Winthrop's acceptance of inherent inequality:
Winthrop believed that although God had already made God's decision about whom to save, and it was never possible to really know who was among the chosen, it was possible to guess. And you could guess by who acted right and whom God was blessing with prosperity. Weber points out in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that this idea, too, is so painfully American. Material success isn't just evidence of hard work, it's evidence of worthiness.
And they left us, as further legacy, their anxiety. Their constant of worry about the state of their souls with work as the only balm. I'm just so fascinated by their weird theology, and how much of it is still ours.
Unlike the truly off version of them that shows up in the Thanksgiving myth, these were vibrant, passionate and crazy people. People who were super odd in England, not because they "wanted freedom," they actually pretty much hated freedom, but because they thought the Pope was the antichrist!
They thought that God was going to bring his wrath down on England because it's official church refused to quit standing for such Catholicky abominations as the wearing of clerical vestments, a communion table at the front, rather than the middle of the church and stained glass windows! And for this, they were willing to abandon everything. Everything!
I can't even wrap my head around how shitty going to Plymouth or Boston must have been for these people. I'm not even going to talk about the horrific disgustingness of their boats. New England, I can tell you from my research, is COLD. They arrived in Boston in FEBRUARY! They ate stale bread and dried peas every day! They slept in holes in the ground until they could get their houses built. Half of them died. They recently found a skeleton of a pilgrim girl and she had HUMAN TEETH MARKS on her arm bone. It was seriously not fun to colonize America.
The more I read about these crazy people, the more clear it is that we are their true heirs. Maybe that is why I can't get enough of them. They just believed and also did everything on such a grand, nutso scale, the kind of crazy endeavor that could only be sustained by serious belief, and also serious fear.
Their surface crazy is so familiar to me because it's so outsized in it's scale- both in their completely impossible standards for themselves:
Their doctrinal belief that people are inherently broken, that we can only be made whole by god, and that god is withholding and arbitrary about whom he saves creates a national character not all that different from a bout of anxious depression.
Winthrop kept a spiritual journal, which is so deeply endearing and humanizing I can hardly stand it. He consistently makes plans and rules for himself designed to improve his character, and continuously breaks the rules and falls back to patterns of "pleasure seeking, temptation and sloth." He wants so badly to be a godly person, but he can never make it stick. He picks on every little thing, then goes to church, hears a good sermon, sets up a new lofty plan, and then before you know it, he's back to his old ways. At one point he complains that he can't stop eating, and makes a rule that he'll only eat two dishes at any meal. Then he breaks it. If he's not America's, he's certainly my spiritual ancestor.
Reading these journal entries really changes the way I look at Model of Christian Charity. He's as much writing to the colonists about how they must behave in the new country as he's giving himself another shot. A new program, a new set of rules with a familiar warning. He takes what he's been doing in his own crazy head, and makes a WHOLE COUNTRY out of it.
He spent the rest of his life trying to keep himself, and all the other settlers on track. And we've spent the life of our country the same way. Aiming too high, falling short, aiming high again. You have to love him (and us) for the stupidity of it and for the devotion.
GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission.tied up with the Calvinist Puritans' belief that God had selected the heavenbound and hellbound before their birth cemented our very American idea that some have to lose and some have to win. It was never equality, always equality of opportunity.
Winthrop believed that although God had already made God's decision about whom to save, and it was never possible to really know who was among the chosen, it was possible to guess. And you could guess by who acted right and whom God was blessing with prosperity. Weber points out in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that this idea, too, is so painfully American. Material success isn't just evidence of hard work, it's evidence of worthiness.
And they left us, as further legacy, their anxiety. Their constant of worry about the state of their souls with work as the only balm. I'm just so fascinated by their weird theology, and how much of it is still ours.
Unlike the truly off version of them that shows up in the Thanksgiving myth, these were vibrant, passionate and crazy people. People who were super odd in England, not because they "wanted freedom," they actually pretty much hated freedom, but because they thought the Pope was the antichrist!
They thought that God was going to bring his wrath down on England because it's official church refused to quit standing for such Catholicky abominations as the wearing of clerical vestments, a communion table at the front, rather than the middle of the church and stained glass windows! And for this, they were willing to abandon everything. Everything!
I can't even wrap my head around how shitty going to Plymouth or Boston must have been for these people. I'm not even going to talk about the horrific disgustingness of their boats. New England, I can tell you from my research, is COLD. They arrived in Boston in FEBRUARY! They ate stale bread and dried peas every day! They slept in holes in the ground until they could get their houses built. Half of them died. They recently found a skeleton of a pilgrim girl and she had HUMAN TEETH MARKS on her arm bone. It was seriously not fun to colonize America.
The more I read about these crazy people, the more clear it is that we are their true heirs. Maybe that is why I can't get enough of them. They just believed and also did everything on such a grand, nutso scale, the kind of crazy endeavor that could only be sustained by serious belief, and also serious fear.
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God.I love the language of "being made a story." It's the kind of threat that only a truly anxious person could hold out to truly anxious people. We have to be good, because if we don't everyone will see that we are not good, and they will say that we are not good. Don't. Embarrass. God.
Their surface crazy is so familiar to me because it's so outsized in it's scale- both in their completely impossible standards for themselves:
Now the only way to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.And in the ridiculous stakes they ascribed to failure. It's American, and also it's personal. They were manic people who reveled in the presence of god with total, passionate rapture. They drove themselves insane with self recrimination over even the smallest mistakes, fearing that each was a sign that they'd never been saved in the first place.
Their doctrinal belief that people are inherently broken, that we can only be made whole by god, and that god is withholding and arbitrary about whom he saves creates a national character not all that different from a bout of anxious depression.
Winthrop kept a spiritual journal, which is so deeply endearing and humanizing I can hardly stand it. He consistently makes plans and rules for himself designed to improve his character, and continuously breaks the rules and falls back to patterns of "pleasure seeking, temptation and sloth." He wants so badly to be a godly person, but he can never make it stick. He picks on every little thing, then goes to church, hears a good sermon, sets up a new lofty plan, and then before you know it, he's back to his old ways. At one point he complains that he can't stop eating, and makes a rule that he'll only eat two dishes at any meal. Then he breaks it. If he's not America's, he's certainly my spiritual ancestor.
Reading these journal entries really changes the way I look at Model of Christian Charity. He's as much writing to the colonists about how they must behave in the new country as he's giving himself another shot. A new program, a new set of rules with a familiar warning. He takes what he's been doing in his own crazy head, and makes a WHOLE COUNTRY out of it.
He spent the rest of his life trying to keep himself, and all the other settlers on track. And we've spent the life of our country the same way. Aiming too high, falling short, aiming high again. You have to love him (and us) for the stupidity of it and for the devotion.
No comments:
Post a Comment