Are Puritans kind of like Jansenists?

[catechumen08]

I recently heard a homily on Jansenism, and it occurred to me that it sounded a lot like Puritanism. What are your thoughts?

 

[Joe_Kelley]

From what I have learned it was the Catholic version of Puritanism.

 

[catechumen08]

I see. Any idea on why it was branded as heresy?

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I see. Any idea on why it was branded as heresy?

It incorporates a lot of bad ideas. For example it taught that it was more holy to fast from the Eucharist than to receive it. I think that was the reason for the requirement that one receive at least once a year.

 

[valient_Lucy]

It incorporates a lot of bad ideas. For example it taught that it was more holy to fast from the Eucharist than to receive it. I think that was the reason for the requirement that one receive at least once a year.

The rule about receiving the Eucharist once a year predates Janenism, but devotion to the Sacred Heart (which encourages “frequent and loving communions” was promoted as a response to the teachings of Jansenism. (At least, if I remember correctly.)

 

[Metaron]

Yeah. Puritans were also alot like Gnostics in some ways. They had a completely nonsacramental worldview and viewed matter as evil… kind of like some modern Protestant sentiments today…

 

[Steadfast]

Yeah. Puritans were also alot like Gnostics in some ways. They had a completely nonsacramental worldview and viewed matter as evil… kind of like some modern Protestant sentiments today…

Um, I am not a Puritan so I’m not saying this out of any vested interest but it is completely untrue to say that they believed matter to be evil.

The Puritans were very flashy dressers and believed in the moderate drinking of alcohol and all kinds of other things…They were, in fact, very much in the world and believed matter to be good because God made it so.

The name comes from their desire and program for the church of England. They wanted it “Reformed without Tarrying”. That this involved the removal of a lot of items and practices associated with its Catholic past should not be confused for a kind of radical iconoclastic tendency or anti-materialist dualism.

 

[Steadfast]

It can be argued that the Jansenists were painted with the charge of crypto-calvinism by their opponents the Jesuits in the polemically volatile period but that their real “crime” was the resurrection of Gallicanism; the idea that “National Churches” ought to have a certain autonomy from Papal control.

This, combined with their opposition to the Molinism of the Jesuits and their strong adherence to a more strictly Augustinian soteriological outlook was sufficient to earn them the opposition of the Jesuits, who, at the time, were not above calumny and propaganda.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

The Irish went to French seminaries at the time Jansenism was strong there. They subsequently provided a strong basis for the Catholic clergy in the U.S. So the U. S. church acquired many Jansenist ideas, e.g. one must go to confession every time one wishes to receive communion. This influence was stronger in the Northeast than in the West.

 

[Metaron]

Um, I am not a Puritan so I’m not saying this out of any vested interest but it is completely untrue to say that they believed matter to be evil.

The Puritans were very flashy dressers and believed in the moderate drinking of alcohol and all kinds of other things…They were, in fact, very much in the world and believed matter to be good because God made it so.

The name comes from their desire and program for the church of England. They wanted it “Reformed without Tarrying”. That this involved the removal of a lot of items and practices associated with its Catholic past should not be confused for a kind of radical iconoclastic tendency or anti-materialist dualism.

Flashy dressers? Drinking? I had no idea, I always heard they were legalistic antisacramentalists. I read that laughing on Sunday
was considered a sin. What did they think of religious imagery? I thought they believed in temperance.

 

[Steadfast]

I always heard they were legalistic antisacramentalists.

The Puritans were low church Anglicans who believed in two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, their view on the Eucharist was, mostly, significatory as opposed to the Zwinglian. If this makes them “Anti-Sacramentalists”…um, okay

I read that laughing on Sunday
was considered a sin.

Where did you read that?

There is a difference between a Puritan and a Dissenter. The Puritans stayed in the state church and sought to reform it from within.

Even so, it’s probably worth remembering that after Cromwell (himself not a Puritan but a dissenter [Congregationalist]), the histories were written, for the most part, by Royalists with something of an axe to grind.

The facts seem to be that the Puritans weren’t the crazy rigorists they have been portrayed as being.

What did they think of religious imagery?

They were against its use in church and worship but were not opposed to art, even religious art per se.

I thought they believed in temperance.

Well, they didn’t believe in drunkenness, but they weren’t tee-totalers and drank wine and beer like pretty much everyone else.

In one sense the whole Puritan/Libertine situation can be seen as revolt of rural values against the debauched values of the city and the court more so than as a strictly religious reaction.

The Puritans were opposed to “Popery” and they were opposed to immorality, but the more I read about the era, the more I think that many of the actions and choices individuals and groups made were the result of propaganda and demogoguery than of unalloyed moral or religious motivation.

This goes for the whole of Europe. It was a pre-advertising age. People tended to believe what they read in pamphlets and broadsides and things were published which ought not to have been. Lies, really, both sides are guilty of “stirring up their political bases”.

We see much the same today for all our jadedness.

 

[Steadfast]

But if what we’re talking about here is a general attitude of stuffiness, a sort of puckered disapproval of fun generally lest it lead to unrestrained happiness, a kind of stern superiority to the common joys of a life lived in normal vocation, etc.

Well, its’ certainly not something specific to 16 century low church Anglicans.

Catholics are guilty of it too.

 

[Metaron]

But if what we’re talking about here is a general attitude of stuffiness, a sort of puckered disapproval of fun generally lest it lead to unrestrained happiness, a kind of stern superiority to the common joys of a life lived in normal vocation, etc.

Well, its’ certainly not something specific to 16 century low church Anglicans.

Catholics are guilty of it too.

And moderate Catholics too, m’buddy. :console: BTW, what’s a “moderate” Catholic?

I wouldn’t even consider them low-church Anglicans; I would consider them no-church AINO (Anglicans in name only). They didn’t even believe in the Episcopate, they believed in Presbyterian governace.