Book Review ~ Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America

on 05 June 2023.

Michael Winship, Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 379pp.

reviewed by Karl Dahlfred

I really enjoyed this history of the rise and fall of Puritanism as a religious movement in England and the U.S. because it filled in for me what happened between the early days of the English reformation and the situation on both sides of the Atlantic at the end of the 17^th century. Other books cover Puritan spirituality and devotional writings, but this book a history of Puritanism in all its permutations set against its struggle against the Anglican majority and the English government.

The narrative starts in England but eventually takes us to New England part way through the book and proceeds to flip back and forth between the two sides of the Atlantic for the rest of the book, maintaining a roughly historical narrative. Famous Puritan names show up in the book (Owen, Baxter, etc) but the focus is not on individuals but the convictions, practices, and emphases of the movement as a whole, as well as the struggle between Congregationalists and Presbyterians, conformists and non-conformists, and all of the above versus Quakers and Baptists. The author covers not only the height of Puritan attempts to establish a godly republic in America but also the failure of those attempts as second and third generation New England settlers who lacked the pious zeal of the founders were allowed baptism and church membership, thus creating nominal, non-pure churches similar to the Anglican churches they had left.

Early outreach and conflicts with Native Americans also get significant airtime with a whole chapter about missionary John Elliot and the villages of Praying Indians. Near the end of the book, the Salem witch trials are also covered, revealing that rather than being exhibit A of “see what Puritans are really like”, the trials were the failure of a newly non-Puritan English-instituted government to take the counsel of older New England Puritan ministers who counseled far more caution and skepticism in accepting “evidence” of witchcraft than was heeded.

The book was a bit slow in parts and I got confused about the details of English politics but overall it was a worthwhile read to understand the Puritans in their historical context, which is probably good background for reading works by Puritan themselves.