Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanking the Puritans on Thanksgiving

From the First Things blog:
There's little less fashionable today than praising the Puritans, especially for their egalitarian political idealism, their promotion of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and their capacity for enjoyment and human happiness. Praising the Puritans is especially difficult for us because even most of our Protestants have abandoned them. When a European calls us Puritanical we don't say, "yes, thanks a lot, you're right." Instead, we either deny it, saying we're way beyond those days. Or we admit it, saying that, "yes, we should be less capitalistic, less repressed, and more free thinking, just like you." But the truth is that the Puritans remain the chief source of the American difference–our ability to live freely and prosperously without unduly slighting the longings of our souls. It's the Puritans' idealism that made and even makes Americans civilized.
Read the full post here.

1 comment:

John Lofton, Recovering Republican said...

Nice posts. Hope you'll visit our Calvin-admiring site, TheAmericanView.com; read some articles, hear some radio shows -- view this short presentation of mine re: The dangers of Godlessness…

http://www.youtube.com/theamericanview#p/a/u/0/rX1ILAC80l4

John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com

Related Posts with Thumbnails