hi there everyone and our new unit we're going to be studying the Puritans you might have heard them referred to as Pilgrims before for the sake of our class and for accuracy we'll be using the term Puritan from here on out in this particular slide show we're going to be studying their religious beliefs and how these religious beliefs influenced their daily lives as with that understanding that we will then once we are in class apply our knowledge of Puritans to how their belief system affected American literature let's get started so first Puritans believed in a purified church and that's how we get their names it's no coincidence that they're called Puritans and they believed in purifying the church they believed that that they were pure they sought to purify the Church of England from within they began to believe that the Anglican Church of England that they were originally part of had become corrupt there were religious leaders who were accepting bribes from people among other problems and they wanted to just sort of get back to the basics of their religion so they fled England and they came to the new world I remember at this point we've referred to America or the United States as the new world as the country and government had not yet been established so Puritanism is a version of Calvinism and it essentially asserts that humankind is sinful and they believed that God has determined that only some people will be saved specifically they believe that only people who experience what they called conversion or in other words a personal experience with God would be considered saved so Puritanism was not just something that took place in a church it was a way of life or what we refer to as a theocracy so Puritan spiritual life stressed self discipline and introspection so what that means is they led a very disciplined life they did not believe in excess or spending too much time with leisure activities and they believed at looking within themselves introspection constantly assessing their behavior if they're behaving as a good person what they could do better to improve their behavior Puritans saw their lives as a divine mission so what they really believed was that when they went into the new world that God gave them the new world they were the chosen people of the new world this idea is the precursor or the start to the concept of what is called manifest destiny we will discuss manifest destiny a little bit later but you might be familiar with it already from history class specifically the Puritans based everything in their life their home life their church life the political life everything around the Bible they believed that it was the supreme authority they used the Bible to justify their occupation of the land what is now the United States and their use of force against Native Americans so the Bible was tied into everything so it wasn't just something they used to follow religiously but it was also used to help them create their laws the Bible was intertwined in their court system as well in other words there was no separation of church and state Puritans believed that God was judgmental how you would be rewarded if you were good and you would be punished if you were bad they also believed in what's called predestination or election so they believed that your salvation or your damnation was predetermined by God in other words it was already decided at Birth what would happen to you when you die they also believed in original sin which essentially means that humans are innately sinful human beings sin so if you were a Puritan how would you know if you were one of the elect or one of the people who would be saved Puritans examine themselves and their lives constantly by looking for evidence of their election so some of these pieces of evidence would be if you felt guilt and remorse about doing something that was a sign of God's grace and possibly evidence that you would be saved if you were a hard worker or you're industrious person or you saved your money that was also a sign of that you could possibly be a saved person also strangely enough if you were a successful business person it was also a sign that you could be one of the elect or saved the Puritan Church did not welcome everyone in fact they were an exclusive Church not inclusive so in other words they would openly reject people from participating in their church a true Church they believed consisted not of everyone but only of the elect interestingly enough remember now there's no separation of church and state with regard to the way the Puritans ran their colony so their citizenship was actually tied to church membership so if you want it to be a citizen of the colony you also need it to be a member of the church that means people were motivated to prove the relationship with God in order to be a citizen if you did not believe in God or you practiced a different religion you were not allowed to be a citizen of a Puritan colony you would be exiled or in other words forced to live somewhere else possibly all along as a test of election many New England churches actually began to require applicants for church membership to testify to the personal experience of God in the form of autobiographical conversion narratives so in other words if you wanted to become a citizen and part of the church you would actually need to write down a story or an essay detailing an experience that you have had with God and you would sort of have to swear to that in court testify essentially that this really happened and then they would consider granting you citizenship Puritans believed that by nature people are wholly sinful and only good things could be achieved through very severe discipline hard work was considered a religious duty an emphasis was laid on constant self-examination and self-discipline I'm just going to summarize this paragraph here you may learn things like drunkenness gambling participating in theatrical performances among other things were punishable offenses for Puritans and then it's absolutely true they believed in living such a disciplined life that you know if you skipped church on Sunday if you drank in excess if you gambled these things were punishable you could be put in jail for these things however with that said the severity of this code of behavior of the early Puritans is often exaggerated so Puritans did drink Puritans did play games and engage in theatrical perform but nothing in excess keep in mind that Puritans were highly illiterate people they believed in education it was highly valued as a way to fight atheism and to instill in children the value of hard work but please keep in mind there specifically about fighting atheism so education was used as a means to preserve their religion they held the writing of history and high regard they wrote narratives journals biographies hymns and sermons but almost all of their writing is religiously based so I'll go over that again almost all of their writing was religiously based so with that said I'd like for you to think and to reflect how my the beliefs of the Puritans affect the kinds of writings that were produced in the beginnings of the United States of America what do you think