I believe that religious persecution was the principle reason for their voyage but also feel that their discontent with the English government played a key role in their leaving as well. In sixteenth century England there were people who wanted to see reform in English religion, society, and politics. They strove to do this by restricting church membership to the pious and godly and also by wanting the state to enforce non-bending moral codes. 1 These people were called Puritans. Those who made up the Puritan group were either Presbyterians or Congregationalists.
(p. 160) The Puritans were well aware of the abuses of the Church of England and wished to “purify” it. Of the Puritans there were two basic mindsets: reform can come from within and we must separate, as the Church is too corrupt to be fixed. The Separatists of course came to America. What they created in America is of significant importance. First and foremost in my mind was the concept of equality.
For example in the Lincoln Articles it states that the rebels wanted “an end to suppression of religious houses” and “bishops in England do not have… the faith of Christ”. Furthermore in the Pontefract Articles, it is said that the rebels wanted “the Pope as the Supreme Head of the Church of England”, “to end the heresies within this realm.” This shows that the Pilgrimage was a reaction from the peasants after the Break with Rome. Moreover the rebels marched behind the Five Wounds of Christ, showing that the peasants were heavily influenced by religion. Also, in the 16th century religion held communities together as people prayed and paid for the rituals of the Church, so the dissolution would have affected this. Historian Geoffrey Elton says that the uprising was religious and associated with Catherine of Aragon.
Moral Relativism&Plato’s Euthyphro The idea that the truth is relative is that what is true for me is true for me and what is true for you is true for you. For instance person one believes in the existence of god. Person two believes there is no god at all. If the truth were relative that would mean Person one’s reality is that god exisitses and person two’s reality is that god does not exist. Both of them would be right because the truth is relative to what they believe.
Puritans saw themselves as the true church and religious freedom was not tolerated in the colonies. Those who settled at Massachusetts Bay lived by Calvinist beliefs. They had a strong work ethic, which led to the development of market economy. One of the challenges faced came from Roger Williams, which taught principles contrary to the belief system of the Puritans. He taught that the church and state should be separate, but as eventually banished.
#80: Compare and contrast Enlightenment and Romantic views of the relationship between God and the Individual. The Enlightenment saw God as rational and tried to explain events with reason; in contrast the Romantic Era explained events with their inner feelings and that God was as human views. Both sides saw God as an evident force that created earth. The difference is that the Romantic Era disagreed with deist views, which stated that the belief in God is based on reason rather than revelation and involving the view that God has set the universe in motion but does not interfere with how it runs. On one hand, the Enlightenment views saw God as a far away figure that did not interfere with the lives of humans.
We see an example of one of Luther’s critical writings in Document 8. In this Document we see Luther take a strong anti Catholic stance and even go so far as to condemn the Pope. Document 9 also serves as another example and shows Luther’s being critical of the Churches officials and the need for priests by clamming “every baptized Christian is a priest already.” This last point struck a major cord with the peasants in Europe. Luther was telling them they could gain their own salvation by studying the bible for themselves. No longer would they need to be dependent on the Church.
Deists saw man as innately good. Through Benjamin Franklin’s writings we can see the faith in the natural goodness of man. He credited this goodness to natural human behavior as opposed to a required deep spiritual relationship. Deist and Puritans also differed on their approach at proclaiming their ideas and spreading their views. Puritan missionaries forcibly would assault those with differing views.
The levelers were a group of religious and social reformers during the English Civil War who supported Parliament against the king but were late suppressed by Oliver Cromwell who was the leader of the republic after the execution of Charles I. The levelers thought that the representatives did not have the authority to force people from following their own religious faith which is basically saying the people should have religious freedom. Another place that religious toleration occurs is in Silesia which is a region in the Holy Roman Empire. “…no one shall henceforth be prevented from performing religious observances peacefully and quietly in his own house for himself and his children...” is a quote stated in the agreement between King Charles XII and Joseph I (Doc.10). What this quote is saying is that the Lutheran faith cannot be prevented from being practiced in someone’s house as desired.
A hurricane of religious revivals swept through the United States, mostly to counteract the rationalistic ideas of early Calvinists, who believed only a select few could be saved. These new religions however, encouraged all to be saved, as Charles G. Finney states in document B, "Harlots, and drunkards, and infidels, and all sorts of abandoned characters, are awakened and converted." Perhaps the most famous groups of these religious revivalists, were the transcendentalists. They were a group of writers who questioned the doctrine of the established churches, criticized materialism and the pursuit of profit, and believed in artistic expression over wealth. They