[proxy_user]

It all comes from 17th-century radical Protestantism. If you believe in justification by faith alone, it's not a very big step to antinomianism. The socialist vegetarian radical of today is only an updated version of a Fifth Monarchy Man.

[headsonpikes]

"It all comes from 17th-century radical Protestantism."

Yes, the American Totalitarian strain has its origins in the militant perfectionism of certain elements of Cromwell's Army.

OTOH, the relentless disestablishmentarianism of these same Protestants led to the 1689 Bill of Right(which includes the right to bear arms), a contractual monarchy, and eventually, the political principles of the American Revolution. That seems to me to be a good thing.

An interesting read, even if tainted by ax-grinding 'sectionalism'. ;^)

[wardaddy]

Nice take...interesting....

....btw...this article has already been posted yesterday for what that's worth.

I can see some truth in it but it is a bit harsh.

[AnalogReigns]

It all comes from 17th-century radical Protestantism. If you believe in justification by faith alone, it's not a very big step to antinomianism. The socialist vegetarian radical of today is only an updated version of a Fifth Monarchy Man.

Evangelicalism (the original name for Protestantism) developed--from reading the newly available translated Bible--the idea of justification by faith alone early in the 16th, not the 17th Century. These were the mainstream Protestants too, not the radicals (from whom we got Mennonnites, various other pacifists, an certain strains of Baptists and other Zwinglian-style Protestants--who have many American spiritual descendents, among others) who mainstream Protestants condemned. There's a reason why the first generation of Reformers called themselves such--and can be shown to be faithful to the beliefs of a long string of Roman Catholics before them--who were faithful to what they knew from scripture.

To blame this guy's Yankee screed on Protestantism is stupid--as the South has always had as many or more Protestants than New England ever did--sans New England's intellectual arrogance. The majority faith in New England is (and has been since the Irish famine) Roman Catholic.