Religious Interpretations of American Destiny III
Suppose you were to put together a bookful of pronouncements and predictions about America?’s destiny, ranging over four centuries. What title would you give it?
Such an anthology did appear in 1971; it was edited by an associate professor of religious studies and subtitled ?“.?” The book?’s main title was God?’s New Israel. From the 17th century through John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Americans kept talking about their country as if it were the biblical Israel and they were the chosen people.
Where did that view of America come from? It came from Puritanism?—Puritanism being not a separate type of Christianity but a certain approach to Protestantism. And here is a strange fact about Puritanism. It originated in 16th-century England; it became one of the most powerful forces in religious if not all human history. It consistently elicited bitter hatred?—and was directly responsible for (at least) two world-changing developments. It provoked the British Civil War (in which the Puritans and Parliament asserted their rights against the crown and the established church), and the first settlements by British religious dissenters in the new world.
And then it simply disappeared. In the late 1700?’s or early 1800?’s, Puritanism dropped out of history. Traces survived in Britain and (even more so) in America, in the form of churches once associated with it. But after the 18th century, we barely hear about Puritanism as a live force; before long everyone agrees that it is dead.
What happened to it? In a narrow sense, Puritan congregations sometimes liberalized and became Unitarian; the Transcendentalists, prominent in American literature from roughly 1820 through 1860, are often described as the spiritual successors of the Puritans. But Puritanism was too potent, too vibrant simply to vanish. Where did all that powerful religious passion go?
Puritanism had two main elements: the Calvinist belief in predestination with associated religious doctrines, and what we might call a ?“political?” doctrine. The ?“political?” goal of Puritanism was to reach back to the pure Christianity of the New Testament?—and then even farther back. Puritans spoke of themselves as God?’s new chosen people, living in God?’s new promised land?—in short, as God?’s new Israel.
I believe that Puritanism did not drop out of history. It transformed itself into Americanism. This new religion was the end-stage of Puritanism: Puritanism realized among God?’s self-proclaimed ?“new?” chosen people?—or, in Abraham Lincoln?’s remarkable phrase, God?’s ?“almost chosen people.?”
Many thinkers have noted that Americanism is inspired by or close to or intertwined with Puritanism. One of the most impressive scholars to say so recently is Samuel Huntington, in his formidable book on American identity, Who Are We? But my thesis is that Puritanism did not merely inspire or influence Americanism; it turned into Americanism. Puritanism and Americanism are not just parallel or related developments; they are two stages of a single phenomenon.
By Sam Adams of Braintree
Suppose you were to put together a bookful of pronouncements and predictions about America?’s destiny, ranging over four centuries. What title would you give it?
Such an anthology did appear in 1971; it was edited by an associate professor of religious studies and subtitled ?“.?” The book?’s main title was God?’s New Israel. From the 17th century through John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Americans kept talking about their country as if it were the biblical Israel and they were the chosen people.
Where did that view of America come from? It came from Puritanism?—Puritanism being not a separate type of Christianity but a certain approach to Protestantism. And here is a strange fact about Puritanism. It originated in 16th-century England; it became one of the most powerful forces in religious if not all human history. It consistently elicited bitter hatred?—and was directly responsible for (at least) two world-changing developments. It provoked the British Civil War (in which the Puritans and Parliament asserted their rights against the crown and the established church), and the first settlements by British religious dissenters in the new world.
And then it simply disappeared. In the late 1700?’s or early 1800?’s, Puritanism dropped out of history. Traces survived in Britain and (even more so) in America, in the form of churches once associated with it. But after the 18th century, we barely hear about Puritanism as a live force; before long everyone agrees that it is dead.
What happened to it? In a narrow sense, Puritan congregations sometimes liberalized and became Unitarian; the Transcendentalists, prominent in American literature from roughly 1820 through 1860, are often described as the spiritual successors of the Puritans. But Puritanism was too potent, too vibrant simply to vanish. Where did all that powerful religious passion go?
Puritanism had two main elements: the Calvinist belief in predestination with associated religious doctrines, and what we might call a ?“political?” doctrine. The ?“political?” goal of Puritanism was to reach back to the pure Christianity of the New Testament?—and then even farther back. Puritans spoke of themselves as God?’s new chosen people, living in God?’s new promised land?—in short, as God?’s new Israel.
I believe that Puritanism did not drop out of history. It transformed itself into Americanism. This new religion was the end-stage of Puritanism: Puritanism realized among God?’s self-proclaimed ?“new?” chosen people?—or, in Abraham Lincoln?’s remarkable phrase, God?’s ?“almost chosen people.?”
Many thinkers have noted that Americanism is inspired by or close to or intertwined with Puritanism. One of the most impressive scholars to say so recently is Samuel Huntington, in his formidable book on American identity, Who Are We? But my thesis is that Puritanism did not merely inspire or influence Americanism; it turned into Americanism. Puritanism and Americanism are not just parallel or related developments; they are two stages of a single phenomenon.
By Sam Adams of Braintree
