[Oe List ...] Mayflower Compact

[Herman Greene]

And again here is Thomas Berry's view on understandings in the Compact

 

In his chapter on "The North American Continent," Thomas juxtaposes the
culture of the American Indians and that of the Europeans settlers. The
arrival of the Europeans in North America, he says, "could be considered as
one of the more fateful moments in history, not only of this continent but
of the entire planet.. Every living being on this continent might have
shuddered with foreboding when that first tiny sail appeared over the
Atlantic horizon" (p. 40).

 

      The first peoples of North America and the European settlers held two
sharply contending views of nature. "To indigenous people.the natural world
was the manifestation of a numinous presence that gave meaning to all
existence.. As seen by the Europeans the continent was here to serve human
purposes though trade and commerce, as well as through the more immediate
personal and household needs of the colonists. They had nothing spiritual to
learn from this continent. Their attitude toward the land as primarily for
use was the critical issue" (p. 44).

 

      Culturally derived anthropocentrism caused insuperable difficulty for
the Europeans in establishing any intimate rapport with the North American
continent or its people. To Thomas, "Such orientation of Western
consciousness had its fourfold origin in the Greek [humanistic] cultural
tradition, the biblical-Christian religious tradition, the English
political-legal tradition, and the economic tradition associated with the
new vigor of the merchant class" (p. 45). To the Europeans "[t]heir
human-spiritual formation was complete before they came. They came[, they
thought,] with the finest religion of the world, the highest intellectual,
aesthetic, and moral development, the finest jurisprudence. They needed this
continent simply as a political refuge and as a region to be exploited" (p.
43). They were committed to a "divinely commissioned task of commercially
exploiting this continent [and] could even experience a high spiritual
exaltation in what [they] were doing" (p. 46).

 

 

 

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From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Charles or Doris Hahn
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 5:25 PM
To: OE; Dialogue
Subject: [Oe List ...] Mayflower Compact

 

Hi All
Here is a copy of The Mayflower Compact.  It is from the 1951 World Almanac.

Enjoy
Charles Hahn

The Mayflower Compact
In the Name of God, Amen.  We whose names are underwritten, the loyal
subjects
of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of Good, of Great
Britain,
France and Ireland King, Defender of the faith, etc,.
Having Undertaken,  for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian
faith
and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the
northern parts of Virginia, so by these presents solemnly and mutually in
the
presence of God, and on of  another covenant and combine ourselves together
into
a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and
furtherance
of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof  to enact, constitute and frame
such
just and equal laws, ordinances, act, constitutions and offices, from time
to
time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of
the
Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11
of
November, (Nov. 21 new style Calendar), in the year of the reign of our
sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth,
and of
Scotland the fifty-fourth, Ano. Dom. 1620.
John Carver
William Bradford
Edward Winslow
William Brewster
Isaac Allerton
Myles Standish
John Alden
Samuel Fuller
Christopher Martin
William Mullins
William White
Richard Warren
John Howland
Stephhen Hopkins
Edward Tilly
John Tilly
Francis Cook
Thomas Rogers
Thomas Tinker
John Rigdale
Edward Fuller
John Turner
Francis Eaton
James Chilton
John Crackston
John Billington
Moses Fletcheer
John Goodman
Degory Prist
Thomas Williams
Gilbert Winslow
Edmond Margeson
Peter Brown
Richard Britterdge
George Soule
Richard Clark
Richard Gardiner
John Allerton
Edward Doty
Edward Leister


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