why this love of the puritans?

[Jerome]

forcing" others to convert to just their way of viewing things!

Exactly.

http://www.wordsmyth.net/?level=3&ent=puritan

Puritan
any of a group of Protestants that originated in England in the sixteenth century and were politically powerful there and later in the United States, and who believed in simple religious ceremony, strict moral discipline, and persecution of dissent.

 

[nodak]

I think some are defending calvinism or reformed baptist theology.

Not at all what I was meaning.

I'm talking about the rules and regulations, and the wanting everyone to conform to them.

 

[gb93433]

If it wasn't for the Puritans, I wonder what the Christian faith would look like today in the USA? Weren't they the ones who stood up for Christian truths in Europe during a time when it was hard to be a Protestant? Maybe we need some Puritan's today in America.

If they have had such an impact where are they today in America?

 

[12strings]

If they have had such an impact where are they today in America?

If today is the standard of whether someone truly had an impact you would have to say that NO major Christian group has had an impact on this country!

I would say several DID Have major impacts (consider the great awakenings) but that impact must be passed on through the generations or it is lost.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

I think some are defending calvinism or reformed baptist theology.

Not at all what I was meaning.

I'm talking about the rules and regulations, and the wanting everyone to conform to them.

I think you may have been reading some caricatures of the Puritans. There were certainly some on the Presbyterian side who were very legalistic, but those on the Congregationalist or Baptist side were much less so.

I was informed once that some Puritan group banned mothers from kissing their children on the Lord's Day. I can't say definitely that it's untrue, but I have never been able to find any evidence for it.

I would urge you to read some of the Puritans and find out what they were really like. You might be surprised.

Steve

 

[Jerome]

where are they today in America?

Their churches are now Unitarian/Universalist—

First Church Boston

First Church Plymouth


—or United Church of Christ, like this congregation where Mark Dever (9Marks, Capitol Hill Baptist Church) was a minister in the 1980s:

Topsfield, Mass. United Church of Christ

 

[gb93433]

If today is the standard of whether someone truly had an impact you would have to say that NO major Christian group has had an impact on this country!

I would say several DID Have major impacts (consider the great awakenings) but that impact must be passed on through the generations or it is lost.

Christ still continues to have an impact. Isn't that what really matters?

It is a good thing that groups do not last long because typically a group starts out with what they should focus on and as the organization gets larger the focus shifts to maintaining the organization and its survival.

 

[gb93433]

Their churches are now Unitarian/Universalist—

First Church Boston

First Church Plymouth


—or United Church of Christ, like this church where Mark Dever (9Marks, Capitol Hill Baptist Church) was a minister in the 1980s:

Topsfield, Mass. United Church of Christ

Really!!! I was not aware of that. Is there a particular reason why?

 

[Iconoclast]

Would say thatwhile I would tend to agree with them in regards to say the doctrines of grace as they espoused them, would NOT be a big believer in the 'strictness" of how they tended to apply those graces into daily lives!

I see them as being a tad to "rigid/forcing" others to convert to just their way of viewing things!

More a problem with application of the theology than in the theology itself!

Yes....could you give one or two examples of a puritan who does this?

 

[Iconoclast]

I think some are defending calvinism or reformed baptist theology.

Not at all what I was meaning.

I'm talking about the rules and regulations, and the wanting everyone to conform to them.

Again,

Could you give an actual example of what you mean? Give two or three examples and what you mean by wanting everyone to conform to them.
Nodak.....most who discover and take an interest in the Puritans.....enjoy to an extent the seriousness and godly reverence for the Lord and his word. Their writings were very long, because they in most cases were striving to know the Lord as much as is humanly possible...squeezing out every drop they could from the verses.

It is instructive how they would approach a text, open it up, examine and meditate on it...then seek for the practical uses of the text.When anyone today reads them it is like an oasis compared to the modern day ideas suggested as bible teaching.

 

[Alcott]

I'm talking about the rules and regulations, and the wanting everyone to conform to them.

That would be today's "environmentalists."

 

[Iconoclast]

I think you may have been reading some caricatures of the Puritans. There were certainly some on the Presbyterian side who were very legalistic, but those on the Congregationalist or Baptist side were much less so.

I was informed once that some Puritan group banned mothers from kissing their children on the Lord's Day. I can't say definitely that it's untrue, but I have never been able to find any evidence for it.

I would urge you to read some of the Puritans and find out what they were really like. You might be surprised.

Steve

Almost no one who is critical of the puritans has any actual knowledge of them:thumbs: They look up one report of someone ,somehwere ,who was a legalist......then dismiss all puritan writings.....Many have no desire to read more than a page from a daily bread devotional,and in truth despise the teaching of scripture. Instead they want to fabricate a christian ideology without the words of Jesus as central. The aversion they have to the Puritans,is that many a puritan was long winded...in their writing...

It is worth it to work through as they opened up many passages of the word.
Anyone who reads honestly and sorts through the writing.....will flee many of the modern day fluff:wavey:

 

[Iconoclast]

Christ still continues to have an impact. Isn't that what really matters?

It is a good thing that groups do not last long because typically a group starts out with what they should focus on and as the organization gets larger the focus shifts to maintaining the organization and its survival.[/QUOTE]

This is a good point......and sadly repeated in many ways, in many places.
the transition to the next generation falters,because what began by the Spirit...gives way to fleshly ideas.

 

[Amy.G]

I have a little book called The Valley of Vision which is a collection of Puritan prayers. They are beautiful and I enjoy reading them.

 

[Iconoclast]

I have a little book called The Valley of Vision which is a collection of Puritan prayers. They are beautiful and I enjoy reading them.

AMYG,

It is hard to imagine that those believers who were before us,without many of the worldly distractions, would not have a deep knowledge of the Lord and His word. We can do it today, but in a prosperous nation like America...we are being over-run , by the prosperity, and even things that are good in and of themselves....can keep us from learning and growing as we should.

10When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

11Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

12Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

13And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

14Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

15Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

16Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;

17And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
18But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
19And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.

 

[nodak]

No question the puritans wrote some good devotionals and some good books.

Its the whole "do it our way or we hang, behead, or burn you at the stake" thing I object to.

 

[Jerome]

Here's a sample of what dissenters endured under the Puritan regime in early New England:

A sample of Quaker punishment is recorded in the case of William Brend. After being subjected to a severe lashing, he was put "into irons, neck and heels, and locked so close together that there was no more room between each than for the horse-lock which fastened them on," in which condition he was left without food for sixteen hours. Next day he was whipped again, 117 lashes, with a tarred rope until, according to a contemporary chronicler, "his flesh was beaten black and as into a jelly."' Almost equally harsh was the treatment of Baptists, for whom banishment was prescribed by law of 1644 unless they should refrain from their opposition to infant baptism. (Rough phases of Baptist persecutions, specially in the whippings and prison experiences of William Witter and Obadiah Holmes, are recounted in John Clark's Ill Newes from New England). . . .Though no more Quakers were hanged after 1661, for some years thereafter members of the sect were fined, imprisoned and whipped. . . .Floggings, earcroppings, and tongue-borings with a hot iron were prescribed

—Louis Taylor Merrill, "The Puritan Policeman" ASR 10, No. 6, Dec. 1945. pp. 768-769

 

[Ed B]

Here's a sample of what dissenters endured under the Puritan regime in early New England:


—Louis Taylor Merrill, "The Puritan Policeman" ASR 10, No. 6, Dec. 1945. pp. 768-769

I have a friend here at work who is very intelligent and a great critical thinker. He was raised a non-practicing Catholic and married into a protestant family with no real preference on whether they attend a Baptists, Methodist, (fill in the blank) Church. They attended a very legalistic rural Baptist Church in until the last year or so complete with ruling families, dictatorial pastor, who were Landmarkist, and very concerned with keeping out those poor kids from the trailer parks instead of standing up a bus ministry for them. Since that was his first extended experience with Baptists and because they very legalistic and tried to be oppressive, he cannot be convinced that this is not representative of the vast majority of Baptist Churches. It clearly isn't but he can't see past the bad example to consider the good.

Maybe Puritans are a little like that. Without a doubt there were abuses and excesses among the Puritans. I suspect there were many more excellent edifying works done by Puritans that Baptists inherited and/or benefit from - Spurgeon seems to have like them.

 

[Iconoclast]

I have a friend here at work who is very intelligent and a great critical thinker. He was raised a non-practicing Catholic and married into a protestant family with no real preference on whether they attend a Baptists, Methodist, (fill in the blank) Church. They attended a very legalistic rural Baptist Church in until the last year or so complete with ruling families, dictatorial pastor, who were Landmarkist, and very concerned with keeping out those poor kids from the trailer parks instead of standing up a bus ministry for them. Since that was his first extended experience with Baptists and because they very legalistic and tried to be oppressive, he cannot be convinced that this is not representative of the vast majority of Baptist Churches. It clearly isn't but he can't see past the bad example to consider the good.

Maybe Puritans are a little like that. Without a doubt there were abuses and excesses among the Puritans. I suspect there were many more excellent edifying works done by Puritans that Baptists inherited and/or benefit from - Spurgeon seems to have like them.

Yes.....legalism...if it is done by anyone is deadly to a church.
Jerome provides an example of how some began in the Spirit....but finished in the flesh[literally whipping the flesh off this person]....Puritans were not immune from legalism.....and God who will not be mocked....cut them off.

It is hard to figure that a few hundred years ago,presbyterians,and catholics, would kill baptists.....where today you can find conferences where presbyterians and baptists share the pulpit during a bible conference...despite differing views of the continuity of the Covenant.

it is an improvment......so ...I will still look to take what was good from the time period,and leave the rest to the judgement of God.:thumbs:

This is the key...with any "trusted guide"....see where they saw Jesus in the word,leave the rest:thumbs:

 

[Iconoclast]

Here's a sample of what dissenters endured under the Puritan regime in early New England:


—Louis Taylor Merrill, "The Puritan Policeman" ASR 10, No. 6, Dec. 1945. pp. 768-769

yes.....this might qualify as abuse:thumbs::thumbs: We should not follow this example of government.