Contr'un
The Very Idea!
I’ve set up a public mirror for the lecture-essays I’m posting to my Great Ideas class this semester. Returning to the part-time faculty gig has been good for my research. You haven’t really lived the […]
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The Very Idea
Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy
John Cotton came to Massachusetts from Boston, England. He was a respected minister, although his teachings on the matter of justification and sanctification ran more towards the position that we’re calling “antinomian” than most of […]
The Very Idea
Justification and Sanctification
We need to wrestle with some key concepts in puritan theology, in order to understand the crises which arise in Massachusetts Bay, and give rise to changes in colonial culture. The key question of Christian […]
The Very Idea
Puritan Freedom
Freedom is, on this model, freedom to do good. And good is defined as actions in accordance with God’s will. Unfreedom comes from sin, or from subjection to Satan’s power. Our natures, though fallen, are […]
The Very Idea
John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity (1630)
We’ll have occassion to dwell quite a bit on the less positive aspects of New England puritanism, and Foner presents the puritan model of freedom as the foil for “American freedom” which, he says, “began […]
The Very Idea
On Greatness
GREAT IDEAS: SO WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY? For the duration of the semester, we’re all going to be concerned with “great ideas.” Specifically, in this section, we’ll be looking at, or looking for, “Great […]
The Very Idea
Meet the Teacher
Hi, folks. Here’s a bit of personal information about me: I was born in the Redwoods, in northern California…long enough ago that I was legal to drink before a number of your were born. My […]
Contr'un
Natural Gas Wars, Then and Now
The more things change. . . and all that. There are moments when it really feels like nothing much ever changes, except perhaps the scale of our collective foolishness. Last night, over coffee, i set […]
Contr'un
Radical Deficiency of the Existing Circulating Medium, 1857
William B. Greene’s 1857 Radical Deficiency of the Existing Circulating Medium, and the Advantages of a Mutual Currency is now online in the Libertarian Labyrinth. This is the text issued during the Panic of 1857—at […]
Contr'un
William B. Greene’s 1850 “Mutual Banking”
By 1850, the year William Batchelder Greene turned 31 and retired from the ministry, he had written, in one form or another, nearly all of his major works. He lived until 1878, and was active […]