New England Puritanism was always intellectually rigorous. One of the most eminent Puritan divines of the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards, was also an eminent philosopher who drew upon the science of Isaac Newton and the philosophies of John Locke and Bishop Berkeley in order to uphold and restate traditional Calvinist doctrines like predestination.
Jim F.
-- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
Chris Doss wrote:
>
> I don't have any ideas about US religiosity other than the obvious ones (heavy Puritan background, etc.
If only it were "Puritanism" that was at the roots of current u.s. religiosity; it would lend some intellectual vigor. But the religiosity is evangelical and/or fundamentalist, neither of which has any linkage to the "Puritans" (almost as misleading a term as "postmodern"). The students at Michigan who came from the Dutch/Christian Reformed areas around Grand Rapids and Holland, Michigan, knew how to read. New England Puritanism led to Emerson and Unitarianism rather than to Billy Graham.
Carrol
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