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Originally Posted by Frame57
Well, let's begin a bit earlier. What in your opinion and education was the reason the pilgrims came to these shores? It will be interesting to prelude this before we get to the Founding Padres  |
I'm laughing at myself here, as just a cursory look at the information available shows me how much I don't know about the details. For instance, I'm guilty of confusing the Pilgrims and the Puritans, but not without good cause.
First came Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh put together a group of investors to organize a planting colony in 1584, and again in 1587, neither of which survived. With the Jamestown colony in 1607 Virginia was established, but it came into being for no other reasons than to make money and to establish an official English presence in the new world.
The Pilgrims were a group of 'Non-conformists', so-called because they did not conform to the strictures of the Anglican church. Since the Anglicans held the position of 'Official State Church', anyone who wasn't strictly Anglican had problems. Were they actually persecuted, or just denied certain rights and priveledges? I didn't look that far yet, so I don't know. The fact is that they felt abused, and that's what counts, so they packed up and moved to Holland. Finding life there to be a little on the hard side, they made a deal with the Plymouth Company to become part of Virginia. They had originally intended to settle the very northern boundary of the colony, in present-day New York, but wound up a little further east and north, in what is now Massachussets. An interesting side-note: not one of their contemporary documents mentions Plymouth Rock.
Some of the Mayflower colonists were not Pilgrims, and did not come for religious reasons. When they ended up outside of the Virginia boundaries, those others claimed that they were not bound by the Pilgrims' tenets and did not have to attend church. In order to keep order and civility they created a civil government, chartered in the Mayflower Compact, and settled into a mutually beneficial existence.
Yes, it's true: the Pilgrims really did come seeking religious freedom, and they were quite tolerant of others, possibly because of their own beliefs, and possibly because they had no choice. When half the colony had died within the year, they were more than happy to accept the natives who rescued them with food and supplies.
But then in 1624 came the Puritans. They too came seeking religious freedom, but apparently only for themselves. They set up their own government, creating the city of Boston and the Massachussets Bay colony, and they were just as intolerant as the Anglicans they had escaped. Without going into the witch-hunts and persecutions, it's easiest to make an example of Roger Williams, who really did preach religious freedom and tolerance, and was expelled for his efforts.
I have no argument with the fact that the English colonists here all professed Christianity, just as did all the Spanish colonists who populated the areas south of our borders. But how many of them were really religious believers, and how many were 'scratch-the-surface' christians? Just as today, many who attend church do so as a matter of habit or custom, and if you ask them they'll say "Of course I'm a Christian". But are they really?
Since what we're discussing is the influence of Christianity on the development of the American government and attitude, I think those are fair questions. My personal belief is that the Christian influence on our moral behavior and attitudes is undeniable, but those same influences can also be found in other religions who had them prior to any contact with Christians, and I also believe that our ideas on government and freedom came from other influences altogether.