Puritan Influence on American Life

1. Puritan Influence on American Life The Impact of Puritan Beliefs on Future Generations

2. Five Key Aspects impacting our country: • 1. Morality and Religion • 2. Education and Literature • 3. The Puritan Ethic in Business Life • 4. Democracy and Limited Government • 5. Frustrated Utopianism

3. Morality and Religion • Puritans saw being moral and being religious as mutually dependent.

4. Education and Literature • Puritans wanted a well-educated ministry. • Founded Harvard College. • Founded Princeton (Then College of N.Jersey). • “Puritan Plain Style” biographies and autobiographies. • Tradition of symbolism and allegory that influenced many American authors: Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, James, and others.

5. The Puritan Ethic in Business Life • Emphasized the dignity of work. • Showed a distrust of too much leisure. • Showed a suspicion that those who don’t work are shiftless.

6. Democracy and Limited Government • The congregational idea that churches were bound together by mutual agreement – by a covenant. • Had the same philosophy in politics. • The Mayflower Compact exemplified the religious covenant carried over into politics. • Doctrine: the conscience of the individual is the ultimate judge of right, therefore, a man must refuse to obey a law that violates his sense of right. • Emerson refused to obey the Fugitive Slave Law • Young men refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War.

7. Frustrated Utopianism • The sense that it is America’s mission to lead the rest of the world is part of America’s Puritan inheritance. But just as the Puritan’s attempts to build a holy community often ended in disillusionment, so Americans have seen the face of the “Ugly American” at home and overseas.