The famously strait-laced 17th-century sectarians who helped settle America weren't nearly as priggish as you might think, a leading Puritan scholar says.

The Puritans basically became Congregationalists. Puritans believed that church authority should be vested in the individual congregation, not in some powerful far-off governing body.

In Puritan New England, the church was the center of life. Sermons alone could last to up to three hours. Compare that to the relatively brief services of today.

The American Puritans of the 1630s and beyond were more ardent, and nervous about salvation, than the Pilgrims of the 1620s. Puritans tightly regulated both church and society and demanded proof ...

It shouldn't be surprising, then, that at least one husband in Puritan New England was excommunicated by his church for sexually neglecting his wife. Likewise, the Puritans did not eschew the ...

THE CHURCH OF THE PURITANS AGAIN. Share full article. Jan. 17, 1861. Credit... The New York Times Archives. See the article in its original context from January 17, 1861, Page 5 Buy Reprints.

For Puritan divines seeking to so persuade those under their influence and care, that meant using language in ways that would transform a person’s reason, imagination, and will.

Lori Stokes is an independent scholar who studies the founding decades of Puritan New England and Congregational church history. As Thanksgiving approaches, Americans look back on the first ...

The American Puritans of the 1630s and beyond were more ardent, and nervous about salvation, than the Pilgrims of the 1620s. Puritans tightly regulated both church and society and demanded proof of ...

Puritans wanted the English Protestant Reformation to go further. They wished to rid the Church of England of “popish” – that is, Catholic – elements like bishops and kneeling at services .

After 1628, dominant Puritan ministers clashed openly with the English Church and, more ominously, with King Charles I and Bishop of London – later Archbishop of Canterbury – William Laud.