Friends, There were no Puritans on the Mayflower … I had always thought there were.  Also ... folks asked about the MCA gym floor fundraiser I mentioned last week, and if you want to help but do not want to donate through the school LINK, mail a check to MCA / Gym Floor at 13095 Publishers Dr., Fishers, IN 46038. Now, here’s the column.  Blessings!  Bob

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Spirituality Column #881

October 3, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Teacher as Student, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – Jesus, John 13:35

Let’s visit the Christian underpinnings of America.  And we’ll start with this:

Christians throughout history have spent as much time fighting among themselves, it seems, as they have spent evangelizing the Gospels out to the world.

Time and narratives have a way of blurring historical facts – often facts that don’t matter a lot – but when I learn I’ve always been wrong about something, even if it happened in 1620 specifically and the early 1600s generally, I celebrate the discovery.

In last week’s column (link: 880 - Teacher as Student, Part 1) I explained my fascination with teaching high school history at a Christian academy where “one can learn astounding things that one misses when one studies history without a sense of the Bible, or the Bible without a sense of history.” We study both, and church history too.

Last week it was World History and the ancient Egyptians at the time of Moses; this week it is U.S. History and the New World arrival of English Christians at the time of the Mayflower – 1620, Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims, William Bradford, Puritans, etc.

Except … there were no Puritans on the Mayflower, nor was “Pilgrim” a word that William Bradford ever heard.  It was religious “Separatists” on the Mayflower – Brits who sojourned actually from Britain to Holland, then in 1620 back through London and on to North America. Wait, what?  No Puritans on the Mayflower? I had to look deeper.

According to Donna Curtin, executive director of Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts, “Capital-P Pilgrim didn’t appear until 1800, when citizens in Plymouth proposed [a] ‘Pilgrim Society’ to celebrate their heritage.”  Nor did “pilgrims” wear pricey black hats with buckles. These “first-comers” were generally poor upon their arrival in 1620 and remained near Plymouth, devoutly faithful to Christ and scripture.

The Puritans, also religious dissenters, didn’t arrive until 1629, a thousand strong sailing on 17 ships from England into Massachusetts Bay, north of Plymouth.  Puritans wanted to belong to the Church of England but purify it of its Catholic ways such as priestly garb and certain doctrines, including salvation through the church rather than faith.  They had a new start in America, and were a strong and initially faithful group,

The Puritans were wealthier than the Separatists, better prepared, founded Boston, and, ironically, proved less tolerant of religious differences than the British church they left.  Exhibit A would be the Salem Witch Trials, prosecuted by Puritans.

“Separatists” wanted to be wholly separate from the “heretical” Church of England and had been persecuted and often killed as traitors in England, which is why many left for Holland.  Separatists especially bristled at the heavy Roman Catholic influence of the Church of England, later known in America as the Episcopal Church.

To understand the English church requires knowledge of how, in the 1500s, England whipsawed back and forth, first between heavy support of Catholicism in the face of the Martin Luther-led Reformation in Europe, then Henry VIII’s formation of the Church of England in opposition to the Pope, then back to Catholicism, then not, then …

Anyway, by the time of the King James Bible in 1611, the Church of England was solidly ensconced under the authority of the King, not the Pope.  To learn more, here is a link from History.com: What’s the Difference Between Puritans and Pilgrims?

I think we’ll save the events of 1619 for next week.  There’s a lot there, too.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) teaches at Mission Christian Academy, Fishers, IN.