Chapter 3 - Europe

Summary

This essay challenges readings of American puritanism as a primarily inward-looking and self-contained affair, whose main significance lay in foreshadowing the rise of the United States and being the root cause of a national ideology of exceptionalism. The aim is to put New England religion and culture back into a European perspective, by demonstrating how large the Continent loomed in the puritan mind and emphasizing the significance of the many exchanges with like-minded groups on the Continent throughout the colonial period. Drawing on a growing body of revisionist scholarship, the chapter discusses what we have learned of these Continental-European connections, while offering new insights into the dialogue between American puritans and German-speaking Pietists. In doing so, it also pays attention to how these relations were often triangulated with Britain. Three aspects are treated in summary overview but always with special reference to the works of the leading Boston theologian Cotton Mather: (1) the general perception of Europe, in particular, how puritans looked at the varieties of European Protestantism and through that lens at themselves; (2) the networks and collaborations on mission, reform, and revival between New Englanders and groups on the Continent; and (3) the many theological and intellectual exchanges that took place through these networks.