Watch the first of our 2021 online autumn lectures on The Common Good. As we debate today the benefits of individual freedoms vs. the collective good, what does the past have to teach us? Would 17th-century Bostonians opt for masks - or not? Find out with our stunning series on a topic more relevant than ever.
Amidst the many discussions of whether John Winthrop’s call for Massachusetts to be a “city on a hill” was a claim for exceptionalism for themselves and a future America, not enough attention has been paid to what a “city on a hill” really meant in 17th-century New England. This talk by Dr. Francis J. Bremer, author of 19 books about Puritanism, examined how John Winthrop and others believed they should live and interact with one another to achieve that vision.
Rejecting the emerging individualism of the age and its manifestations in material selfishness, the Puritans sought to create, from scratch, a society in which all members would labor to assist one another. They espoused a social gospel deeply rooted in Christianity – a gospel especially embraced by 16th- and 17th-century Puritan reformers.
A particular challenge for New Englanders was the need to define the boundaries of their new community. Dr. Bremer explored the ways in which the institutions of church and state were shaped by the imperatives of the social gospel, focusing on key individuals’ different views and how differences were dealt with. After examining how the colonists’ behavior expressed their social gospel, he suggested how this element of the Puritan legacy is relevant to us today.
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Dr. Francis J. Bremer is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He has held fellowships for study and teaching at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England and at Trinity College in Dublin. He has published 19 books dealing with early American history, most recently One Small Candle: The Story of the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England (2020), and Of Plimoth Plantation by William Bradford: A New 400th Anniversary Edition, edited and introduced by Francis J. Bremer and Kenneth P. Minkema (2020). He is currently working on an edition of William Bradford’s “Dialogues,” Poetry, and other Writings with Kenneth Minkema and David Lupher. He is editing a Handbook of Puritanism along with Greg Salazar and Ann Hughes for Oxford University Press. He is also working on a study of the role of women in Puritanism in the Atlantic world.