I cannot remember the
lady’s first name, although her last name must have been Inman, but, sometime
in the 1970’s, she invited me to stay a week in Bridgewater and North
Chathamsport, Massachusetts. Her house was in Bridgewater and her summer house
was in North Chathamsport. I remember it was early October because we went
swimming in Massachusetts Bay, and the water was still warm. After the swim I
would return to her summer cottage and take an outdoor shower to wash off the
saltwater. The main event of the vacation was the Inman family reunion, which
was very well attended. Whoever these people were, they were my distant
cousins.
We then visited several
17th Century graveyards and found Inman’s, Aldrich, Jenks and
Winthrop gravestones. As time went by, I used to think about the original pilgrims
-- what was in their minds? What made them tick? There is the version of their
first arrival in 1620 that we all heard in school, which was presented as a
patriotic story.
Much has been written
about the pilgrims, but the two books that I think best describe what the original
pilgrims believed in are Pilgrim’s
Progress by John Bunyan and The
Protestant Ethic by Max Weber, sociologist.
17th Century
Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its drawbacks. Gay people
were unmentionable. Most Jews and Quakers went to live in Providence, Rhode
Island where tolerance for different people was the order of the day. The
strength of the Puritan society depended largely on killing the native American
population. Religious non-conformity and political dissent were not tolerated. And
then the Salem witch trials came along in 1690. The Puritan neighbors were
constantly going to court and suing each other over small and large plots of
land, and water rights. The plentiful court records indicate why we have such
good genealogical records for that period.
It is true that the
modern version of Puritan society is a world-wide empire called the United
States of America, but does this world-wide empire live up to the standards of
the original Pilgrims? Do its moral drawbacks outweigh its so-called moral
superiority?
Bernie Sanders claims the
U. S. government has been corrupted by Wall Street. I would say that this is
one example of immorality that modern-day Puritans should disapprove of. The U.
S. empire tends to bully third world countries and has not solved the problem
of white people in the U. S. bullying black people and rich people bullying
poor people. Our foreign policy seems much too bellicose. Our whole capitalist
system seems to be based on greed rather than on sincere Judeo-Christian
moral precepts.
Protestant Work Ethic
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
The Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work
ethic) is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which
emphasizes that hard work, discipline and frugality[1] are a result of a person's salvation in the Protestant faith, particularly in Calvinism, in contrast
to the focus upon religious attendance, confession, and ceremonial sacrament in the Catholic tradition.
The Protestant work ethic is often credited with helping to
define the societies of Northern Europe, such as in Britain, Scandinavia, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. British colonists and later Germanic immigrants brought their work ethic to British North
America and later the United States of America. As such a
person does not need to be religious in order to follow the Protestant work
ethic, as it is a part of certain cultures.
The phrase was initially coined in 1904–05 by Max
Weber in his book The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[2]
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is
to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of
religious English
literature,[1][2][3][4] has been translated into more than 200 languages, and
has never been out of print.[5][6]
When I read The
Pilgrim’s Progress, I found it extremely entertaining; the bad aspect
of the book was its apparent emphasis on being narrow-minded and humility
meaning self-deprecation. It trivialized many aspects of Christianity such as
the sacraments. But it did explain how 17th century Puritans
thought.
© 21 Apr 2016
About the Author
I was born in 1944, I lived most of
my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for
many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration,
dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor
dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired
in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in
New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
No comments:
Post a Comment