Posted by
Conservative Wordsmith Susan Baldwin on Friday, September 07, 2007 11:12:04 AM
Conservative Wordsmith Susan Baldwin writes: Is there some mysterious connection between Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and William Tyndale? Read my 4-part series "Why America Is Unique" and find out the surprising answer. This post is a reprint of part 1.
Why America Is Unique - Part 1
America was founded by Christians from Europe who were being persecuted because their views on Christianity were different from the mainline churches. I was surprised to learn recently that Roger Williams (not the pianist, the man associated with the founding of Rhode Island and tolerance in the new America of different religions) was a Baptist.
Imagine that! Baptists are fundamentalist or evangelical Christians, and this category is commonly understood by liberals to be a group of intolerant bigots. Evidently liberals either do not know, or do not care to reveal they know, that the religious ancestors of evangelical Christians were responsible for establishing the basic principles of freedom of religious thought and practice in this country.
There was a documentary on PBS recently (part of the Secrets of the Dead series entitled "Battle for the Bible"),
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/
secrets/case_bible/index.html about the early Bible translators such as Wycliffe and Tyndale, and I was surprised that a point was made that these early Bible translators and the principles they died for (literally, as Christian martyrs) had a great deal to do with the founding of Democracy in America. The reason that I was surprised is that PBS has a reputation for being somewhat liberal. Yet this documentary had nothing but praise for these heroes.
The Protestant Reformation was an extremely important and, in my opinion, necessary event in history. It is thanks to the early Protestant Reformers that America is a free and democratic country, because they believed that everyone should be able to read the Bible in their own language or mother tongue (rather than in a little understood language such as Latin), and they took advantage of early printing presses, even at risk to their lives, to make sure that every person, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, understood for themselves what the Bible means. And when the Puritans and Pilgrims sailed here, they certainly did possess bibles and understood that they must live in a place where they would no longer be persecuted for their unique interpretations, and they found that place, and it is spelled
A-m-e-r-i-c-a, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
My Related Posts
Why America Is Unique - Part 2
Why America Is Unique - Part 3
Why America Is Unique - Part 4
Mitt Romney, Mormons, and Pacifism
*The original date of this publication was 5/31/2007.
Conservative Wordsmith Susan Baldwin, author of the Conservative Wordsmith Weblog, appreciates your thoughts and comments.