Featured Puritanism

Regarding the Puritans, Begg always says that the Puritans were the guys that went around making sure no one was having any fun.

 

Yeah and their attire wasn't to flashy either... Brother Glen

 

That's the Scotsman in him coming out! I have wondered if he might follow his friend Sinclair Ferguson back to Scotland - we could certainly do with him here! - but his wife is American so I expect he'll stay put. He often comes over to Britain, however and I've heard him preach at conferences many times.

 

Are they now considered Fundimentalists?

 

We take the good with the bad... Weren't these good Christians?... All though out history Christians (or so called that) have bloody hands... Brother Glen

 

Their own!... Brother Glen

Matthew 5: 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

 

Yeah, Unless someone can show that this type of thing was a Puritan doctrine I think you should leave it as an aberration. I haven't come across any Puritan writers advocating hanging. Luther spoke pretty violently about Jews and anabaptists. Some Calvinists I guess tended to drown Baptists. When on a thread about Puritans and it's in the context of what they may mean to some current day Christians, bringing that up seems to me like a cheap shot.

 

I'm just saying that in the 1600's there is no group on this planet that if or when they had control of the government and political side of things that this kind of thing did not occasionally happen. Everyone around you is dying. Starvation is always a possibility. The tensions from the wars in Europe always managed to arrive in the New World unlike aid and assistance which was very unreliable. You have an unreliable food supply, weapons that are unreliable if it rained and always slow, disease that killed two thirds of your children, 20 percent of your women dying in childbirth and only two things in your favor. If you could count on God's favor for your life and almost just as important - an absolute group interdependence and cohesiveness that meant more than anything in this world. In these conditions, I can understand how this could happen. It sounds like some of the things that you read about in the Old Testament and judging them by our standards makes about zero sense.

 

You mean you don’t want to imitate Oliver Cromwell or Cotton Mather, the Puritans who chased out Roger Williams from Boston and had Salem witch hunts? Could it be you seek your purity in emulating Christ?!? What heady stuff your into!

 

Puritan… I used to buy their dress shirts at my local Walmart till they discontinued the line (made me so sad ). And that’s about the extent of my wish to be apart of that puritanical nonsense. If that’s a lifestyle, you can have it. Must be kinda like that “Lordship Salvation” crowd that MacArthur preaches about. Look I like beer & wine, not to excess, just enjoy the taste. I do swear on occasion, but I try hard to contain that. I don’t gossip which is judgemental. My scriptural knowledge isn’t perfect, I was raised Catholic and so there is lots of missed ground to cover. I’m not throwing out all the trappings of Christmas but I concentrate on the incarnation…. So yea, not perfect and I don’t want to be. I’d rather be a child of God than be that ilk. And now that I’m retired I don’t have to dress up… life is good.

 

The beginnings of what you see in the cases in history of these atrocities is an end game of the idea of dismissing everything someone or some group is all about and then letting the disagreement fester within our fertile brains until it becomes contempt and hatred. Then, if you are in the right conditions and are men who tend to act you can have murder.

First you demonize someone's teachings. Then you lump them together with people who you know and disagree with. That way you can transfer your hatred to them. Throw in a few things about how you have it all together, unlike the other group. Make sure you explain how YOU are elect and in close with God, unlike that other bunch. And there you go.

Only thing is, not only does that sound like what happened in some of the Puritan towns, but it could describe some of the posts on here. I would not like to live in a Puritan town in the 1600's. I wouldn't want some of you guys in control either.

 

It may be part of the trouble you get into when you combine your religion with the government but it really was not part of Puritan doctrine. I'm in agreement that it's a good study to look into a whole bunch of concepts of human government under extreme conditions, the merits and pitfalls of diversity in such conditions, the disadvantages and advantages of religion and how it relates to group cohesiveness under those conditions. And don't forget, the problems that come from mandatory church membership which results in a largely unsaved membership. I am just saying that there were predictable reasons why this happened under the conditions it did. I find a lot to admire in the Quakers and the early Baptists but the good that I have gotten from writings, mostly from English and European writers with the exception of Edwards does not seem to come from Quakers. If you see it different then that's OK.

I don't see what that has to do with a resurgence of interest by college students and the republishing of books long forgotten and how they have influenced modern churches in America and England. I don't think anyone's gotten hung or even flogged so far although some of the church discipline I hear about is abusive. I hope they don't read this.

 

If you want to attack their theology lay it out and explain it. But use specific theology. And give specific examples. Do not use the fact that EVERYONE believed at the time that the government and the church were comingled together. We all know that. No one is advocating that.