The Puritans in American History

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

All right, we are live now on the conversations that matter podcast actually a little bit early for the podcast

00:08

I set it for 1010. So People are gonna start streaming in here in a moment. But before everyone comes in I just want to say this the the two men that I'm having on the podcast today mean a great deal to me

00:21

They are professors that I was privileged to sit under at Liberty University who are very knowledgeable about American history the founding era and today what we're gonna be talking about which is the

00:33

Puritans and I'm very grateful for both of Their time. We have dr. Sam Smith, who is the

00:39

I think you're still the chair of the history department. Is that correct? That's right. And then dr.

00:44

Kerry Roberts who is a vice dean In the College of Arts and Sciences, is that still correct?

00:51

Right. All right Well, thank you so much for giving some of your precious time to me and to the audience to talk about what

00:59

I think is an important topic the Puritans and their legacy in American history I'm excited to get into it.

01:06

So I appreciate it. Thank you What a good cop bad cop, right

01:13

Is that the strategy here? Well, uh, we didn't really discuss a strategy other than We're just gonna talk about the

01:21

Puritans, I think I gave you some examples of oh, here we go. It's already happening It's already happening.

01:27

Is this going to be more anti Puritan slander John? Okay, so I think I gave you some examples of some of the

01:33

Puritan enthusiasts They're not happy with the 1607 project and I know both of you watch that.

01:39

I know dr. Smith you were in that and You said some things actually you said some positive things about the

01:44

Puritans You also said some negative things and so I want to parse that out a little bit today and maybe start out with just a

01:52

Basic question for those who might not know who are the Puritans when we talk about Puritans. What are we talking about? We're talking about 16th and 17th century

02:01

Reformed Anglicans there's a rich history of the development of Puritanism in England and then of course in Scotland Of course

02:14

Henry the eighth broke with the Roman Catholic Church and in the 1530s and then when

02:22

Although it was that was a that was not a theological Reformation So a lot of the

02:28

Catholic doctrine remained in the Anglican Church Some of that began to change after he died with Edward the sixth

02:39

Who had a very short reign and there was kind of a growth in these Reformed Anglicans during the reign of Henry of Edward the sixth

02:51

Then when Mary Edward's sister who was a Catholic became the Queen of England there was massive persecution

03:01

Of these non -conformists and so really during that Time period of the

03:08

Marian persecutions Puritanism really began to grow

03:15

But once Elizabeth becomes the Queen there's kind of a mediation.

03:21

Let's try to maintain as much of the Catholic Doctrine and liturgy as we can and and have what they called a middle way

03:32

And this was not good enough for Some of these Calvinist Anglicans who

03:40

Had begun to see that there needed to be a different way than even a middle way

03:46

And so these were dissenters from religious establishment

03:52

And they began to grow they were persecuted even more They grew kind of there was a friendliness somewhat between the

04:01

Puritans and James the first for a time but then under Charles the first there was a really a resurgence of Persecution of Puritans and that's when a lot of them began to come to America.

04:17

So you have English Puritanism Scottish Puritanism, which is more or less

04:23

Presbyterian And then you have American Puritanism which would become

04:31

Congregationalism That's kind of a short Intro to the

04:37

Puritans if you will one of the things that I've Become familiar with I wasn't as familiar with before though is that some people have some lines

04:47

They draw some will say that you know Puritans went who came over to the United States that original generation kept some of these ideas, but because they were

04:58

Compromising in the generations after that that Puritanism ends with the theological Commitments when the commit commitments died you don't have

05:07

Puritanism anymore Do you see a cutoff anywhere as Jonathan Edwards of Puritan?

05:13

How far does this era extend? Once you get into the 18th century historians generally refer to people like Jonathan Edwards as sort of A Transitional figures if you will from old

05:29

Puritanism to something new There's a lot of the old Puritanism still in Jonathan Edwards, though Especially theologically and so I think the transition begins to take place

05:47

In what sometimes is Perry Miller called a declension Is that when their religious ideals and social ideals?

06:00

Could not harmonize You know

06:05

John Winthrop in his famous sermon a model of Christian charity That he preached on the way over in 1630 1629 and 30 on the

06:16

Arbella where he said we're going to be a city on a hill He said

06:22

We will maintain the status quo and then there's three words a lot of people miss in that sermon and more also

06:32

So they started out with this really high elevated admirable perspective

06:40

But it was unrealistic It was something that just simply could not be maintained

06:48

Why It could not be maintained. That's a matter of debate, but it was not maintained there was at least and even in their minds a massive declension

07:00

By the 1660s you see the Jeremiah sermons and so forth so You could say

07:08

Maybe the halfway covenant of 1662 would be a marking point of this

07:16

Declension You know, I don't know that there's any one place but they began to be very distressed

07:23

That they could not maintain the ideals or the ideology that they had really

07:32

You know invested in well, I think it might be profitable to explore that a little bit the difference between What did you just say their theology and then their social views or their expectations?

07:45

What was that tension? What what were they? Hoping for that was unrealized

07:51

That set them up for failure in your mind Um, I think there's a there's an early on a philosophical underpinning of the of the

08:05

Puritan experiment It's the the old Cambridge Platonists or the neo -platonism that really

08:15

Had a lot to do with the way they thought about theology, I think in some ways it hurt their own theological aspirations

08:25

Even all the way, you know from the mid 1600s even to Jonathan Edwards.

08:31

There was a strong investment in Neo -platonism which you know is kind of a quasi

08:41

Gnosticism Plotinus was a third century

08:46

Greek philosopher who kind of resurrected Plato's ideal and ideals and the idea was this

08:58

Union back to the origins back to the soul spirit over matter

09:04

Very Gnostic even though Plotinus strangely enough wrote against the Gnostics.

09:10

He had a lot of anti -gnostic views, but really Neoplatonism was a type in my opinion of Gnosticism Jonathan Edwards if you read

09:21

George Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards, he talks about how that Edwards was deeply invested in Neoplatonism Perry Miller's article from Edwards to Emerson Explains how that the philosophical underpinnings of Puritanism, especially with Edwards Became a bridge even to things as radical as transcendentalism

09:52

So There's so much to appreciate in the Puritans so much good theology

10:01

Etc. But there were some real questionable things that they were very much invested in that I think threw a damper on what they're what they were trying to do well,

10:14

I think there's probably three major things to talk about and we've already started talking about two of them, but That would be the extent to which they were or were not influential because that is of course

10:28

One of the big stories about America you'll hear even in the most right -wing think tanks and Christian conservative outlets

10:34

It seems like the Puritans are They're almost founding father status when it comes to evangelicalism in the minds of modern evangelicals in the

10:43

United States. So So that emphasis is something I think we need to talk about and then obviously what we've already been talking about are the positive and perhaps negative

10:54

Contributions that the Puritans have made and so we can go in many different directions here But for this is to satisfy my own curiosity and and it's also include you.

11:02

Dr. Roberts I know you spent some time in England teaching and I know there's certain regions of England I think you know in in the eastern part

11:11

East Anglia if I'm not mistaken That's more. Is that more Cavalier and then

11:18

In the or that's more Puritan rather I think and then the western parts are more Anglican but there's different.

11:25

I don't know how the map exactly works out Did you notice differences between these regions just like we in the

11:31

United States see the Northeast? as different than the South You know when it comes to Puritans nominating that area

11:37

We're sure anyone who's ever traveled throughout the British Isles recognizes that there are still distinct

11:44

Regional differences now those those regional differences are fluid. They evolve and change over time the

11:51

Puritan migration comes primarily from from Eastern England East Anglia And as the name implies it was settled by Angles and so there there was a kind of ethnic composition to them

12:04

But it was not only from that part of England where New Englanders came from they also came from the far southwest of England south of Wales from Somerset and Dorset and those areas were where the woolen industry was most prevalent at the end of the

12:22

Middle Ages and There are some important geopolitical circumstances that occur

12:30

Where the the British are shut out of the European wool market and it causes that area to undergo a pretty extreme

12:42

Depression so you you've got a collection of people with very distinct

12:49

Theological perceptions of the world around them that are also Financially in trouble and they they had a kind of middle -class life

13:03

Before these economic problems occurred and they really are also trying to preserve that Now so so to go into what

13:14

Salm is talking about with their neo -platonic Views what where you see this really show up is in their understanding of human society human organization the world around them they they have a view of human beings coming together to form an organic whole

13:38

When they establish their their communities and their societies There's there's no room for what we might call today parallel societies

13:50

Coexisting in the same place and time Everything is treated as part of one unified

14:01

Unified well city. I mean that I mean the city on the hill right there They're they're engaging in an errand into the wilderness to build a city that All are going to be a part of Now there are a lot of good things that come out of this

14:19

John the English philosopher and historian David Hume was one of the very first to notice this now

14:26

Hume had very missed views on the Puritans. He called them gloomy enthusiasts

14:33

Enthusiasts enthusiasm being that the term used in his day for basically what we mean by evangelicalism today

14:41

But but Hume recognized that what the Puritans were introducing to English society was a kind of consecration of Common life and this is coming out of the

14:55

Reformation It's an opposition of the medieval Catholic view of how we organize human society and that there's this kind of great chain of being

15:06

Those closer with God had a more privileged Occupation in the world, but but but what the

15:14

Reformers and but through them the Puritans insisted upon is that any occupations capable of glorifying

15:22

God and So the things that Hume liked most which was conserving common life.

15:29

He found the Puritans as instrumental in achieving that So that common life is capable of pleasing

15:39

God and glorifying God just as much as as As kind of a churchly life might might have been previously

15:50

So that's a very powerful thing and it's from this that David Hume argued very early in the in the 18th century that the

15:59

Puritans were one of the key driving forces to capitalism and The development of commercial habits commercial virtues and The kind of material wealth that capitalism is going to be bringing to the world

16:14

So this is a part of Max Weber's thesis, right? But Hume is a century ahead of Weber.

16:21

Right, right. That's how yeah, I didn't realize Hume had written about this as well so you have a more commercial interest than developing in New England and Just because I know you were in England teaching

16:34

I mean, do you see the cultural differences to when you were there were people from these regions that had been

16:40

Puritan? Different than regions where there was a more of a cavalier stronghold in the way that they interacted with you or does that pretty much?

16:48

Necessarily, I mean I have taught things in Britain, but I mainly went to school there Oh, I went to college in in South Wales And that was illuminating to me

17:01

I came from Mississippi I wasn't really a country boy as more of a suburban boy, but But there was no suburban,

17:10

Mississippi. It was all kind of country and in the 1970s when I grew up, but I go to Britain and go to South Wales for school and I Immediately saw those cultural differences immediately.

17:22

I couldn't figure out Why I was getting along with the Welsh Students and the

17:29

Irish students and even there was a stray Scott here and there I got along really well with this and I got along really well with other

17:38

American students from other parts of the South notably, South Carolina But I didn't get along with people from from parts of London from the

17:48

Midlands from from Eastern England Any more than I really got along with Americans from That strange place

17:57

John called, New York So it right right. It struck me that those this is how

18:04

I actually became interested in history because It raised a lot of questions in my mind.

18:09

I thought we were all the same We're all committed to liberty and individualism I never really fully understood cultural differences until I was put in a place where I had to understand and that raised questions that were historical

18:23

I Think I have a similar Experience not not being in England, obviously, but in the

18:29

United States having so much of my family from, Mississippi where you're from all around, you know meridian

18:36

Hattiesburg Jackson area and going down there for the annual family reunions and Contrasting that with the life that I had in upstate

18:46

New York and how different that the people were and I think most people in The United States if they've traveled if they've gone to school somewhere that they weren't that they didn't grow up in They interact with other people and there's a reputation that we have in New York in New England For asking questions like, you know, what do you do for a living instead of where are you from?

19:06

You know, it's different in different regions and valuing someone more based upon Commercial values how much do you make what's your socio -economic status the

19:17

New York City's bustling? You know energy that people some people like some people don't but these are all just some of the things it's the tip of the iceberg of the things that Make I think more of a

19:29

Puritan dominated area different than let's say a southern or Appalachian or even some of the

19:34

Western areas and And and that has I think intrigued a lot of people who have watched the 1607 project who have never heard

19:44

Anything critical about Puritan New England before and they've heard a few things. I thought it was fairly mild

19:49

But for some people if all they've ever heard are really positive things from the

19:55

Christian industry or from you know conservative American history textbooks They start realizing their own experience doesn't quite match that they they want a story to explain

20:06

Why are these regional differences there? And I think the 1607 project gives an explanation that has been there for a long time just maybe not maybe not focused on quite as much in recent years and I don't know what the alternative stories are

20:24

You know, essentially what I'm saying is that the Puritan set up a society that was just different And those differences even manifest themselves today, would you agree that those differences that the

20:36

The effects of them are still felt today Hundreds of years later, I mean, is that possible just as a historian that we're the products of our great

20:48

Remember we're playing good cop bad cop. So I'm gonna let we are. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna let

20:53

Sam Explain all the merits there I didn't know wait.

20:58

So who's the good cop and who's the bad cop? I'm unclear. Well, Sam was the good guy I'm just he's got a beard.

21:05

You can't trust people with beards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true Their influence is

21:13

Felt today in in a judgment an assumption. I'm going to make

21:18

I'm guessing I bet most of the folks that you're surrounded by who

21:26

Love the Puritans, I'm just guessing John, but I bet they're Reformed Baptists or is that the case?

21:33

There's some presby's in there too, but mostly Yeah, but mainly Reformed Baptists and from the

21:38

South Yeah So, I mean Baptists in the

21:43

South came out of New England Puritans I mean it was it was

21:48

New England missionaries that went first to Charleston and then to other parts of The colonial

21:55

South White, Virginia that set up the first Baptist churches in in that region and so there is a long -standing connection between Baptists in the

22:07

South notably Southern Baptists and the Puritans that and that was that connection was kind of lost

22:15

Around the turn of the 20th century, but it was really regained with Gusto starting in the 1980s

22:23

Interesting, okay, can I jump in here, please? Talking about the differences in the regions.

22:30

I mean two books that Everybody should read and John, you know what? I'm about to say

22:36

Albion seed by David Hackett Fisher He shows these differences in the different regions

22:44

He shows how Cavalier culture comes into Virginia after the 1640s

22:50

Not really in 1607 those Early settlers in Jamestown were more from East Anglia than than Southwest, England but he shows the transition from Southwest England to the

23:07

Chesapeake he shows the North Midlands in England to the middle colonies like Pennsylvania He shows

23:18

East Anglia Settlement into New England and then the borderland regions

23:24

In you know the back country South and up the

23:29

Appalachian and Shows that there are distinct cultural differences differences folkways if you will

23:37

That can still be seen today and even can be seen in the way people vote

23:45

The way people build their homes the foods they eat

23:50

The way they say things nobody mistakes me as someone from Boston And so There are

24:03

Unique differences and that is something I think that should be celebrated not to try to homogenize

24:10

Everything into one kind of New England founding listen,

24:15

I Do not discount the important role of pure that the Puritans made in America's founding

24:23

But I would not want to lift it higher than it should be either and that is what has been done

24:30

I believe by a lot of historians a lot of well -meaning theologians

24:37

Look New England is a derivative of Puritan culture in many ways sort of a secularized

24:46

Puritan culture and Most people think that this is the centerpiece of American history

24:55

And it's a wonderful part of American history in many ways But I don't think it's the centerpiece and the historian that I think people should read that that in my mind proves this is

25:11

Jack Green in his 1988 book pursuits of happiness Where he does this deep dive?

25:20

Into the different regions kind of like David Hackett Fisher did and he's trying to solve the problem

25:27

Or the question is New England as so many believe

25:32

The centerpiece of American history because that is sort of the assumption when you when

25:38

I talk to students in my colonial history classes most of them when I talk about religion they automatically default to Puritanism they know very little about Anglicanism in Virginia Southern Presbyterianism in the

25:54

Carolinas Reform Baptists in Charleston Etc.

26:01

It's just all about the pilgrims and the Puritans and that's a wonderful part of our history

26:07

They gave us so much. They taught us about the importance of descent from Establishment they taught us about the importance of commitment to orthodoxy very bibliocentric and Christo centric in their preaching very much oriented toward Preaching to the mind not just the emotions and so forth.

26:35

I could go on and on of the value of this but as I mentioned earlier

26:40

There was a problematic philosophical underpinning in a lot of the Puritan experiment that caused a rapid decline

26:50

And what Jack Green shows in Pursuits of happiness and Jack Green so far as I know is not is not a believing

26:59

Christian Johns Hopkins University professor Very well -known colonial historian

27:08

He concludes that there's only one region in early

27:15

America that went through this type of declension And it was New England He shows how that even in the middle colonies in the

27:25

Chesapeake and in the borderland regions They developed up from a lower state to a more

27:35

Developed state in developing institutions, etc Whereas New England starts with this very high mark city on a hill

27:46

And more also that that John Winthrop talks about not just the status quo

27:51

We're really going to show people how to establish a Christian society Wonderful aspiration, but it didn't last and so to take that as the centerpiece of American history,

28:07

I think is a mistake because it really is not As as admirable as it is

28:15

So there's just to jump in and add to this when you think about the kind of neo -platonism that that sound described earlier in the conversation this this emphasis on seeing human society as a singular whole

28:33

Right everything everything's one in the same. There's no division between Family and community between church and state between vocation and Friendship all is treated and subject to the same standards and concerns

28:54

Well, one of the things this does is it fosters among New England Puritans a sense that all things are subject to spiritual questions that that everything can and should be spiritualized and to go back to David Hume Hume said that the

29:12

Puritans and in the British Parliament, even even in debates on tonnage and poundage very

29:22

Routine kinds of questions about governmental operations said even those debates became subject to theology and metaphysics

29:33

And and what that ends up doing is it makes the Puritans Incapable of Envisioning a

29:46

Larger society that is made up of more cultural groups than just New England Puritans So it fosters within them this insistence if we're going to have a country

30:01

It's got to be a New England country. If we're gonna have a founding It's got to be a new

30:06

England founding if we're going to have a beginning It's got to start at Plymouth not at Jamestown so this inability to understand the complexity of society fosters an inability to understand the kind of Transactions and the transactional

30:30

Relationships needed to Create a country like the

30:36

United States I think it would be good if we could have some concrete examples and then maybe trace

30:41

I know you said neoplatonism but maybe where the spirit arose from if this is a pietism if or what avenues the neoplatonism or whatever this flattening tendency came from so You know the first example that jumped to my mind and I'll see if maybe you think this is a good one is

30:56

I was In Boston doing the Freedom Trail years ago, and there's a story about a man who came back from being out at sea and he had been out for more than a year and he comes back and he kisses his wife right on the

31:09

Front step of their house and then he spends the rest of the night in jail Because you're not supposed to do that in public and there's no

31:17

And I understand there There has been some backlash against some of the modern leftist interpretations of the

31:23

Puritans that makes them even more rigid perhaps than they were But you can't tell me there's not a rigidity to that.

31:29

There's not a Situation that should be considered in that do you have other examples maybe of of what you're talking about?

31:35

Dr. Roberts with this flattening tendency Well, I think you see it across the span of New England colonial history, and it's not it's not something that is

31:49

And it has some good things by the way, John. It has good repercussions as well as bad

31:56

So here's one one simple example The Massachusetts General Court, that's what they call their colonial assembly

32:06

It had over six hundred delegates Massachusetts colonial,

32:12

Massachusetts, we're not talking about You know just hundreds of thousands of people here

32:17

We're not we're certainly not talking about millions upon millions, but they had six hundred plus delegates and all of that was in an effort to try and achieve as As close to unanimity and their political decisions as they possibly could

32:37

Many historians have recorded how New England town meetings They would have votes, but they wouldn't record the votes in other words

32:47

There may be a division of between say 60 % of the votes and 40 % of the votes on some important decision but when it was recorded it was recorded as sort of unanimous

33:01

Because they couldn't allow that kind of division to be publicly embraced And so that that to me is part and parcel of this

33:10

I think Sal may have better examples than I do, but that's what immediately comes to my mind

33:16

Go for it. I've always always Tell students the funny quotation from H .L.

33:23

Mencken that Puritans are people who are worried that someone somewhere may be happy Now of course that's a you know,

33:32

I'll laugh at that but that's a Caricature that's not really true, but there's some truth to it if you read

33:42

Uh Michael Wigglesworth, for example And his

33:49

Doomsday poem which was one of the best -selling pieces of American literature on into the 1800s and he was professor at Harvard.

34:00

He was a minister He was asked to be the president of Harvard so Michael Wigglesworth is not an outlier

34:08

Puritan. He's very much a mainstream Puritan but He really

34:15

If there was ever a Puritan who was a killjoy it was him He hated his body.

34:22

He constantly wrote about How much he hated Can I say it he hated farting

34:31

Because it it was a sign of his own degradation and sinfulness he hated

34:39

When his wife was struggling in childbirth He was more thinking about how what this would teach him spiritually rather than you know his wife or the care for his wife and one of his children who was

34:56

Close to death. He was musing over. What is God teaching me? But it was very it was very self -centered in many ways very foreboding and melancholy now

35:08

Some may say well Michaels Michael Wigglesworth is an outlier. I don't I don't necessarily think so He was a highly respected

35:18

Puritan preacher and leader and I could give you many other examples

35:26

Thomas Shepard during the antinomian controversy You know heresy hunter

35:33

Par excellence. I think if you look at the antinomian controversy not to defend

35:38

Anne Hutchinson in some of her views But the way they conducted that those trials the church trial and the government trial

35:49

Against Anne Hutchinson really reveals this What has maybe become a stereotype of Puritan so, you know, yes, it is a stereotype

36:02

Yes, they were probably a lot happier than most people realize But when you read the

36:08

Puritan sermons and you read a lot of Puritan literature, especially New England I'm not talking as much about the

36:15

British Puritans here as the New England Puritans there is There's an orneriness.

36:23

There is a precisionist that is at least in our modern minds very off -putting and That's not to take away, you know the great things that they did look

36:38

I tell people I tell people reading the Puritans Studying the Puritans is like eating a pecan

36:45

You have good in the pecan But every once in a while you come across a shell and you have to spit it out

36:51

And that's what historians have to do. They can't get locked into a one -track

36:57

These people are all good. These people are all bad I apply the same standard of critique to people like R .L.

37:07

Dabney James Henley Thornwall as I do to Jonathan Edwards.

37:13

I find Great things in both and I find problematic things in both

37:19

And you know, I think that's that's the way if you're going to approach these subjects you have to treat it that way

37:26

There's there's more to the Puritans than just sermons. Yeah You're right

37:32

So if anyone out there who's listening has questions, I am already Taking note of some of the questions that have come in and I will ask dr.

37:40

Smith and dr. Roberts your question If you're on YouTube Facebook or X Dr. Smith.

37:46

Dr. Roberts. I was going through this transition probably when you first encountered me as a student and Questioning some of the things that I had absorbed from the

37:57

Puritans And I know one of the things that started me on this track was reading that Richard Weaver essay The I think it's the two diarists where he compares

38:05

Cotton Mather Mather with William Byrd and shows that even though William Byrd Has many faults as you said in the documentary, dr.

38:14

Smith Cotton Mather has this navel gazing tendency this perfectionistic instinct that Really makes his life somewhat miserable and I recognize that in myself and I I was reading

38:26

You know Thomas Watson and John Owen and and some of these guys that Have really good things to say on some things

38:35

But I noticed the effect that too much of that had on me and and I looked an awful lot like Cotton Mather and always assessing myself and trying to make sure that I Push everything in my life through this narrow channel of evaluation so that I can consider it worship

38:53

You know my brushing my teeth to the glory of God I don't know was I worshiping as I did it and it's overthinking tendency

39:01

You know that to me is is maybe the negative part of it. That's that that pecan shell.

39:08

Is that what you're talking about? Dr. Smith when you talk about the pecan shell there Yes, and so I'll give you an example

39:16

One of the big problems I have with Puritan theology There are exceptions is the doctrine of assurance

39:27

There's so much Precisionism if you read William Perkins or Thomas Brooks Or Jonathan Edwards religious affections

39:41

There's such a high bar higher a higher bar. I believe in scripture allows or you know helping people with assurance here, here's the

39:53

The odd thing Puritans have some of the best counsel you can read for example read

40:01

JC Riles book holiness He has a chapter there on assurance and he has a lot of quotations from different Puritans on how to help people who are doubting wonderful stuff

40:14

So Puritans have great literature on how to help people who are doubting but the reason they talk about this so much is

40:21

Because in their preaching On Salvation they conflate sanctification and justification to such a degree that Reasonable people can never reach a sense of assurance in their faith.

40:39

I think there's a major problem in Puritan soteriology on the doctrine of assurance and I Would I would say

40:51

Read David Inglesmere's book of the gift of assurance. He's he's a reformed preacher

40:58

I disagree with his idea that assurances of the essence of faith. I don't believe it is.

41:03

I believe the Puritans are right on that but He does point out this massive problem with assurance in the

41:14

Puritans Charles Hodge in a systematic theology points this out as particularly a problem even with Jonathan Edwards And so that's one area.

41:25

I think that there needs to be some rethinking on and evaluating

41:31

Joel Beakey in his book the quest for full assurance Addresses this in a very comparable way in a very competent way,

41:41

I feel like he comes short on some certain things, but The reason the problem there the reason there's a problem with assurance of salvation

41:51

I believe even in reformed circles is because they're so invested in This morphology of conversion that comes from the

42:00

Puritans that I don't think it's healthy and it continues to affect

42:05

Contemporary evangelicalism. Yeah, it comes from the Puritans. Oh, yeah Well, John Piper was my inroad

42:12

I think and maybe the gospel coalition, you know well, I wasn't too big into that but in quasi 2010 when the young restless reform movement was starting every

42:25

Reformed evangelical conference I went to had ye old bookstore, you know with all these Puritan works under a ten or something

42:31

And I thought that's just what we're supposed to read and and and you know, that was a big part of the diet

42:37

But you know going back to what you were saying, dr. Smith about this perfection You didn't say perfectionistic tendency, but this conflation between justification sanctification and having assurance problems

42:47

You know One of the things that I know many have pointed out with the Puritans is in a

42:52

Brian McClanahan even says this is the original Cancel culture. I don't know if that's true, but they you know, they they wouldn't celebrate

43:00

Christmas. They wouldn't wear wedding rings, you know, they They wouldn't really read Greco -Roman literature much that was more of a southern thing and Because that was pagan and so they wanted to excise all these things and filter out to get purity as the name

43:14

Puritan implies is that because or partially because there was a search for Authentic salvation and and this is how you measure it with getting rid of all these potential vices and stumbling blocks

43:29

I Think that's part of it. I think they they so focused on Evaluating where you are in your sanctification, you are truly justified

43:44

If you read John Piper's future grace He does essentially the same thing and it

43:53

I Think it I think it has really Hindered a lot of people look look if you look at North Hampton, Massachusetts during the time of Jonathan Edwards Edwards talks about how so many people

44:14

He's kind of baffled that so many people are doubting their salvation. It reached a level of neurosis

44:22

There were people who were committing suicide And I said I say the last thing you want to do if you're not sure of your salvation is to commit suicide

44:31

Yeah, Jonathan Edwards own uncle Joseph Hawley Slid his throat because he could not resolve whether or not he was truly converted

44:44

You can read I read an account of a Puritan woman who was so Fixated on the question.

44:52

Am I elect? Am I not elect? Am I a Christian? Am I not a

44:57

Christian? couldn't stand The uncertainty she had to know one way or the other and Actually threw her infant baby in a well just to prove to herself

45:11

That she was damned Now There's a lot going on there to be sure other than just bad theology, yeah it's an example of The problem

45:27

I think that came With some of the Puritan theology. Yeah, well in the period the puritanical

45:36

Approach to life, I mean that that was not limited to the Puritans and it I mean it was in many ways most common among Quakers a lot of what we think of as being

45:49

Puritanical about alcohol about sexuality about various types of vice applied much more appropriately to the colonial

45:59

Quakers and other Pietistic sects than it did to the Puritans the issue though and sound this is so clearly

46:08

Explained is that the Puritans become deeply self -destructive as a result?

46:16

of these kinds of theological perspective Well, there's a lot of questions coming in and I want to get to some of these

46:23

I have a lot of my own and we don't have the time obviously to go through all of them But along those lines

46:29

Judd Saul asks asks the question. What about the embracement of pietism? You just mentioned pietism

46:35

Dr. Roberts were the Puritans Pietistic is that an issue with them?

46:41

Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. What do you think? Well Cotton Mather kept a close

46:53

Correspondence with Auguste Franca the kind of the seminal German pietist And so I think there is a lot of intermixture of continental pietism with Puritanism so the the

47:14

Puritan Theological construct is very intellectual very Objective in theology, but there's a deep strain of subjectivism that is in Puritanism as well experientialism

47:28

That a lot of reformed people kind of criticize experientialism in modern evangelicalism today as well they should

47:36

But there's a lot of that in the Puritans a lot oriented toward What was called the mystical syllogism?

47:46

where Your feelings have a lot to do with determining where you are with God And so I see a lot of pietistic strange now the the pietist came along more or less in the 1670s and 80s, so it's as far as an actual

48:07

Transition of pietistic thought into Puritan thought it would be later For the

48:13

American Puritans per se, but I think there's a lot of similarities.

48:20

I Know we had a question and I'm having trouble finding it now But it was back in the thread where someone was asking about the transition from Puritan to Yankee Unitarian And What I have found is that a lot of conservatives who would probably agree with us on Everything just about today when it comes to the modern critique of society like to say well there were the

48:47

Puritans and then things got off track and the era closes and so Then the

48:54

Southerners become the vanguards of orthodoxy at that point and you can jump to as you mentioned before Southern Presbyterian theologians like Palmer Dabney Thornwell, etc.

49:05

And so So it doesn't really bother them that the Puritans stand in this line that it was their children who essentially went

49:13

Unitarian Adopted social reform movements and and perhaps in the narrative that 1607 traces you could trace it to even modern liberalism

49:21

So, do you see that break? How would you characterize that break? Do we have the

49:27

Puritan spirit carrying on after? The they compromise on theology or is this just a new group of people and we need to separate

49:35

Puritans from Yankees essentially Set me. I don't know who wants to go.

49:42

Dr. Roberts. You haven't said anything a while. I don't know Well, I there there is a kind of break that takes place

49:51

Samuel Adams is not Officially a

49:57

Puritan even though one of his most famous biographers. I think that was the title of the biography was old

50:03

Puritan John Hancock is not a

50:08

Puritan in in that sense You know a number of Oliver Ellsworth Gorham and a lot of the men at the

50:17

Philadelphia Convention in 1787 from New England Roger Sherman, it may not be appropriate to call them

50:25

Puritans, but I think it is appropriate to talk about a kind of Don't want to use the word civilization maybe but a kind of well -defined society with a very well -defined tradition of a political

50:51

Perspective and social social perspective that is continuous I Have long said and long taught that Calvinism restrained some of the worst elements of this sort of East Anglian Cultural heritage that they're bringing over from the

51:11

British Isles, and I think the breakdown of Calvinism clearly Paved the way open the door for Unitarianism and other kinds of perspectives that become deeply deeply troubling

51:26

But there is something within the theology there is something within their understanding of doctrines that also paves the way for these kinds of things and It it you you don't you do have

51:40

Unitarianism and other parts of the country But you just don't have it anywhere like you do in New England and it's it's hard to step back and say

51:50

Oh, well Puritanism must not have had anything to do with that when in fact it clearly had to I mean

51:56

There's just there's just too many variables that are coming together Yeah, one thing

52:03

I would Challenge people to think about is you know as reformed people we believe in the perseverance of the

52:10

Saints, right? and think about that that's Plural Saints, we believe in the perseverance of the

52:17

Saints Well kind of translate that into a regional Structure and ask yourself the question

52:28

Why did Puritanism Not persevere any better than it did in the region that it

52:36

I mean, they're the most secular Place in this country except maybe

52:45

California would be New England Why is that? Why is the

52:51

South still the Bible Belt with all of its problems? Why is?

52:57

Evangelicalism still the common Perspective the common discussion among Country folks in the

53:09

South all over the South why has why has the faith persevered in?

53:16

the South Much better than in In New England and you can measure this by church attendance matrix.

53:27

You can measure this by asking people You know what what their religious views are in every

53:36

Go to go to the Pew Research Center and plug in some of these questions and it will astound you

53:45

And it's a question that I have why it why did it not last?

53:50

Why did it go? So these Unitarians and then Transcendentalists were the children and grandchildren of these

53:57

Puritans. Yeah Yeah, I know some of the explanations that are given but none of them are satisfying or historically

54:04

Interesting like they'll say people will say things like well, it was more urban You know like but at the time that these transitions were happening it really wasn't that urban not like today

54:16

We think of urban or they had more money But you know, the South was affluent before the war when these transitions were taking place or they had more educational

54:26

Facilities or colleges, but the South also had these In fact the South I think had more per capita before the war.

54:33

So it's it's just an odd We're trying to grapple with this and it doesn't seem like there is an explanation that works

54:41

Part of it is because New Englanders And I'm borrowing here from Miles Smith at Hillsdale He's been doing a lot of work a lot of really good work.

54:51

You need him on your podcast. Okay, I'll write it down He also does some teaching for us here at Liberty Part of it is that the

55:01

Puritans in New England had to build a lot of institutions from scratch and That is that is different from the other

55:09

Colonial groups that that are coming in there. They're much easier for them to transplant institutional arrangements

55:18

Even though even though there are a lot of problems with it. They're much more interested in transplanting existing

55:26

Institutional arrangements the New England Puritans were Now this is for the Pilgrims, but I think it equally applies

55:33

Remember that they were on their way to Virginia. They get blown off course

55:40

They they create the Mayflower compact because They believe there's not going to be anything there when they arrive so they have this disposition right from the start of building new things based on Some some other kinds of standards that they that that they are deriving

56:04

Philosophically spiritually biblically a variety of different things, but they're having to create new stuff

56:11

It it it's hard to imagine the

56:16

Puritans enduring very long in those areas where Institutions were already in place and there are examples of this.

56:26

There are Puritan communities Around the other colonies and they just don't survive very long at all because they don't have a blank canvas so to speak in which to create these new things and That that is something that becomes a very powerful part of their of their culture

56:46

They really are able to build a city Whether it's on a hill or not,

56:51

I guess is open to debate but but but they are city builders so they have a what would you call that a not totalitarian,

57:03

I'm trying to think like a Concentration mindset trying to get everyone together. What would be the word for that?

57:09

Yeah, they're there is the difference between Fearing centrifugal or centripetal social forces and this is a big difference between New Englanders and the rest of Americans in New England, they are petrified of Centrifugal force every society always thinning apart.

57:29

And so they're constantly trying to reign people in in in much of the

57:34

South They're they're fearful of Centripetal force they believe human beings are constantly coming together and crowding each other out

57:43

And so they're they're always looking for ways of expanding so as I've often argued that the core of the

57:50

Jeffersonian political tradition is using government to keep people apart whereas in New England The central tenant is using politics to bring people together and we can see

58:04

I guess centralizing tendency I'll just use that word that that's still very much part of the

58:09

New England. I live here I saw kovat the difference between Virginia and New York when

58:14

I would come to visit and it was night and day I mean, it was a completely different way of handling that problem

58:21

Where in Lynchburg you go to the Walmart at the peak you probably remember this half the people still don't have masks and no one's

58:27

Checking. Yeah, and right New England different in New York New Englanders Have a harder time living under true federalism than just about any yeah, they just don't get it

58:40

They it's it's very difficult for them to understand the importance of federal arrangements because Everything is solitary and I think this to me is what's most troubling

58:53

Today when people begin to idolize the Puritans and there are a lot of good things about them.

58:59

I read Puritan sermons I Do so because I think it's a good way of developing humility and I believe humility is a

59:13

Christian virtue that I really it's one that I really struggle with and The Puritans often kind of ground me bring me back to reality but I think one of the problems we're seeing in Contemporary conservative circles in America today and have been for a better part of a generation.

59:34

Is that in our? resistance To the way people have used ideology ideology to politicize all things

59:45

We have found it too tempting to go to the Puritans or go to Dutch Reformed folks and try to spiritualize all things

59:56

Somehow as the remedy to the politicalization of all things and this is this is not a path

01:00:04

Forward this is this is not going to end well One thing I'd like to say

01:00:10

You know kind of back to Jonathan Edwards I started thinking about in my

01:00:15

American history lectures and my colonial history lectures and my colonial history grad classes in my course on Christianity in America, I probably talk about and have students to read more on Jonathan Edwards than any other one person because I see him as immensely important on many levels theological philosophical

01:00:43

You name it. I spent you know Liberty paid my way for six years to go to Yale Divinity School and study at the

01:00:54

With the Jonathan Edwards summer school, which was an outstanding experience one of the things

01:01:01

I've noticed in my study of Edwards and reading other people who read Edwards and going to these classes at Yale Divinity School The Reformed guys who went were the least likely to say anything critical about Jonathan Edwards It's almost a heresy with people to Critique Edwards and say no

01:01:28

Edwards is wrong here With some people it's almost I mean to me. I've always thought that John Piper kind of Lifted Jonathan Edwards to such a pedestal.

01:01:38

It was almost like he was the fourth member of the Trinity and this is from somebody who who really loves

01:01:45

Much about Jonathan Edwards, but if you can't be critical of anybody

01:01:51

No matter who they are and I don't mean overly critical. I mean look at them with a careful eye and evaluate what they're doing if you can't do that if you're not doing that then you're

01:02:05

You know, you're you're making a mistake so You know RC Sproul used to say that Jonathan Edwards was the most important American Wow Wow All right.

01:02:18

So you guys have been both very gracious with your time Thank you, because we've been going a little over an hour now.

01:02:24

Do you have time for a few questions? Sure. All right, so And comments, so this is a common encouraging comment

01:02:33

That ne I don't know. These are the initials I suppose I appreciate the counterbalance perspective that you provide in your subject curation

01:02:39

John I was also raised with a mostly glorified view of the Puritans and of course, you know, let levy levy stop by to say

01:02:46

Hey, dr. Smith and dr. Roberts and John Let's see, okay, so this is more of a critical big

01:02:56

Yehuda these I can't get over some of these images and avatars.

01:03:01

I love the Abbeville Institute My problem is blaming unitarianism and liberalism in general on the Puritans I think we already covered that do you have anything to add?

01:03:09

Well, we're Yehuda. Where else does it come from? I mean that it that there is

01:03:16

There is a kind of subsidian heresy in the way the Puritans Understood human society and that paved the way for unitarianism.

01:03:27

I mean, it just doesn't blossom anywhere else and you see the same thing with other groups a

01:03:34

Lot of religious movements eventually secularized piety that pietism the same way and in some ways the the

01:03:45

New England culture is a Very leftist and and I know that the the old

01:03:52

Puritans would not approve. I understand that But they helped produce.

01:03:57

I think a society that was overbearing over central centralized and these

01:04:06

Unitarians were the children and grandchildren of the Puritans and It's not to lay blame.

01:04:13

I'm not about laying blame here. I just want to understand how things develop and That's the way history works.

01:04:23

History is very messy and it has all kinds of points of Complicated Areas to try to figure out and that's all we're trying to do.

01:04:36

Yeah Sword against chaos says I'm proud to have supported the 1607 project through my support of the

01:04:42

Abbeville Institute Thank you sword against chaos and Gilbert Nicholson asks Can you ask your two guests if the

01:04:48

Celtic thesis of University of Alabama historian Grady? McWhinney is it

01:04:54

McWhinney? And Horace McDonald which promotes that most Southerners are of Celtic origin is relevant

01:05:02

Is that relevant? They're not mostly I mean they're You could make the argument.

01:05:08

There are more Scots in the American South than in Scotland. I mean they're the prevalence of Celtic people settling

01:05:16

Colonial the colonial South is kind of obvious But what what we think of today as the

01:05:23

American South southern culture southern traditions is Is not entirely

01:05:28

Celtic. I mean there are many other traditions that come together in fuse

01:05:34

To produce what we consider to be southern cultures

01:05:39

So it's it's not just the back country where we're

01:05:44

Celtic people's typically settled Scots Irish people typically settled. It's also it's also the low country.

01:05:50

It's also even some some early urban areas and you know, there are Germans in South Carolina that played a role in Creating that culture beyond just the yellow barbecue sauce so it it it's much more of a of a fusion of things in which there are significant amounts of Scots Irish and Irish people playing a role

01:06:18

Donald Trump Donald Trump's Scottish mother is probably the most important part of his life and in understanding his politics

01:06:29

If you're the only one I've ever heard say that yeah, Donald Trump is a Scots Irish politician and That kind of populism is very much a part of it

01:06:41

All right, well next question is are there any examples of joy playfulness or mischievousness

01:06:47

From Nate Towers. Dr. Smith. Did they ever have fun the Puritans? Did it happen?

01:06:52

Well, I'll go to the mischievous part You know if you read the bad book affair with John and Jonathan Edwards Church where these young men were reading things they shouldn't have been reading and they were

01:07:08

Making fun of young ladies in the church It's something and Edwards in my opinion didn't handle that very well

01:07:18

But that would be an example of that mischievousness, I think there was plenty of joy

01:07:26

Among the regular Puritans. I don't see a lot of it in in a lot of the ministers

01:07:31

But I'm sure there was joy there as well I think they took the ministry so seriously as which is can be a very good thing

01:07:41

That when we read their sermons, we don't see the joy of everyday life

01:07:48

I think Jonathan Edwards had a wonderful family life Had a wonderful marriage had

01:07:58

Devoted children, so I'm sure there was much joy

01:08:03

In that home, so we only know well, you know, we can read and see and the person when you read the sermons

01:08:12

There's there's joy there. But boy, there's a lot of dour Things there, too.

01:08:17

So, you know, they had a lot of kids I mean, I know that there are exceptions but people who have families that large they they're they're joyful Yeah, there is marital joy

01:08:29

Well, here's a good question that comes off the heels of that one You may have addressed this before I started watching but was the pessimistic outlook of the

01:08:38

Puritans partly or mostly responsible for the church losing its sway and influence in New England What is

01:08:48

I'm not sure what he means by pessimistic outlook. There was a very positive outlook to start

01:08:53

But it went down pretty quickly Yeah, but the Puritan child rearing methods and tactics

01:09:01

Which they claim to have derived biblically Definitely played a role in their children grandchildren great -grandchildren

01:09:11

Rejecting their just their overarching Calvinist Theology Noah Webster is the best example of this the guy who wrote the dictionary

01:09:26

Webster's father and grandfather were pretty strong Calvinist and he totally rejected and he's repeatedly talked about how how terrible they were as fathers and Rejected that kind of the kind of punitive approach that they took to his child reader

01:09:45

That's fascinating and I we don't have time obviously to get too lost in this tangent, but I've noticed

01:09:50

I don't know if you've seen this on a personal level Some of the families that I have known personally who are very punitive very strict

01:09:58

You know the homeschool we wear the long dress the whole nine yards, right? I Have seen more children rebel and become social justice warriors from those families than I think in there any other demographic in my experience

01:10:12

I'm just telling you my experience on the messenger, but I don't know if you've seen that too. It's an odd Look at the it's evangelical author

01:10:20

Genre that has become popular over the past few years So many of them come out of those kinds of environment and they're coming out again.

01:10:29

I'm borrowing from Miles Smith. They're coming out of Congregational lots of non -denominational environments in which there's there's little denominational

01:10:42

Accountability, so they're there there's some issue with ecclesiology there and I have to add

01:10:48

That is a problem with the Puritans as well Yeah, I would say there's a there's a lot of Joshua Harris's out there

01:10:57

You know he wrote the book Kissed dating goodbye and sort of part of that Puritan culture and became a reformed pastor right himself and Then I don't know

01:11:10

I guess he's an atheist now, I'm not sure my family doesn't claim him. So yeah, we don't claim Kamala either

01:11:18

It is a problem now I grew up in a very strict fundamentalist home

01:11:26

In the South in the country went to Bob Jones University, which is

01:11:32

Arguably one of the strictest fundamentalist schools there was at the time But You know,

01:11:40

I didn't see the same Exit now, there's a lot now a lot of ex -fundamentalist now.

01:11:47

There's web web pages of former Bob Jones University graduates who are

01:11:52

You know agnostic or atheist and thing. I see a lot of that now I didn't see a lot of that back when

01:11:59

I was in in school in the 70s All For all my siblings went to Bob Jones and we are all following the

01:12:09

Lord as best we know how And I know many people who grew up in strict fundamentalist homes who are still following the

01:12:18

Lord Although there are plenty who have Made their exits as well. Yeah, so I think it's interesting to know what what are they leaving?

01:12:30

Or what is it their interpretation of Christianity that they're leaving some people that just say well

01:12:36

I'm no longer a Christian when you pull back When you unpeel the onion you see the thing they're leaving in many ways is not very

01:12:44

Christian after all anyway Right. Well, Sam, would you not also maybe you'll disagree with me?

01:12:50

Would you not also say this this kind of trajectory out of these churches is very similar to the trajectory of people out of Puritan churches

01:13:00

I mean the whole point of having the halfway covenant in the 1660s is because these people were

01:13:07

Leaving the church and they're leaving the church because they simply could not sustain

01:13:13

The kind of spiritual disciplines that these people weren't or they were in the visible church, but the ministers had not agreed that the parents were yet converted so they

01:13:25

They didn't believe that they should have the assurance of salvation so they weren't full members now

01:13:32

What do you do with their children? And so the halfway covenant was a compromise. Okay, we'll baptize those children

01:13:40

Because before that you weren't supposed to have your child baptized until you had owned the covenant

01:13:46

And you were assured of your own or at least you had proven that you had been converted by a sanctified life the halfway covenant was a more a preservation project than a purity project

01:14:05

And that's why I see it as as one of those signposts of declension We have a question

01:14:12

Oh, actually, this is a nice statement any wrote back and said that up until now he did not have the language to refute

01:14:19

The kind of my words not your self -loathing moral perfectionism, so he's grateful for your words

01:14:25

And then of course, you know Jake Starbuck apparently showed up in the chat He must have heard we were doing this so and he paid five dollars for this question

01:14:33

Wow. All right. So it's Hobbes Bodine or Bowdoin and Rousseau.

01:14:39

Did I say it wrong? Bodine okay, and Rousseau verse Aristotle and Althusias or put another way the worldview of the

01:14:48

French Revolution Versed the Medieval West. I'm not intelligent enough to understand this question. So I'm hoping one of you is well look,

01:14:58

I Honestly, I don't understand why people look to the

01:15:03

Puritans as a political path out of our contemporary problems

01:15:11

I mean it seems to me that a lot of folks who are doing so They like they like some of the laws that the

01:15:20

Puritans passed in New England Today, these are folks who you know, they want to outlaw pornography.

01:15:26

They want to certainly outlaw abortion They they want to make divorce more difficult to achieve and there's a lot

01:15:32

There's so much there that I would agree with but there's no reason to go to the

01:15:38

Puritans for this I mean there are plenty of other there are plenty of other colonies.

01:15:43

There are plenty of other Christian traditions That that did much the same thing as far as sumptuary or moral laws were concerned during that period of time

01:15:54

I think the concern that I have with folks who are look drawing their inspiration from the

01:16:01

Puritans Goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation That there was an inability to understand the complexity of human society and associations and We have always had culture wars

01:16:18

John my goodness. We've had culture wars from 1607 forward.

01:16:25

In fact, there may even be something about the geography of North America that makes culture wars

01:16:31

Kind of a part of our soul. I mean Indigenous Indians were having culture wars before European settlers arrived

01:16:40

There we've always had this and the key is to ensuring that we we have political arrangements that allow people to live in Tranquility with each other and Just like in the founding era of the 1780s that that requires

01:17:04

Federalism it requires a certain kind of acceptance Even of those things that we may despise but if you see human society as a singular whole it's impossible to have that kind of Acceptance that kind of tolerance that kind of accepting love if I can even use that phrase

01:17:30

It makes it impossible to live with each other in a tranquil environment and the most important conservative principle that we should be after is

01:17:41

Tranquility and it is probably the most obvious Christian statement in the

01:17:47

United States Constitution's preamble That was a good thought.

01:17:53

I don't know you want to follow up. Dr. Smith on that. Yeah, I would say Jake mentioned

01:18:00

Althusias. Yes, you know a Reformed political thinker who some have referred to as the father of federalism now

01:18:14

There's there's some there's some early on really good political

01:18:22

Things that take place in New England, so I'm going to say some good things here If you read

01:18:28

Michael Winship a professor at the University of Georgia and who is one of the leading scholars of Puritans today

01:18:36

He wrote a book called godly republicanism. He has a new book called hot

01:18:42

Protestants Now he goes too far in kind of showing the

01:18:48

Puritans as you know, these early founders I think but he does show with godly republicanism that When you combine the

01:18:57

Massachusetts Bay Puritans with the Plymouth separatists You do see a very unique development of Government that establishes the value of dissent that Establishes the value of the consent of the governed that edges away from You know establishment that establishes

01:19:31

You know concepts that would later develop into concepts of Liberty ie

01:19:39

You know Samuel Adams John Adams who would be recipients of these things Well, we should not discount a lot of the wonderful concepts of Liberty that come out of New England The thing we're trying to say though,

01:19:54

I would say and I'll speak for myself John you can correct me at the 1607 project is we're we're not

01:20:03

Here to you know, just call out the Puritans and say they're bad. This is not about bad or good so much as we're trying to say to people there needs to be a reset because people like Carrie and I who you know who have studied academic history for much of our lives we've seen the historiography of how

01:20:30

New England has been elevated to this this status that is beyond reality and That we're simply calling out the more fanatical

01:20:42

Spirit I think that emanated from the Puritan mindset, which is a mindset of control and we're simply saying there's been a long much too long neglect of the role of Virginia the role of Cavalier culture the role of Celtic culture the role of the many other cultures that develop that make

01:21:08

You know that that focus on the habits of life. Not just this one ideology

01:21:16

Of Americanism this idea of America, but on the ground realities of what is

01:21:24

America that's that's really what we're trying to do. At least that's my motivation in the 1607 project.

01:21:32

I Agree, I think that's actually probably a good note to end on we still got questions coming in But we have we're pretty much out of time.

01:21:38

It's a very big questions Are they no, they're not they're free questions. So Sorry guys, you got to pay next time if they pay we'll go in and answer the questions.

01:21:49

Well, that's very Puritan of you So I just want to say in closing Because I had such a great experience at Liberty University Studying under both of you as well as many other great members of the faculty there if you would like a history education

01:22:04

Liberty University offers Undergraduate graduate and now PhD. Is that residential or is that just online the

01:22:11

PhD? It's just online It's the the only PhD in history in the United States. We just launched the only

01:22:18

PhD in English in the United States And you know, you want to learn more about the

01:22:23

Puritans you want to study the Puritans. This is a great place to do it Yeah So check out

01:22:29

Liberty University online. I know dr. Smith. Dr. Roberts would be glad to Give you a warm.

01:22:35

Welcome if you stop by the department to check it out, and I don't know if dr Smith still has the big deer on his wall

01:22:42

But he'll tell you the story about that and the others in his office and and everything else after reform philosopher

01:22:48

Gordon Clark, so Man and the other thing

01:22:53

I'm slipping here, but obviously the reason we did this I want people to go check out the 1607 project and you just I think beautifully encapsulated why we made this dr

01:23:04

Smith and it was a commute well communal effort Not that we're in a commune but there's people from all over the country who felt similar to what you just said that Virginians have been left out of the story and we need to be

01:23:17

That needs to be a centerpiece of the American story once again, so check it out 1607 project