The Puritan community in Massachusetts was a “Bible Commonwealth,” a collection of godly communities bound by a covenant or agreement with God in order to ensure the public welfare. This New England theocracy represented a priestly or sacerdotal government that looked to divine inspiration. As the 17th Century ended, growing secularism and more democratic ideals threatened to engulf the tightly-knit Puritan communities whose political and social survival depended upon the continuance of the theocratic ideal. In the many cycles of religious self-identities found in American history, the notion of some kind of theocratic relationship persists into the 21st Century.
Inheriting Old Testament Covenants and Defending the City on a Hill
Theocracy was not novel to the Puritans. In the Ancient Near East, Israel is closely identified with theocratic rule before the rise of a monarchy. God gave the Law, spoke to his people, and his presence within the community was manifested by the Ark of the Covenant, tended to by the priests. Puritans saw themselves as the New Israel, fully accepting the model of the covenant first evident between God and Noah after the great flood in Genesis.
Unlike the Israelites of the Old Testament, who looked to the hill or mountain top – such as the encounter with God at Mount Sinai, the first Puritan governor, John Winthrop, reminded the people that their community was a “city on a hill.” God was no longer transcendent but acted out his eternal plan in their midst. Thus John Cotton, and early Puritan minister, would write that theocracy is “the best form of government in the commonwealth.”
Cotton states that, “It is better that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting forth of God’s house, which is his church: than to accommodate the church frame to the civil state.” Such notions would lead to the Salem witch trials of 1692, ending only after the colonial governor transferred such trials to civil courts that did not accept so-called “spectral evidence.” Other threats to the theocracy came from internal theological disputes tied to dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.
The Theocratic Model
Puritans were Calvinists, following the theological teachings of 16th Century Reformer John Calvin. Calvin had himself attempted to create a theocratic community in Geneva, Switzerland. Some scholars, notably those analyzing the impact of Renaissance humanism and its classical influences, suggest that Calvin was attempting to emulate the early Christian Church. This early church, however, was not connected to any governing body but functioned as a minority group within the Roman Empire. Its leaders consistently reminded early Christians to obey the government as long as such obedience did not conflict with the laws of God.
But was Puritan theocracy any different from centuries of European monarchy which was also explained in terms of some form of theocratic ideal? Historians Perry Miller and Thomas Johnson suggest that “The New England ‘theocracy’ was simply a Protestant version of the European social ideal…” This ideal focused on rule from the top and was characterized by discipline, personal identities subsumed within community norms, and the Old Testament notion that God punishes entire communities for the sins of one member. As John Cotton wrote in 1636, “Democracy, I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government either for church or commonwealth.”
Theocracy and the Inheritors of Puritan Calvinism
In 21st Century American communities, issues like sectarian prayer at public, municipal meetings are often criticized for attempting to subvert the First Amendment in the name of theocracy. Conversely, supporters of such prayer use many of the same arguments Puritans used: God ordained this nation through a covenant to be a missionary nation. Sorting out history from current reality will be the job of the electorate. In terms of history, however, the notion of theocracy began in New England.
References:
- Perry Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1953)
- Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, The Puritans NY: American Book Company, 1938)
- Hames A Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (Yale University Press, 2003)
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