The Church of America and the Heresy of Peace

America, said G. K. Chesterton, is a nation with the soul of a church. It is a sacred community commanding sacrificial loyalty. It is also a violent and weapon-loving civilization, in which force is tethered to patriotism and national identity. American culture is at once militarist and theological, Christian and violent. How can this paradox be explained? This article discusses the role of New England puritanism in establishing a providentialist nationalism that would define war as a theological prerogative and non-violence as heresy. It shows how theologians such as Cotton Mather identified the emerging nation of America with the sacred vessel of the Christian church to the point that ‘chosenness’ or divine election represented a blank cheque for military adventure. It also shows how theologies of peace and restraint were anathematized as not merely heretical but a form of spiritual violence against the American project. In this sense, American nationhood functions as a controlling consideration akin to an institution, and Christian pacifism serves as a charismatic critique – or inspiration. To what extent were attitudes to violence framed by models of salvation? How did identity or chosenness trump ethics or the duty of love in the puritan imagination? The article concludes with more recent observations about the relationship of the ‘institution’ of nationhood to the troublesome, fissiparous energies of peace.

Original Sin, Preterition, and its Implications for Evangelization

In this paper, I examine the four elements—universal sinfulness, natural sinfulness, inherited sinfulness, and Adamic sinfulness—of the doctrine of original sin in both the Reformed confessions, with particular attention to the Canons of Dort, and the Council of Trent’s definitive teaching on Original Sin. I give particular attention to the question regarding how all men are implicated in the sin of Adam. Realism and federalism will be analyzed as answers to this question. Even if a theological account is given that justifies the claim that God may justly impute Adam’s sin to his posterity, that still leaves unanswered the question of unconditional negative reprobation, also called, preterition (praeteritio), namely, that God passes over some and not others. Does preterition jeopardize the Church’s call to evangelization? That question will need to be reconsidered briefly, and in conclusion, in light of the doctrine of divine election and its implications for the preaching and hence proclamation of the gospel.

Spinoza and Judaism in the French Context: The Case of Milner’s Le Sage Trompeur*

Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza literature, remains regrettably understudied in the English-speaking world. Adopting Leo Strauss’ esoteric reading method, Milner alleges that Spinoza dissimulates his genuine analysis of the causes of the persecution and survival of the Jewish people within a brief “manifesto” found at the end of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), Chapter 3. According to Milner, Spinoza holds that the Jewish people themselves are responsible for the hatred of the Jewish people, and that the engine of their longevity is the hatred they engender. Additionally, claims Milner, Spinoza covertly insinuates that the solution to this persistent state of hatred consists in the mass apostasy of the Jewish people under the leadership of a Sabbatai Zevi-like figure. This article presents the Milner–Spinoza controversy to the English-speaking public along with the larger context of French-language scholarship on Spinoza’s relation to Judaism. While refuting Milner’s reading of Spinoza, I simultaneously clarify relevant elements of Spinoza’s discussions of Judaism in the TTP, such as Spinoza’s examination of Jewish identity and the nature of divine election, Spinoza’s understanding of the causes of national hatred, and Spinoza’s appeals to Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and Turkish political history.

Calvinistic Doctrines Reflected in Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

Preached on July 8, 1741, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” remains Jonathan Edwards’s most famous written work and a classic of the Great Awakening of New England. The long-famed power of this sermon rests not only in his searing images of hellfire and the insecurity they elicit, but also in the Calvinistic thoughts Edwards imparts to his Enfield listeners. This paper mainly examines some basic doctrines of Calvinism Edward expresses in this sermon, such as God’s absolute sovereignty, original sin, human depravity, and divine election, etc.

The King of Seringapatam

The focus of this chapter is on two texts—the Book of Haidar (Haidar Nama) and the History of Haidar (Nishan-i Haidari)—that relate Tipu Sultan’s genealogy. Of particular interest is the incorporation of tropes from the local southern Karnataka and Kannadiga genealogical tradition that demonstrates how Tipu Sultan and his court acted as adept curators of the historical tradition, constructing a narrative of succession that placed Tipu Sultan as the pinnacle of the kings of Shrirangapattana and its divinely elected ruler. By careful and selective use of the genealogical materials from the courts of his predecessors and through the construction of genealogies of his own family, the court of Tipu Sultan created a complex view of sovereign succession in which both the biological body of the king and the body politic were united as a result of his biological uniqueness and his divine election.