remember the puritans… why?!
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. (Matthew 5.14)
Thanksgiving is the only national holiday unique to our country whose roots are distinctly Christian. For followers of Jesus, It is an opportunity to give thanks for a people more than a remberance of a distinctly Christian table fellowship that occurred 402 years ago. It can be an opportunity to remember a sincere, yet imperfect, Christian community, their way of life and the vision they dreamed of fulfilling—to build and be the city on the hill that Jesus spoke about. Thanksgiving, therefore, seems an appropriate time to briefly reflect on the larger Christian community called “the Puritans”… a vibrant and prophetic Christian movement that began the 16th century England.
Puritans… mention their name and most minds concoct imagery of the Salem Witch Trials; men in tall black hats with a large belt buckle above the brim; cold, overbearing, and subservient women; and intolerant, narrow-minded, prudish people afraid of the world and embarrassed by their own sexuality. J. I. Packer reminds us that “Puritan” as a name “was, in fact, mud from the start. Coined in the early 1560’s, it was always a satirical smear word implying peevishness, censoriousness, conceit, and a measure of hypocrisy… an odd, furious, and ugly form of Protestant religion.” Most perceive the Puritans as as equal parts comic and pathetic, naïve and superstitious, primitive and gullible, superserious, overscrupulous, majoring in minors, and unable or unwilling to relax. In today’s world they are (wrongfully from my perspective) seen as the the seed and root of the great sins of our nation.
What could these zealots give us that we might possibly need today?
I think the answers can be found in a book written several years ago by the British evangelical scholar and pastor, J. I. Packer (see link below). Let me summarize with you some of his thoughts.
The answer, in one word, is maturity. Maturity is a compound of wisdom, goodwill, resilience, and creativity. The Puritans exemplified maturity; we don’t. We are spiritual dwarfs. The Puritans, by contrast, as a body, were giants. They were great souls serving a great God. In them, clear-headed passion and warm-hearted compassion combined. Visionary and practical, idealistic and realistic too, goal-oriented and methodical, they were great believers, great hopers, great doers, and great sufferers. Through the legacy of their literature, the Puritans can help us today towards the maturity that they knew and that we need.
First there are lessons for us in the integration of their daily lives. There was for them no disjunction between sacred and secular; all creation, so far as they were concerned, was sacred, and all activities, of whatever kind, must be sanctified—done to the glory of God…
Second, there are lessons for us in the quality of their spiritual experiences. Their faith was an experiential yet rational faith, resolute, passionate piety that was conscientious without becoming obsessive, law-oriented without lapsing into legalism, and expressive of Christian liberty without any shameful lurches into license.
Third, there are lessons for us in their passion for effective action. They had no time for the idleness of the lazy or passive person who leaves it to others to change the world. They were people of action in the pure Reformed mould—crusading activists without a jot of self-reliance; workers for God who depended utterly on God to work in and through them, and who always gave God the praise for anything they did that, in retrospect, seemed to them to have been right.
Fourth, there are lessons for us in their program for family stability. It is hardly too much to say that the Puritans created the Christian family in the English-speaking world. The Puritan ethic of marriage was to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment, but rather one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, and then with God’s help proceed to do just that. Goodwill, patience, consistency, and an encouraging attitude were seen as the essential domestic virtues.
Fifth, there are lessons to be learned from their sense of human worth. Through believing in a great God, they gained a vivid awareness of the greatness of moral issues, of eternity, and of the human soul. All life was valued and received as a gift from God—no matter how brief.
Sixth, there are lessons to be learned form the Puritans’ ideal of church renewal. The essence of this Puritan renewal was the enrichment of understanding of God’s truth, arousal of affections Godward, increase of ardor in one’s devotions, and more love, joy, and firmness of Christian purpose in one’s calling and personal life. The ideal for the church was that the congregation would be brought, by God’s grace, into a state of revival in order to be:
truly and thoroughly converted,
theologically orthodox and sound,
spiritually alert and expectant,
of wise and steady character,
ethically enterprising and obedient, and
humbly but joyously sure of their salvation.
This year when you give thanks, give thanks for the Puritans for they have profoundly shaped our world and our own sense of destiny. Without them
you would not think about the Scriptures as you do,
you would not think about the person and work of Jesus as you do,
you would not think about the power of the Holy Spirit nor the strategic plan of the Father to save us as you do,
you would not think about education as you do
you would not think about going to university as you do (did!),
you would not think about the family as you do,
you would not think about marriage as you do,
you would not think about the worth of human life as you do,
you would not think about money and charity as you do,
you would not think about heaven as you do,
you would not think about changing the world as you do…
Dear ones, I don’t have to embrace the entirety of their Reformed theology to be grateful for their contribution to a comprehensive Christian worldview rooted in the redemptive presence of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom come today. This Thanksgiving season, let us give thanks for their legacy…
see you in 2 weeks and please have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving…
A Quest for Godliness: the Puritan vision of the Christian Life by J.I. Packer
See also this article regarding C. S. Lewis’ observations about the Pilgrims.
