Super Bowl or Presbyterianism?

(The image is of John Knox.)

Should I blog about Presbyterianism this evening, or watch the Super Bowl? Duh. Obviously I'll do both.

Our tour guide, Samuel Gardiner, believed in a religious system that took many of its precepts from Presbyterianism. It may surprise you to find that he retained a clear view of the subject. Pick up your reading of the History of England at page 22.

Presbyterianism, in the 16th century was Calvinism as practiced in Geneva, transposed to a national scale. It was practiced in Scotland and elsewhere, but in Scotland it found its most fertile ground. The central ideas were the same as those embraced by the Genevans, the Dutch and the more precise English:

-- Salvation by faith
-- Predestination
-- The importance of a preaching ministry
-- Church government by presbyters, lay-elders, and deacons.

It seems surprising to us now that this system was viewed, by both sides, as antithetical to the protestantism of the Church of England. In fact, the Presbyterians and the Anglicans disagreed in only a few articles.
In terms of dogma, they disgreed mainly on which of them was most anti-Papist.

Gardiner does a good job of explaining the nature of Presbyterianism: it was a movement of the clergy. That it had a hold on the populace is probably because the only literate man were those clergy. The few Scots nobles who took an interest in abstract matters tended to Catholicism; the rest embraced Presbyterian government as the weakest competition to their own power. The result was that Calvinism, in itself a system very amenable to personal liberty, became itself somewhat oppressive. Gardiner's explanation of this beginning on page 24 is very convincing.

After the Super Bowl, we'll pick up on page 26.

By the way, I heard this joke today: The devil was inspecting his domains and came upon a damned soul who had a smile on his face. "Why," asked the devil, "are you smiling while toiling in this infernal heat?" "I'm from Phoenix, " said the man. "I like it hot." The devil would have none of this and immediately dropped the temperature of Hell to near zero Kelvin. The next day, he visited the soul and still found him smiling. "Why are you smiling now?" he asked. "I've frozen everything.". "Yes," answered the soul: "I figure that means the Cardinals are in the Super Bowl."