How did the religious ideals of New England society shape its early history?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Religion played a major role in shaping early New England society. The Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony had a goal of Protestant purity by creating a pure form of Christian worship. John Winthrop took a group of Puritans to New England in order to create a church and community without the corruption that existed in England. Winthrop's vision for the new settlement focused on the holy ideal of "a city upon a hill." This led to Puritans being selective about who could be part of their colony, which meant that they would select godly persons and try to establish "a right form of government" that would promote their religious mission. During the Great Migration, whole Puritan congregations followed their ministers to America. Puritans settled in towns and villages to build stable communities, and the town structures consisted of homes clustered towards the center of town with fields at the outskirts. This allowed for defense against Indian attack and helped enforce communal norms and beliefs. With family being another building block of Puritan society, the Massachusetts colonists made disobedience to parents a crime punishable by death.

Conversely, there were some challenges to the Puritan orthodoxy. The devout Separatist minister Roger Williams attacked the government of Massachusetts Bay for using the power of the state to enforce religious orthodoxy. Williams supported the idea of complete separation of church and state. He wanted to protect religion from government corruption. Facing the prospect of being arrested for his religious views, Williams fled the colony and headed south, where he purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and later started the Rhode Island colony.

Another challenge to Puritan orthodoxy was by Anne Hutchinson, who did not accept the inferior status that Puritan theology gave to women and also openly questioned the theological purity of the colony's leading ministers. She felt that only one minister, John Cotton, was preaching the true Calvinist idea that God's grace alone could bring about salvation. Thus, the Puritans charged Hutchinson with violating the Fifth Commandment by refusing to honor and obey the colony's ministers. Because the colony's leaders feared that Hutchinson and her followers had succumbed to the Antinomian heresy, she was tried before a special court and subjected to a grueling examination. She was subsequently banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony. Eventually Hutchinson settled on what is now Long Island, near the Dutch town of New Amsterdam in the colony of New Netherlands.