UTOPIAN PROMISE - Annenberg Media

48 UNIT 3, UTOPIAN PROMISE
to your Quaker congregation at home, explaining your reasons for
undertaking this mission and noting the concepts you wish to teach
the Puritans. Explain what you think is wrong with Puritan theology
and Puritan social practices, and outline what kinds of alternatives
Quakerism offers.
3. You have been hired as the lawyer for Thomas Morton and the Marre-Mount
community in the wake of the maypole incident. How
will you defend them against the Puritan prosecution? Try to anticipate
Puritan arguments as you compose your defense.
GLOSSARY
Apocalypse The end of the world as it is prophesied in the Bible,
especially in the Book of Revelation. Viewing their experiences
through the lens of biblical history, the Puritans understood themselves
to be living in the “end time,” with Christ’s Second Coming at
hand. They believed that their purity as a nation would actually bring
about the Apocalypse, at which time Christ would return and reign for
a millennium. Then, the earth would be destroyed, the elect would be
ushered into heaven, and all others would be cast into hell. Puritan
ministers performed complex analyses of scriptural predictions in
order to pinpoint the exact day the Apocalypse would occur.
captivity narrative A uniquely American literary genre, the captivity
narrative recounts the experience of a white European or, later,
an American, during his or (more usually) her captivity and eventual
release from hostile enemy captors (generally Native Americans).
Enormously popular since their inception in the seventeenth century,
captivity narratives influenced the development of both autobiographical
writings and the novel in America.
covenant theology The Puritans believed that they had formed a
“covenant,” or contract with God. Like the Old Testament Hebrews,
they felt themselves to be a “chosen nation,” the people through whom
God would fulfill his divine plan on earth. Their covenant, however,
was not the same as the Old Testament covenant God had formed with
the Israelites. The coming of Christ had changed the terms of the contract,
enabling them to live under a “covenant of grace.” Right behavior
would follow from their acceptance of and faith in the covenant.
On an individual level, Puritans agonized over the status of their
covenant with God, but as a group they were more confident. Having
entered into voluntary church covenants, and thus into a kind of
national covenant with God, they were assured of the centrality of
their role in God’s cosmic plan.
election The Puritan belief that some individuals were predestined
by God to be saved and taken to heaven while other individuals
were doomed to hell. One’s status as a member of the elect did not nec-