Why Does Religious Conviction Endure Exposure?

-- JohnOMeara - 22 Sep 2016

I enjoyed The Puritan Dilemma this week. I agree with you that we ought to approach Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay colonials with a lens of theological presentism, but I turn my next thought toward a 4D-type interpretation of political economy and social evolution. I sense Winthrop's tensions among pleasing God, pleasing the colonists and taming the nature and the other peoples that didn't give piss to men on fire. (I recognize the overstatement.) It appears that Winthrop's religiously-dyed administrative charter stuck with folks for many years after -- and many miles from -- its initial seeding, though its effectiveness in governance required much re-interpretation and improvisation.

What, if not tradition, amusement, grandiose promises or real-life miracles kept the flock penned? Were Winthrop's communities not balkanized and rapidly adapted to their particular American conditions? (I'll try to answer this myself.)

-- JohnOMeara - 22 Sep 2016