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Stuyvesant was ahead of his time

Stuyvesant was ahead of his time

Last updated on: October 9, 2013 at 5:54 pm by Fred Clark

Stuyvesant was ahead of his time 2013-10-09T17:54:00-04:00 Fred Clark

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So I was surfing around the Web reading stuff about the Flushing Remonstrance, as one does sometimes, and I came across the official response to that document from the remonstrat-ee, Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, director-general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland and of the city of New Amsterdam.

The Remonstrance was a kind of proto-First Amendment written by proto-New Yorkers — an appeal for religious tolerance. Stuyvesant didn’t just argue that the Remonstrance was wrong, he suggested its “Spirit of Error” was so grievous as to bring divine wrath down upon the colony in the form of “hot fevers and dangerous diseases.”

This doesn’t seem to have been mere rhetoric, I think Stuyvesant was genuinely frightened that permitting “abominable Heresy” in the colony would bring such divine judgment. His attempt to prohibit Jews from settling in New Amsterdam (“the deceitful race,” he wrote, “such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony”) had been overruled by the Dutch West India Company. And if that wasn’t bad enough, now there were Quakers in Queens. Stuyvesant feared this put the colonists’ souls and safety in jeopardy.

So, on January 21, 1658, Stuyvesant had the following proclamation proclaimed, declaring a day of prayer and repentance from the sin of religious tolerance. The 17th-century language of this proclamation sheweth it to bee a document of its time, but what struck me most about it was how familiar it is. So much of what Stuyvesant proclaimed in 1658 is very similar to what his modern-day heirs of the gospel of intolerance are proclaiming today in 21st-century language:

Honorable and well beloved.

Notwithstanding the good and all merciful God has favoured and blessed this newly rising Province in general and its inhabitants in particular with many and innumerable mercies and benefits; amongst others with health, peace and prosperity, abundance, and remarkable increase of population and trade, and what is to be valued above all, with the free and public exercise of the pure worship of God;

So far, so very David Barton. This is standard “God Bless America” stuff. We are blessed because we were founded as a Christian nation Province, where True Christians practice only True Christianity. Most religious right speakers today clear their throats with the same godandcountry boilerplate Stuyvesant uses here at the beginning of his statement.

Especially timely, though, is that bit there about “the free and public exercise of the pure worship of God.” Free, for Stuyvesant, means free to be pure.

So, then, what is the biggest threat to freedom? Impurity.

For Stuvyesant, as for the current crop of bishops and bagmen attempting to redefine “religious liberty,” the “free … exercise” of religion requires the public display of “pure worship” and the eradication of impure worship.

Yet, we, either enjoying the same thanklessly, or abusing them unworthily, have by the ungrateful use of bodily, or the unworthy abuse of spiritual benefits, provoked God’s rigorous justice, exciting his Divine Majesty — never sufficiently honored — to righteous anger, of which he hath shewn us not only palpable signs, but has caused us also to witness evident proofs; He hath visited near and remote places, towns and hamlets with hot fevers and dangerous diseases, as a chastisement if not punishment of the thankless use of temporal blessings;

See Pat Robertson and John Piper and The Liar Tony Perkins immediately after any hurricane, tornado, flood or mass-shooting. This is bush-league Bildad-ism — the same nonsense lampooned by the author of Job and condemned in that book by the voice of God directly. But it’s still popular because it’s wrong in such a neat and tidy way.

And because it’s so useful for religious demagogues. Don’t like X? Wait for something bad to happen (it won’t be long, bad things happen all the time), then say the bad thing was God’s punishment for X. An old formula, and a foolish one, but it works, so folks like Stuyvesant and Robertson and TLTP will keep using it.

So, then, what is the sin for which God’s “righteous anger” is being poured forth as a “chastisement”? It’s those damn Quakers and, even worse, those uppity colonists welcoming them and having the audacity to remonstrate their governor about it:

permitting and allowing the Spirit of Error to scatter its injurious passion amongst us, in spiritual matters here and there, rising up and propagating a new unheard of, abominable Heresy, called Quakers; seeking to seduce many, yea, were it possible, even the true believers — all signs of God’s just judgment and certain forerunners of severe punishment.

Stuyvesant’s argument here is actually a bit subtler than that of his contemporary heirs. He’s saying both that the colony is being punished for allowing the propagation of “abominable Heresy, called Quakers” and also that the presence of those Quakers is itself part of God’s punishment. So as punishment for welcoming Quakers, God hath sent unto us Quakers. Or something. That bit kind of falls apart if you think about it for a moment — suggesting that God is about to punish us further due to the heresy God sent to us as punishment for heresy. (“As ye reap, so shall ye reap,” seems unfair, but Stuyvesant was a Calvinist — so it made sense to him.)

In any case, his main point is to emphasize that allowing Quakers to propagate is a “certain forerunner of severe punishment.” If the impure are given the same freedom we have, God will punish us. That, in a nutshell, is most of what we hear, day-in and day-out, from the religious right in 2013.

To ward these off from us and our’s and to obtain God’s favours, benefits and blessings for us as well in temporal as in spiritual matters, the Director General and Council of New Netherland, have deemed it good and needful to prescribe and publish a Day of General Fast and Thanksgiving to be observed on the second Wednesday of the month of March, being the 13th of said month.

We therefore charge our subjects to repair to the fore and afternoon of the aforesaid day to Church or where God’s Word is usually preached in order, after hearing the same, to praise and thank the all good and merciful God, for the favors, blessings and benefits, which his Divine Majesty hath been pleased to confer on us during the last year, yea, in the whole course of our lives, and further to supplicate, pray and implore His Holy Name, with humble and contrite hearts, that his Divine Majesty would be pleased to continue the same to us, the ensuing year, to the Honour of His Name, to the furtherance and propagation of the Gospel, and the prosperity and salvation of us all.

That’s the actual proclaiming a day of prayer bit. It might be fun to memorize those florid phrases for the next time you’re sitting in Bible study and someone asks if you have any prayer requests.

“Yeah, uh, I’d just like us all to praise and thank the all good and merciful God, for the favors, blessings and benefits, which his Divine Majesty hath been pleased to confer on us during the last year, yea, in the whole course of our lives, and further to supplicate, pray and implore His Holy Name, with humble and contrite hearts, that his Divine Majesty would be pleased to continue the same to us, the ensuing year, to the Honour of His Name, to the furtherance and propagation of the Gospel, and the prosperity and salvation of us all, and also I have this big exam coming up on Tuesday.”

The religious right of the 21st century is also quite fond of proclaiming days of prayer. That sounds harmless enough, right? But the problem comes from what such prayer entails for those who share Stuyvesant’s view of “religious liberty” as “the free and public exercise of the pure worship of God.” For him, and for his heirs today, it means this:

That this may be performed with great devotion and unity, the Director General and Council prohibit, during divine service on the said day of Prayer and Thanksgiving, all exercises and amusements, tennis, ballplaying, hunting, fishing, sailing; also all unlawful plays such as gaming, dice playing, drunkenness and such like, on pain of arbitrary punishment and correction previously enacted against the same. We also admonish and require all Ministers within our jurisdiction to frame their prayers and sermons to the said end.

You know, religious freedom — meaning that the irreligious will be subject to “arbitrary punishment and correction” while the devout religious will merely be subject to admonitions and requirements “to frame their prayers and sermons” to the liking of the governor.

That’s the only logical result of any notion of “religious liberty” that privileges one idea of “pure worship” above those others deemed to have a “Spirit of Error” or to be guilty of “blasphemies.” It cannot lead anywhere else but to a place in which even the ministers of the privileged sect are required to pray and to preach in the manner outlined by the state.

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