I've been "Catholic-adjacent" all my life, having majored in Medieval/Reformation history back when Middle English was a living language :) The Franciscan movement of the 13th centuries (forward) was brilliantly an urban phenomenon that addressed urban poverty -- at a time when urbanization was exploding in Europe. Reformation Protestant…
I've been "Catholic-adjacent" all my life, having majored in Medieval/Reformation history back when Middle English was a living language :) The Franciscan movement of the 13th centuries (forward) was brilliantly an urban phenomenon that addressed urban poverty -- at a time when urbanization was exploding in Europe. Reformation Protestantism recreated Christianity from Jesus-centric (" ... go and do likewise") to sin-centric with its essential spiritual narcissism. If you look at the theological literature of the English and North American Puritans, you will note a complete absence of any interest or even awareness of Christian compassion extended to ANYONE other than their own community. I truly believe that we are, in 2025, seeing a breakout of the Thirty Years War in North America.
Julia, your conclusion regarding the Puritans' insularity is quite satisfying and feels intuitively a correct observation - having lived in Massachusetts for fifty years - but i am wondering if there are certain texts/books that had in mind as you penned your comment. I am always trying to tease out the origins of America's worst cultural habits and traits versus its best democratic ideals of equality and justice; religious freedom versus freedom of religion & belief is a constant dynamic, along with the ambitious pursuit of material wealth from the very first European settlers, but perhaps a dynamic that happened gradually - possibly in part as a reaction to the Puritans' austere 'tribal' piety at the expense of any other ways of seeing.
Nothing is more eloquent than how Puritanism had, by the mid-17th century, had to re-formulate itself after the "Halfway Covenant." Puritanism's ongoing evolution had to contend with what was clearly competition from other Christian disciplines -- Catholics in Maryland, Quakers (hanged by the Puritans) in Pennsylvania, and the cataclysmic enthusiasm of the Great Awakening. You will note that most of Massachusett's former Puritan enclaves are now Unitarian/Universalist! But even by then (1720s), the aging Puritan culture was starting to weaken in its strict Calvinism -- I would recommend the book "The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life" by Pettit that describes how Puritans backtracked the closed system of total depravity to make conversion possible. "Covenant theology" now belongs to Presbyterians and strict Reformed Churches.
I've been "Catholic-adjacent" all my life, having majored in Medieval/Reformation history back when Middle English was a living language :) The Franciscan movement of the 13th centuries (forward) was brilliantly an urban phenomenon that addressed urban poverty -- at a time when urbanization was exploding in Europe. Reformation Protestantism recreated Christianity from Jesus-centric (" ... go and do likewise") to sin-centric with its essential spiritual narcissism. If you look at the theological literature of the English and North American Puritans, you will note a complete absence of any interest or even awareness of Christian compassion extended to ANYONE other than their own community. I truly believe that we are, in 2025, seeing a breakout of the Thirty Years War in North America.
BRAVO!
Julia, your conclusion regarding the Puritans' insularity is quite satisfying and feels intuitively a correct observation - having lived in Massachusetts for fifty years - but i am wondering if there are certain texts/books that had in mind as you penned your comment. I am always trying to tease out the origins of America's worst cultural habits and traits versus its best democratic ideals of equality and justice; religious freedom versus freedom of religion & belief is a constant dynamic, along with the ambitious pursuit of material wealth from the very first European settlers, but perhaps a dynamic that happened gradually - possibly in part as a reaction to the Puritans' austere 'tribal' piety at the expense of any other ways of seeing.
Nothing is more eloquent than how Puritanism had, by the mid-17th century, had to re-formulate itself after the "Halfway Covenant." Puritanism's ongoing evolution had to contend with what was clearly competition from other Christian disciplines -- Catholics in Maryland, Quakers (hanged by the Puritans) in Pennsylvania, and the cataclysmic enthusiasm of the Great Awakening. You will note that most of Massachusett's former Puritan enclaves are now Unitarian/Universalist! But even by then (1720s), the aging Puritan culture was starting to weaken in its strict Calvinism -- I would recommend the book "The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life" by Pettit that describes how Puritans backtracked the closed system of total depravity to make conversion possible. "Covenant theology" now belongs to Presbyterians and strict Reformed Churches.
PS If the RCC would like to allow me to join it, I would.