Pilgrims and Puritan

Pilgrims and Puritans are often seen as one in the same by the average Jane and Joe of today.  But, in reality they were two separate and distinct traditions even though some of these distinctions seem to have lost there clarity over the passage of time.  

The first and foremost thing that comes to mind is that the Puritans remained members of the established Anglican church.  They desired to purify (reform) the Church of England from within the church itself.  They felt that the official church had strayed from important Christian principles as they were perceived from the Calvinistic viewpoint of the Puritans.  They felt that the only way they could reform the Anglican Church from within the Anglican Church was to leave England and establish “city upon a hill” This led to their colonization of North America and the establishment of the Mass. Bay Colony.

The Pilgrims were outsiders in relation to the Anglican Church.  They had elected to not seek reformation from within but, to separate themselves entirely from it.  In furtherance of this goal they sought to remove themselves from the abuse of their countrymen and traveled to the Netherlands where they might be free practice a religion of their own devising.  This served their purposes well for some time but, they eventually became desirous of a land to call their own.  This led to their exodus to North America aboard the famous Mayflower and the establishment of the Plymouth Colony.

There are differences to be sure.  But I believe that that Christianity as represented by either the Puritans of the Pilgrims was of the most reprehensible sort.  The intolerance, arrogance, sexism, and downright lunacy of it is abhorrent to me.  The case Salem witch trials are just one example of this proto-fundamentalism run amok.  When we look back at them with romantic eyes we only see what we want to see, not the scary stuff.