“Purify the Church”: The Puritans

The Puritans were a group in England that believed the Church of England needed to purge all Catholic traditions and conform to complete Reformed theology and doxology. For the Puritans the Anglican Church had not reformed enough, and so they sought to conform the Episcopal Church through their protests via their black clothing, and influence via the political circles.  The Puritans were never recognized as a distinct denomination of Protestantism, rather they were movement within the English Church comprised of many reformed Christians from various denominations that all sought to remove Roman Catholicism and its influence from the Anglican Church. Part of this was a direct response to the violent reign of the radical Catholic Queen Mary I of England, known as Bloody Mary who killed 300 Reformed Christians, and the papist pyres that burned Protestants. 

The Puritans were Calvinists who believed all their beliefs should come from the Holy Bible, which they believed was God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), and inerrant: without error or fault. Any practice, rite, or tradition that contravened and could not be found Scripture was treated as malignant tumor that must be cut out. When the Puritans were incensed by King Charles I and his Catholic policies as Supreme Head of the Church, the Puritans rallied behind Oliver Cromwell to start The First English Civil War (1642-1646) and rule England. Cromwell and his Puritan sycophants had King Charles put on trial  before Parliament, and executed, and then Cromwell disbanded Parliament and reigned as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland for ten years. However after the monarchy of England was restored in 1660, the Puritans lost power. While Puritanism failed to hold England politically, it spread to New England, and saw some gains in North America. 

The legacy of Puritanism is that is did have its ideas incorporated into doxology of the Anglican Church. Other doctrines of Puritanism were absorbed by other Protestant denominations that surfaced in 17th and 18th centuries.  The goal to purify the church of Catholic dogma would create Anticatholicism, which is hostility towards The Roman Catholic Church and its beliefs. The Puritans had seen the danger of Papism (those who wanted the Pope to England) and how the Roman Church used agents and monarchs to try and recover England, for example Philip II of Spain’s Armada and invasion by the Catholic Inquisition. 

The Puritans may have failed at their political aims, but the ideology successfully influenced the English Church and spread to churches in the New World. Part of what had made The United States of America what it became is Puritanical beliefs, particularly the centrality of the Bible and its importance in matters of formulating beliefs. I for one agree with the Puritan stance on basing all beliefs on what is found in Scripture and not on deuterocanonical books like the Catholic Church’s Canon Law. However, there dabbling in politics was there downfall, apparently they ignored Jesus’ words, “Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.” (Mark 12:17 ESV). Notice Christ kept the two separate, saying the things of Cesar who was a political ruler must be kept separate from the things of God. This the Puritans did not do, they tried to rule and promote religion. 

The Puritans are often caricatured by their rejection of art and images because of their interpretation of the passage, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image (idol), or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4). Today calling something Puritan is to say they are austere and devoid of fun. Interestingly, Puritans drank lots of beer, and their rejection of images had in my estimation as much to do with the rejection of Catholicism and its use of images as with the Second  Commandment. Puritans actually were following Martin Luther’s own advice, “While no one should forbid images, I believe the church would be better off without them” (The Ninety-Five Thesis and Writings, Martin Luther, Penguin Publishers).  

Puritanism was very much a response to the Radical Catholicism and Papism that emerged during the 16th century. The zealotry of Blood Mary and the agents of the Inquisition had created a Protestant radicalism. After enduring the wrath of violent Catholics, the Puritans emerged to route any trace of the Romanite religion. Their zeal was to reform the Church of England and fueled by the fear that if any Catholicism remained in England there would be future St. Bartholomew Day Massacres.  Radicalism births an equally radical response, the Papists had a hand in creating the Puritans. Would the Puritans have risen to reform without Catholic radicalism? Certainly, but the persecution of the fanatical Papists ensured that Puritanism would seek to take political power via Cromwell, and not just passively reform the church with protests. Amen.