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Who were the real Puritans? And why did “Puritan” become a derogatory label? In what ways have the Puritans shaped what we believe and how we live today? To answer these questions, Christian History editors Kevin Miller and Mark Galli talked with Dr. Harry S. Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University. Dr. Stout is the author of The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford, 1986).

Christian History: What do we misunderstand about the American Puritans?

Harry Stout: Most Americans picture the Puritans as people who had no humor and no compassion. In their minds, the Puritans sat in self-righteous judgment on the rest of the world. That stereotype has lent the word puritanical the dark meaning it assumes today.

How would you dispel that myth?

I would point out that the Puritans were enamored of bright clothing, and their houses were brightly painted. They had a strong sense of beauty. While they were not attracted to the visual arts, the Puritans produced great poets like Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor.

Also, the Puritans were not opposed to parties. They certainly did not have sexual hang-ups. They were not prudes.

It’s true that promiscuity was absent from colonial New England. But for husband and wife, sex was important, and Puritan families were routinely large. A spouse could be punished by the authorities for withholding sex from his or her partner.

So how did the “joyless Puritan” stereotype get started?

It began during Prohibition. People like H. L. Mencken said, “Whom do we blame for this Victorian America we live in?” and the Puritans came out as culprits.

In fact, the Puritans were not teetotalers. Scholars estimate the Puritans had a rum-consumption rate that surpasses the alcohol-consumption rate in the twentieth century.

Were Puritans deeply emotional people

Yes. They were intense lovers and intense haters. They were intensely reverent.

For the Puritans, nothing was done unthinkingly or unfeelingly. They believed that their life mattered, that what they were doing was more important than anything else in the world. If you believe that, you will feel extreme emotions.

What scared the Puritans?

They were alarmed about secularism, though they would have called it infidelity. In their day, the great secularism was a form of deism that denied the divinity of Christ and undermined intimacy with God.

The Puritans also feared the rising generation would not measure up to the piety of their fathers and mothers. They often talked about loss of faith in their children.

Why do so many people misunderstand the Puritans?

To understand the Puritans, you have to adopt their attitude: Life is a great adventure. The Puritans saw themselves on a group mission, like a corporate Pilgrim’s Progress.

If you read the Puritans’ writings as cold, theological prose, they will kill you quickly. You have to look deeper to see what’s motivating them: the yearning to build a Christian civilization, a new world order. Creating this was the adventure of a lifetime.

In John Winthrop’s famous speech aboard the Arbella, the Puritans fixed on what I would call “a world-regenerative creed.” They believed, “We are reforming not only Anglicanism and Christendom but the whole world.”

To understand the Puritans, you have to adopt their attitude that life is a great adventure.
—Harry S. Stout

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.

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