Several recent scholars appalled by the seemingly impossible task of defining Puritanism have contented themselves with the supposedly easier task of describing the movement. But, a really accurate description is actually a good definition. To the extent that a description enables one to identify and thus partially to understand a man or a movement, it serves as a definition. Thus, whether one wishes to engage in a definition of or a description of the nature of Puritanism makes little difference. The basic problem is that of so delineating the Puritan movement that its differences from other contemporary movements are clearly discernible. Only in that way can one assess its role in its own epoch and its contributions to the ongoing stream of history.

Our freer, but yet far from freed, land is the asylum, if asylum there be, for the hope of man; and, there, if anywhere, is the second Eden to be planted in which the divine seed is to bruise the head of Evil and restore Man to his rightful communion with God in the Paradise of Good.

Students of medieval theology are acquainted with the fact that neither the formative years of the medieval synthesis—say, from the 8th through the 12th century—nor the climax of the Middle Ages— 13th century—conceived of Holy Scripture as being only a set of inspired books, the ‘Canon,’ containing the Revelation committed by Christ to His Church. Rather, the Sacred Scripture—or, as it was also called, the Sacred Page or the Sacred Doctrine—was to the medieval mind wide enough to encompass somehow the works of the Fathers and those of subsequent Doctors. Distinct though these were from the canonical scriptures, they nonetheless were viewed in the same perspective: Holy Writ and the commentaries thereupon formed one uncleft whole which was kept together by the continuity of the Church's life. The apostolic writings were in a way continued by the Fathers' homilies and treatises, and these in turn were prolonged in the early medieval tractates.

The Christianity which developed in the United States [after 1800] was unique. It displayed features which marked it as distinct from previous Christianity in any other land. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Christianity of Canada most nearly resembled it, but even that was not precisely like it.

One of the more fascinating problems connected with the history of the early Middle Ages is the persistence of similarities and the emergence of differences in the ideas and institutions of the eastern and western remnants of the Roman Empire. Equally intriguing is the related problem of the origins and the nature of the differences which characterize the Slavic and Germanic groups that fell under the influence of the Greeks and the Latins during the early Middle Ages. This paper will attempt to throw some light, on these problems by examining the field of missionary history. It will try to compare the methods employed by the eastern and western missionaries to convert the Slavic and Germanic groups living on the borders of Christendom in the period from about A.D. 600 to 900. Such a comparison might be revealing. It will permit one to see wherein the Greeks and the Latins acted alike or differently as each attacked the same problem. It will also allow one to detect some of the formative forces implanted in the Slavic and Germanic worlds as each underwent the fundamental experience of adopting a new religion.

American Protestantism has been unique in its relationship to state and society, and in its ideas on the matter. Yet these ideas have now been challenged, right down to their presuppositions, by the emergence in recent decades of powerful anti-Christian social movements in western civilization. One of these challengers, Nazism, made a significant impact upon American thought in the transition period of the mid-thirties, for it was regarded as a great religious upsurge of an unbaptized nationalism in the heartland of traditional Christendom. Thus in their reaction to Hitler's movement religious spokesmen revealed the basic social attitudes of their groups and provided answers to the question: “How did American Protestants of twenty years ago conceive the role of Christianity in contemporary society?”

Looking back over the stormy times of Revolution and Civil War, Thomas Hobbes came to the conclusion that it was superior force which had been decisive. The sword rather than the heavens had passed judgment upon the people of the Lord. The holy zeal of the early Puritans had run its course; the crusade was ended. Had Thomas Hobbes looked across the Atlantic he would have seen another “Holy Experiment” in decline. The second half of the Seventeenth century saw a debacle of Puritanism of such dimension that not even their most purposeful enemies of an earlier date would have had cause to complain. One recent historian has even called the Restoration of Church and King a “Laudian triumph.” Yet for all this, the Revolution took place and triumphed, if only for a time. In evaluating the political ideas which the Puritans held before and even during their rise to power, subsequent events have too often been taken into account. Puritanism led to Revolution; thus doctrine of resistance to authority must be stressed. The movement failed to hold on to power largely due to the Utopianism of its proponents. This also must be explained. The first view has often led to stress upon a straight line of Puritan thought from Christopher Goodman to John Milton. The second contention based itself on the literal application of Scripture which Puritans were sometimes apt to make. It was their urge “to build Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant strand” which led them into all sorts of follies. We are still inclined to think of the Puritan in sombre dress, his intellectual equipment symbolized by the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.

The Diggers who broke the turf on St. George's Hill Sunday morning, April 1, 1649, have an importance far larger than the number of people involved would suggest, for their action was the first effort to bring into being a socialist Utopia. Their bold combination of theoretical and practical communism baffled their contemporaries, and historians ever since have failed to see them in the totality of their meaning.*** Were they simply hungry men, agrarian revolutionaries filing one more protest against economic and social injustice? Or were they religiously inspired men who used the most dramatic means at their disposal to portray the sinfulness of man and the possibility of redemption? The ambiguity of the Digger experiment has lent color to both explanations.

The ground and provocation of the German Reformed Church are first considerations in the appreciation of its character. It is understood that the Palatinate Church Order of 1563, containing the Heidelberg Catechism and the Palatinate liturgy, introduced a permanent Reformed tradition to Germany. It should also be understood that that kirchenordnung represented the effort of a Melanchthonian church to maintain its evangelical consciousness against the pressures of Gnesio-Lutheranism. Later Palatinate religion arose thus from the ground of Melanchthonianism and in the context of the Crypto-Calvinist controversy—the creation of Zacharius Ursinus, a pupil of Melanchthon and Martyr, and more deeply of John a Lasco, the Polish reformer whose influence in this connection remains untold.

I propose to confine myself to exhibiting certain Utopian features in English Puritanism which displayed themselves during that classic tragedy in the politics of enthusiasm, the English Civil War.

Two problems are involved in the analysis of gnosticism. First comes the criticism of the sources. Since most of our information about gnosis still comes from the church fathers, we must try to determine how reliably such writers as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius have reproduced their sources. In this connection Sagnard's La gnose valentinienne et le témoignage de saint Irénée (Paris, 1947), is especially useful since it establishes Irenaeus' essential trustworthiness. Second comes the interpretation of the gnostic text once it has been established. At this point there is much disagreement among modern scholars. In general the older way of looking at gnosticism, set forth by such scholars as De Faye, Leisegang, Casey, Nock, and most recently Sagnard, is based on description and historical investigation, with emphasis laid on the search for sources and interrelations. Ideally, proof of the existence of these sources and interrelations is offered, and the proof is based on historical probabilities.

The crisis in the relations of the church and state in Prussia in the seventies, the so-called Kulturkampf, became acute with the passage of the May Laws in 1873. These laws climaxed a series of measures which had curtailed clerical freedom of speech (Kanzelparagraph), abolished the Catholic Section of the Ministry of Worship, suppressed the Jesuits, and limited ecclesiastical influence over the schools (Schulaufsichtsgesetz). The primary objective of the May Laws, according to the Minister of Worship (Kultusminister), Adalbert Falk, was “to secure the indispensable rights of the state while rejecting interference in purely ecclesiastical affairs.”

Every effort to deal with the history of ideas is beset by hazards. Semantic traps are strewn along the way of the inquirer; such words as democracy, liberty, justice, etc., point to different concepts or varying complexes of concepts as they are used in different periods of history and by different men. The unuttered and frequently unacknowledged presuppositions of those who employ them also vary; and since meaning largely depends on context the difficulties of understanding what is meant are increased by the difficulty of ascertaining what is at the back of the minds.

A dual culture and geographical barriers which foster regional development have made writing Canadian history a difficult task. One historian regards it as ‘an act of faith, the substance of things hoped for.’ All the problems which the secular historian faces as he tries to organize his material into a connected story are intensified in the field of Canadian church history, and up to the present no one has ventured to do more than to trace ‘certain general movements of religion in Canadian sociological development’.

The news of the accession of Suleiman the Magnificent to the throne of the Ottoman Empire in 1520 did not seriously alarm contemporary European rulers for he was generally considered to be a weakling completely devoid of initiative. Surprisingly, however, this supposedly weak son of a strong father (Selim I) took the initiative within one year of becoming Sultan. Eager to strengthen the position of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, Suleiman temporarily abandoned his father's policy of conquest in the Middle East and launched a series of powerful attacks against South Eastern Europe: Belgrade fell in 1521 after it had withstood Turkish attacks for over half a century; Rhodes, the main Christian stronghold in the Eastern Mediterranean, suffered a similar fate the following year. The pressure on Hungary, which was increased after the fall of Belgrade, discouraged the Eastern Europeans from an optimistic view of their future. Indeed, the outlook for Eastern Europe was by no means bright.

During the two decades after the passage of the great Reform Bill, the protestant Dissenters exerted a large influence in English politics. They were the staunch advocates of both liberal and humanitarian reforms. They first desired to abolish slavery. After that they wished to expand the areas of religious liberty to achieve a better social status for both themselves and the Irish Catholics. They strove diligently for a national system of religious education, comprehensive enough to include all the sects. Inasmuch as free trade appeared to them to be corollary of religious liberty and in keeping with their humanitarian sentiments, they joined enthusiastically in the crusade against the Corn Laws. Though they did not achieve all their aims, they did much to transform the Whigs into a Liberal party more representative of the middle classes, and to move the whole nation along the road from aristocracy to democracy.

In terms of the number of missionaries, financial contributions, and amount of home front propaganda, the missionary movement reached its peak in the United States in the years from 1890 to 1917. Only during this period did the foreign missions of the Protestant churches enjoy sufficient popular support to warrant use of the term “crusade.”

This raises the question as to why Christian missions should have had such a strong appeal to the generation which elected Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, embarked on a crusade to liberate the Cubans, and later sent its sons to Europe allegedly to defend the moral principles of democracy. Nothing could have been more quixotic than the slogan adopted by the Student Volunteers: “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.” This motto expressed the vision of the thousands of college and seminary students who joined the Student Volunteers. It was also the goal of the hosts of women's missionary societies and the Laymen's Movement, the organization which marshaled the support of more than 100,000 men in the churches in behalf of foreign missions.

America in 1830 could have taken Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon as portent and symbol. Itself the narrative of an ancient religious migration, the book begot a greater wandering, an epic in-gathering of believers from Europe and the States seeking New Jerusalem on the American frontier. Every Mormon proselyte knew by heart and in his own tongue the words of Father Lehi, refugee from Babylon, American immigrant circa 600 B. C.: “We have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands…Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord.” That was the book's portent, big with history and promise. America, it said, had always been promises.