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Didn't many Puritans come to America primarily to escape persecution?

There was persecution in England, but it was limited mostly to ministers. So it wasn't fear of persecution that drove the laity to come.

Instead, many lay people were extraordinarily loyal to their pastors and followed their pastors to the New World. It's impossible to overstate the spiritual and moral influence these ministers had over their congregations. Ministers were enormously respected, people for whom the laity literally traveled the ends of the earth. The most famous case would be Anne Hutchinson, who convinced her family to follow her minister, John Cotton, to America.

Inhistory, what other groups have so thoroughly tried to create a new religious world?

The most obvious would be the Dutch in South Africa and the Mormons in Utah. In America, only two "theocracies" have lasted for any length of time: the Puritans' in New England, and the Mormons' in Utah.

Why did the Puritan experiment finally collapse?

The Puritans' charter was revoked in 1689, so the Puritans could no longer compel assent. They had to tolerate Quakers and Anglicans. This created a real crisis of meaning: How do we survive in a pluralistic world?

Today, we take religious toleration for granted. What would terrify us would be the exact opposite—a theocracy, such as we see in the Middle East.

How much have the Puritans shaped American culture?

Though some scholars disagree, I believe Puritanism shaped American society to an extraordinary degree.

Recently, historians have pointed out—rightly, I think—that we cannot forget the contribution of Quakers, Presbyterians, native Americans, African-American slaves, and so on.

But the Puritans were more than merely one group among many. They exerted an influence in American culture disproportionate to their numbers.

For instance, they gave us a world-regenerative creed, a vision that America is "a city set upon a hill." That vision infuses American literature, foreign policy—our entire sense of identity.

Listen to the presidents we've had for the last 30 years. They often speak of "destiny" and "providence." Or civil-rights leaders spoke of a dream of equal treatment under the law. All of these people are drawing from Puritan roots, whether they know it or not.

In what other ways have Puritans made a major impact on modern American culture?

The Puritans believed that education was central to the Christian life. Harvard was formed while people were digging out the first settlements. The first classes at Harvard took place with bears running through the campus, yet classes were in Latin. The Puritan colleges were steeped in the Western Christian, classical tradition. In fact, Harvard and Yale were the only colleges in the Western world that required Hebrew.

For the next two centuries, Harvard and Yale were emulated widely—until the 20th century, when the university became secularized.

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