The “Puritan” Question

An enduring, potent identity.

A piece by guest author TJ Martinell.

It’s impossible to discuss any major social, moral, or sexual topic in America without the words puritan, puritanism, or puritanical eventually getting casually thrown around.

For most people, puritanical refers to a weird combination of repressed sexual morality and controlled female sexuality à la The Handmaid’s Tale. The most positive view of them is that they were passengers on the Mayflower who set up Plymouth, survived a cruel winter, were taught by friendly Indians how to grow corn, and celebrated the (not quite) first Thanksgiving. But this sanitized version of them focuses on their identity as pilgrims who just happened to be puritan.

Incidentally, few people can describe actual historical puritan beliefs, customs, traditions, or theology. In fact, the most common stereotype of puritans — that they were sexually repressed beings — is the precise opposite of what they were within their historical context.

The other interesting factor to consider is that puritanism was not a formal church. It had no official confession of faith. Puritans didn’t even call themselves “puritans,” referring to themselves instead as separatists, nonconformists, or Brownists. When puritanism as a movement died out, it did so with a whimper rather than a bang.

Yet, 400 years later their identity still haunts many Americans, whether they’re The Handmaid’s Tale binge-watchers or Southern Anglicans still not over the English (and American) Civil War.

While the pilgrims’ story is deeply entrenched in America’s heritage, many historically inclined Americans view them unfavorably. Libertarian Murray Rothbard, for instance, was deeply critical of actual puritan rule in his American history volume, Conceived in Liberty. Southern writers and historians tend to see puritans as the forerunner to Yankeeism, i.e., meddling in the affairs of others. The greatest influence on our modern perception of puritanism was from fictional works like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

Although many identities and labels from the same period are both obsolete and unrecognizable, calling someone puritanical evokes certain emotions — namely, genuine fear.

In my novel The Pilgrim’s Digress I depict a post-dystopian America governed by a theocracy whose rule is enforced by bounty hunters known as “puritans.” One of the reasons I chose to do this is that the name carries a weight to it that few others do within the context of the book, which shares similarities with our own present crisis regarding the future of the American people as a nation.

There’s a lot of talk regarding concepts such as identity and terms to describe ourselves. Scott Greer of Highly Respected recently addressed the question of whether actual Americans should identify as such, or whether it’s time to move on to another and acknowledge, as Brad Pitt cynically put it in the film Killing Them Softly, that America’s not a country, just a business.

I’m not going to take a side on that specifically. Rather, I’d invite people to contemplate a few things about the puritan identity and consider whether it has any value or use to us today.

The first thing that’s important to acknowledge is that it isn’t going anywhere in America any time soon, if ever. In 100 years, chances are people will still know what it means to be “puritanical.”

The endurance and potency of that identity is not something to dismiss lightly.

It’s interesting to compare the puritan identity to others in use today that have lived beyond the existence of the movements they were tied to. Almost universally, calling someone puritanical or a puritan is meant as an insult or to disparage that person for being overly moral, typically when it comes to sex.

Yet, it doesn’t provoke the type of irrational hysteria as calling someone a neo-Confederate, white nationalist, or neo-Nazi. One difference is that those labels have racial undertones that, as the country becomes more ethnically balkanized, carry more and more implications in modern politics. In contrast, nobody thinks of race when he thinks of a “puritan.”

Another difference is something that often gets overlooked, but is rhetorically important.

Unlike these other labels, puritans aren’t associated with losing.

Although it didn’t take place in America, during the English Civil War Oliver Cromwell’s puritan New Model Army effectively walked over every major enemy they encountered, whether it was Royalists, the Scots, or the Irish. Heroes of the Southern Cause are mocked as “insurrectionists” and “traitors,” because they lost, while Cromwell and puritans aren’t known as traitors or rebels, because they won the war — even despite the monarchy returning upon Cromwell’s death. Puritanism wasn’t defeated in England as much as it petered out once the monarchy returned. In Colonial America, puritan Boston served as the hotspot of the Revolution, and, as with English puritanism, it vanished like a ghost.

This is why the Left can ridicule other labels for being losers and throw up memes referencing their historical defeats when a Confederate statue is taken down or someone tries to defend Robert E. Lee’s legacy. Trying to damper the Thanksgiving meal mood by accusing the New England puritans of wiping out the Indians or stealing their land doesn’t make them appear good, but it also doesn’t make them look like losers.

Try making a meme mocking a perceived puritan for being on the losing side or for being a prude, and chances are the person mocked will simply respond with a picture of pulp hero Solomon Kane slaughtering demonic foes.

It’s interesting that Robert E. Howard chose to make Kane a puritan, because he simply wouldn’t have had the same appeal if he had chosen another. Though he describes Kane as both part cavalier and chivalric, what makes his character so “awesome” is the puritan angle. Within literature and perhaps history, the cavalier and the chivalrous knight are just as content to die in a conflict as live and win, provided that their cause and death are glorious.

In contrast, the puritan mindset is tied to the biblical narrative, in which good inevitably vanquishes evil. Further, that mindset holds that the individual has a moral duty to carry out the Lord’s will.

Consider this passage from one of Howard’s short stories describing Kane:

All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression, he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was wakened, there was no rest for him until his vengeance had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it all, he considered himself a fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous.

Such fervor is considered admirable depending on whether that person is on your side. Abolitionist John Brown was a religious fanatic who held a similar attitude about his purpose in life, but so did Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, a fervent Presbyterian who avoided fighting on the Sabbath.

While “neo-Confederates” and “neo-Nazis” are hated for specific beliefs (real or imagined), the puritan isn’t feared for any meaningful convictions associated with their history. While actual puritans dressed colorfully, drank large amounts of alcohol, and were sexually liberal for their era, the modern term conjures the image of an esoteric, solemn figure guided by a fervent, unwavering belief in his moral convictions and unflinching resolve in the righteousness of his cause.

This is to say that although the identity in our modern context isn’t tied to its historical reality, people still tend to confuse the two. The mistake in that is to reject an identity, a label, for reasons that have nothing to do with why it is hated by one’s enemies. The Progressive Left doesn’t fear historical puritanism returning as much as they fear someone who can oppose them with the same success as puritans had against their own enemies.

Some right-wing Americans like to paint the Progressive Left as the spiritual successors to the puritans in how they unceasingly seek to impose their views on others. This is true, perhaps, in terms of their mindset: they believe the righteousness of their cause grants them the right to force their beliefs onto others.

However, this shouldn’t be considered a point of criticism. Imagine if patriotic Americans possessed the same zealotry about causes and beliefs they claim to espouse? Imagine if Americans were as “puritan” in that regard about constitutional limits on the federal government, civil liberties, the Deep State, and our foreign policy or immigration?

The fault of the Progressive Left isn’t that it’s too zealous. Its ideology is simply wrong and antithetical to the American nation and its people. Their zealotry is what made them successful over a long period of time, whereas right-wingers lack that sense of moral authority. Too often they also want a quick, short-term fix to systemic problems that could take a generation or two to solve, and they want their enemies’ approval while they do it.

When considering a “puritan,” nobody thinks of someone yearning for the affirmation of those who hate him.

It could be argued that the preferred mindset for the Right is to live and let live as the Colonists once did… But at this point do we really need to highlight the flaw in that mentality?

It’s worth observing that the Progressive Left also views the puritan identity in an unfavorable light and uses it to refer to anyone who doesn’t favor unrestricted, taxpayer-funded abortions.

In other words, the puritan is an unclaimed identity.

Lastly, the puritan is, at its core, a religious identity, and it is the lens through which all things are viewed in today’s debates. One of the problems that has plagued the Right for so long is that it doesn’t speak the Left’s language, because it sees the issues primarily through a secular lens. However, like the puritan, the Progressive Left perceives all things within a religious context.

The only movement that will be able to counter the Progressive Left successfully must speak the same language.

As talk of Christian Nationalism is making its way around social media, we would be remiss not at least to acknowledge puritan as one of the few labels tied to the historical American nation that has not become converged, antiquated, or tied to fringe groups, while also maintaining its rhetorical effectiveness.

I’m obviously not suggesting that Americans call themselves “puritans” as an identity to separate themselves from the rest of those who reside in the country formerly known as America. I’m modestly submitting that it has power, and as we’re learning right now, power is ultimately what matters most.