Thursday, July 27, 2017

Christian History Made Easy Chapter 10 Revolutions in the New World


Chapter 10     Revolutions in the New World





1. What’s in this video?
§Why the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
§Why Roger Williams founded his own colony.
§How the Great Awakening impacted the American colonies.
§How Methodism began.
2. What was happening during this time?
•The 1600s and 1700s were years of revolution: national, political, religious, philosophical, and scientific.
•In the aftermath of the Reformation, the crucial question became:
§“If neither a divinely-ordained king nor one established church determines what is best, how does that change the ways that we understand our lives?”


3. How did the Revolution in the Social Order begin?


•The Pilgrim Separatists did not move to 

North America to establish religious freedom.

•They moved to the new world to establish a society based on their own beliefs.
•A Separatist named Roger Williams declared that civil judges should not enforce religious beliefs.
•When he also declared that “the Natives are the true owners of this land,” he was expelled from the community.

•In a Bible study in her home, Anne Hutchinson had declared that Christians were not bound to obey any human laws.
•She fled to Providence after being exiled from the Puritan colony.

Romans 13:1-7 (ESV) 
1  Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4  for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5  Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6  For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7  Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Providence Colony
“No person within said colony shall be called in question for any opinion in matters of religion. Persons may enjoy their own judgments in matters of religious concernment.” —From the original charter of the colony of Providence

4. The church and science or the church vs science?

By emphasizing a reasonable and orderly God who created the universe, Christianity birthed the scientific method.
Conflicts did occur between the established church and scientists—but not because church leaders were against scientific research.


5. What’s at the center of the solar system?

Galileo carried Copernicus’ ideas from speculation to science.
Due to changes in the political climate, the Inquisition placed Galileo on trial.
Some church leaders believed, based on,  Joshua 10:12-13 that the sun moved, not the earth.

•Joshua 10:12-13 (NKJV) 

12  Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: "Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." 13  So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. 
•However, the reason that Galileo was convicted was because he lied under oath.
•In the end, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest in a luxuriant villa.
•There, Galileo carried out scientific research for the remainder of his life.

6. What was the “Revolution in Human Reason”?
•In the minds of many people, the time seemed right for a faith centered in universal reason.
•In 1687, Isaac Newton used calculus to show how gravity could explain the mystery of planetary movements.
•Newton published his proofs in a book titled Mathematical Principles for Natural Philosophy.
•In the words of one poet, “Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hidden in Night; God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ And all was light.”
Inspired by new possibilities of scientific reasoning, later thinkers developed new perspectives on how to seek and discover truth.
•The result? The Enlightenment which focused on individual reasoning, words, science, and natural order.

DISCIPLINE                                    SCIENTIST  Who was a Christian
ANTISEPTIC SURGERY                    JOSEPH LISTER (1827-1912)
BACTERIOLOGY                                LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
CALCULUS                                           ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
CELESTIAL MECHANICS                JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
CHEMISTRY                                        ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
ANATOMY                                           GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)
COMPUTER SCIENCE                      CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS             LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
DYNAMICS                                          ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
ELECTRONICS                                    JOHN  FLEMING (1849-1945)
ELECTRODYNAMICS                       JAMES MAXWELL (1831-1879)
ELECTRO-MAGNETICS                   MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ENERGETICS                                       LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ENTOMOLOGY                                   HENRI FABRE (1823-1915)
FIELD THEORY                                   MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
FLUID MECHANICS                         GEORGE STOKES (1819-1903)
GALACTIC ASTRONOMY              WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
GAS DYNAMICS                                ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
GENETICS                                            GREGOR MENDEL (1822-1884)
GLACIAL GEOLOGY                        LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
GYNECOLOGY                                   JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
HYDRAULICS                                     LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
HYDROGRAPHY                               MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
HYDROSTATICS                               BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
ICHTHYOLOGY                                 LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
ISOTOPIC CHEMISTRY                  WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
MODEL ANALYSIS                           LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
NATURAL HISTORY                        JOHN RAY (1627-1705)
NON- Euclid GEOMETRY               BERNHARD RIEMANN (1826- 1866)
OCEANOGRAPHY                           MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
OPTICAL MINERALOGY               DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
PALEONTOLOGY                             JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728)
PATHOLOGY                                     RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (1821-1902)
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY              JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)


•Individual reason was advocated in Western philosophy and cultural life as the primary source and legitimacy for authority:
“With human reason and the five senses crowned as king, mystery—including the twin mystery of tradition and authority—is banished. A god who intervenes in human history is viewed as irrelevant.”—Brian Hobbs
•Many Enlightenment thinkers embraced Deism.
•Deism searched for a universal foundation on which all religions could agree.
•Most Deists believed that a divine being had created the universe and natural laws, but this being was revealed to humanity primarily through the created order.

•Deists saw value in Jesus and in his teachings—but only as the supreme expressions of someone who lived and taught according to the laws that God had embedded in the natural order.
•For such Deists, to be Christian was simply to live according to Christ’s ethics.

7. What was the “Revolution in Religion”?
•Even in this time of spiritual darkness, God’s people were praying
•In the early 1700s, these prayers resulted in a “great awakening.”
•Beginning in the 1720s, Nikolaus von Zinzendorf and the Moravian Pietists held prayer meetings at Herrnhutt in Germany.
•In literal obedience to  1 Thess. 5:17 & Lev. 6:13, prayers continued round-the-clock.

Lev. 6:13 & 1 Thess. 5:17

7“The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.”—Leviticus 6:13

“Pray without ceasing.”—1 Thessalonians 5:17 KJV

•In 1736, an Anglican priest named John Wesley was impressed by a group of Moravian Pietists on a ship.

•“I went to America to convert the Indians" 

John wept after seeing their faith,
“but, oh, who shall convert me?”
•Two years later, John and his brother Charles were converted.
•Their methodical approach to discipleship in their “Holy Clubs” earned them the title Methodists.

•George Whitefield became the most famous Methodist preacher.
•Thousands of people in the American colonies responded to his pleas for them to trust Jesus Christ.
•In 1734, more than 300 church members trusted Jesus Christ for the first time in the Northampton Awakening.
•Jonathan Edwards was pastor of the Northampton Congregational Church.

Jonathan Edwards
“God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land....Everyone that is out of Christ, awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation.”
—From Edwards’ famous Sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

•When Jonathan Edwards heard Whitefield, he wept for joy.
•The response to Whitefield’s messages was so amazing that people dubbed it “The Great Awakening.”


8. A Revolution in the Political Order?

•But as pastors began focusing on the revolution against the British, the revival fires of the Great Awakening began to fade.
•Many pastors favored the Revolution, with one pastor declaring, “the cause of America is the cause of Christ.”
•Others, including John Wesley, opposed it.
•In the end, the United States won independence from Britain.
“I have no representation in Parliament, I am taxed, yet I am no slave. Who then is a slave?… See the Negro, fainting under the load.… You and I, and the English in general, go where we will and enjoy the fruit of our labors: this is liberty. The Negro does not: this is slavery.” 
—John Wesley’s words to those wanting to rebel against the British





Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, nearly half (24) held seminary or Bible school degrees. 52 of them were pastors, theologians or active teachers in their churches? 

“Among the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention were 28 Episcopalians,
8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists,
2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists,
 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and only
3 deists–Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin.
Of the 56 Founding Fathers  45 were Calvinists” 


In his library George Washington had over 100 volumes of sermons preached by various pastors.  Any Sunday he was prohibited from going to church, he would read one of those sermons to his wife, Martha.  Washington an Episcopalian, attended services Sunday morning and evening.  He would not see any visitors on Sunday (his holy day), except for one.  When Congress was in session, the Speaker of the House would stop by about 9:00 in the evening, and the pair would pray over the various items of business that were set to come before Congress that week.
Washington rose at 5:00 AM each  day and spent one hour in prayer and Bible reading. Before retiring at about 10 pm he could be seen in his study on his knees before a chair with an open bible.

•All but two of the first 108 universities founded in America were Christian. This includes the first, Harvard, where the student handbook listed this as Rule #1:
“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.“






In 1777. Continental Congress voted to spend $300,000 to purchase bibles which were to be distributed throughout the 13
colonies! And in 1782, the United States Congress declared, 
“The Congress of the United States recommends and approves
the Holy Bible for use in all schools.”
•In the third article of the new nation’s Bill of Rights, Roger Williams’ vision of religious freedom found its fulfillment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”





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