Religious freedom: The backbone of Capitalism

No one can seriously question that this nation was built by Puritans, and framed by the Puritan's love of the doctrines of Calvinism. Leaving a life of religious persecution, they risked their life flocking to this country's shores where they could worship God as they pleased.

From Loraine Boettner's book “Calvinism in History: Calvinism in America” we read:

When we come to study the influence of Calvinism as a political force in the history of the United States we come to one of the brightest pages of all Calvinistic history. Calvinism came to America in the Mayflower, and Bancroft, the greatest of American historians, pronounces the Pilgrim Fathers 'Calvinists in their faith according to the straightest system.'1 John Endicott, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; John Winthrop, the second governor of that Colony; Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut; John Davenport, the founder of the New Haven Colony; and Roger Williams, the founder of the Rhode Island Colony, were all Calvinists. William Penn was a disciple of the Huguenots.

It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed. In addition to this the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles; and many French Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus we see that about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin. Never in the world's history had a nation been founded by such people as these.

Furthermore these people came to America not primarily for commercial gain or advantage, but because of deep religious convictions. It seems that the religious persecutions in various European countries had been providentially used to select out the most progressive and enlightened people for the colonization of America. At any rate it is quite generally admitted that the English, Scotch, Germans, and Dutch have been the most masterful people of Europe. Let it be especially remembered that the Puritans, who formed the great bulk of the settlers in New England, brought with them a Calvinistic Protestantism, that they were truly devoted to the doctrines of the great Reformers, that they had an aversion for formalism and oppression whether in the Church or in the State, and that in New England Calvinism remained the ruling theology throughout the entire Colonial period.

Calvinism was what first promoted the idea of a church that was run by believers and not a church controlled by the state. Calvin himself said a church must be the one to define orthodox theology before real freedom could be known. This freedom was seen in the robust society that followed.

But can religious freedom be found in all the economies that boom?

This writer has already looked at China's growth after it allowed more religious freedom after trying to crush Christianity for years under Communism. But what about Japan? Japan was never under Communist control, but still managed to climb as the second largest world economy in the same time frame.  Is this only because the Communists were not there?

No one can deny that the lack of Communism in Japan had a lot to do with its growth on the world stage. But one must also consider the backbone of all capitalism. That of course is Calvinism, where God is in control, not man. A look at history will tell us that religious freedom pushed my Calvinism is indeed linked to Japan's blessings.

The following is from the “The International Journal of Peace Studies” LINK

State Shinto: State Control through Emperor Worship

In the early 20th century, Japanese authorities gradually adopted policies of overt control over religions perceived as being at odds with State Shinto. In 1921, for instance, three leaders of Omotokyo, a new religion which had emerged during the 1890s, were arrested on charges of lèse-majesté and of violating the Newspaper Law's prohibition against publishing materials disrespectful of the emperor.

Japan embarked on a war of aggression against Asian countries in 1937 and against the United States and their allies 1941. The wartime regime was built upon the foundation of pure religious statism. This was made possible by elevating State Shinto to the position of the "only religion" which provided a spiritual basis for Japanese ultranationalism. The emperor was vested with both sovereignty and divinity, and the entire country was forcibly converted. All other religions were either persecuted or subordinated to the cult of emperor worship.

Under the revised Public Security Preservation Law of 1941, the state could and did destroy any religious group for preaching beliefs that simply varied from emperor worship. Some Christian teachers and students were arrested and died in prison. Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, the cofounders of Soka Gakkai, were imprisoned as "thought criminals" by the Special Higher Police, militarist Japan's equivalent of the Gestapo.1 Their "crimes" were that they had rejected the compulsory worship of the emperor and State Shinto and thus resisted the wartime regime. Makiguchi died in prison in 1944. With such exceptions, however, the overwhelming majority of religious bodies, including Buddhist and Christian denominations, adjusted to the statist policy and thus escaped direct persecution.

Following the second world war, the Allied Occupation severed the ties between church and state-disestablishing State Shinto and assuring people religious freedom.

Japan's economy is indeed directly tied to religious freedom as was the foundation in this nation. But this is not all we should know about the subject. From  The International Journal of Peace Studies again, we read:

In recent years, however, as Garon (1997, 206) writes, there have been "major movements to revive aspects of prewar managerial policies toward religions." For example, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) attempted several times to introduce legislation to make the Yasukuni Shrine-a symbol of Japanese militarism which enshrines the spirits of the war dead, including class A war criminals-a state-supported institution. The LDP's Policy Statement, as reported in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 8 January 1998, has also affirmed its position to "work to realize official visits to Yasukuni Shrine."

Furthermore, with virtually no public debate, the ruling coalition revised the Religious Corporation Law (RCL) in December 1995 so as to grant the government greater powers of supervision over religious bodies-despite the opposition of most major religious groups, from the United Church of Christ to the Kyoto Buddhist Association. Among the provisions of this Act were a shift in authority over religious organizations from the local to the central government and increased governmental access to the records of religious organizations. The government asserted that the revision was part of an effort to prevent such criminal activities as Aum Supreme Truth's gas attack on the Tokyo metropolitan subway in March 1995. However, the real motives for revising the RCL were more political than genuine. This purpose was candidly acknowledged by Shizuka Kamei, an LDP spokesperson, when he told a television audience that the purpose of revising the Law was "to take measures against Soka Gakkai,"3 a Buddhist group which had previously endorsed a major opposition party.

It will be interesting to see if Japan will slip in its rankings, as it returns to controlling religious worship. Lack of religious freedom is why this writer does not believe capitalism will ever work in Iraq. Forcing capitalism on a county that does not have the frame work to support it, has all efforts doomed from the outset.

How can any person that calls himself a “thinker” reason that to be under religious suppression, as found in the Dark Ages and more recently Communist Atheist run states is to be under a better system? Only those that are bound to a dogma of deceit would say such things.