Puritanism in the New World

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Presentation 8/12

• Puritanism in the New World

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Puritan Thought

• The Puritans Self Interpreted New Israelites
  in the New World

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So what is typology anyway?

• The Puritans understood themselves through the
  lens of typology
• Typology is the interpretation of Old Testament
  events, persons, and ceremonies as signs which
  prefigured Christ's fulfillment and new covenant
  with the apostolic church. The concepts arose
  from those of the skia (shadow) and typos (type).
  Typology involves identification both of a type
  or figura, a figure, concept, ceremony, or event
  as an Old Testament precursor, and an anti-type,
  a New Testament historical figure or event that
  follows and fulfills the promise of the type
  (http//www.wsu.edu/campbelld/amlit/typology.htm)
  
• Typological interpretation of the Hebrew
  Scriptures allowed early Christianity to align
  itself with and eventually separate from Judaism

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And now a little on Calvin and Calvinism

• - John Calvin a sixteenth century French
• Protestant theologian and reformer
• Believed in direct interpretation of scripture
  (exegesis) as opposed to Catholic influenced,
  second hand interpretation
• Calvins ideas directly influenced the Puritans
  and their world view
• In Chapter Four of Calvins Institutes of
  Religion he for instance discusses the corruption
  of the true church and explores means by which
  the true practices of early Christianity might
  be restored
• For the Puritans then, exegesis led to
  typological interpretation of themselves and the
  Christian scriptures

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Christianity Corrupted?

• So the Puritans felt that Christianity had been
  corrupted
• They wanted to get rid of the rituals and second
  hand medieval interpretations and reinstitute
  their vision of original Christianity

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New Ideology/New Life in the New World

• - The Puritans saw themselves as revivers of
  the true, unadulterated Christian Faith
• As John Winthrop asserts, We shall find that the
  god of Isreal is among us, when ten of us shall
  be able to resist a thousand of our enemies For
  we shall consider that we shall be as a city on a
  hill if we shall deal falsely with our God in
  this work (i.e., covenant) we have undertaken
  we shall be made a story and by-word through the
  world (Reader 41)
• So the Puritans understood themselves through
  the lens of typology, as New Israelites

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New Ideology/New Life in the New World (contd)

• - Applied more liberally and figured more
  broadly, typology expanded into a more elaborate
  verbal system that enabled an interpreter to
  discover biblical forecasts of current events. 
  Thus, the Atlantic journey of the Puritans could
  be an antitype of the Exodus of the Israelites
  and the New England colony, a New Zion, to which
  Christ may return to usher in the Millennium. 
  The first settlers were conservative, cautious
  typologists, but as Edward Johnson's
  Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in
  New England (1654 composed c. 1650)
  demonstrates, by the 1640s New England's sacred
  errand into the wilderness and the approaching
  Apocalypse were accepted antitypes of sacred
  history (http//www.wsu.edu/campbelld/amlit/typol
  ogy.htm)

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New Ideology/New Life in the New World (contd)

• So typological interpretation of Christian
  scripture informed the Puritans world-view
  greatly
• The Puritans felt that much as Gods original
  chosen people (viz., the Jewish people) had
  rejected Jesus true teaching, paving the way
  for diasporic (which means outlying, or removed
  from the main group) gentile (i.e., non-Jewish)
  Christianity, the corruption of the church in
  Europe led to a perceived new covenant with the
  Puritans, who saw themselves as the new and true
  Israelites the restorers of the true Christian
  church in the promised land of New England
•  

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And finally, some Puritans on their way to kick
some ass!
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Discussion Question

• Do Americans as a people still operate under
  the assumptions of American exceptionalism (i.e.,
  beliefs that the United States and its citizens
  are inherently superior due to our national
  history and ideology) which informed manifest
  destiny ideology?