Blast to the Past- Did the Puritans Represent the American Way?

The Puritans, who made the trip to Massachusetts in the 1630's, in order to freely attempt to purify the Anglican Church, did not represent the American way. Social well being of the Puritans in Salem was virtually non-existent. The Puritan government functioned in accordance with Puritan religious beliefs. Puritan religion held the same exclusivity as a present-day country club. The arrogance of Puritan leaders like John Winthrop was disgusting in itself. Winthrop said, "we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." None of the Founding Fathers of the United States shared these sentiments. The Puritans did not represent the true American way.

The Puritans had a lot on their plate in 1692. Disease, poverty, and paranoia about the Indians did a number on the social way of life in Salem. Teenage girls were unhappy with their mothers. The girls decided the best solution was to make others pay for their "suffering"- the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Those who wrongly accused citizens of witchcraft and those who had to defend themselves were often rivals. Farmers from Salem Town and merchants from Salem Village always tried to one-up the other. The Puritans never gave what is now known in America as a fair trial. Nineteen people were hanged as a result of predominantly hostile testimony. These malicious killings show how the Puritans lacked the sense to realize that one foot was already in the grave, and the other wasn't far behind. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal; a belief that the Puritans did not exhibit. The Puritans had the false notion that only "Saints" could receive God's grace. Reverend John Cotton said, "We teach that only Doers will be saved." If a person living in Salem was not a Doer, he or she was outcast from society, which is not the American way. The American way teaches that different is good. The Puritans were saved, somewhat, when Governor Phips stopped the witch trials. No outside factor was to blame for the failure of the Puritan society. The culprit was their own weak psychological state-of-mind.

The Puritans were religious zealots who alienated their fellow man and thought it was right. Any Puritan who wanted the gift of grace was required to go through the conversion experience. The conversion experience was often extremely humiliating, because the experience consisted of the potential member having to confess all of their sins in front of the congregation. The Puritans, in their disillusionment, were unable to see the complete and utter correctness of the beliefs belonging to Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Hutchinson, who was eventually banished to Rhode Island, believed in immediate conversion by God. Williams, who was banished along with Hutchinson, believed in the separation of church and state. Religion was not meant to be controlled, as it was by the Puritans. The American way is that all people should have the right to practice religion if they should choose to do so, and to choose what religion to practice. Once again, the Puritans failed to show any similarity to the American way.

Separation of church and state was unheard of in the Puritan way of life. The Puritans were governed by John Winthrop's Bible Commonwealth, which met where the town church did, at the town meetinghouse. A moral decision is not always correct. The Puritans, however, did not figure that out. Puritan government, especially in Salem, was certainly not competent. The government lacked all of the principles a government should possess. Citizens under the control of a governing body should not be alienated by that very governing body, and yet the Bible Commonwealth alienated many a righteous Puritan. The Bible Commonwealth or General Court blew any minor flaw that a person had out of proportion, and that person was shunned. Government should be fair to all people. Puritan government was, by no means, fair.

The only thing that Americans in the 21st century can learn from the Puritans of the 17th century is that Puritanism is exactly what should not be happening today. If the United States government were solely concerned with religious matters, nothing would get accomplished. Americans today practice many different religions freely, from Christianity to Buddhism, from Judaism to Islam. The United States has been deemed a "melting pot," because of its acceptance of all people, no matter what race, culture, or creed they are. The Puritans did not represent the American way. They helped the formation of the American way, by allowing the Founding Fathers to see what should be avoided.

I do appreciate the analysis, however, let me point out two things.

First, the thesis. The essay question was 'Did the Puritans Represent the American Way?' Basically I had no choice in the matter of how my thesis statement should be. It was either positive or negative, and whichever road I chose I had to stay with the whole time. She wanted us to answer the question, so we had to have 'America' in it somewhere.

Second, good call on the religious paragraph. I got 5 out of 10 on that one. Needless to say, when we were allowed to rewrite a paragraph, that's the one I re-wrote.

What the heck are you reading?

I'll studied that part of American history rather well.

The point you are trying to make reeks of post-modern thought.

If you want to read real information about the Puritans, may I suggest any thing written pre-civil war.

A lot closer historical and not biased by the philosophy of Neitze

By the way...

I didn't mean to sound like an a$$hole. You know you are having a boring day at work when you'd rather 'grade' some kids' essay!

I figured the assignment had forced the thesis upon you. What can you do...

There were times when I'd turn in an essay in response to a silly question such as that by writing why the question was fallacious. Of course, I'd get an F.

More generally, though, you could do worse than to go to the library and read some of the writings of the Puritans themselves. (instead of books about them.)

That school of thought truly did attract/produce some of the greatest minds in the Western world -- even if you disagree with their theology.

James Madison (1751-1836), our fourth President, was known as the "Chief Architect of the Constitution," and the original author and promoter of the Bill of Rights. In the Constitutional Convention he spoke 161 times. Madison said: "It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator . . . homage. . . ." and defined "religion" thus: "Religion ... the duty we owe our Creator." p. 410.

Interesting how Madison is quoted above as a religious person, and here he is quoted:

James Madison, American president and political theorist (1751-1836). "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." "In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people." “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” [April 1, 1774]

I'm not going to check out an Atheist website to find out what Thomas Jefferson is quoted to say. I don't really believe your quote above, but I do know one thing. If you go to Washington, D.C. and check out the Thomas Jefferson Memorial you will find a quote in there that basically says ... a country that doesn't worship Jesus Christ won't last ... check it out for yourself.

It's interesting that even Darwin became a Christian at the end of his life. In fact, I don't know any death bed atheists.

Thank you for pointing this out. It is an example of my public school education that I had always understood the two to be one and the same. I had never, until now, had any reason to suspect differently.
While I am embarrased to be caught out on what, apparently, should be common knowledge (especially to one who considers himself a middling history buff anyway) I am glad to have the misconception corrected.

Thank you.

The quote was from Madison, not Thomas Jefferson..by the way isn't it rumored that Jefferson had a child with his slave? Is that a good example? According Rayners' Life of Jefferson..(http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/biog/)With regard to the personal piety of the President, if external observances are of any account, it is well known that he was a constant and exemplary attendant upon public worship, liberal in contributions to the support of the simple religion of Jesus, but frowning and inflexible on all sectarian projects.

Check here for more info on Jefferson and his Jefferson Bible, I find him an interesting man.

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html

What about that other Thomas, Edison...Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931). "Religion is all bunk." "I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God."

I don't have a clue where you heard Darwin was a Christian, in his autobiography he claims to be an agnostic:

http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/library/cd_relig.htm#8

The quote was from Madison, not Thomas Jefferson..by the way isn't it rumored that Jefferson had a child with his slave? Is that a good example?

That rumor was publicized (by a fob) to cover the tail of one of the most immoral heathens to ever sit in the office of the President of the United States..one that will surely burn in the fires of Hell unless he is moved to fall on his face before a Mighty God!

That being said, a recent article that I read said it has been pretty well disproven that the baby Sally had was Jefferson's..the genetic tests point to a cousin of his..

All men have fallen short of the Glory of God,that is why Thomas Jefferson,Bill Clinton,you and I need a Savior!

Between the 1620s and the 1770s, there was, shall we say, considerable social development and changes away from the extremist theocratic dictatorship of early Massachusetts. The southern colonies had a very different early historic experience, just as there are considerable differences in attitude and temperament today. The romantic Puritan mythology of the 17th-century is quite different from the representative constitutionalism and separation of powers model which developed in the 1770s and 1780s. But we have strayed even from that.

He wrote it for his AP History class. This means he is a high schooler. This is the way that the story of the Puritans has filtered down through the educational system anything much different. Any writer has to consider his audience. Perhaps the teacher had made his/her opinion of to our youth. Sad. Give him a D.

If he knew the teacher had real enmity for Calvinism and Puritanism, he would have been asking for a D to write Puritans very clear.

I thought the writing style was good, organization was adequate. However, it was a uniformly negative and anachronistic view of Puritan influence. Generally speaking, the paper would deserve a C in most any public school because this is a very ordinary treatment of Puritans in public school history.

futurepotus, I'd like to know if this paper represented fully your opinion of the Puritans or if it was tailored to fit your teacher's views. Oh, and are you attending public, private or religious school?

That school of thought truly did attract/produce some of the greatest minds in the Western world -- even if you disagree with their theology.

The Puritans and the Calvinists both share that certain inciendiary quality, a probing intellect that refines the weakness of worldly notions of religion and conventional ideas about civil government. America is still a Christian nation only to the extent that their influence has persevered.

Check here for more info on Jefferson and his Jefferson Bible, I find him an interesting man.

Your link to the website mentions the Jefferson Bible. I understand that the full Jeffersonian Bible was destroyed in the fire that engulfed his library. We have only remnants of Jefferson's early thinking on Christianity. Apparently, he had showed it to enough people that it damaged his reputation since he had rewritten the Bible and edited out the parts he thought fanciful. Actually, he was a lot like a one-man Jesus Seminar if you're familiar with the modern blasphemers so beloved by Peter Jennings. There is enough evidence remaining and that accrued after the fire to indicate that Jefferson believed that Jesus was not Christ, and not the Son of God and the instrument of man's salvation.

Given this, Jefferson would be very comparable to modern Anglicans or a dozen or more liberal mainstream Christian churches who do not actually believe in the deity of Jesus and consider Him merely to be a great teacher.

Jefferson is, in most lists of the religious affiliation of great Americans, listed as merely a Deist. I think that is pretty accurate given what we know about him.

Oh, yeah, and the most recent evidence about Jefferson fathering a child with his slave indicates that the whole thing is bogus. However, the leading historians who have now reached this conclusion have not been heard much from. Funny how a bogus piece of liberal propaganda is trumpetted by the libmedia everywhere to establish it as a "fact" but then when it is disproven, the libmedia suddenly finds itself interested in reporting other facts. Funny how that works. We had a thread here a while back that focused on how the top historians debunked this but that their opinion is now irrelevant and the descendants of the slave woman are still entitled to attend Jefferson events and lay claim to his ancestry. More NAACP nonsense.

I don't have a clue where you heard Darwin was a Christian, in his autobiography he claims to be an agnostic:

How galled Darwin was when he found that the great scientific minds of his own day rejected his theory uniformly and that the only group who embraced it was the apostasizing Church of England. The top Anglican clergy were overjoyed that some "scientist" could relieve them of worrying that the account of God's creation in the Bible was true. It was also useful in helping the Anglicans to abandon missionary efforts in places like Australia where they could then dismiss the aborigines (who they couldn't seem to convert) as subhuman. Interestingly, fundamentalist Christians moved in at the same time and converted them by the thousands.

Darwin was always galled that his partner in promoting evolution was the Church of England since they used his theory to promote "guided evolution". This Hegelian synthesis by the Anglicans was completely opposed to both traditional creation by God and to true Darwinism which maintained that evolution was entirely random and not necessarily "progressive".

But the Church of England was so grateful to Darwin that they gave him a finer funeral than they ever gave to any other public figure including the great military heroes and political leaders of England.

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