Holy Experiment Day: How about something really big?



The young William Penn

Each year, March 4 is Holy Experiment Day.  According to holidayinsights.com, this means that it’s a day to try or ask for something religious, and to then measure the results.  Some recommendations from that site include praying for snow, praying for your team to win the Super Bowl, and saying grace at dinner while seeing if others join you.

Way before Holy Experiment Day was even invented, something really big was tried.  That something was Pennsylvania.

Back in 1682 CE, William Penn – having been treated quite harshly by the powers that be for his Quaker beliefs – was about to embark upon a Holy Experiment of his own.  William Penn’s father, Admiral Penn, had rendered the English crown a lifetime of faithful service.  The admiral’s dying wish was for the Duke of York and King Charles II to protect his son.  Because of their

respect for the admiral, the king and duke agreed to do so.

The continued persecution of Quakers in England prompted Penn to petition the king and duke to support what came to be known as the Holy Experiment.  Penn proposed a mass emigration of Quakers to North America, and requested a land grant so that they could live in a colony that was free from Puritan persecution.  In keeping with their promise to the admiral, the king and duke granted Penn a huge tract of land between New York and Delaware.  They named this land “Pennsylvania” in honor of Admiral Penn.

Thus began what is arguably one of history’s most successful Holy Experiments.  Because Penn hoped to reap economic as well as religious benefits, he began with a marketing campaign that was designed to convince large numbers of people to begin life anew across the ocean. He advertised throughout Europe in various languages, promising religious freedom and material advantages to those who would join him in this endeavor.  Quakers, Amish, Catholics, Jews, Mennonites, Lutherans, and Huguenots from countries across

Europe wound up going.

Penn then set up a government in Pennsylvania that was greatly influenced by Quaker values.  It included open discourse, checks and balances, fair taxes, free enterprise, property rights, trial by jury, limited death penalty, progressive prisons, an amendable constitution, Native American rights, and an emphasis upon religious tolerance.  According to James A. Quinn, this Holy Experiment “extended democracy to a form that Americans envision to this day.”

Resources

http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/holyexperimentday.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn

http://www.gwyneddfriends.org/holyexperiment.html

http://christianity.about.com/od/quakers/a/William-Penn-And-His-Holy-Experiment.htm

Copyright March 4, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved