Puritans Role Model

Puritanism was first developed in the late 16th century when a reform was put on the Church of England. Those who practiced Puritanism were known as Puritans and sought to purify the Church of England. The Puritans felt that the reformation had not gone far enough and that the church still had Catholic influence and was corrupt. They felt as if the church’s doctrine was incorrect and not what God wanted. As the Puritans tried to ask for more reforms to be made, King James I was becoming increasingly repressive. Because of this, the Puritans traveled to the New World where they would escape the impurities of the Church of England and live by their religion of Puritanism. As the Puritans created their first model community in the New World, they …show more content…
One of the main goals the Puritans set when coming to the New World was that they would develop a community where the laws and government would rule as close to the law of God as possible. Puritans developed their government into a representative political system with a governor, council, and assembly. Because the Puritans believed in the Bible being their one true authority, they only allowed church members (white, male landowners who have been selected by God) to vote and hold office. Since there were so many towns of Puritans, each community was self-governed and they answered to no higher authority because nothing had more authority than the Bible. Because these societies were small and self-governed, ordinary farmers could hold a lot more political power in the New England colonies than they could in Old England. Puritans also held town meetings where women and men could both voice their opinion; this became the purest form of democracy. This type of government was attractive to other colonists as an autonomous alternative to their traditional government. Because the Puritans had the purest form of democracy known in America and ruled by God’s law, other New England colonies followed in their footsteps. Although each New England colony was slightly different, they all liked the idea of not being ruled by a …show more content…
Roger Williams was once a part of the model community until he had a different opinion. Williams believed that they should buy the land they took from the Indians instead of stealing, and that there should be a complete separation between church and state (meaning religious ideas should not interfere with the making of government laws). Most Puritan communities considered him a radical separatist, someone looking to separate completely from the Church of England instead of just improving it. He was kicked out of two Puritan towns until he eventually established his own colony, Rhode Island, where religious freedom and separation between church and state existed. As new communities were established, they strayed from the strict beliefs of the first Puritan