Synopses & Reviews
American, European, political, and theological histories intersect in this important new exploration of the founding of the United States. The Covenant Connection examines the way in which the Protestant Reformation and federal covenant theology, which lay at the foundation of Reformed Protestantism in its Calvinist version, played a major role in shaping the political life and ideas of the colonies of British North America and ultimately the new United States of America. Contributors to the volume look at the most critical facets of this connection over nearly three centuries, from the beginning of the Reformation in sixteenth-century Zurich to the declaration of American independence and the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Individual chapters show how federal theology led to a revival of Biblical republicanism in Reformation Europe; how it was applied and modified in countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and England; and how it was carried across the Atlantic by the early settlers of North Americamost particularly the Puritans but also other groups such as the Dutch and the Scottishto form the matrix for American constitutionalism, democratic republicanism, and federalism. As a collection, The Covenant Connection provides an irrefutable analysis of the profound biblical and Reformation influences on the founding of America.
Table of Contents
From Biblical covenant to modern federalism : the federal theology bridge / Daniel J. Elazar -- Covenant and community in the thought of Heinrich Bullinger / J. Wayne Baker -- Covenant and federalism in the politics of Althusius / Thomas O. Hueglin -- History, humanity, and federalism in the theology and ethics of Johannes Cocceius / Charles S. McCoy -- From covenant of grace to tolerant public pluralism : the Dutch Calvinist contribution / James W. Skillen -- Covenant theology and the development of religious liberty / Charles James Butler -- John Knox : the first of the monarchomachs? / W. Stanford Reid -- The covenant concept in Scottish theology and politics / James B. Torrance -- Covenant, crown, and commons in Elizabethan Puritanism / Michael McGiffert -- Covenant motifs in seventeenth-century literature / Harold Fisch -- Covenant, body politic, and the great migration / John Peacock -- Liberty and equality from a communitarian perspective / Donald S. Lutz -- Federalism and covenant / Daniel J. Elazar -- Covenant language in Canada : continuity and change in political discourse / Filippo Sabetti -- The covenant traditions of Dutch Americans / James D. Bratt.