PROCLAIMING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAN SEPARATISM

 No. 10                  

 

 

 

SEPARATISM AND AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN FOUNDATIONS

 

 

 

It will come as some surprise to American reformers of our day when I say that the founders of American theology and culture could not have been the Puritans, or even the Calvinists. This is not to suggest that the Puritans or the Calvinists have made insignificant contributions to American religious and social life. Indeed, their contributions are many and enduring. But we are guilty of sectarian prejudice if we insist that their theory of social order and religious teaching were responsible for American civilization. Ra­ther, their branch of Protestantism represents only a part, not the sum, of Colonial America.

 

We draw much comfort and inspiration from the Puritans of New England and much valuable instruction from their theological heirs, notably the Hodge's of Princeton. Unquestionably, Puritans and Calvinists have had a constructive impact upon our civilization, and the richness of their traditions has blessed them with an influence which far exceeds their numbers. Nevertheless, there are other essential aspects of early American society which fall through our cultural grid if we choose to look through the lenses of sectarian bias.

 

There were the Dutch of New York (Reformed and Arminian), and there were the Quakers of Pennsylvania. There were the Lutherans and Roman Catholics of Delaware and Maryland, the Baptists of Rhode Island and Virginia, and later, the Methodists of Georgia and the Carolinas. There were also the Anglicans of the Southern and Middle Colonies, the Congregationalists of New England, and various Independents scattered throughout.

 

What kind of theological orthodoxy held the Colonies together as a Chris­tian people? It could not have been Calvinism, for Calvinism was not so much a theology as it was a doctrine of social order. Calvinism of the European continent aspired for a theocracy, as it was mediated through an ordained clergy and an ordained magistracy. The Presbyterians of Scotland and the Puritans of New England, with a franchise limited to church members and a single church parish, were probably the best models of the Calvinist system during the Colonial period.

 

However, this aristocratic theocracy is not what occurred in America. Out­side of New England, and there for only a brief period, Puritanism was not a practical reality. America was a land where a Christian pluralism prevailed. Many theologies and many forms of Christian sub-culture existed. It was not a secular pluralism, as erroneously insisted on by humanists of our time; but it was a pluralism all the same. Neither Puritanism nor Calvinism could have been responsible for such a pluralism.

 

It is my thesis that the theological tradition which arrived with the Pil­grims of Plymouth and established itself throughout the Colonies, and which provided the basis for Christian diversity, yet retaining an essential unity, can only be found in a source completely different from that of the European continent (e.g. Lutheran, Calvinist, Arminian, Anabaptist, Humanist, etc.).

 

In a short-handed way, we can say that the separatism of Plymouth became the cornerstone of America's Christian foundations by virtue of its translation and duplication into congregational polity and localism, which in essence are the distinctives of American church and civil governments. Yet oddly enough, our attempts to link this populist and provincial attitude with the Protestant Reformation of the European continent are clumsy at best. European Protestantism, in its attempt to reform the Roman system rather than discard it and start anew, carried over much of Rome's cosmopolitan and authoritarian sentiments into its theological tradition. Therefore, unless we are willing to believe that Americanism was created out of thin air, we must look elsewhere for that theological source.

 

Before identifying that source, we must first understand that what has come to be known as "Calvinism" in America is not really Calvinism at all, but Augustinianism mistaken for Calvinism (or perhaps more accurately, semi-Augustinianism). This was the orthodoxy of the old Catholic Church. What was central to Calvin was not the doctrine of predestination, but the doctrine of theocracy. It was the theocratic theme which gave Calvinism its tremendous fighting edge and its political significance. The theological quarrels of that era between Arminians and Calvinists dimly reflect the metaphysical and soteriological emphasis of those two camps today. Questions of social order were central. Arminians were inclined toward the secular model of church/state relations, one which disestablished the church. The Calvinists, on the other hand, jealously guarded their state-favored status in the Netherlands.

 

Thus, we can fairly say that Calvin was a brilliant teacher of Augustinian­ism, but to be an Augustinian was nothing unique to that era. The entire Christian world was Augustinian. The old orthodoxy of the creeds was never forsaken by the major branches of the Reformation, or even professedly by the Church of Rome. With the exception of the minor sects, American society was also orthodox. It was theologically homogeneous. Orthodox Christianity was the unifying factor in American society, not Calvinism.

 

Although the above statement is true, it still does not provide a complete explanation for the American system. Orthodox Europe repeatedly drenched itself with blood over religious issues. What prevented the religious and ethnic diversity of America (the mirror of Europe) from devolving into the total warfare and the bitter persecutions of the European continent?

 

THE FORGOTTEN BRANCH OF PROTESTANTISM

 

That question requires a completion of my statement of thesis: there was another major branch of the Protestant Reformation besides the Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, and Anglican branches. It even antedates all of the oth­ers. It is this branch which prevailed in "Puritan" New England, and subse­quently, in all of the American colonies. At the head of this branch stands the great "Evangelical doctor" and champion of the faith: John Wycliffe.

 

It is my position that John Wycliffe of fourteenth century England is res­ponsible for the separatism of the Pilgrims and for the Christian pluralism of the American colonies. And it is his theological distinctives and philos­ophy of social order which are responsible for American evangelical tradition and American free society. When the historical record is re-evaluated, I believe we find no other religious tradition which could have resulted in what happened in America. The differing religious denominations and ethnic groups should have flung the Colonies into a thousand pieces. But Wycliffe articulated doctrines which prevailed among the English lower classes (the ones which early flocked to the New World) and made American unity, upon dif­ferent foundations possible.

 

That Wycliffe could have had this much influence is probably difficult to believe, since he is largely ignored by church historians who look upon his work as that of a "premature Reformation". He did not found a religious deno­mination or theological system which bears his name. There is no university that claims him (his friends at Oxford forsook him). Even his many writings molded in the dust until the nineteenth century, so thoroughly did his perse­cutors erase his memory.

 

Yet it speaks to the greatness of this man, that although banished and stripped of his status, he still prevailed. Knowing that his time was short and his work barely begun, he confessed, "I believe that in the end the truth will conquer." This faith inspired his Lollard followers, who took his newly translated Bible and his doctrines and stamped his image upon the ethnic psyche of the Saxon people. Wycliffe established an ethnic tradition, a world view which transcended the generations of obscurity. He should not be thought of as merely a Reformer. More properly, he should be compared to St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. John Wycliffe became the beloved Apostle to the op­pressed Saxon race.

 

A very small portion of life finds its way into books. We do not know, and Wycliffe's enemies cared not to tell us, how his message affected the boy at his plow or the mother in her kitchen. We do not know the family con­versations at the evening meal or the theological discussions between men on their way to work. All we do know is that the religious thought of an entire people changed, it seems, in a night. That fact is all too often for­gotten by church historians, who find it more convenient to discuss more pub­lished leaders.

 

WYCLIFFE'S DOCTRINES

 

Some of his prominent teachings can be summarized as follows: [1] There is a direct relationship between God and man (no priestly mediator), [2] God's authoritative will is revealed in the Holy Scriptures alone (again, no priestly mediator or professional class of interpreters required), [3] Christian self-government was to be ordered after the Bible available in the native language (a clerical monopoly, he condemned), [4] The clergy should imitate evangelical poverty (e.g. Christ and his disciples), [5] He denounced a propertied church beyond the needs of worship and teaching. He condemned the clergy's claim to temporal power, and denounced as heathen superstitions the customs of (a) enforced confession, (b) pilgrimages, (c) priestly celibacy, (d) penances and indulgences, (e) the veneration of images, (f) priestly power of absolu­tion, and (g) the idea of holy crusades. And [6] He taught that the Eucharist was a covenant symbol and that the doctrine of transubstantiation (the elements become the body and blood of Christ) was idolatry.

 

Wycliffe's teachings are largely familiar to our ears, and are warmly wel­comed to a generation blessed by a Protestant heritage. But in his day, they were shockingly new. Any one of his teachings above would have resulted in his death were it not for the high esteem held for him by the people and for his previous position at Oxford and service to the king. Indeed, his followers did not enjoy that immunity, but faced the stake soon after his death.

 

It is impossible to define Wycliffe in terms of the religious controversies which began almost two centuries after his time. He was an Augustinian, an orthodox theologian. His break was with Rome and its apostasy. Rome, in its quest to gain and secure temporal power, played upon the superstitious gullibility of the people. It locked the Bible away with the clergy and in a foreign language. The common man was in no position to contradict a priest when he misused the Scriptures. The result was a heavy burden of human tradi­tion. Here the confessional, there the indulgences. Here the torments of purgatory, there the magical power of the sacraments.   It all added up to a thinly veiled paganism.

 

By his strict Biblicism, Wycliffe also broke with the logic of secular philosophy. Phillip Schaff, the 19th century, church historian, tells us that Wycliffe acknowledged his dependence on human philosophy in his youth but later became disenchanted when he realized its internal contradictions and its inability to arrive at any final conclusion. He rejected it and the quest for worldly fame to embrace God's Word.

 

The expression, "God's law", was much used by Wycliffe and his followers. This term he used in reference to the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and to the exclusion of canon law, tradition, pagan philosophy, and other human inventions. In the words of Schaff,

 

In his treatises on the value and authority of the Scriptures, with 1000 printed pages, more is said about the Bible as the Church's appoin­ted guidebook than was said by all the medieval theologians together. And none of the Schoolmen, from Anselm and Abelard to Thomas Aquinas and Dun Scotus, exalted it to such a position of preeminence, as did he. . . To give the briefest outline of the Truth of Scripture will be to state in advance the positions of the Protestant Reformation in regard to the Bible as the rule of faith and morals. (History of the Christian Church, Vol. VI, p. 338)

 

As to methods of Biblical interpretation, Wycliffe regarded the aid of professionals to be unnecessary, since it was the plain and literal interpre­tation which was the true one. By the aid of the Holy Spirit, all believers would be led, eventually, to correct doctrine. All topological, anagogical, and allegorical interpretations had to be based upon the literal, etymolo­gical meaning of the doctrinal passages. Such interpretations had their place to aid in understanding doctrine by explaining and developing it, but they could not establish doctrine. Therefore, there was no danger of error from people untrained in the obscure symbolism of Oriental literature; for it was not allowed to be the basis of doctrine. All the Scriptures taken together would interpret themselves to any mind being led by the Holy Spirit.

 

THE DISSENTING TRADITION

 

Up to this point, however, we find in Wycliffe nothing startlingly differ­ent from the other Reformers who would come later. What then is the distinctiveness of his branch of Protestantism? And how did it affect America?

 

I think we find the answer to such questions in this: that only in Wyc­liffe do we find an unequivocal right to dissent. And it is this tradition of Dissent which marks the heirs of Wycliffe, and which accounts for the fierc­ely independent spirit of the American people, making them unique among the peoples of the earth.

 

While European Protestants are willing to engage in protests and to seek reforms through established channels, Wycliffe's Dissenters are ready "for reform without tarrying for any." Dissenters are separatists, not traditional­ists. While Europeans are restrained by their almost superstitious veneration of institution, Americans (who are the true heirs of Wycliffe) are ready to establish new ones since they see nothing sacred in the old ones.

 

For example, Wycliffe’s elimination of a magical Eucharist and an esoteric system of hermeneutics made an ordained clergy obsolete. The church building ceased to be the temple housing the body and blood of Christ and the oracles of Divine revelation. It was reduced to a conventicle. Contrasted with the grand cathedrals of the Continent, such a view, undoubtedly, could only be perceived as irreligious to the European mind.

 

Further contrasting the Dissenting mind with European Protestantism is the emphasis of Christian self-government under the direct guidance of the Holy Scriptures. Such a doctrine greatly diminishes the moral power of Ruler's Law over the people. While Europeans will look upon civil law as in some sense expressing the will of God, Dissenters see it in terms of expediency only, and lawful only to the extent of its conformity to the Scriptures.

 

Separatists of the Dissenting tradition differ from the sometimes revolu­tionary tendencies of the Continental Anabaptists because (a) Separatists do not seek a violent destruction of the old order, only the opportunity to be free to establish new institutions, and (b) they regard legitimate govern­ment to be based upon the prior consent of the governed, not by conquest. Separatists begin with persuasion and the process of redemption, not coercion and revolution (see Separatist Papers #6).

 

The right of Dissent, contrary to the expectations of pessimists, tends to defuse the revolutionary impulse, which is really the result of repressed dissent (as Europe has repeatedly and painfully experienced). The effect of separatism is that of a democratic theocracy, rather than the aristocratic theocracy of the Calvinists.

 

With Wycliffe, we find the source of the demand for a free Church in a free State. In his writings on the government of Church and State (see, Civil Lordship and Divine Lordship}, he sets forth the distinction between sover­eignty andstewardship. "Dominion as founded in grace", which includes all earthly power, is conferred by the grace of God and is consequently forfeited when the wielder of that authority, is guilty of mortal sin. The implications of this teaching on covenantal dominion was probably best stated by himself, when he claimed:

         

There is no moral obligation to pay tax or tithe to bad rulers either in Church or state.  It is permitted to punish or depose them...

(Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VI, p. 321)

 

One cannot help but see in this the seed of the philosophy found in the Ameri­can Declaration of Independence, which claims the right of the common people to alter or abolish their form of government when it becomes tyrannical.

 

Priests and magistrates are ordained by men, not by God. Although, reli­gious worship and penal sanctions are required in the Scriptures, and give occasion for the institution of specialists to carry out such requirements (clergy and magistrates), their forms and specific lines of succession are not dictated, but rather, are left to the people. The Dissenting tradition rejects any claim by church or state that it is, in its present form and hier­archy, the one validated and ordained by God. It is a heathen doctrine which claims that "that which is, is right". Such a belief makes nature normative rather than God's Word. Wycliffe insisted upon the supremacy of God's Law. If a magistrate failed to put God's Word into effect (Romans 13:4), then he was cursed (Deuteronomy 27:26) and no longer God's minister of justice. He subsequently forfeited his claim to authority unless he repented.

 

SEPARATIST DISTINCTIVES

 

The assumption that Wycliffe's was an aborted Reformation cannot be sus­tained under closer examination. The evidence suggests that his movement was not destroyed; it only went underground during the fifteenth century in an organized sense, which is contrary to this spontaneous and decentralized movement) and re-emerged under various "separatistic" and "heretical" labels in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although having a powerful influence in England, it found a complete manifestation in America.

 

We have shown in previous papers how Separatism prevailed over Puritanism in New England". Puritanism was really never more than a theory in New England," for Puritanism was more of a party within the State Episcopal Church, than a movement in America, where Wycliffe's dissenting tradition was converted by Separatism into the Congregational Church (the "established" church in New England). This demonstrates how great his legacy in America is. An Ameri­canized Christianity meant a congregationalized one. Throughout the Colonies, we find that it was a congregational polity without one-church parishes, even among the Lutherans and Roman Catholics. In civil government we find localism with non-church franchise. And in theology, we find the old orthodoxy with the evangelical emphasis.

 

(To digress briefly, I should point out that the right to vote was limited to Christians, although the requirement of church membership was soon dropped. Thus, we find here, at least, a minimal creedal validation of the electorate, as opposed to the lawless and humanistic validation of our day.)

 

Unaware of Wycliffe's branch of the Protestant Reformation, historians have rather clumsily tried to label early American leaders under other cate­gories: Puritan, Anabaptist, even Humanist. They fit better under the Separa­tist label.

 

Separatists are to be distinguished from Humanists and Anabaptists, who differ on certain fundamental points. Humanists see nature as normative and reason as the arbiter of truth. The Separatist's conscience is institution­ally independent, but not autonomous of the Word of God. To him, nature is fallen and reason is subordinate to the Bible. Anabaptists see a strictly individualistic basis to the covenant and desire a mystic oneness with God. Separatists, if they can be said to be mystical, are concerned, not with an experiential participation in the Divine nature, but an epistemological and ethical union. The knowledge of God produces a perfected humanity, not a divinized humanity. As to the covenant, while not excluding the individualist­ic aspect, they agree that a Divinely-ordained, collective aspect is necessary for social order. That collective aspect is found institutionally in the family.

 

This familistic emphasis also distinguishes Separatists from the advocates of Presbyterian and Episcopal polity and even High Church Congregationalists. Here, American Baptists, whose roots are in Wycliffe rather than European Anabaptists, have demonstrated best a purely laymen's church. Absent is a professional and elevated clergy. Any layman is competent to administer the sacraments and preach the Gospel.

         

Thus, in America, individualism and corporatism in society were balanced by a family-based social order, not a bi-modal, institutional order. Unlike European Protestantism, which saw that institutional order as a bi-modal struc­ture between church and state, Americans have relied upon the extended family for structure to prevent anarchy and misrule. This is not to say that the family, or any other institution, is the agent of redemption on earth. Rather, the preached Word of God by the procession of the Holy Ghost is.

 

The bi-modal structure of social order during the medieval period provided a guard against absolutism. And its historical value is not here questioned. I am merely pointing out that that form of social order is not what occurred in America. It would have if Calvin was the father of America's foundations.

 

The fact that it did not proves that Wycliffe is the true father of America's Christian foundations. And it was successful, because the tribal traditions of ancient Anglo-Saxon lore and codified in the English Common Law provided a social framework analogous to the tribal republics of the ancient Hebrews. This familistic structure, explicitly acknowledged by the Founders, provided a Biblically sanctioned order by default. Familism, though beleaguered by intermittent statist experiments, was nevertheless dominant in the United States until the Civil War. (See W. Cleon Skousen's, The Miracle of America, The National Center for Constitutional Studies, Washington D.C., 1985). Fol­lowing the Civil War, the property rights of episcopal churches began to be recognized by the courts, and local governments came under the direct supervi­sion of the federal government.

 

A couple of examples which give credence to this argument are [first] the fact that the limited-liability corporation did not exist in early America. Such a social arrangement is a statist concept. The other is the belief that the marriage bond does not need a priest to attain validity. From the Pilgrims to today, it is recognized as a civil contract. Although Separatists of today would take that power out of the hands of the state also and leave it to the jurisdiction of the parents of the respective parties, this practice demon­strates, that under Wycliffe/Separatist doctrine, the family becomes the cen­tral institution of society, at least by default.

 

THE COVENANT

 

Wycliffe's teaching had two aspects which profoundly affected the idea of covenant. The first was his individualism, or perhaps better put, his non-institutionalism. The institutions of church and state were not essential aspects of the Divine Covenant with men; rather, they were incidental and auxiliary aspects. It is not an institution which stands before God on Judg­ment Day, but the individual person. A person's access to the Word of God creates personal accountability.

 

According to Wycliffe's Protestantism, a person could not hide behind the cloak of a priest or magistrate with pleas of ignorance or inability. One is not compelled by their authority to sin. The head of the man is not the priest, nor the prince, but Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3). A king does not enter a saving covenant for his subjects. Nor does a priest provide abso­lution for his parish. The covenant is not mediated by man, but by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Wycliffe's appeal to the Bible as the sole depository of spiritual authority on earth removed the aspect of human coercion from the covenant.

 

Absolute authority has been codified in the Bible. No institution, whether church, state, or family, shares in that authority. The institutions of soc­iety are the recipients of functional authority. Functional authority is derivative and temporal; absolute authority is self-dependent and eternal.

 

Separatism emphasizes individual accountability and the individual's sacred vow as the basis for all human covenants. The oath is the basis for covenant agreements, which in turn, are the mechanisms creating the institutions of society. Oaths and vows are also acts of free choice: a man is free to enter them or not to enter them (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). But once they are made, they are binding with all the weight of moral obligation; for to break them is a violation of the Third Commandment, a mortal sin (Exodus 20:7).

 

This leads us to the second aspect of Wycliffe's teaching which affected the idea of covenant: his predestinarianism. Schaff attempts to explain his position in the following:

 

He seems to have endeavored to shun the determinism of Bradwardine, and declared that the doctrine of necessity does not do away with the freedom of the will, which is so free that it cannot be compelled. Necessity com­pels the creature to will, that is, to exercise his freedom, but at that point he is left free to choose. (Ibid. , p. 326)

 

God's predestination of all things creates the options which make free will for man possible. Predestination is the basis for free moral agency, which in turn, is the basis for covenants. Covenants cannot exist without a free will. They are qualified by the principles of accountability and free choice. A slave and a child are considered incompetent to enter into contracts and covenants. This is because their moral agency is not free.

 

That God created all possibilities does not mean He requires all things that occur. What Wycliffe opposed was the assertion by human authorities that they could be validated by the doctrine of predestination, i.e., submis­sion to them was required because they were the ordained channels of God's eternal decree.

 

The idea of a continuing revelation was at the very heart of Papal claims to apostolic authority (authority derived from supposedly being successors of Christ's apostles). "The divine right of kings" was its expression by proponents of state power. For Wycliffe and his followers, God's decree was worked out by the individual's response to the Scriptures. The Elect manifest themselves by righteousness, the Reprobate by wickedness. Wycliffe introduced the criteria of ethical deportment to identify the Elect (or at least, the non-Elect). He struck a mortal blow at this fatalistic and institutionally mediated form of predestination. His institutional voluntarism is the true expression of Protestant covenantalism.

 

EVANGELICALISM

 

Although we find Wycliffe's writings to be wordy and scholastic at times, we sense his disinterest on metaphysical questions. Unlike Anselm on the Atonement or Luther on the will, or all the Reformers on the Mass, he seems to have his heart set on writing sermon outlines for his lay preachers and Scripture pamphlets for them to leave behind as they traveled from village to village. These "Poor Preachers" call to mind Wesley's "class leaders" of early Methodism, and "General" Booth's "officers" of the Salvation Army, and the preaching of revivalists, such as D. L. Moody.

 

This is evangelicalism or "gospelism". It is the attempt to save the world by preaching the story of Jesus. It appeals to the conscience of the individual with the Holy Scriptures and then lets the Holy Spirit do the work of transformation.

 

Such a phenomenon is unfamiliar to European Protestantism, which is more concerned with conquest by social units. In the Dissenting tradition, the pastor is subordinate to the informal office of the preacher as the primary church office. Oratory, persuasion, and moral influence become the instruments of social reconstruction rather than the sword.

 

Theologically, Wycliffe's evangelical descendants have tried to stand aloof from the soteriological controversies between Calvinists and Arminians. Indeed, the attempt to pigeon-hole American theologians and preachers into either camp is nearly impossible. It is not because they were compromisers or inconsistent thinkers. They stood in a different theological tradition which antedated the Calvinist/Arminian controversy. Their irenic impulse grew from their perception that ethics was more important than doctrinal re­finement on metaphysical questions. From Wycliffe's The Reign of God to Richard Baxter's A Holy Commonwealth to Nathaniel Taylor's The Moral Government of God, we find a common theological theme: "what doth the Lord require of thee". It was a call for the people to return to the covenant and to renew a personal relationship with God.  It was a call to them to rebuild righteous relationships with their neighbors.

 

          Here, we find the seminal idea for evangelical theology that recurred again and again among American theologians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the source of the revivalism from Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield to Charles Finney and D. L. Moody.

 

It is unfair to say that the revivalists of that era are in some sense responsible for the general backsliding from Calvinism, for Americans were never Calvinist to begin with. To the contrary, the revivals broke the tyranny hyper-Calvinism had imposed upon "Puritan" New England at the close of the seventeenth century. The institutional tyranny of that era left the people in general apathy. And the doctrine of predestination was preached to rein­force submission to what was declared to be "God's ordained order." The reviv­als of Edwards and Whitefield struck a blow at that perversion of doctrine. They preached that God redeems societies by redeeming the people in those societies. There was no conflict between predestination and free will. Men are not only able to but are required to respond to God's grace.

 

The triumph of atheism and humanism would have occurred two centuries before their time were it not for the revival preachers of Edwards through Finney. They were the ones who held back the forces of secularism and apostasy by their prophetic ministries. The American Revolution would have been radi­cally different, much more like the French Revolution, were it not for White-field and Edwards. We ought not judge the anemic revival preaching of our time, absent of a theonomic base, as typical of that era.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Inordinate interest in metaphysical speculation by evangelical theologians and ministers during the last one hundred and fifty years has led to the neg­lect of the ethical and moral applications of God's Law, which must be made in every generation afresh. Examples of this misplacement of priorities are many, and include the free-will vs. predestination debate between Calvinists and Arminians, glossolalia as the evidence of the Holy Spirit's baptism between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals, and the timing of the Parousia debate be­tween dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists.

 

Most of those theologians were theonomists, but their failure to empha­size and explore the particular requirements of God's Law left a vacuum in the education of their students. This they did, contrary to God's express admonition through Moses, who said,

 

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,

that we may follow all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

 

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

(Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

 

 

 

ADDENDUM

 

The only historical work which attempts to prove a Wycliffe/Separatist origin to American culture (to my knowledge, anyway) is Thomas Cuming Hall's much maligned book The Religious Background of American Culture, (Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1930). Although not agreeing with some of his mod­ernist conclusions, his command of historical data is impressive. It is must reading for critics who intend to refute my thesis.

 

Photo-copies of this 350 page book can be obtained for $25.00, postage paid. James Stivers, PO Box 31176, Spokane, WA 99223.

 

Copyright © 1987.  James W. Stivers.  All rights reserved.