Dr. Larry Schweikart

separatist group and the Puritans as a whole were being thrown into jail because they were not kowtowing to the line given by the Anglican Church.

So their physical safety was in question.

And then when they left Leiden, they said, we've got to go really far away here.

Let's get to America.

Pillar, which is that in America you have a Christian, mostly Protestant tradition that emphasizes congregations and bottom-up church government, which was contrary to the Roman Catholic Church, to the Greek Orthodox Church, and of course, as you just mentioned, to the Anglican Church.

And Henry VIII, I used to tell my students, created the Anglican Church because he wanted a hottie.

He wanted Anne Boleyn, and the Pope says, no, I'm not going to give you a divorce.

He said, well, fine, I'll start my own church, and I'll be the head of my own church.

So when you combine the pilgrims' bottom-up

religious experience, with their bottom-up political government experience.

You have such an absolutely powerful force that it makes America different from every other nation in the world.

And just a few years ago, you might remember how many Americans, I'm sure they asked you this too, what's going on with Canada and Australia?

Why are they locking down so hard?

Aren't they democracies?

And I would always say, yeah, they're democracies, but they don't have the pillars of American exceptionalism that begin with this twofold bottom-up resistance against top-down government.

So they were very different in their COVID experiences than we were going all the way back to the pilgrims.

Well, first of all, they didn't all leave the boat the minute they got here.

They stayed on board the Mayflower for some time, and they sent out scouting parties.

Obviously, are we in the right place?

Is there a place here where we can settle?