What religious beliefs where around during the times of the Salem Witch Trials?

[mrsdizzyd]

mrsdizzyd:

International Church of Christ comes to mind…

While they are conservative, these churches aren’t directly descended from New England Puritanism. Their roots run through the Stone-Campbell Movement through American Presbyterianism.

I’ll give you that.

However, if you are looking for a modern day church that is “puritanical” (not meant to be a perjorative) the ICOC is a very good candidate.

 

[ltwin]

However, if you are looking for a modern day church that is “puritanical” the ICOC is a very good candidate.

Well, “puritanical” is a loaded term. Not surprisingly, it originated as an insult, meaning essentially “stickler.” They just referred to themselves as being “godly”.

They also in some ways get a bad rap as joyless scrooges. In reality, on some issue, they were perceived as being more liberal for the time period. Sex, for example. is an area where Puritans were unusual for their promotion of sex between married couples, in contrast to the Catholic emphasis on celibacy. Puritans were known to banish men for refusing to have sex with their wives.

 

[dochawk]

Puritans were unusual for their promotion of sex between married couples, in contrast to the Catholic emphasis on celibacy.

Which would come full circle a couple of hundred years later as evidenced by Drs. Kellog and Graham . . .

hawk

 

[TheLittleLady]

“The Witches: Salem, 1692” by Stacy Schiff is a good read.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Well, “puritanical” is a loaded term.

Well, yes it is. I put it in quotes to connote that I did mean it in the perjorative sense, rather, I mean it as a descriptor for something similar to Puritanism.

 

[phil19034]

Isn’t there at least one string of Baptists which descend from the Puritans?

 

[ltwin]

Baptists originated as Separatists, which were a type of Puritan. Where as your run of the mill Puritans were trying to reform the Church of England, Separatists believed it was hopeless and completely broke from the established church. These Separatists by and large continued to practice infant baptism and believe in a “spiritual presence” view of the Lord’s Supper. The Pilgrim’s were Separatists.

Some Separatists embraced believer’s baptism and a more symbolic view of the Lord’s Supper. These became the first Baptists.

 

[Augustinian]

Roger Williams founded Rhode Island for the Baptists

 

[SnowRose]

How do these Separatist-descended Baptists relate to the anabaptists of the 16th century, the groups that infighting Catholics&Lutherans would team up to oppose?

 

[Augustinian]

How do these Separatist-descended Baptists relate to the anabaptists of the 16th century, the groups that infighting Catholics&Lutherans would team up to oppose?

2 separate groups entirely. The anabaptists’ spiritual descendants are the Mennonites and the Amish.

 

[Zaccheus]

Fun fact: John Bunyan, author of the famous book The Pilgrim’s Progress (one of the most published books in history), was a Puritan.
To me it’s a mistery how can anyone like that book.

I liked it well enough the first time, though there were parts that irritated me. “Giant Pope” indeed.

 

[ltwin]

The Halfway members were apparently looked down upon as “second” class Christians, which I consider both unChristian and unBiblical. I wonder how the Puritans developed this tiered doctrine of Christian and half-Christian? I’m guessing that belief is still around in other forms today, such as OSAS.

@TigerLily-1, I already answered this but thought about it some more. To understand the Puritans, you have to keep in mind that they were major fans of covenant theology. Their entire conception of the Christian religion was built on the idea of covenant.

To be a Christian was not simply affirming doctrine or living a good life or undergoing baptism. It was entering into a personal covenant with God. Salvation was irreducibly personal.

Remember, the Puritans were Calvinists. One made a covenant with God not on one’s own initiative but through God’s effectual calling. God’s grace was irresistible for the elect. There was no way you could initiate your own salvation, but the Puritans did believe you could prepare yourself through listening to preaching, Bible study, and doing good works. (All of these were means that the Holy Spirit could use to bring conviction of sin–the first stage of conversion).

Many of the unconverted still went to church and prayed and read their Bibles and lived moral lives in preparation for conversion. It was these people who qualified for the Halfway covenant.

For the Puritans, one became a member of the visible church through baptism, but that did not necessarily make you a member of the invisible church–which only the elect were part of .

A true Christian is someone who receives a conscious experience of grace. Now, the Puritans did not necessarily believe this experience would occur in a single moment. Most Puritan ministers spoke of a process involving various phases that can be summed up as conviction (godly sorrow and humiliation for sin), justification/adoption (gaining a sense of forgiveness and acceptance by God) and sanctification (living a holy life in gratitude toward God).

Unlike OSAS as practiced today, Puritans did not believe that assurance of salvation was guaranteed. The Puritans taught that some people could receive assurance of salvation, but this tended to be later in one’s Christian life and rare in any case.

Therefore, covenanted Christians still constantly examined their lives for evidence of the fruit of true faith, constantly testing their subjective religious experience against biblical expectations.

A historian named Perry Miller said once that Puritans “liberated men from the treadmill of indulgences and penances, but cast them on the iron couch of introspection.”

 

[TigerLily-1]

Thank you @ltwin for this thoughtful and knowledgeable reply. I know almost nothing about the origins and history of various Christian churches and it’s fascinating.

As I’m sure you know, there’s a covenant theology of sorts in Catholicism but it’s corporate and we enter the New Covenant through Baptism into the Church. I always thought Presbyterians and Calvinists in general also believed in a similar way.

For the Puritans, God’s grace and calling were only for the elect – i.e. predestination?

The Puritans seem to have had a theocracy where church and state and who was elect and a member of the covenant were intertwined in both civil and religious life. Being an elect member of God’s covenant and church went hand-in-hand with prosperity and success in civil life as a sign of being one of the elect? I guess that seemed a little unfair even to the Puritans, hence the Halfway members, who were outwardly good Christians and did not appear reprobate. Am I even remotely close in understanding this? How was the prosperity and success of someone not living an outwardly Christian life explained? This type of belief can easily lead to insecurity about knowing whether one is or isn’t chosen.

Unlike OSAS as practiced today, Puritans did not believe that assurance of salvation was guaranteed. The Puritans taught that some people could receive assurance of salvation, but this tended to be later in one’s Christian life and rare in any case.

That I did not know! I wonder how that became distorted into OSAS?

A historian named Perry Miller said once that Puritans “liberated men from the treadmill of indulgences and penances, but cast them on the iron couch of introspection.”

Well, ltwin these are only my disorganized, rambling thoughts about what you wrote and there’s no need for you to answer them.

God bless you!

 

[ltwin]

As I’m sure you know, there’s a covenant theology of sorts in Catholicism but it’s corporate and we enter the New Covenant through Baptism into the Church. I always thought Presbyterians and Calvinists in general also believed in a similar way.

Yes, baptism conveys grace but only for the elect and even for them the grace of baptism lies dormant until the moment of conversion later in life. That is why Puritans could say that baptism makes one part of the visible church but still demand a testimony of grace for full communion.

For the Puritans, God’s grace and calling were only for the elect – i.e. predestination?

Essentially, yes. They may have said (like many Calvinists today say) that Christ died for the whole world but that his atonement is only effective for those who are called.

The Puritans seem to have had a theocracy where church and state and who was elect and a member of the covenant were intertwined in both civil and religious life.

Well, Puritans never had a theocracy in the strict sense of the word. In New England, for example, the Congregational church was privileged and established, but Congregational ministers were not running the colonies. There were limitations on who could vote based on church membership. However, similar laws existed in England. Catholic and non-conforming Protestants were denied the franchise.

If I remember correctly, in fact, civil magistrates could not hold church offices and vice versa. While church and commonwealth mutually influenced and reinforced each other, it was not a situation in which the church was controlling the civil government.

Being an elect member of God’s covenant and church went hand-in-hand with prosperity and success in civil life as a sign of being one of the elect?

Yes and no. Scholars have theorized that one of the origins of the “Protestant work ethic” was Calvinism. That people took earthly success as a sign of God’s blessing and therefore their status as one of the elect. Of course, that would probably have been rejected by Puritan theologians but could have been embraced on some level by average church-goers. The real test of whether you were one of the elect was if you had experienced grace and you bore the fruit of sanctification in your life.

There certainly was the concept that if the Puritans collectively were faithful to God’s covenant than he would bless them and they would prosper. But Puritans came from all walks of life.

 

[ltwin]

I guess that seemed a little unfair even to the Puritans, hence the Halfway members, who were outwardly good Christians and did not appear reprobate. Am I even remotely close in understanding this?

What happened was that New England society changed a lot between the 1630s (the period of the first Puritan migrations) to the early 1700s. The population grew and people became more prosperous. Society became more complex.

You had some children of Puritans who never seemed to experience conscious conversion. They were baptized by virtue of their parent’s belonging to the covenant, but when they had their own children, the churches could not baptize them.

Understandably, many covenanted grandparents were concerned that their grandchildren would not be baptized and this is when people begin to argue that grandchildren also have a claim to the covenant even if their parents had not fully “owned the covenant” yet. Thus, by the 1650s, congregations began allowing baptized individuals who had not yet been converted to affirm the church covenant and gain the right to have their children baptized.

There were some churches that went further. They said baptism and Holy Communion should be opened to everyone because the Lord’s Supper is a “converting ordinance.” The argument was that it was the unconverted who needed the Lord’s Supper most!

Therefore, by the time of the Great Awakening (1740s), the consensus over church admission had broken down. Some churches retained the more restrictive rules. Others basically opened the doors wide open.

How was the prosperity and success of someone not living an outwardly Christian life explained? This type of belief can easily lead to insecurity about knowing whether one is or isn’t chosen.

Well, many Puritan ministers saw increased prosperity as part of a broader problem within society. Prosperity had turned many people’s hearts away from God. Therefore, if anything, the lack of conversions was seen as a result of people being distracted by worldly concerns. By the 1660s and 1670s, ministers were preaching more and more sermons on moral decline. These Jeremiads became some of the earliest best sellers in American literature. The most popular one was “The Day of Doom” by Michael Wigglesworth published in 1662.

There were calls for a “general revival” of religion in New England. Churches began holding “covenant renewals” in which covenanted Christians were urged to renew their vows and Halfway members were urged to seek full admission.

Ultimately, all of this laid the groundwork for the Great Awakening in America. This is when we see inheritors of the Puritan tradition in America evolving into something else. The more revivalistic elements go the way of evangelicalism. The more open and liberal elements increasingly go the way of Unitarianism.

 

[ltwin]

That I did not know! I wonder how that became distorted into OSAS?

Authentic Calvinism is far away from any notion of OSAS. Puritans were always examining themselves, their motives, and their spiritual condition. Calvinism is supposed to keep you humble in the knowledge that but for the grace of God there go I because literally everyone deserves hell and those chosen for eternal life were chosen on a completely arbitrary basis. Add to that the uncertainty around whether you really are among the elect or whether you truly had authentic faith. The end result is that people are under more pressure to live pious lives because that is evidence that the Spirit is at work within you.

So, Puritans would agree that someone who was regenerated would remain regenerated. However, they would reject the attitude that often comes with OSAS today–that casual sin is ok because it does not compromise salvation. The notion that a covenanted Christian could commit sin and not agonize over it would have been foreign to them.

OSAS really comes from a more radical, free grace strain in Protestant theology. In America, you start to see it in the late 1630s during the Antinomian Controversy (of which Anne Hutchinson was a proponent). Later, you start to see it on the fringes of the Great Awakening among radical revivalists.

Whereas the orthodox Calvinist revivalists such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards always insisted that conversion occurred in stages and assurance of faith only came after a long period of self-examination into one’s religious affections and desires and in practice of Christian virtues–the free grace preachers asserted that having faith was itself an assurance of salvation and rejected the long conversion process of the mainstream revivalists as essentially a reliance on works righteousness.

 

[theCardinalbird]

In other news. The crucible is starting to make me uncomfortable

 

[mrsdizzyd]

What I’ve wondered is, what happens when some who was OSAS turns out to be acting all sorts of sinful ways? Would they say that they had adjudged that person incorrectly? Would they ignore it? How does that work?

 

[ltwin]

In other news. The crucible is starting to make me uncomfortable

Well, it should. Shouldn’t it?

It’s a play about a 17th-century witch-hunt, which is really a metaphor for the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.

 

[Seagull]

I live only 40 minutes away from “ witch city “ -
Been there a few times.
It’s kinda fun place to go to. NOT during Halloween though.
I thought visiting Emily Dickibson’s House - Amherst - was spookier !

The worst was visiting Lizzie Borden’s house in Fall River.