Frank Reichert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in part:
>> But the main point that Bill was making is that Christmas was very far from >> a universally practiced holiday among Christians in British North America, >> and many localities were practically Christmas-free for quite a while >> especially New England before the revolution, and the southeast for decades >> after 1800. >What this means, I don't honestly know. It means that in the middle of the 18th Century, in much of New England (Which was not known for its religious tolerance!), celebrating Christmas was either illegal or the sort of thing that'd make one very unpopular; and then in the early 19th Century, the religions that were strongly predominant in the Southeast (similar to today, Baptist) also tended to cast Christmas out of their vicinity. It took the influence of New York & Penna. to re-establish Christmas as a respectable holiday during the 19th C., and that was contending against the revivalist-temperance movement that began ca. 1800 as the popular 2nd wave of the Awakening. >I believe the original thread here suggested something on the order of >what was acceptable in America insofar as a strong hyper-Calvinism, >originated largely from dissatisfaction with British origin migrated >to America and established blocks of religious theocratic control. >New England was certainly the centre of that, but I doubt anyone can >suggest that once British control was established, that was the norm >throughout the Colonies. All I am suggesting is that it didn't really >go much further than New England. It did, in that 2nd wave I referred to above. That 2nd wave of the Great Awakening is still with us today, although maybe I should number 3rd & 4th waves beginning around 1900 and 1970, respectively. Other than the 7th Day Adventists and a few other offshoots, the evangelists have long since made peace with Christmas, but their other plantings came to fruition in the form of liquor prohibition and the "Religious Right". >At the same time, the official British government, certainly did not >despise Christmas, as the Anglican Church put it in the Church >calendar, just as the Roman Catholics had done before, as well as the >Lutherans that migrated since had imported. Now you're stuck, or so >it seems, with defending an idea that Calvinism was REALLY the REAL >pre revolution and post revolution fashion of that time. >I strongly doubt that that ever was the case. You underestimate it. Some analysts if pressed to name a single "ism" that makes us exceptional in the world would probably consider Calvinism the defining trait of the USA to this day. >As I wrote above, most people simply did what their cultural >orientation assumed that they would do. Nothing like this was ever as >I recall historically codified into law. At least until prohibition. No, the phrase "banned in Boston" exists for a reason. They really did enact some of their religion into law. They couldn't quite get the degree of suppression of the Catholics they'd wanted to, but they did manage to get them to finance the basically Congregationalist (or Congregationalist-Unitarian) public schools. Also consider the widespread blue laws. And illegality of gambling. In Your Sly Tribe, Robert _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
