The Covenant Connection From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism

American, European, political, and theological histories intersect in this important new exploration of the founding of the United States. The Covenant Connection examines the way in which the Protestant Reformation and federal covenant theology, which lay at the foundation of Reformed Protestantism in its Calvinist version, played a major role in shaping the political life and ideas of the colonies of British North America and ultimately the new United States of America. Contributors to the volume look at the most critical facets of this connection over nearly three centuries, from the beginning of the Reformation in sixteenth-century Zurich to the declaration of American independence and the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Individual chapters show how federal theology led to a revival of Biblical republicanism in Reformation Europe; how it was applied and modified in countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and England; and how it was carried across the Atlantic by the early settlers of North Americamost particularly the Puritans but also other groups such as the Dutch and the Scottishto form the matrix for American constitutionalism, democratic republicanism, and federalism. As a collection, The Covenant Connection provides an irrefutable analysis of the profound biblical and Reformation influences on the founding of America.

J. Wayne Baker teaches at the University of Akron. James D. Bratt is professor of history at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the director of the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. Charles James Butler received his Ph.D. from Temple University. Daniel J. Elazar is professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is also Senator N. M. Paterson Emeritus Professor of Intergovernmental Relations at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Harold Fisch is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Language, Literature, and Linguistics at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. Thomas O. Hueglin is professor of political science at Wilfred Laurier University in Canada. Donald S. Lutz is professor of political philosophy at the University of Houston. Charles S. McCoy is Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics and Higher Education at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. Michael McGiffert is professor at the College of William and Mary. John Peacock, Ph.D., is professor of language and literature at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore. He is also Adjunct Instructor of Art Theory at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. W. Stanford Reid teaches at the University of Guelph. Filippo Sabetti is an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal. James W. Skillen is executive director of the Center for Public Justice in Annapolis, Maryland. James B. Torrance is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.