![]() ![]() Matthew’s Gospel and other New Testament writings provided the interpretation through which they understood Moses, ancient Israel and the Old Testament. The Puritans’ symbolism of ancient Israel was shaped by the New Testament’s use of the Old. The main difference between the Puritans and the Mormons lay in their understanding of the early Christian church. While this difference helped them win converts, it also brought about antagonism and persecution. Their creative use of that model lifted Mormonism beyond mere religious reform, however, and helped to establish The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a new religion, as a new stage in God’s divine plan. In the 1830s and 1840s, Joseph Smith and his followers, likewise, drew upon the Puritan model as they preached their new message. In most cases, the religious movements that survived simply became one more Protestant denomination in the increasing variety of the American religious scene. Although Puritan belief was left behind, the Puritan model provided a means for understanding religious revival and renewal. In the two centuries after the Puritans, many American religious movements envisioned themselves as the new Israelites. The difficulties of the voyage and their life in the New World gained meaning as they drew strength from their belief that they were God’s new Israel. In America, they would build a new Zion, a light shining out to the world to lead it to divine renewal. This parallel was not accidental, the Puritans believed, but came from God’s guiding hand. Just as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and entered into the wilderness of Sinai, the Puritans sailed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in the American wilderness. If Puritan belief provided an American model for interpreting new religious ideas, then the early Mormons used that model to understand the meaning of their movement.ĭecades of college students have studied Perry Miller’s portrayal of the early Puritans in his book “Errand into the Wilderness.” His key point is that Puritans saw themselves not merely as a Christian reform movement, but as God’s re-creation of the people of Israel, as a “new Israel.” Their flight from persecution in England re-enacted the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. Since the Mormons were already in the New World, their religious reform became a new religious tradition. One way this statement holds true is with regard to Mormonism’s parallels with the Puritans, the first religious movement of America’s European settlers.Īlthough the Puritans’ goal was religious reform, their exodus to the New World laid the basis for a new nation. The author’s impressive knowledge of the subject and his persistent research are evident throughout.The observation that Mormonism is the quintessential American religion has long been a scholarly commonplace. The chapter on the various theories and prophecies on the end of the world brings the record up to the present. Beginning with the Puritans and their preoccupation with orthodoxy and continuing with the Quakers, the Congregationalists, Calvinists, and Unitarians, he interprets each from the point of view of its place in social and political change… Dominant figures such as Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, and Emerson are brought to life with understanding. “Professor Miller has assembled materials which would otherwise not be easily accessible and which, taken together, present new perspectives on the dominant Christian origin of American political doctrine and civilization. Miller corrects the balance by bringing out the inherent individualism of American Puritanism, its respect for private conscience, and even the revolutionary implications nurtured by Puritan doctrine… He has given us an analysis of the Puritan mind which is subtle and sophisticated, profound and humane, and revised in the light of the most recent scholarship. “Perry Miller has corrected the extreme revisionist historians who have overstressed the authoritarian and even totalitarian aspects of Puritan political doctrine. ![]()
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