Calvinism's conception of human relationships also differed significantly from those of other worldviews. Pagans, who believed that God dwelled only in certain people, worshiped those with outstanding talents and enslaved those with limited abilities. Muslims oppressed women and Catholics devised a hierarchical system of relationships among persons. Modernists aimed to treat all individuals identically, an action that would eliminate diversity and thus impoverish life. Calvinists and evangelical Christians generally, however, considered males and females, rich and poor, weak and strong, all to be fallen creatures of God. No group could properly dominate another because people stood as equals before God and thus as equals among themselves. Because the only distinctions among people that Calvinists recognized were those given by God in assigning talents and civil authority, they condemned all slave and caste systems as well as all covert enslavement of women and the poor; yet they encouraged variety and individuality.
what planet do you live on
...I just want to talk
(Gary Scott Smith, The Seeds of Secularization: Calvinism, Culture, and Pluralism in America, 1870-1915, 1985)
