[Whit Blauvelt]

Daniel,

Just to note, as a climate crisis denier you hardly fit here. Iain, in yesterdays’ Zoom lesson, started his talk by mentioning the global “meta-crisis,” then listing “climate” first among the many crises comprising it.

Then again, Iain has broad tolerance, as shown by a talk at Hillsdale College being in his schedule. That’s a Freewill Baptist institution, run by the most conservative lineage of the English Puritan movement, for which its founder was executed by James 1. Iain expressed utter contempt for Puritans later in yesterday’s session. He attributes the removal of Catholic iconography from the churches to the Puritans, and views that as somewhat of a crime against the RH. The Freewill Baptists are strongly literalist, LH in their reading of Scripture, which was why in New England they broke from the more liberal Puritan mainline, which largely became Congregationalist, which was the background of Thoreau (whom Iain worships) and his friend Emerson (who was from a long line of Congregationalist preachers).

Today’s Freewill Baptists in America are largely, as you may know, Trumpists, while those of us raised in the Congregational branch of the Puritan tradition (including myself) believe the answers to our meta-crisis aren’t to be found in a Trumpist dictatorship or the Christianist dominion favored openly by the current Speaker of the House. It does seem you are of that party. Excuse me if I’ve mistaken you.

Whit