the Church is governing the community and the majority of the next generation are not voters -- not to mention what that can do to the collection plate and puritan morals.
Never mind! We have the "half-way covenant" that means even though you do not get into heaven, nevertheless you are entitled to the benefit of the "national covenant." The "national covenant" being something akin to "manifest destiny." Yessirree! There you go -- America the Religious! Red States here we come soon as we kill off and displace the redskins who have been holding it for us.
What is interesting, however, is the reaction that the Puritan successors in front of the religious right political microphone, namely the Evangelicals still believe in the Divine destiny of America -- but at the same time reject the only religion which has scriptures that actually put it in print. What you say? Yes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe that America is the promised land of Joseph -- you know the blessing about the fruitful bough that overflows the garden wall. Yeah, that one. That is what the Book of Mormon is all about, and you thought it was about polygamy or large choirs didn't you. Nope its about Christ's ministry in America. And yet, the Evangelicals believe it blasphemy that Christ would have visited the sheep of this other fold. Half-way covenants yes, but no full covenants thank you very much!
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Comments: 9
It was all about money in my view for the main thrust of "settling" America (which means taking it from the locals) . God was a very distant second place. It's not a big proud thing, but it is time we admitted it this year for the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown landing.
Great article though George, as usual.
I didn't know this about Mormons. Aren't they a universal religion? I read once that the Puritans came over here for religious reasons but their children aimed to get rich. Perhaps that is when the "American dream" started.
The Plymouth colonists who celebrated Thanksgiving survived because they encountered the Indian Samoset, who knew English, which he had learned from English traders on the coast of Maine. Samoset introduced the colonists to Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag Indians, who signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims.That peace treaty lasted for more than 50 years, ending explosively with the outbreak of the horrific King Philip's War (1675–76).
There were many accounts in Europe prior to Columbus voyage suggesting that the Indians in the Americas were Hebrew in origin, supporting their views with reference to ancient Greek histories as well as the Bible and early Christian writers , as Augustine. Diego de Landa, a Spanish priest: "Some of the old people of Yucatan say that they have heard from their ancestors that this land was occupied by a race of people, who came from the East and whom God had delivered by opening twelve paths through the sea. If this were true, it necessarily follows that all the inhabitants of the Indies are the descendants of the Jews"
In 1649, when Edward Winslow petitioned Parliament to give financial support to missionary efforts among the Indians, he suggested that the Indians might be descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. A year later, Thomas Thorowgood published a book , Jews in America, or Probabilities, that those Indians are Judaical, which included a long list of resemblances between the customs and beliefs of the Indians and Jews. John Eliot wrote a contribution to the second edition of this book (1660). Eliot: "'I thought I saw some ground to conceive, that some of the Ten Tribes might be scattered that far, into these parts of America.' Truly the Bible says, he went on, that the Ark landed 'eastward of the land of Eden, and if so, then surely into America, because that is part of the eastern world. Hence why ought we not to believe a portion of the Ten tribes landed in America'" John Eliot was known as the Apostle to the Indians; he taught himself Algonquian so that he could proselytize the Indians in their own tongue, and then he undertook the arduous task of translating the entire Bible into Algonquian.
Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, believed that the Indians were descendants of Canaanites who fled when the Israelites conquered Palestine under the leadership of Joshua. However, the most popular theory, since the sixteenth century was that the Indians were Hebrew.
George, you say "Yes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe that America is the promised land of Joseph -- you know the blessing about the fruitful bough that overflows the garden wall. Yeah, that one. That is what the Book of Mormon is all about, and you thought it was about polygamy or large choirs didn't you. Nope its about Christ's ministry in America."
"Christ's ministry in America"? Tell me how Mormonism, as an institutional religion, with fideist expectations put on the people and institutional objectives of profit and proselytizing, etc, is any different from predecessor Christian religions. Isn't it dominating and exploiting in the ancient pattern of the other corporate religions? Even if it is a neo-Christian denomination claiming a uniquely American flavor? Isn't Mormonism operating under essentially the same worldview and institutional presumptions of other Christian denominations? What is the attitude of Mormonism toward evolution? How do evolution and the Bible relate to each other? And how about the place of women ("the fruitful bough") in the hierarchical structure of Mormonism? Are women the "property heritage" of males, exploitable the same as land?
The common Christian Worldview is that which obtained at the time of Christ and prior to Copernican "enlightenment", what is the static worldview (SWV), Aristotelian worldview (Scholastic); the evolutionary worldview (EWV) of modern quantum science is now generally accepted as more authentic, and which casts a whole new perspective on biblical history. Some "myths", e.g., The Story of Creation, the Fall, Eve created from Adam's rib, etc, have to be rethought in context of the evolution of thought in ancient times, and the gradual fleshing out of stories meant to explain the evidence of things as understanding then best could. The revelation of God is maybe more subtle as it unfolds to human consciousness, and less to be explained as "external" interventions. Worldview is "dangerous" because dogma (faith) is predicated on worldview; "faith" and dogma are easily unsettled by change of worldview — no wonder Christian "fideism" eschews evolution.
Clothing God with human characterizations deceives as well as informs. I respect your beliefs. And I respect your sense of reason; throughout your life the two will probably continue to speak to each other. We evolve; but "God evolves"? Surely our understanding of God evolves. Maybe we just can't really know God correctly in "anthropomorphic" terms and presume God behaves as we would like "Him" to?.