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Elizabeth to James and a bit of Calvinism · Saberian History Lectures

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Wires back on. Okay. So we had left off Elizabeth
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is crowned Queen of England. She decides not
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to get married because how many people did she
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watch die horribly because of childbirth? Enough,
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right? And she presumed that the best way to
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ensure governmental stability was not to be married
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because, you know, marriage is hazardous to your
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health, especially having children. So she becomes
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the Virgin Queen. of England. Now, here's the
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thing that's really kind of fun. And this is
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something that you read about in the text, and
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I need to explain in more detail than I'm going
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to do after we talk about Elizabeth and James.
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So remember, you had Catholicism. Now, Catholicism
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had an altar. And it had sacraments. And it had
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a mass, and it had bishops, and it had priests.
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And it's got a pope. And if you go to a Catholic
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church, besides the altar, what else do you see?
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What else is in a Catholic church? How many of
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you have been to a Catholic church, either as
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a visitor or as a parishioner? Okay, how many
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of you have been to a Protestant church, a Baptist
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church, either as a parishioner or a visitor?
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I've had the August distinction, or not distinction.
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Okay, as a healthy exercise in just being among
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people, look, go to somebody else's religious
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expression every now and again. It's really eye
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-opening. Especially if you've grown up in a
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church where there's a lot of... Solemnity and
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ceremony and then you go to a church with a lot
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of joyful noise, it'll really set you back. It
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takes you a bit. And then if you're, you know,
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one of the ones who comes from a place with a
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joyful noise and then you go to a place with
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solemnity and dignity, it also has a virtue to
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have your horizons expanded. Okay. Who's the
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most important woman in Catholicism? Who's the
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most important woman in history? If you're a
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Catholic. Virgin Mary hail Mary full of grace
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blessed art thou among women and blessed is the
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fruit of thy womb Jesus That's a very common
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Oration and she factors prominently usually there's
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a statue of the Virgin Mary Very close to the
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altar. I forget which side there it is. Okay,
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so Catholicism has Mary who is the virgin queen
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of heaven So now you have the Anglicans. Their
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monarch is their head. They have altars. They
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have sacraments. They have bishops. And they
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have priests. And Elizabeth decides to become
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the Virgin. Queen of England. Now, the other
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thing that's actually kind of interesting, and
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I don't know if I mentioned this yesterday, if
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you go to a Catholic church today in New Brumfield,
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Texas, you will hear the mass in either English
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or Spanish. You will hear it in the common language.
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That has only been the case since the time of
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your grandparents. In the time of your great
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grandparents, it was more common for the prayers
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to be in Latin. Well, when the English become
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Anglican, their prayers become English prayers.
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They start praying in English. They start doing
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the sacraments in English. And if you actually
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look at the Protestant Reformation, you look
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at the countries that become Protestant, they're
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usually the countries whose language is not Latin.
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So if you look at who becomes Protestant, it's
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the English, it's the Dutch, it's some of the
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Germans, it's the Scandinavian countries. If
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you look at who stays Catholic, it's the Spanish.
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Spanish is a derivative of Latin. It's the French.
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French is a derivative of Latin. It's the Italians.
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Italian is modernized Latin. And so you can actually,
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one of the central tenets of the Reformation
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was that the word of God and that the sacraments
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should be done in the common language, not in
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the special Latin language. So you can actually
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look at the Reformation within degrees as a linguistic
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revolt. as a political and a linguistic revolt,
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and not necessarily as a theological revolt.
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We'll get to the theology bits a little later.
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Now, if you look at the timeline, Elizabeth reigns
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from 1558 to 1603. If you do the math, that's
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three times longer than you all have been alive.
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48 years. But all good things must come to an
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end. She dies. So they're like, oh dear. So they
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go back to the family tree and they're like who
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else can we shake out the family tree to take
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over this country? so Remember Margaret remember
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Henry the eighth sister She was married to James
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the fourth of Scotland so Margaret Marries James
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the fourth of Scotland Who has James V, who has
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Mary de Guise, who has James VI. So James VI
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of Scotland, who is, let's see, it's a cousin,
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but it's like one, two, I don't know how many
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removed, but yeah. So meanwhile, while Elizabeth's
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reigning a really long time, The Scots are having
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kids and not dying in childbirth. OK. So James
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VI of Scotland becomes James I of England. And
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so if you ever look at a British flag, do you
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notice how it's a red cross inside of a white
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X? That's because the Scottish flag was a white
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X on a blue background, and the British flag
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was the cross of St. George, which was a red
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cross on a white field. You put them together,
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now you have a red cross with an X on a white
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field and a blue field. And that's how the British
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get their flag as the United Kingdom. James has
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a bit of a problem, which is, oh, by the way,
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they were so desperate to keep the kingdom together,
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they decided to be ruled by a Scotsman. Now,
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you have to understand, if you're an English
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person, you think of the Scots as barbarians.
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You don't think well of them. They were content
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to be ruled by a Scotsman rather than have another
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civil war. Don't worry, they will have a civil
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war, just not yet. OK. So James needs to standardize
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religious practice in England. because his church
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looks really Catholic, but there are people who
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don't like that it looks really Catholic. So
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one of the things that they were arguing about
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was what translation of the Bible is going to
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be used. And so he commissions a translation
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of the Bible and he basically says to his religious
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dissidents, it's my way or get off the island.
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Now wait. Don't we know about some Puritans who
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fled to North America seeking religious freedom?
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You remember reading about those people right
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around Turkey time, right? Remember in fifth
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grade? Well, it's not exactly that they were
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seeking religious freedom. It's more that they
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were asked to leave. They weren't exactly asked.
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They were told. Now by the way, James was being
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awfully tolerant. He was being very tolerant,
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if you think about it. He let them leave. How
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did his ancestors deal with religious dissidents?
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They killed them. I mean, that's pretty good.
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That's pretty tolerant. And so that's how we
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have the King James Bible. And what was the name
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of that first town? Jamestown. They named it
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after their king. And so you can actually tell
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who's in charge when something gets started.
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Virginia is named after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth.
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Jamestown is named after King James. Anybody
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want to guess who they named Charleston after?
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King Charles. And Georgia? George. You see how
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that works. Okay, so that's it for the slideshow.
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I have a little bit with the religious bits and
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then I will leave you to your labors. All right,
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and I'm going to make this really fast, not just
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for the tape. OK. Luther. Calvin. OK. This is
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important. OK. So one of the things that you
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have to understand is James in England creates
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a final solution to a religious problem. And
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that religious problem in England is, on one
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extreme, the one thing that the English can agree
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on in the religious practice is that the practice
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needs to be in English. That's about it. So on
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one hand, you have what I would call Anglo -Catholics.
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That is the people who want bishops, sacraments,
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altars, bells, incense, all that good stuff.
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Altars, incense, all that good stuff, right?
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It's a Catholic church, except they're praying
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in what? English. Okay. Now, by the way, they
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still think they're better than the Roman Catholics,
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not because they're Catholic, but because they're
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Roman. You get what I'm saying? Those people
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you're defining the identity as we're not those
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people by the way remember the Spanish define
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themselves as not being Muslim There are people
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who define themselves based on who on the other
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okay on the other extreme You have the Anglo
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-Calvinists Now this is a this is a an academic
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term they didn't actually call themselves that
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they called themselves The Puritans Now This
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is where we get into some of the doctrinal differences,
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okay Luther when he writes his 95 theses is complaining
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about a Practice in the church called the selling
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of indulgences Okay, so he's against Selling
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of indulgences. Now what an indulgence is, by
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the way, the Catholic Church still does these,
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they just don't sell them, is it's a reprieve.
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So back during COVID, the Pope issued an indulgence
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permitting people to not be obliged to participate
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in in -person worship back during the plague.
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He's like, it's okay if you don't participate
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in in -person worship because we don't want people
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to get getting sick. I remember that But at this
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time what an indulgence was is you would contribute
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money to the church and Ostensibly you would
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buy your way out of time in purgatory now for
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those of you who don't are not familiar purgatory
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is This middle place between heaven and hell
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where your sins are cleansed out of you And so
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depending on how sinful your life was, you'd
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remain there for a while before going into heaven.
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And so one of the things that people would do
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is, you know, if you had a dead relative, you'd
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try and shorten their time in purgatory after
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you pray for their souls. One of the other things
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that's actually to Protestants, it's very weird.
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Um, but Catholics, it's very normal to pray prayers
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over your dead relatives. And frequently, like
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not just on the anniversaries, but like often
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that you pray for the dead. Okay. So he's against
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the selling of indulgences and he posits that
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one can have a relationship with the divine that
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one comes to know God only and achieve salvation
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only through scripture. So only scripture, only
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grace, and only faith. So the Latin sola scriptura,
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sola gratia. So la Fidelis, okay, that's Luther's
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Thing what this also posits is that you do not
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need the priest as an intercessor and one of
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the other major doctrinal differences between
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Catholics and Protestants and it gets iterated
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by Luther is whether or not The when you take
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communion whether it actually becomes the body
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and blood of Christ so Catholic doctrine posited
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then even now that when the priest blesses the
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host and the wine, that it is transfigured or
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that it's trans substantiated into the body and
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blood of Christ. Whereas the Protestants think
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of it in more symbolic terms. Okay. Now embedded
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in this is this idea that the Bible should be
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translated into the common language so people
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could read it for themselves. Now what could
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possibly go wrong if people read it for themselves
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What could possibly go wrong if people read something
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complicated for themselves They might misunderstand
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it they might get some really crazy ideas and
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they do I'll give you any all right. I'll give
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you an example There's this passage in the Bible
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if your right eye causes you to sin pluck it
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out and throw it on the fire What would happen
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if you have a very literal person interpreting
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that? They would actually gouge that freaking
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eye out and throw it in a fire, right? I see
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a whole bunch of homies walking around with one
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eye It's the new gang anyway Okay, now that's
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not the least of the ways they can screw it up,
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right? There are some really fun ones in the
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Old Testament Like how to deal with mouthy children
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take them before the city elders and they need
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to get stoned like the old -time rock and roll
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with the rocks Okay. Now what winds up happening
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is No sooner does he open the can of worms of
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oh you need to read the Bible for them for yourself
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then all of a sudden people do and then all of
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a sudden how many different flavors of Protestantism
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do we have a lot so now we get into Now we get
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into Calvin so The Puritans are trying to remove
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all the Catholic things Because they think it
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should just be the scripture the grace and the
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faith. All right, then we get to Calvin. Okay,
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here's the here's the thing about Calvin Calvin
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Comes up with a Theory of predestination, okay
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predestination is the idea that God determined
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so you're taking readings from the book of Revelation
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and you're taking readings from the book of Genesis
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and the idea is that God determined at the creation
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of the world who is to be saved and who is to
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be damned and If you're saved you're saved and
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if you're damned you're damned now what's different
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about that is versus more traditional notions
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of no, we have to save as many people as we can.
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We have to convert. We have to spread the gospel.
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Does that make sense? If you believe in the doctrine
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of predestination, does it matter if you spread
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the gospel? No. And so what the Calvinists tried
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to do is they try to make this perfect community
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that they can wait for the second coming in the
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judgment of God and be saved. Okay. So one of
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the hallmarks of the Anglo Calvinists is They
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ascribe to this doctrine and its rigid adherence
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to their laws. Now, by the way, if you're a king
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and maybe you're not following all the laws,
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are you going to follow a damned king? No. So
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now you know why James had to get them off the
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island. OK. So now. These Anglo -Calvinists,
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these Puritans sailed to America and their idea
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is to create the New Jerusalem. And it's actually
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kind of interesting. If you believe in the doctrine
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of predestination and you have to leave what
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you believe is an old corrupt world, do you really
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care about them anymore? They're doomed, aren't
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they? And so that's the religious doctrine. that
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the Puritans strike out and bring to the new
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world. And so I want to pause there and keep
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in mind that this Anglo -Calvinism is new to
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Europe, but it becomes almost the Genesis religion
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of the Puritan colonists in Massachusetts. So
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I'm gonna stop there. Questions, problems, concerns.
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Okay.