Listening to a history podcast about the fascinating #ThomasMorton, which brought the christian American history book #TheLightAndTheGlory” to mind.
It written in the ‘70s by a Presbyterian minister with the goal of portraying the foundations of America as divinely inspired, and portrays the pilgrims, the Puritans, etc. as God’s agents of American exceptionalism.
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It was given to me by my parents, and it’s still wildly popular in Christian circles, particularly the homeschooling world.
I haven’t thought about it in years, but I just searched for secular critiques online, and came up empty. This shocked me – its view of American history deeply informs the theocratic exceptionalist program of the modern American GOP.
Do people outside the bubble just not KNOW about it?
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And if you’re not familiar with #ThomasMorton, I couldn’t recommend this podcast more highly:
#HistoryOnFire
(EPISODE 96: The Wildest Man You Have Never Heard Of”
“The name of Thomas Morton has largely been erased from history. Some people could refer to Morton as a victim of the Puritan brand of cancel culture. The Puritan story became mainstream, and Morton’s name disappeared. This episode fixes this mistake.”
“The Puritans feared that which was undomesticated.” — Jeff Hendricks “Our earliest American heroes were Morton’s oppressors, Endicott, Bradford, Miles Standish. Merry Mount’s been expunged from the official version because it’s the story not of a virtuous utopia but of a utopia of cando
Richard Miller