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The Puritans played an instrumental role in shaping today’s culture, and can be compared to the present day Amish. It all began around the 1500’s in England where people started to question their way of life and demand change. This created an extensive variety of religions that then spread across the world. As time progressed, and the world developed, these religions weaved in and out of each other, creating what we have today. Although the Puritans and the Amish share some beliefs, there are numerous differences that define them as their own religions.
The Puritans first originated in England during the 1500’s, and faced numerous conflicts throughout their time. These began with their efforts to change the Church of England. This turned out to be one of their greatest challenges as they faced a substantial amount of opposition. The term they were known for, "Puritan”, came from their goal of purifying the church and restoring it to how it is described in the Bible (“Puritans” World Book). During this time of reform, there were Puritans with more radical views such as removing bishops and replacing the Episcopal with a new Presbyterian system. At the same time, there was also a group of independents with even stronger radical views. These independents later broke off from the Puritans and became known as the Baptists. A man named John White led the main sending of Puritans to Massachusetts and the main expansion of the Puritans religion (Melton 52; 58). Due to this push for the religion, the Puritans had a strong influence on the social, political, and religious aspects in both America and England. Today, the term Puritans has come to mean strictness in moral or religious matters (“Puritans” World Book).
The Amish stem f...
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... The Puritans branched off from the Church of England, established themselves as their own religion, and then grew to be their own religion with their specific ways of life. The Amish are believed to have stemmed off of the Anabaptists and are mainly found in the northern United States. In conclusion, the Amish and the Puritans do have some beliefs and ways of life that overlap with one another, but still manage to maintain their independence as distinct, separate religions.
Works Cited
”The Amish; History, Beliefs, Practices, Conflicts, Etc.” Religious Tolerance. n.p., n.d.,
Web. 20 January 2014
Melton, J Gordon. The American Religions Collections. Woodbridge, CT: Primary
Source Media. 2007. Print. 52-58
“Puritans”. World Book. n.d., World Book, Inc. 8 January 2013. Web.
Seitz, Ruth Hoover., and Blair Seitz. Amish Ways. Harrisburg, PA: RB, 1991 Print. 5-12
According to "Puritan Family Life: The Diary of Samuel Sewall," in the 16th century there was a religious group, the Puritans, that believed only in Christian faith and in God’s intervention in everyday life. Furthermore, their core values and beliefs were in original sin, predestination, and grace. Puritans also viewed nature as evil and the woods as the Devil’s playground. Contrastingly, Native Americans were very much in-tune with nature and lived in the woods. This dissimilarity is a conflicting factor between these two cultures that both Rowlandson and Smith experience.
8.Puritans— ‘Followers' of Puritanism, a movement for reform in the Church of England that had a profound influence on the social, political, ethical, and theological ideas in England and America. In America the early New England settlements were Puritan in origin and theocratic in nature. The spirit of Puritanism long persisted there, and the idea of congregational democratic government was carried into the political life of the state as one source of modern democracy.
The Puritans were "Christians," in that they believed in Jesus Christ yet some may argue that they did not lead "Christian" lives. These fanatics seemed to obssess over a major tenet of their religion, that being "Pre Destination." That is, God Himself chose those destined for eternal salvation in the beginning of time, long before our conception and birth. This pre-ordained number is considerably miniscule, which, at times, the Puritans seemed to ignore.
The puritans were very religious. They wanted to show everyone what happens if you are good and believe in god and the heavens. If you do bad things you would be punished or be killed. If you do good things you can be hand chosen to go to heaven.
Differences between the Puritans and other religions were numerous. Although God was the central focu...
1) Puritanism originated from a movement for reform in the Church of England. It focused on the impact upon American values, the present paper first discusses the origin and the tenets of Puritanism.
The Puritans were Protestants who did not agree with the Anglican Church. In order to live as they want, the Puritans arrive at Massachusetts in 1630. People who want to seek land leave Massachusetts and establish colonies like Connecticut. In addition, the king of England had given two friends a large piece of land in the north of Massachusetts. John Mason took what later became the colony of New Hampshire, and Ferdinando Gorges took the area that later became the state of Maine.
The church and Christian beliefs had a very large impact on the Puritan religion and lifestyle. According to discovery education, “Church was the cornerstone of the mainly Puritan society of the 17th century.”( Douglas 4). Puritan laws were intensively rigid and people in society were expected to follow a moral strict code. And because of Puritans and their strict moral codes, any act that was considered to go against this code was considered a sin and deserved to be punished. In Puritan theology, God h...
Puritans believed in strict religious dedications, by trying to follow the holy commandment. “The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now.”(Hawthorne 9). They wanted to be considered the holiest of all people because they try to reflect a world of perfection in the sight of God. While they where trying to portray a holy life; however, they where also living a sinful life because they have been judgmental, slandering, uncompassionate, resentment, and forbearing, which are all sinful acts of the bible.
To this day, the word “puritan” connotes both rigidity and a generally narrow view on life. The dictionary definition of Puritan (the capital refers to the actual religious group) includes, "...demanding the simplification of doctrine and worship, and greater strictness in religious discipline” (Source A). Simplification of their religion would be an understatement of what the Puritans did. Basically, acts were separated into good or evil, approved by God or frowned upon. In this robotic fashion, with no gray area, cruel ignominy was shockingly popular, and used in unworthy situations. An example lies in Source B, a still from the movie adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s magnum opus, The Scarlet Letter. (Although classified as a fictional work the novel is known for it’s factual representations of the Puritans’ behavior.) For committing adultery, Hester Prynne is assigned a lone standing position on the town scaffold, essentially to be put on display and judged while nervously clutching her new baby. To add ridicule, she is enclosed by guards carrying swords and other various weapons. It makes one wonder just how much destruction a woman and her baby are capable of.
The Puritans were Englishmen who chose to separate from the Church of England. Puritans believed that the Anglican Church or Church of England resembled the Roman Catholic Church too closely and was in dire need of reform. Furthermore, they were not free to follow their own religious beliefs without punishment. In the sixteenth century the Puritans settled in the New England area with the idea of regaining their principles of the Christi...
It is true that Puritans did not exactly support partying or alcohol. What is surprising is that on rare occasion, it was not uncommon to find Puritans consuming an amount of different types of alcoholic beverages. During feasts alcohol was most-definitely served (Charles). Another thing that comes to mind when talking about the Puritans, is the big first Thanksgiving dinner. Although Thanksgiving feasts likely happened, the Puritans were not the first ones to have these gatherings with the Natives. The first year that sacrificial prayers between Europeans and Natives occurred was 1621, though the first feast was not recorded until 1623 (Gambino). The Puritans did not even make the journey across the Atlantic until 1629; it was their cousins the Pilgrims who made this first bond with the Native American peoples. Once the Puritans did arrive on the American shores, they did have feasts and prayer offerings with the Native Americans, much like the meetings of the Pilgrims and Native Americans (Gambino). A mixture of the Puritan and Pilgrim Thanksgivings are what is generally celebrated today by families across the United States (Thanksgiving History). The Pilgrims and the Puritans were very similar peoples. They both originally came from England. The only difference is that unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans originally stayed in England and tried to purify the Church from within. The
To begin, typical Puritan society during the 17th century was “painfully stern and somber; it was founded on the strictest, unmollified Calvinism,” (Puritan…). In other words, their society was very restricted and confined to religion. Civil law also played a role in the citizens’ business and social relations. Law impacted how they dressed, their religious affairs, and even their family relations. In terms of education, Puritans prospered. In fact, in Massachusetts, they required every township of fifty families to employ a teacher to educate the children. Their government was also structured upon religion because religion served as their only method of life. In terms of gender roles, the men were responsible for earning bread for...
The Puritans were a religious group that came to North America in search of religious freedom, and, in the process, greatly impacted the North American church, government, education, social mores, and economy. Many of the things that they implemented in the first colonies are still seen today in the social and governmental structures of the United States. Their beliefs and traditions are still practiced today and many social mores are still being adhered to, even now.
In 1608, a group of Christian separatists from the Church of England fled to the Netherlands and then to the "New World" in search of the freedom to practice their fundamentalist form of Christianity (dubbed Puritanism). The group of people known as the Native Americans (or American Indians) are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Northern and Southern American continents who are believed to have migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia around 30,000 years ago. When these two societies collided, years of enforced ideology, oppression and guerrilla warfare were begun. The great barriers of religion, ethics and world-views are the three largest factors which lead to the culture clash between the Puritans and the Native Americans.