America's Prophet Read Online Free PDF Page B

between two parties to perform and/or refrain from certain activities. In Genesis, God makes quasi covenants with Adam, Noah, and Abraham. But the climactic covenant comes at Mount Sinai, when the agreement finally takes written form. Having freed the Israelites from slavery, God now demands that they follow his laws, namely, the Ten Commandments and 613 other mandates. The Bible’s message: There is no freedom without obligation. True freedom depends on giving up some freedoms in return for a civil and just society.
    One reason the Puritans proved so influential in American history is that they were the first to sear these twin pillars into American life—freedom and law, Exodus and Sinai. A century and a halflater, these parallel ideas would be entrenched in the defining events of American history, the liberation of the Revolution followed by the constriction of the Constitution. In both cases, the language was heavily influenced by Moses.
    I was struck during my visit to Plimoth Plantation by how profoundly strict the Pilgrim covenant was. Sinners were whipped in public or placed in stocks. In those early, brutal months, one of the few healthy residents had his hands and feet bound. Later, adulterers were forced to wear an AD on their outer garments and a sodomizer was put to death. Bradford justified the punishment by citing verses of Mosaic law. Considering the Pilgrims had traveled halfway across the world, had virtually no food, were surrounded by Indians, and steadily lost family and friends, you’d think they might have relaxed their religious convictions. Instead, they tried to out-Moses Moses. Having just crossed their version of the Red Sea, they quickly implemented their own Sinai.
    The Pilgrims’ commitment to covenant began with the Mayflower Compact, signed immediately before they came ashore on Cape Cod, in which they agreed to “covenant and combine ourselves” into a civil body. In 1636, John Cotton presented the commonwealth of Massachusetts with an elaborate legal code based on the books of Moses that included forty-six separate laws drawn from the Hebrew Bible. Though Cotton’s plan was watered down, the commonwealth still adopted laws taken directly from Deuteronomy, including punishing crimes associated with the “first table” of the Decalogue, the first five of the Ten Commandments. These offenses included incest, bearing false witness, even cursing one’s parents. A cage was set up for people who did not honor the Sabbath. Over time, the idea of covenant became part of the fabric of America. The word federal, for instance, comes from the Latin foedus, or “covenant.”
    I asked John Kemp in his role as Elder Brewster why a group of Christians would rely so heavily on Old Testament notions of freedom and law.
    “For us, freedom is not as important as you might think,” he said. “We wanted freedom from oppression, and freedom from the bondage of the Church. But what we really wanted was freedom to go back to the Bible.”
    “So you didn’t come here to be free?” I asked.
    “We wanted to be free from the tyranny of England, absolutely. But we really came to obey God. In reading the Bible, we learn that the true church of God is all his elected leaders of the past, and that includes the Hebrew prophets. Of those, Moses was the greatest. We know that God chose to give the law to him, and through him it comes down to all of us.”
     
    MY LAST STOP in Plymouth was an exquisite white Victorian house on the grassy shore of the harbor overlooking Clark’s Island. Squint your eyes and double the acreage, and the lawn would be the perfect setting for a game of Kennedy touch football. Only this home belongs to the least likely member of the Old Colony Club and the most unexpected tender of the Mayflower flame.
    The Reverend Peter Gomes has as much stature as Forefathers Monument and an even firmer grip on the Bible. He’s the preacher at Memorial Church of Harvard University and the Plummer