Abby's Inklings: A Puritans update

By Abby Cowels
Staff Writer

The Puritans – you learned about them in elementary, middle and high school – wanted church reform to ‘purify’? Loved executing people for their property? What the heck are they up to now?

Okay quick review; The Puritans were English Protestants, but were unhappy with Roman Catholic traditions. So they sought to separate themselves by following super-conservative John Calvin, resulting in what we know to be the 17th Century Calvinists.

It wasn’t until after a terrible war, under Protestant rule in England 1649, that the Puritans decided to leave and travel to America. And after some two and a half centuries, they practice their fundamentalist traditions in what is known as Congregational Churches.

It makes a great deal of sense when you think about why Congregational Churches are separated from any and all outside influence. They govern themselves, which is just what Calvinists wanted.

They wanted to elect their officials, build their hierarchies and make internal political decisions based only on the word of God and the Bible, and there was absolutely no bias or prejudice involved in any of these decisions.

So, what are they up to these days? Well, civil war split the country in two and Calvinists, like all Protestants, were on the more Confederate side of things. The aligned with the Confederate motives of creating a separation, away from outside influence and the more progressive ideals of the Union.

And after their defeat to separate, the Confederacy did not lose the war entirely, and members remained in the states they once tried to make independent. Those Confederate states unsurprisingly include not all, but many of the current states that make up the “Bible Belt.”

They continued to practice the First Amendment and evolve into really fun and nice, Evangelicals within their Protestant communities, where they all share the same radical belief that there is no rule of morality outside the word of the Bible.

So, that is what happened to many of the US Puritans of the early 17th Century. The Pilgrims went there too, if you were wondering, and a lot of American religious fundamentalists. I heard there was going to be a crazy party after.