Puritanism 2.0

Everyone is familiar with the Puritans. At least familiar with the popular story about the Puritans. You know the one. That these deeply religious people left England in pursuit of religious freedom and so they went to the “new world” and set up a colony and they experienced hardship in the winter, but held a celebration with the native tribes that later became known at Thanksgiving.

Nice story.

Here’s the reality. The Puritans wanted to “reform” the Church of England to “complete” the Reformation. The church was too Catholic apparently for them. And by purifying it, they wanted to impose their ideas on the church so everyone would follow what they wanted. But the church wouldn’t give in. So the Puritans left when they realized they couldn’t get their way. Not for the new world. They went to Holland instead. Because Holland was known as living into religious freedom where people could come and practice their religion freely — free from government interference and from religious interference in government. But the Puritans didn’t want that. They discovered that people weren’t too keen on the Puritan ideas being imposed on everyone regardless of their religious belief. Go figure — religious freedom actually means religious freedom, not free to impose your beliefs on everyone else.

So the Puritans made a deal with a trade company and headed out to New England to establish a colony. Since the beginning, they had no intention of making a religiously free colony — they left that in Holland. No, it was meant to be a Puritan colony. The…