Puritanism

Puritanism is a Protestant Christian religious movement that began in England in the sixteenth century. It was an outgrowth of the Church of England, and its followers strove to cleanse the new English church of its remaining vestiges of what they called the Roman Catholic "popery." Because of the stringency of their views, members of these idealistic congregations were given the pejorative label Puritans.

In the seventeenth century, the Puritans were noteworthy for their religious zeal and moral rigor. They attempted to remake the Church of England and English society according to their own idealized lifestyle. In this endeavor, they contributed to the English Civil War and to the colonization of North America. The colonies they founded in New England after they were driven from England adopted their ideas about how society should be organized, and their legacy has persisted in the self-image, society, and institutions of the United States ever since. Because Puritanism was not only a social organization but also a philosophy of living, its effects on American life have been far-reaching and indelible.

History

The reform movement within the Church of England that came to be known as Puritanism began in the late sixteenth century. However, its origins trace back to the 1530s, when King Henry VIII created the state Church of England as part of his effort to replace papal authority in his realm. The congregations that were later known scornfully as puritans or precisionists wanted to purge the new Church of England of its vestiges of Roman Catholic liturgy and rituals.

As the decades passed, some Puritan congregations became ever more radical in their views, and some of them claimed autonomy, declaring their independence from the Church of England. Others remained within the national church but campaigned against the vestments and rites that replicated Catholic practices. As the movement grew, it became a subject of popular ridicule at the same time that it gained support among the growing middle class of England’s developing market economy.

Early in the seventeenth century, separatist congregations segregated themselves as self-described visible saints who lived in the so-called City of God. As they became more zealous in their self-identified separation, they also became subject to persecution from both the state and the public. One group of such separatists came from the village of Scrooby in Yorkshire. In fear for their lives, they fled to Holland in 1608. From there, they sailed to the New World, landing in Plymouth in 1620. Ten years later, they were followed by a larger group of adherents who carved out their homes in Massachusetts Bay. By 1640, there was a population of about ten thousand Puritans in the new land. They lived in what are now the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire.

The Puritans who migrated to the New World were unlike the previous groups because their settlements were composed of families. Puritans came to make new lives, not to seek fortunes to take back to England.

However, given the individualist doctrines of Puritanism, the groups of churches broke into factions. Puritan religiosity was fiercely intense, and the leadership was every bit as intolerant of dissent as the priesthood of the Church of England had been. For example, Rhode Island was established by Roger Williams, who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony because he advocated the separation of church and state. The movement in New England soon split into Quakers, Baptists, and other sects. The philosophical differences that separated the factions were ferociously debated and ultimately irreconcilable.

By the eighteenth century, Puritanism had been diluted. It was no longer a dominant religious philosophy in the colonies or even in New England. But its basic concepts became part of related Protestant movements such as the Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists, and the central tenets of Puritan thought were profoundly embedded in American life. According to observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville, the movement’s concepts of individualism in relationship to God became the ideals of self-reliance and local political governance that defined the American character.

Beliefs and Practices

Puritans were generally characterized by the intensity of their religious beliefs and experience. They believed that each individual needed to be in a direct, covenant relationship with God. For the Puritans, the Holy Spirit would energize their salvation. They also considered the extravagant vestments and trappings of Church of England ritual to be idolatry, and they sought to eliminate vanity in themselves and their worship. Because they placed great importance on scripture, they also believed strongly in education. All people should be able to read the Bible themselves.

The Puritans borrowed the concept of predestination from Calvinism, which supported their view of themselves as the elect—that is, people chosen by God to live godly lives in godly communities. Their hope in the New World was for a Holy Commonwealth. Their goal from the beginning was ever-greater purity in their faith and practices. In keeping with their ideas about a personal covenant with God and purity of faith and devotion, they did not celebrate Christmas or any other occasion. In Massachusetts, celebrations of all kinds were banned from 1659 until a new English governor lifted the restriction in 1681. Christmas was not regularly celebrated in the Boston area until the mid-1800s.

The Puritans also believed in demons and witchcraft, a belief that was not uncommon among Christians of their era. The most infamous example in the New World was the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts Colony between 1692 and 1693. Some Puritan leaders conducted exorcisms.

Key to their belief structure was the family, which Puritans placed at the center of their societies. The organization of the family was intended to assist in the Puritans’ personal devotion to God. Because they felt the ideal world would be based entirely on scripture, they viewed the relationship between Adam and Eve as a fundamental human relationship founded on love, reproduction, and salvation. In their view of marriage, women were subservient to men, who were the heads of households. Not only did marriage define the relationship between a husband and a wife, but it also represented the relationship between the couple and God. At the same time, women and men were considered spiritual equals. In their view, this equality was ordained by God. Their conception of marriage is an example of how their entire society was structured according to their reading of scripture.

Bibliography

Capaccio, George. Religion in Colonial America. Cavendish, 2015.

Gregory, J. Puritanism in the Old World and in the New. Ulan, 2012.

Hall, David D. A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England. Knopf, 2011.

Heyrman, Christine Leigh. “Puritanism and Predestination.” Divining America: Religion in American History, TeacherServe, National Humanities Center, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/puritan.htm. Accessed 6 Sept. 2024.

Hill, Christopher. Puritanism & Revolution. Vintage Digital, 2011.

"The Puritans." Digital History, www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp‗textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3578. Accessed 6 Sept. 2024.

Roberts, S. Bryn. Puritanism and the Pursuit of Happiness: The Ministry and Theology of Ralph Venning c. 1621–1674. Boydell, 2015.

Tipson, Baird. Hartford Puritanism: Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and Their Terrifying God. Oxford UP, 2015.

Wilson, John Frederick. Pulpit in Parliament: Puritanism During the English Civil Wars, 1640–1648. Princeton UP, 2015.