{"id":10911,"date":"2026-08-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10911"},"modified":"2026-05-19T16:33:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:33:51","slug":"looking-at-e-michael-joness-book-2025-walking-with-a-bible-and-a-gun-part-12-of-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10911","title":{"rendered":"Looking at E. Michael Jones’s Book (2025) “Walking with a Bible and a Gun”\u00a0 (Part 12 of 27)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0131 The children of immigrant Englishmen and Germans and Dutch and Irish avoid the hanging theological commitment of Puritan covenant theology<\/em> and the awkwardly two-faced acquisitional theology of the Virginian plantations owners<\/em> by moving west.  The west does not fear the bottomless pit of total depravity (at least, not yet).  The west rewards folk for their own labor.  The west promises opportunities that do not much depend on one’s theological refinements.  The frontier depends on the person carrying a gun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0132 Chapter 7 discusses movements within eighteenth-century Protestantism.  The Calvinist theology that once united the Puritan political faction<\/em> against the Anglican political establishment<\/em> in Britain, could not attain the systematic expositions<\/em> of the Catholics<\/em> nor comport with the slippery Anglican word-games that somehow justified owning African slaves<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0133 The pragmatic American brings his bag of cornmeal, his flask of whiskey and his gun out into the wilderness.  He makes a living hunting.  Maybe, he marries and puts down a farm. He is shiftless, so why should God extend His covenant?  The fellow may be baptized, but he is unelected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, the Bible allows that, if that believer has an experience of conversion, or if a man or a woman gains a personal relation with Jesus the Savior, then that would be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick, of course, is that the covenant-election business offers a ticket to the justifications of the Old Testament, especially the one where Joshua could kill the Canaanites by declaring them less-than-human and taking their lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0134 Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729) starts a church and preaches a “half-way covenant”.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Surely, the situation level of identity3b<\/sub> must be changing as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Eastern seaboard looks to Britain.  The western inland looks to walking into lands beyond New England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0135 The mechanical philosophies of the 1600s bear fruit.  John Locke (1632-1704) writes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding<\/em>.  The essay does not advocate a return to Thomistic Aristotelian scholasticism.  The essay extols ideas.  The theologian, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is intrigued.  How does one reconcile idealism and the Calvinist worldview?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0136 If ideas are the first elements of knowledge and if essence can be labeled, then labels constitute the furniture of our minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I see such furniture in the following figure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

0137 Ideating reality3a<\/sub> is apparently the same as walking3a<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes sense, in so far as walking3a<\/sub> tends to follow established paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, the Calvinism of the original Puritanism<\/em> constitutes a well-appointed path<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0138 The Bible [furnishing] my mind2a<\/sub> compares to the Bible [constitutes] us2a<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0139 Does the potential of ‘applying Puritan labels’1a<\/sub> somehow match ‘the gun’1a<\/sub>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author offers a passage from a standard conventional American history of Jonathan Edwards.  Edward’s mental furniture<\/em> accommodates the Calvinist theory of freedom of will<\/em> (allowing election) as well as the total depravity of fallen humans<\/em> (keying into covenant theology and predestination).  While the union of these two ideas (or labels) makes no sense to many, the house that Edwards builds<\/em> does not stand against itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By grace alone1b<\/sub>, scripture2b<\/sub> magnifies these metaphysical potentials1a<\/sub>.  In 1755, Edwards pens a treatise titled, “The Nature of True Virtue”, where the paths of election and total depravity intertwine in the person’s first ideation, which must be predestined, because no one knows what a baby ideates, except for God, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

0131 The children of immigrant Englishmen and Germans and Dutch and Irish avoid the hanging theological commitment of Puritan covenant theology and the awkwardly two-faced acquisitional theology of the Virginian plantations owners by moving west.  The west does not fear the bottomless pit of total depravity (at least, not yet).  The west rewards folk for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[592],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-semiotics-and-history"],"yoast_head":"\nLooking at E. 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