Were the Puritans good people? And Without them what would America be like?

Answer 1

I've seen some key misunderstandings in the answers so far.

(1) Many misunderstand central Calvinist teaching (held by Puritans, but also many other groups, such as Scottish Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed) about human nature

Calvinism NEVER held that man was "basically evil". Rather, it believes that all of mankind was CREATED good, but by rebellion fell into SIN. That is, human nature (the "real thing", as created by God) is GOOD... but has been corrupted. And because of that corruption, and the fact that people are now BORN in that situation, people have a "bent" against God and toward self (and sin). As a result, NO ONE would want to follow God, UNLESS God himself graciously chooses to rescue people from their sin and rebellion.

** As a result, the Puritans' OWN answer to the question about whether they were "GOOD" would probably be, "Only God is good. We are sinners whose only hope is in God's grace."

Related to this, Calvinism absolutely REJECTS the idea that ANYONE is "more worthy of God's love, better and wiser than the rest of us. . . " Quite the opposite, the whole point is that God GRACIOUSLY

In fact, if you want to get a little flavor or how the Puritans thought about their own "goodness" (or lack thereof!), here is a small sample from a collection of Puritan prayers, many of them prayers confessing their sin and need of God's forgiveness.
http://www.oldlandmarks.com/puritan.htm

Now the Puritans DID believe that those God graciously chose to save (NOT because they were worthy, but because of his own kindness) would show EVIDENCE of his grace/goodness to them. One of these evidences would often be "prosperity" (not exactly the same as "being rich" though!)... communities that were PRODUCTIVE. As a result, they worked very hard, expecting this evidence... and also regarding it as a RESPONSIBILITY to work hard and produce, BECAUSE God had been gracious to them. (This is the so-called "Protestant work ethic".)

(2) Another writes -- "they were superstitious folk that ended up burning people alive on the accusations of witchcraft s. "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller explores what these good people were up to, how they could accuse someone of witchcraft and thereby inherit the accused's farm and lands"

This is so full of stereotype and error it's hard to know how to answer... but briefly

a) "The Crucible" is NOT a good source of history of the Salem Witch Trials, much less all of Puritan New England, or Puritans in general (despite the sad fact this is a piece commonly fed to our high school students as "what the Puritans were like"). It is simply the vehicle Miller chose to convey his own criticisms of 1950s McCarthyism. There are MANY resources that will give you a fuller, more careful study of what happened in Salem.

b) The "witchcraft" thing - was hardly unique to Puritans. There were many examples of it

c) You need to look at many other parts of this... including
** the fact that Increase Mather, a leading Puritan pastor, urged the courts NOT to base their decisions on "spectral evidence". When they followed this course, the trials quickly came to an end

** all the steps that devout Puritans took AFTER this sad affair to RESTORE as much as they could... to publicly confess, exonerate, and make restitution to families (including financially). [A recent book on *Judge Sewall's Apology* examines one piece of this.]
** the Salem business was atypical even for "witchcraft scares". Indeed, at the very same time in New England another incident took place which was handled more responsibly (the NORM)... with charges being quickly dismissed as groundless

d) about "taking their lands" -- such concerns have from time to time clouded issues and falsely motivated people, and MAY have played some role in this case... but that does NOT mean these were considered acceptable or were the norm. (The struggle may also have been more between social groups and related to power, NOT money.) ALSO, ordinarily, if someone was convicted as a witch the accusers would NOT receive their property... but it would be taken over by the government/community. So, whatever motivated some folks in this ONE case (and it may have been a combination of things), there is NO basis for suggesting some general practice of people taking others' land via bogus witchcraft accusations

(3) There are, sadly, a LOT of popular histories that repeat all sorts of images of Puritans that are not based on a careful study of what they actually said and did (not to mention some decent historians who are not well-read in this PARTICULAR field who end up buying into the stereotypes without examining them). These ideas may well reflect what some Puritans who did NOT live up to their ideals (and what society doesn't have any of those?!) or of LATER writers sharing their own prejudices and misunderstandings. (Thus people's picture of the Puritans is often shaped by *The Scarlet Letter*, as if Nathaniel Hawthorne were an unbiased, solid historical study.)

One key part of this is that they were very serious and "SEVERE". In one sense, very true. They believed sin had serious negative consequences and so should be taken seriously. But even more than taking OTHERS' sins seriously (out of concern for the whole SOCIETY), they took their OWN sin seriously (as seen in #1 above). Also, note that they were often more concerned with addressing sins such as PRIDE than of sexual transgression. (Though they regarded sexual purity as important, they in fact, viewed marital sex as a very GOOD thing, to be encouraged. The danger was in the MIS-use. So the idea that they had a negative view of sex is utterly mistaken.)

MORE positively -- and related to the "social" point above -- if you want a picture of the VALUES the Puritans sought to live out, see the next section (esp.#3 and 5)

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I can hardly begin on the other question of their "legacy" to us, but much we value hardly seems possible without the Puritan legacy:

(1) practicing their "work ethic", with its values of industriousness (hard work!) and responsibility to USE wealth responsibly (not just spend it on oneself) helped PRODUCE wealth, and also helped establish a hard-working productive SOCIETY

(2) their heavy emphasis on DOING (not just thinking) has helped shape American society, as pragmatic and 'activist'... focused on "getting things done" (At times this has been expressed in acting impatiently for a cause and not always with the wisest 'long-term' planning... but that misuse is not automatically their fault... and all-in-all, more GOOD has been done through this approach.) An

(3) SOCIAL conscience, responsibility to care for the COMMUNITY was a very big deal. Most famous expression was the John Winthrop sermon many know as the "City on a Hill" sermon, but which was actually entitled (and more appropriately), "A Modell of Christian CHARITY". He argued that God was graciously giving them a NEW opportunity in a new land, to build a society in which Christian love for one another, helping the weak and needy, etc.,

(4) their teaching about human COMMUNITY as a "covenant" relationship in which all take part - they first applied it to the (local) church, then to the "state"/civil government. They thus gave us a key piece of the idea of "government by the consent of the governed", so important to the foundations of U.S. political institutions (and BEFORE Locke wrote a word!) The first famous expression of all this was the "Mayflower Compact", in which all signers agreed to work together to establish just laws for the good of ALL. All of this in a way that tended to undermine the old aristocratic order, and pave the way for democracy
http://www.texnews.com/opinion97/hart112697.html
http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/masters/puritans.htm
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cdf/ff/chap06.html

(5) the social dimension -- along with 'activism'-- was the foundation of the 18th-19th century reform movements... many of them led by New England evangelicals, descendants of the Puritans and their ethics (and settlers in other states who had come from New England), e.g., temperance and abolitionism (the latter was overwhelmingly a New England "cause")

(6) VERY big (as Calvinists generally were) on EDUCATION, beginning with making sure ALL could read and understand the Bible (and very careful, detailed study of the Bible, expressed in LONG sermons!)... New England quickly established schools and colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc)..... and were long THE most literate region of the country

(7) individual responsibility and work ethic (among other concerns) were a foundation for "capitalism" (and note that the "capitalist" system in America first took shape in the businesses of New England)

Answer 2

The Puritans were both good and bad, like -all- people. They were a very small colony, and half of them died that first Winter. It's hard to tell really what influence they've had on US culture.

The Puritans were Calvinists. They believed that man was basically evil, but that God chooses certain people to favor, for reasons that are invisible to us. If God favors someone he makes them fortunate and rich. So, the Puritans believed, if someone is rich it means he is more worthy of God's love, better and wiser than the rest of us, even though he might not seem so to us.

This idea has really become ingrained in the US culture, the idea that the rich are smarter and more worthy, even if they inherited their wealth. Look at the respect Donald Trump gets. He's not even a very nice person, certainly not a genius of any kind, but people figure he must be wise and good because he inherited a lot of money. Even with politicians, in the last couple of elections the choices we've had have all been sons of wealth and privilege who don't understand what it's like to struggle to meet a mortgage payment or put kids through college.

Answer 3

While the Puritans are certainly part of American history and they couldn't help their given mindset of that day and age, they were superstitious folk that ended up burning people alive on the accusations of witchcraft by other so-called Puritans. "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller explores what these good people were up to, how they could accuse someone of witchcraft and thereby inherit the accused's farm and lands. I imagine there were good Puritans and bad Puritans. It is unfortunate that some of the good ones ended up getting tortured and burned in the name of superstition. The Puritans were early American settlers with religious notions that would make the Amish look like Ozzy Ozborne by comparison. I don't think America would be any different with a different sort of settlers, like Protestant, Catholic, or whatever. In those days they all had some sort of religion as a moral and governmental philosophy to see them through.

Answer 4

The Puritans have been being persecuted for his or her ideals in England, so as that they desperate to return to u . s . a . and persecute whomever they found. They have been efficient, and right here we are in the present day.

Answer 5

It all depends on who you ask. On the positive side, the puritans as a group were very self-reliant, hard-working, and dedicated to their beliefs. However, as a culture and society, they weren't very tolerant of any deviations from "the norm"; they often based their civil laws on religious beliefs and dogma, and their society was somewhat authoritarian.

Answer 6

It depends in what prespective you look at it. History book show that thier life was a simple life they did not indulge in vices and tried to follow the teachings of their religion and remain pure to its rules ( thus puritans). they escaped europe because of religous persecution and came to the colonies to be where they were free to excercise thier religous beliefs. Without them them we would not have freedom of religion in this country.

Answer 7

Hello,

They were party poopers in my opinion. Also were obsessed with witchcraft and behaved like the Catholic Inquisition did with heresy in regards to them. Worst of all they did not like people to enjoy wine or beer as well as play cards and dance. No wine, women, parties, games, why live?

Without them there would have been more freedom to enjoy life, less religious bigotry and of course no infamous Salem
witch trials.

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 8

They were probably like the people today with the various behaviors documented in the Old Testament.

Answer 9

Not entirely, but they weren't all together bad, either.

Answer 10

that's a bit of a stretch