Book contents
- Protestant Empires
- Protestant Empires
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Reworking Reformation in the Early English Atlantic
- 2 Puritanism in a Local Context: Ministry, People, and Church in 1630s Massachusetts
- 3 Learned Reading in the Atlantic Colonies: How Humanist Practices Crossed the Atlantic
- 4 Portable Lives: Reformed Artisans and Refined Materials in the Refugee Atlantic
- 5 Idolatry, Markets, and Confession: The Global Project of the de Bry Family
- 6 “Better the Turk than the Pope”: Calvinist Engagement with Islam in Southeast Asia
- 7 Inventing a Lutheran Ritual: Baptisms of Muslims and Africans in Early Modern Germany
- 8 Conversion and Its Discontents on the Southern Colonial Frontier: The Pietist Encounter with Non-Christians in Colonial Georgia
- 9 Globalizing the Protestant Reformation through Millenarian Practices
- 10 Global Protestant Missions and the Role of Emotions
- 11 The Sacred World of Mary Prince
- 12 New Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality in Global Protestantism, 1500–1800
- Index
1 - Reworking Reformation in the Early English Atlantic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2020
- Protestant Empires
- Protestant Empires
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Reworking Reformation in the Early English Atlantic
- 2 Puritanism in a Local Context: Ministry, People, and Church in 1630s Massachusetts
- 3 Learned Reading in the Atlantic Colonies: How Humanist Practices Crossed the Atlantic
- 4 Portable Lives: Reformed Artisans and Refined Materials in the Refugee Atlantic
- 5 Idolatry, Markets, and Confession: The Global Project of the de Bry Family
- 6 “Better the Turk than the Pope”: Calvinist Engagement with Islam in Southeast Asia
- 7 Inventing a Lutheran Ritual: Baptisms of Muslims and Africans in Early Modern Germany
- 8 Conversion and Its Discontents on the Southern Colonial Frontier: The Pietist Encounter with Non-Christians in Colonial Georgia
- 9 Globalizing the Protestant Reformation through Millenarian Practices
- 10 Global Protestant Missions and the Role of Emotions
- 11 The Sacred World of Mary Prince
- 12 New Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality in Global Protestantism, 1500–1800
- Index
Summary
The best-known case of early American religious migrants is that of Plymouth Plantation. Valorized in US national mythology for enduring hardship to practise freedom of religion, the story of Plymouth is a famous example of the supposed commitment to religious liberty. For the many Christian commentators who have dug deeper than the first Thanksgiving, Plymouth connects the story of the Reformation in England to the founding of the United States, telling the tale of a separatist rebellion against the Church of England that led to exile, suffering, and a Christian founding. A close consideration of Plymouth Plantation’s early history reveals that Plymouth, far from being a unique case of pious commitment struggling with and triumphing over American challenges, experienced all the difficulties involved in exporting the Reformation. Plymouth church confronted all the same challenges of staffing, membership, and religious practice of any migrant church. At the same time, their storied commitment to separatism proved weaker and less permanent than their modern champions like to assert. This case study allows for a reconsideration of the process of exporting Reformation even as it upends one of the most central myths of the American founding.
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- Information
- Protestant EmpiresGlobalizing the Reformations, pp. 30 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020