People's History: Religion (Chapters 5,6)
Music: Veni Creator Spiritus
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Summary Devoutly, for a century, we shaped our nation's destiny while answering this argument: religion's part of government. Chapter Religion showed the independent will of early colonists, for they'd instill the growing country with an attitude that faith was private. So with rectitude Anne Hutchinson was willing to defy the Puritan authorities and die in banishment. But in the hundred years to follow, through the Revolution, fears of persecution led to certainty that prayer shaped a nation's destiny: a Christian people shouldn't separate its path from government's. Indeed, our fate is in the hands of God! The Bill of Rights would please the worshipers and acolytes while giving to the aristocracy a neatly crafted role: to oversee the commoners, whom Hamilton would write about: "They seldom (can) determine right." |