Their idea of equality before God, of direct access to Him by the individual, of the necessity that a God fearing person should be in the seat of government opened up a whole new avenue in the western world. We can see that the teachings of Calvin were not only religious but also political. It was the basis for democratic movements whose roots are in the basic ideas of democracy, decency and morality before God. It was the democratic politics of Calvinism which were brought to New England by the Puritans who in turn deeply influenced the American desire for freedom and democracy in 1776. Twenty of the presidents of the United States of America are descendants of Huguenots beginning with George Washington. On November 15, 1980, The National Huguenot Society placed a plaque at St. John's Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. St. John's is called the "Church of the Presidents". The plaque reads "To honor the following United States Presidents of French Protestant descent and their Huguenot ancestors who contributed so much to the moral and cultural development of these United States of America. The presidents are: George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, John C. Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford. The Huguenots were persecuted because they believed fervently in what we call today "Human Rights". In France where the State and Church were one there were no human rights. People were told what to believe and what to do. Because France was strongly Catholic the pattern of reform there was very different than in Switzerland and Germany. As a result the first French Protestants suffered death or exi I e. The first Reformed congregation in France had been formed at Paris and soon other groups began to form covering the whole of France. This resulted in a series of civil wars because this newly found Biblical faith had set noblemen against King Francis I of France when in 1534 he found a pamphlet in his apartments writing against the Holy Mass. He then began his persecution of the Huguenots. He arrested about 150 followers of the new faith, carefully choosing them among the lower classes; 27 were burned at the stake, 18 had their tongues cut out and some recanted. In 1535 he issued an edict for the "extermination of the heretics". Yet in spite of all the persecution the number of Reformed Christians grew rapidly, mostly among the nobility but also among the rising artisans of the cities who saw in the new faith an opportunity to exert a much desired freedom and new personal responsibility. Some historians estimate that by the time of Calvin's death in 1564 approximately 50% of the important land owning French nobles
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were Huguenots. For some of these nobles their taking the Reformed faith was for political reasons, many others were truly converted. Far more significant than these statistics was the nature of those who became Protestants. In that group were the most alert, intelligent and aggressive members of the nobility who most resented being overwhelmed by the State and the Church. We must remember with gratitude the Huguenot heritage passed down to us from John Calvin whose teachings for Christians was different; a new set of values that were special In family life, work, friends, and our worship to show that we are Christian. We must continue to maintain these values in our lives and pass them on to our next generations to be true to our Huguenot heritage. Cross of Languedoc, February 1990 Notes from lecture and sermon given October 1985 to commemorate the Tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. ...&.
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