When I hear the term “puritan” my immediate assumption is that the speaker has no actual knowledge or insight or experience regarding Christianity, Christian practices, Christian theology, or Christians as people. I assume the speaker does wish to signal a kind of non-christian lifestyle but simply has no actual clue.
That is a big part of it.
But also how “puritans” are this supreme scapegoat historically that supposedly explains a wide range of American behaviors. It is used to leverage sexual politics but it is always clunky at best yet way too confident. I would say few Americans actually have puritan heritage.
The other part is personal. I have had a very specific relationship with Christianity and grew up in a hard-line family. Since living on the west coast I find that many ex-christians and Christians are completely dumbfounded by my experiences while I am dumbfounded by their severe lack of knowledge on Christianity, the Bible, varying doctrines etc. Christians here are not, in my personal view, Christian at all. And most ex-christians who tell me their experiences have almost nothing in common with mine.
So generally when “puritans” come up, I anticipate nonsense.
Wouldn’t that make your experiences of Christianity the “abnormal” one, statistically speaking, while most other Christians you encounter have the more mainstream experience of Christianity?
Interesting. I wonder then what makes up such a dramatic difference in experience? In my experience with religion in the US, which is largely with Catholicism but somewhat with “protestant” Christianity too, it seems largely to be about what you’d expect for religion that is allowed to exist under a colonial project turned global empire: token liberalism in teachings here and there, maybe some stuff about charity, but largely devoid of any and all revolutionary potential (such as through liberation theology).
Do you have a book on Puritan history you could recommend?