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.
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).