Puritans

About the Puritans

Before we delve into the Puritans, first, let us look at the definition of Puritans.

Fig. 1 - The Puritan by Augustus Saint-Gaudens - Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

Purpose of the Puritans

Puritanism had its roots in late sixteenth-century England. Some congregants of the Church of England, the mandatory house of worship, demanded Church reform. They felt that the structure and teachings of the Church were too close to that of the Roman Catholic Church. Since the English monarch oversaw the direction of the Church in a similar way that the Pope governed. Puritans felt that the teachings of Christianity needed to be led by the Bible alone. Anything less was idolatry, pure and simple. Puritans referred to their congregants as "saints."

The Puritans Left England Because...

Puritans disagreed profoundly with the direction the Church of England was going. Puritans felt that, much like the Catholic Church, it had become too wrapped in formality and presentation. They wanted to bring worship and devotion back to their basics. So they left England and resettled in the future of New England.

What about the Pilgrims, you might ask? And what is the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans? Though they had similar goals and would end up cooperating in the New World, the two groups were separate entities.

Pilgrims considered themselves separatists and wished to make a clean break from the Church of England. They were mainly lower or middle class and uneducated. The first group of settlers was relatively small, only 102 people and their goal was total spiritual freedom.

Puritans differed from Pilgrims in that they did not consider themselves separatists (although they were considered so by others and thus indistinguishable from Pilgrims). Instead, they were unhappy with the Church's reform and wished to "purify" it. The Puritans were generally upper-class, educated folks, and they were a much larger group than the Pilgrims. Thousands of Puritans came to the New World in the early 17th century. Their goal was to spread the gospel of salvation through their religion.

Let's look at some of the differences between Pilgrims and Puritans.

Table 1

Punishment for dissension in the Church of England was brutal. Both Catholic and Protestant kings and queens, as early as the 16th century, had sentenced folks to death for breaching the ban on religious freedom. The first group of separatists to grow tired of this and light out for greener pastures was based in Scrooby, England. A hundred of these self-proclaimed separatists, known as Pilgrims, got together and left England for the Netherlands.

Fig. 2 - Dutch commemorative penny for Pilgrims leaving for the US 300 years ago

While the Pilgrims made some progress in the Netherlands, after 12 years, they had had enough. The Pilgrims began to fear that growing up in a Dutch setting would cause their children to lose their English culture. Instead, they felt they needed to set sail for the unknown territory, where they would be free to practice their religion as they saw fit. They returned to England, boarded the Mayflower, and took off for the New World.

The first tiny colony of Pilgrims to arrive at Plymouth–there were only about a hundred of them– were soon joined by thousands of Puritans. The new arrivals brokered a peace with the colony's leader, William Bradford, and the two groups, with similar common goals, worked together to expand the settlement.

Values of the Puritans

The Puritans lived and breathed the word of the Bible, closely adhering to its text and chastizing those who transgressed against it. They closely tied providence and prosperity, charity and self-discipline. Puritans were known for their work ethic, a trait drawn along American, especially New England, lines.

Seeking to redress the balance of a Christian ethic existing in a world approaching modernity, Puritans preached moderation amid the abundant cornucopia of the New World. They essentially behaved as if they were the chosen ones, much like the Jews of the Old Testament. In this respect, they felt central to a new cosmological drama in this menacing but prosperous land. Puritans, in short, felt that they had a direct covenant with God.

Beliefs of the Puritans

Puritan beliefs declined during the eighteenth century because Puritans were too heterogeneous and splintering into new groups. The fractures in Massachusetts led to the formation of other colonies like Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The intense focus on the individual's relationship with the word of God meant that this was open to different interpretations, literal and otherwise. So the very nature of the Puritan way of life and devotion, always purifying itself, made it unsustainable as a single sect of Christianity.

Fig. 3 - Portrait of John Calvin (Dutch: Johannes Calvijn), c.1550

Today we see other denominations in America echo the Puritans' ethics. Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, Mennonites, the Amish, and Latter-Day Saints are among these. These denominations are also marked by abstinence, self-discipline, hard work, a surface rejection of pleasure, and sometimes righteous judgment of other religious groups. Some would say that the very essence of American life is puritanical, albeit in a watered-down version.

However, the American Supreme Court's conservative majority and their many rulings in favor of certain groups based on "religious liberty" point to a rise in the kind of religious extremism that suggests we may not have seen the last of the Puritans.