Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment:
Popular Religious Beliefs in Early New England
Many Similarities
Between Then and Now
As a student in Italy I read a classic work called Daily Life in Ancient Rome. I was amazed to find not so many differences, but rather the amount of similarities between the historically documented ideas, attitudes and practices of the ancient Romans and what I was daily experiencing in modern Rome of the mid-1950s. Having read Dr. Halls' excellent and thorough study of our own 17th century Puritans, I came to a parallel conclusion: some important differences but many, many amazing similarities between religion in colonial America and what we're now experiencing as we approach the mid-1990's. Ancient Romans didn't have the use of electricity, nor did they have the use (and/or contention with) the internal combustion engine and this, of course, made a very big difference in daily living. Public executions and witchcraft trials are gone (or at least held in abeyance) from the modern scene and that certainly makes a big difference in the religious tenor of our times. How tragically ironic, though, that the extreme religious tolerance we moderns have promoted - partly as a backlash against Puritanism - is now boomeranging upon our own heads in the form of religious atrocities like those perpetrated at Jonestown, Guyana and the so recent holocaust in Waco, Texas. We have allowed the legitimization of ungodly practices like the ongoing child abuse connected, not only with abortion upon demand but linked up with broken homes and the horror of homosexual parenting.
It is not the intention of the author, much less this reviewer, to advocate or even suggest a return to Puritanism. Professor Hall seems spiritually sensitive enough to distinguish "the liberating impact of the Holy Spirit" from the tired formulas and rituals of popular religion that afford a false sense of security. Whether people gather in the gilded and bejeweled cathedrals of Europe or in the simple, very plain meetinghouses of New England, religion (man's initiative to seek after God) is still only religion. Salvation (God's plan and provision to redeem man and to restore fellowship with him by his accepting forgiveness of sins through the shed blood of His Son) is still salvation and, as the TV commercial admonishes: "Accept no substitute!" "Redemption," as one author puts it, "is individual and by name." Like Cain before him, man - primitive, medieval, colonial or modern is not content to simply accept God's plan or provision. Humans strive to find an alternative, even a "better way". The author's summation of the Puritan system demonstrates its underlying religious character:
"The meetinghouse was more than just a place to learn about salvation. It made visible the fellowship of Christians: it symbolized a set of rules or ethics that defined the meaning of community. The church was an ideal order, a place where peace prevailed, and love among the
brethren. As in every social system the ideal was not reality, for what went on in the churches was sometimes more like war than peace; "Sinful hearts and hatred, and that amongst church members themselves, who abound with evil surmisings, uncharitable and unrighteous censures, back-bitings, hearing and telling tales ... " Religious people often do the right things, but frequently they do them for the wrong reasons. Worldly people may do the wrong things, but if the truth be known, they sometimes do them for the right reasons. It's not just the worldly people who are undone by their undisciplined lusts. Religious people are sometimes undone by more subtle matters. The author points out that the Puritans boasted of "the peculiar glory of New England" which consisted in "the undefiled Administration of holy things." How singularly close that boast is to the true spiritual ministry of the Holy Ghost as described in I Corinthians 12:4-7.
“Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal
As I read about the Puritanical efforts to be detached from "the mixed multitude", to purge out sin and rebellion not only from the human heart but also from the church community and even from the body politic, I saw more clearly than ever that religious groups, as well as weird cults, exploit one of man's most basic needs and drives - the deep, deep desire; the very basic compulsion - TO BELONG! How many merely presume that they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ whom they cannot see and focus on doing and saying the right things that will insure their continued membership in a particular church, fellowship, or commune which they can see and in which they really put their trust. The Holy Spirit Himself referred to such a situation in a Divine commentary that is found in the twelfth chapter of John verses 42-43:
And yet (in spite of all this) many even of the leading men of the authorities and the nobles - believed and trusted in Him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, For fear (that if they should acknowledge Him) they would be expelled from the synagogue. For they loved the approval and the praise and the glory that came from men (instead of and) more that the glory that comes from God. They valued their credit with men more than their credit with God. The Amplified Bible
Hall's book clearly shows that not everything was cut and dry in colonial New England prior to the American Revolution. The Puritan influence was strong indeed, but not absolute. Then, as now, there were varying degrees of belief and unbelief among the people. The book talks of the "godly" who are in full and complete covenant relationship to the church. Then those who have made a halfway covenant so that they won't be excluded from the benefits of religious affiliation. There are the so-called "horse-shed Christians" who attend church but prefer to spend most the their time discussing the week's business out in the horse-shed, the church parking lot of that day.
My heart goes out to New England even more deeply after reading Worlds of Wonder. I'm grateful that I understand a little better the powerful religious forces that influenced the region that I was born and brought up in and love so dearly. It is my prayer that the Lord will raise up new and true puritans in these perilous times, more hazardous even than those of the colonial period. May the Lord of the Harvest "whose fan is in his hand ... who will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but... will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." May He who is the One, True Purifier send forth laborers dedicated not to some cult, sect, or denomination but rather promoters of " ... the dispensation of the Spirit, (that is, this spiritual ministry whose task is to cause men to obtain and be governed by the Holy Spirit". (2 Corin. 3.8) The Amplified Bible.
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