Regarding the Puritans

In any given assembly of confessional presbyterian pastors, I am sure to stand out not only because of my wit, charm, and remarkable good looks, but also because of my general skepticism toward "the Puritans." The Christian rapper Propaganda recently raised quite a ruckus with his Precious Puritans, which is useful, if for nothing else, for pointing out that the Puritans themselves may not have been as impeccable as their Savior. Puritanism was an ism: that is, not a Church or a denomination or even an ecclesiastical organization, but an assortment of attitudes and ideas expressed by any number of protestants throughout the British Isles. As an ism, Puritanism is a general classification of mood and temperament, but in practice is no more specific than today's "evangelicalism," a noun which is so vague as to include Baptists and presbyterians and hard-shell Calvinists and skeptics of the doctrine of hell.

In the April issue of Ordained Servant, William B. Kessler has a review of A Puritan Theology which gets at the heart of my discomfort with puritanolatry. Kessler has no beef with the Puritans themselves, but notes they existed in a particular historical circumstance, some several centuries ago, and we exist in a different one, today. Exactly so. 

Let the reader note I spent years outlining Jonathan Edwards sermons, which should prove I have a generous attitude toward puritanism. However, I recognize the Puritans lived and ministered in a different time and place than I do, and dealt with concerns peculiar to their day, not mine. If I meet a layperson who tells me he reads lots of Puritan literature, I can be sure said layperson struggles with assurance of salvation. This is because Puritans pastors ministered in a cultural and ecclesiastical context of massive presumption, in which many who were dead in their sins felt confident of God's good graces because they happened to have been born into a Christian family. Accordingly, Puritan preachers tended to hit presumption of salvation hard. In our day, the Christian with a sensitive conscience who reads Puritan sermons without knowledge of their historical context will often decide he must be very, very hard of heart and lose all sense of assurance of salvation. It's a sure course for spiritual shipwreck.

Read the Puritans of old if you must, but if you want to know what modern Puritanism sounds like, it's the preaching of Jay Adams and the teaching of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. They don't have buckles on their shoes, but they do apply the Bible to all of life. And with smaller words, to boot.