Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Calvinist has wife institutionalized for her beliefs

Someone thought this story would make a good play:

In 1861, Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard was forcibly removed from her home and committed to an insane asylum in Jacksonville, Ill.

Her crime? Questioning her husband's religious teachings.

A conservative Calvinist minister of the old school, the Rev. Theophilus Packard strongly disagreed with his wife's liberal thinking. After 21 years of marriage, he feared she would endanger the spiritual welfare of their six children and had her committed without a public hearing.

Her story is the subject of the new play Mrs. Packard, written and directed by Emily Mann. Mann, whose plays often focus on giving voice to the voiceless, says she was drawn to the story because Packard was silenced in her own day, and is known today only to those who pore over history books.

Doesn't sound like he was much of a Calvinist. What about the sovereignty of God? What about the power of the truth? What about the prayers of the saints? What about the covenant? What about the power of the gospel?
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
(via)