The Puritan's Influence on America

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ABondSlaveofChristJesus

Puritan Board Freshman
What caused the American puritans to have such a healthy society and what lead to its decaying influence to the point that New England became extremely liberal?
 
They don't get the respect they deserve in our history at all. People hear "Puritan" and all they think about is burning witches and punitive letters on people's clothes... So unbelievers have been able to supress any true perspectives on the times this way.

As for New England becoming so liberal, I avoid the area like the plague (because it's so liberal) and have no points becoming of a Christian to make. :)
 
Originally posted by ABondSlaveofChristJesus
What caused the American puritans to have such a healthy society and what lead to its decaying influence to the point that New England became extremely liberal?
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Let me restate this to what cause the American puritans to have such a healthy society? When they came to the New World they had the most literate and healthiest settlement in the world. This is amazing when compare and contrast this to their neighbors in Virginia. The puritans had life expectancies about twice as long, most of their chldren survived while most of virginias didn't. What do you think the reasons were?

I have to do a major research paper on this and I'm trying to figure out how to construct it. What do you guys know about this? What are some good resources for me to use?

This paper is so huge in points, that if I flunk it I prob. lose my ability to go to school.
 
Read Boice and Rykin's Doctrines of Grace, particularly the chapter on What Calvinism Has Done in History and this should be good source material on the Puritans.
 
Originally posted by ABondSlaveofChristJesus
Let me restate this to what cause the American puritans to have such a healthy society? When they came to the New World they had the most literate and healthiest settlement in the world. This is amazing when compare and contrast this to their neighbors in Virginia. The puritans had life expectancies about twice as long, most of their chldren survived while most of virginias didn't. What do you think the reasons were?
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One reason that I would submit for the discrepancy in quality of life might be due to the different relationship that both colonies had with the Indians.

Beginning with Squanto, Samoset and Chief Massasoit, the Pilgrims and Puritans were able to sustain peace treaties and mutually beneficial relations and land dealings with the New England Indians from 1620 until the outbreak of the King Phillip's War in 1675. With the Indians as allies during that time period, the New England Puritans had friends who helped them through difficult winters, taught them agricultural techniques and enabled the colonists to attend to more profitable matters than war. John Eliot was even able to evangelize the Indians.

On the other hand, apart from a brief happy interlude beginning with the conversion of Pocahontas and ending with the death of John Rolfe and a quarter of the Jamestown colony in the Massacre of 1622, bad Indian relations plagued the Virginia colony. Opechancanough hated the English and therefore peace was never lasting while he was alive (and he was about 100 when he died). Thus, the Jamestown colony not only had to deal with disease and other normal hardships but was constantly on a war footing while her Puritan neighbors to the North, until 1675, did not for the most part have such troubles.

Providentially, both Indian relations in both colonies were set on divergent paths even before the Puritans and Jamestown settlers arrived. In the case of New England, an English trading ship arrived at Massachusetts between 1605 and 1610 and took Squanto to England where he learned English and gained a favorable view of the English people. The adventures he went through before returning to his home village make up quite story. In any case, when he got home, he found that everyone in his village had died of disease. The Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 were able to build their community on the site of that village and benefit from the tilling of the soil that had taken place previously as well as Squanto's goodwill towards the English and Christianity.

Meanwhile, Spanish Catholic missionaries sent by Pedro Menendez (the same man who slaughtered a French Huguenot colony in Florida) were sent to the Chesapeake Bay area in the 1560's-1570's. They dealt poorly with the Indians there and blood was shed. Paquiquino (renamed "Don Luis") was taken by the Spanish back to Europe but his deceived his captors upon his return to Virginia and arranged for the Spanish to be slaughtered at Ajacan (near Richmond). There are some who say that Paquiquino/Don Luis and Opechancanough were one and the same, thus explaining the hostility towards all white people. I think that is doubtful but probably Paquiquino/Don Luis' experience influenced Opechancanough, to the detriment of the English settlement.

There are many other factors that could be addressed such as the Puritan work ethic, etc., but Indian relations for good or ill were a major factor in the survival and prosperity of fledgling colonies.

[Edited on 9-17-2005 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
European and Indian relations were a large factor in the difference between New England and Virginia. Another factor is the difference between the make-up of the colonists. Jamestown was mostly men interested in gold for the first few years. For the most part there were no families or interest in establishing a stable society at first. The opposite was true with Plymouth and the later N.E. plantations. Climate was another factor, N.E. was a much healthier environment than tidewater Virginia before modern medecine. And of course there's the obvious religious factor with the N.E. Puritans.

Check out:

John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father by Francis Bremer

The Times of Their Lives by James Deetz

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David H. Fischer

A Model Of Christian Charity by John Winthrop
 
Originally posted by ABondSlaveofChristJesus
What caused the American puritans to have such a healthy society and what lead to its decaying influence to the point that New England became extremely liberal?
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They did not apply biblical law enough in the right places, and applied it too much in other places where the government lacked jurisdiction (ie, chopping off ears, compulsory tithe, etc.).
 
I read that they began to believe that their children inhereted salvation. Also, that they never had assurance of their salvation.

[Edited on 9-21-2005 by ABondSlaveofChristJesus]
 
Originally posted by ABondSlaveofChristJesus
I read that they began to believe that their children inhereted salvation. Also, that they never had assurance of their salvation.
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I hear this sort of reasoning all the time from a distant relative who loathes Calvinism, but he never accurately represents it or the views of its adherants accurately.

This is typical of outsider critiques of Reformed Theology. It is distortive and misleading. That is not true anymore at that time than it is of Reformed denominations today (whether Presbyterians or Baptists.) We know what the Apostle Paul says about "fear and trembling..." and that juncture is part of the equation in gaining "assurance" in the life of the believer. It ultimately comes down to setting our sights on the promises of God. Peserverance of the Saints is not like evangelical-dispensationalist notions of Eternal Security with its antinomian corollaries, but that is for another discussion.
 
Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
A reason for the decline of the New England Puritan society: Half-Way Covenant
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That along with the loss of Pastoral Authority and a more democratic spirit in congregational thinking. The unregenerate or unspiritually thinking mind gained more influence than the Eldership, and could vote it out.
 
Originally posted by puritancovenanter
Originally posted by VirginiaHuguenot
A reason for the decline of the New England Puritan society: Half-Way Covenant
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That along with the loss of Pastoral Authority and a more democratic spirit in congregational thinking. The unregenerate or unspiritually thinking mind gained more influence than the Eldership, and could vote it out.
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What caused the loss of pastoral authority and the democratic spirit in congregational thinking?
 
I believe commercialism had much to do with the decline of the puritan society. It is imperative that one look to the social climate of the colonies. As New England began to become more stable economically, colonists were now able to earn more money than ever before. As a result, families began moving closer to bigger cities where jobs were opening in abundance. Farmers began growing in order to sell to merchants instead of only providing for their familes as they had done in the past. This, of course, required more time and effort. Farmers would often have to make journeys into the bigger cities to sell crops, sometimes extending through Sundays. Also, and most importantly, the influential and revered role as a minister in a town lost it's importance and influence and shifted to the merchant as the most important role in society. Colonists began to depend more on themselves instead of on Christ. Material gain and physical welfare became the priority and colonists began to grow less concerned about their spiritual welfare.
As far as New England becoming more liberal, it all started in the universities. Reading puritans like Jonathan Edwards, you notice that even as early as 1703 (Edwards' year of birth) public institutions were already being bombarded by doctrines emphasizing man's ability and free will. By this time Harvard had already rejected it's founding calvinistic heritage for that of these doctrines which would later infiltrate Yale. Edwards fought against the invasion of these anti-reformed doctrines until his death, but to no avail.

So, in my humble opinion, there are many MANY factors which led to the demise of the Puritanical society. Try consulting historians like Mark Noll (e.g. America's God, The Rise of Evangelicalism), E. Brooks Holifield (Theology in America), George Marsden (Jonathan Edwards: A Life) and others on the topic.

:scholar:
 
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