PeaceBang

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1. Already read Mayflower and loved it.

   Okay, now I have to get Lepore’s book.

   I tried to write a paper in college on the Praying Indians during King Philip’s War (are you listening, Adam?), but 2 1/2 months into the semester the library chose that semester to pull my source material out of circulation and re-organize it. I ended up dropping the course but I still attended all the lectures. Memorable sound bites:

   “The innate depravity of Man and the absolute sovereignty of God.”

   “I am but a vile worm.”

   “J. E. sucks!” (One of the campus dorms was named for Jonathan Edwards, so it was a triple entendre on Edwards’ New Light Calvinism.)

   “Contrary to the popular impression of them, the Puritans weren’t sure they alone were elect and everyone else was going to hell. If they had been, that would have turned the whole society into a bunch of insufferable prigs. Instead, they lived their lives in fear of spending an eternity in hell and trying to prove to themselves that they wouldn’t. If God denied you blessings in this life, chances were, that would also be your fate in the next one. So they spent their days laboring industriously after material success — not for its own sake, but as a hint of God’s favor. That’s where we get the idea of the ‘Puritan work ethic’.”

   Comment by fausto — July 5, 2007 #

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