Undoubtedly, there are many centers to American religion—many topoi around which the wide-ranging multitude of historical developments associated with American religion might be seen to coalesce. Among the several that spring to mind—commitment to family, gender negotiation, concern for religious experience, freedom, conscience, millennial eschatology, respect for the Bible, social reform, desire for salvation (and there must be numerous others beyond my ken)—I see the myth of the Puritans as a good candidate for premier topos. In recommending it as a central category for organizing multiple forms and dimensions of American religion, I do not mean to draw attention to the Puritans in the exactitude of their historical existence, but rather to the myth of the Puritans as religious founders.