Presbyterians and Independents

Like our interpretations of ancient rabbinic debates, our interpretations of church historical debates often deal with theological content abstracted from the political circumstances that actually gave rise to the content.

In his classic The Puritan Origins of the American Self , Sacvan Bercovitch points out that debates between Presbyterians and Independents regarding free will were really about the question of England’s national destiny. Both sides used the “leading nationalist expositors of Revelation,” but they diverged on the “relation of human willing to divine will”: “One side of the debate, led by the Independents, maintained that the divine agency was all-sufficient . . . . England would be carried into the glorious future on the crest of prophecies fulfilled, whether their countrymen liked it or not, irrespective of human initiative. The other side of the debate, led by the Presbyterians, insisted on man’s participation in the process of fulfillment . . . . Stressing God’s current signs of favor or displeasure, they advocated concrete improvements, discipline in church and state, an adequate sense of responsibility.”