God, man & the founding.(Shelf Life)(Protestantism and the American Founding)(Letters to a Young Catholic)(Book Review)

TO understand America, one must understand the religion of its Founders: This is the clear lesson of the fine new anthology Protestantism and the American Founding (Notre Dame, 281 pp., $25), edited by Thomas S. Engeman and Michael P. Zuckert. "While there were many religions in 1787," writes Engeman in his introduction, "overwhelmingly they were branches of the Reformed or Calvinist trunk." It is estimated that over three-quarters of Americans at the time of the Revolution were members of denominations from the Puritan wing of the European Reformation--and, says Engeman, "Protestant thought and practice had even greater influence" than these numbers would suggest.

The central question addressed in these essays is: Was the American Founding an Enlightenment-inspired repudiation of the colonies' Puritan heritage, or a natural development out of that Puritan background? Thomas G. West, a professor of politics at the University of Dallas, argues persuasively that it's a serious mistake to view the Founding as a rupture with the Puritan project. Puritanism, he writes, began with a "fierce ... spirit of independence from all human authority while being totally devoted to Christ." This idealism was supplemented in the colonial years by a growing realization that "man's imperfect or fallen nature was ... unchanged by divine grace" and that therefore "limited government and the rule of law were indispensable." This process of political education culminated in the Puritans'adoption--"as part of their theology," West emphasizes--of Lockean social-compact theory.

"The Puritans," West writes, "did not think of themselves as turning away from Christian political theology, but as approaching more closely the truth of that theology.... By the mid-18th century, the 'Calvinists' were no less devoted to the new understanding of politics than the 'rationalists.' ... Just as in early Puritanism, the secular is for the sake of the sacred. But the sacred now includes respect for the God-given liberty of all."

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