“We are victims of anachronistic slander if we think that the Puritans were in any way, well, puritanical. That term came to be applied to the bluenoses and wowsers well after the Puritan party had brought back into Christian discipleship an incarnational embrace of all material things” (Writers to Read, pp. 65-66).
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Every time I hear or read someone say “Purtianism is the worst” or some variation, I am sad. So this quote is quite nice
Who, exactly, cut off Charles I’s head?
It was supposed to be Cromwell’s own public axeman Richard Brandon, but thirty minutes before showtime, he refused. Any other head was fine, but not the King’s. So one of Cromwell’s cornets, George Joyce, volunteered and did the deed in one blow, which was quite remarkable for someone who didn’t know exactly where to place the blade. When Charles II acceded to the throne, he demanded to see the death certificate and decided to track down the 59 people who had signed it. Apparently George fled to Holland where he became Jane Joyce, wearing a wig and women’s clothing. Time… Read more »
It strikes me as the crime that opened the door to most of the ills of modern government.
A better place to look to for the origins of modern government would be the takeover of the Church by the State starting under Henry VIII and continuing under the oligarchy that ruled England in the name of Henry’s son, Edward VI.
It’s obviously a tree with many roots. But the English regicide laid the foundation for the French revolution, so far as I can see.
Eden would be an even better place to look!
Puritanism followed the trajectory of all revolutionary movements. They all start out with beautiful visions of a utopian world. This was the case with Marxism (“End the exploitation of the poor!”), the French Revolution (“Liberté, égalité, fraternité!“), the Sexual Revolution (“Peace and Love, man!”), Islam (“Just believe in one God and do good works!”) and countless smaller groups.
Regardless, from each of their beginnings, they all contained the seeds of their own descent. For the Puritans, “an incarnational embrace of all material things” was inextricably wrapped up with a hostility to art and human-created beauty.
Callaghan wrote:
Inextricably? Says who, the anachronistic slanderers?
The opening lines of this article state:
If your computer can handle the size of the pdf, the shear volume of Puritan works of “human-created beauty” will astound.
http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/furniture_of_the_pilgrim_century_1921.pdf
The Puritans were not, of course, “insensitive to beauty and art”. They could hardly have been human had that been the case. They did, though, consider art to be something dangerous. It scope was to be controlled and cabined. Initially, this applied only to religious art. Paintings, stained glass windows, statues, illustrated books, decorated clothing and linens were brutally and systematically purged from churches and destroyed. Inevitably, this distruction eventually moved to encompase non-religious art as well. Only the written word, the human voice (spoken or sung), some non-liturgical music and non-representational physical art (as contained in the book to… Read more »
Callaghan has previously demonstrated his inability to give up when he has lost. Callaghan wrote: They did, though, consider art to be something dangerous. It scope was to be controlled and cabined. … Inevitably, this distruction eventually moved to encompase non-religious art as well. As the book overwhelmingly demonstrates, the Puritans had nothing against art, or “human-created beauty” as Callaghan desperately tried to suggest. Nor did they consider art dangerous. Since his claims are so trivially false, Callaghan has tried to correct and change the course of his original assertion by tying it to the Puritan rejection of ostentatious religious… Read more »
JC,
We have been friendly, so the following question is meant to be both friendly and pointy. ; – )
If Puritanism is so “awful”, and ends up just like Marxism, Enlightenmentism (krycheck2 style), Sexism (Clinton style) and Islamism (ISIS style), what “-ism” are you? And how do you and your “-ism” speak as more enlightened and with more “final” moral authority than all the other “-isms”?
That is a very good question! There are any number of answers to it. G.K. Chesterton responded to it more memorably than I could ever do, but I will try. The first answer is theological. Christ established a Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. To it, He gave a commission and authority. The moral authority with which the Church speaks therefore comes from Our Lord Himself, and the enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. On a more mechanical level, the Church has had twenty centuries to figure out how to deal with “bluenoses and wowsers”, mystics and… Read more »
J’, I go to a Protestant Church and the formal creed of this church also claims it is “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”. As far as “Puritanism followed the trajectory of all revolutionary movements.”, I don’t think that is correct, if one considers the USA a result and fruit of the Devine Inspiration of Puritan thought and ethic. By the same token, the last 2000 years of western Eupropean history could be consided similar with regard to the inspiration and ethic of Roman Catholocisim, not to mention that Catholocisim is not immune from having blind spots its’ self. Just… Read more »
It’s good to know that some Protestant churches retain the use of the Nicene creed – though, as with the U.S. Constitution, understanding the original intent of the authors is vital to a proper interpretation.
While Puritans in New England were active in the American Revolution, there seems to be little distinctively Puritan in the outcome.
As far as the inspiration for the Declaration of Independence, one could argue that it had as much Catholic inspiration as Puritan.
Protestant and Catholic influence?
Wow! It’s like all those denominations comprise a Holy, “Catholic” universal church!????
I have searched high and low for Catholic influences in the DOI, and I think they all go the other way. Catholics then believed in a fixed hierarchy with God Himself deciding your place. Other than wanting equal access to justice, Catholics were not on board with equality. “The pursuit of happiness” would have seemed entirely too secular; “The pursuit of holiness” is more like it.
I see the DOI as pure Enlightenment thought.