How much I wish I had been able to read this book in high school before reading The Scarlet Letter!

Hawthorne was a fine writing, and one I still enjoy, but his understanding of Puritans was either very lacking or intentionally misleading. But then, that's the way we've all viewed them, including me! "Puritanical" has become an insult, meaning overly rigid and legalistic.

But the real Puritans were a remarkable group of people. They were not stodgy old men who hated when people had fun. They didn't hate sex, music, or nice clothing. What they did, though, is to seek to live lives constant with their faith, something we could all use a little bit more of today.

Ryken sets out to show us the way these people lived, and he does a good job of it. He doesn't find obscure and ambiguous quotes to twist into something he wants to prove -- he has clearly gone through hundreds of primary documents to see what these people were like. The result is really wonderful, and really should be required reading for any of us who think we know something of Puritans because we've read Hawthorne. ( )

31 okt Nationale Bijbelzondag
daarom kort overzicht van hfdst 8: The Bible

Motto: 'There is not a condition into which a child of God can fall but there is a direction and rule in the Word, in some measure suitable thereunto' - Thomas Gouge

-toegang van de leek tot de Bijbel
-natuur en scopus vd Bijbel: autoriteit boven traditie (in navolging Reformatie)
-principles of Bible interpretation: verlichting door HG, niet-allegorisch
-de Bijbel als literatuur: is de Bijbel dan geen heilig boek?, alsof alleen niet-gelovigen de Bijbel als literatuur lezen en gelovigen als Woord van God. Die tegenstelling bestaat niet. De Bijbel is literatuur zeiden Puriteinen omdat het over concreet menselijke ervaringen gaat en daarin wordt de stijl en de techniek perfect gehanteerd.Het gaat zoals Sibbes schrijft om: 'After God hath revealed spiritual truths, and faith had apprehended them, then imagination hath use wile the soul is joined with the body.'
-The Affective Power of the Bible: voor de puriteinen was de Bijbel een boek met informatie, maar meer dan dat. Het was een affectief boek. Een boek met meer-dan-gewoonlijke mogelijkheid om mensen te bewegen en te beinvloeden. Contact met de Bijbel werd door P gezien als dynamisch: 'Though men were hard as rocks, the Word is a hammer which can break them: though as sharp as thorns and briers, the Word is a fire which cab devour and torment them'. Het Woord van God leeft dus.

Here is my Discerning Reader review: http://discerningreader.com/book-reviews/worldly-saints

Those attempting to wade into the vast waters of Puritan writings are understandably trepid. Publishers have been reprinting classic Puritan works in large quantities for over fifty years, so much so that it is hard to know where – or who – to begin reading. The task of studying the Puritans is made even harder when one considers historically the distance that exists between their day and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Theirs was a premodern culture that did not have the benefits or luxuries that we postmoderns enjoy. Puritan thinking was much different than ours today. Even their language, though familiar, is somewhat strange. So what does one who desires to delve into the deep and wide waters of Puritanism do? What resources are available to adequately and fairly introduce the Puritans to a new generation?

Leland Ryken’s Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were is an excellent – one might dare to say necessary – place to begin. Written essentially as an apologetic for the Puritans, Ryken’s work has done a tremendous service in rescuing them from the shadows of the past and placing them in a clear light so that both their strengths and weaknesses can rightly be assessed.

Ryken has written a number of works, most notably How To Read the Bible as Literature. Although the author is a professor of English, Worldly Saints is primarily a work of practical theology and church history. J. I. Packer, that eminent expositor of the Puritans, contributed the foreword to the book, entitled “Why We Need the Puritans,” which is an excellent plea for Puritan study in the church today. Packer argues that the Puritans can provide a wimpish evangelicalism with maturity and balance. Ryken elaborates on Packer’s encouragement and proves Packer to be right.

The Puritans are victims of historical libel both at academic and popular levels. They have been accused of being workaholic prudes who hated women, sex, sports or any kind of fun. They were allegedly arch-capitalists who strove to enter heaven by the sweat of their brow without concern for those in a condition lower than their own. Because of their emphasis on experience, it is said, they were mystical, anti-intellectual, anti-rationalists who devalued the content of the faith. Yet, oddly enough, they were Calvinists of the strongest sort who over-intellectualized the Bible by applying a rigid logic to it.

In this book, Ryken takes such stereotypes and pulverizes them into dust. On topics such as work, marriage, sex, money, family, the church, education, and social action, Ryken demonstrates over and over again that the Puritans were not who their critics say they were. With copious quotations from a wide variety of English and American Puritan primary sources, as well as scholarly secondary sources, Ryken levels the deathblow to any who would use the word “Puritan” in a derogatory way. Indeed, what the reader learns is that many of the stereotypes (think of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter) are not reflective of Puritan belief and practice, but are in reality the warp and woof of a Victorian religious mindset.

The regular cast of Puritan characters is found in the pages of this book, as well as Puritans who are not as well known. Men such as William Perkins, Richard Greenham, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, Richard Baxter, John Cotton and Cotton Mather are all well represented. But other names that are not so well known, such as Thomas Becon and William Whately, are also given adequate exposure.

Historically, Ryken sets the Puritans within their embattled context against Roman Catholicism and certain strands of Anglicanism. His regular plea is to keep such controversial background in mind when questioning why the Puritans thought and acted as they did. For instance, their iconoclasm when it came to church décor does not prove that the Puritans hated art. In fact, many Puritans who removed organs from churches later bought the same organs for use in their homes. The removal of the organ was a reaction to the worship style of medieval Catholicism and had nothing whatever to do with Puritan revulsion with the arts.
Moreover, the Puritans elevated the status of women in their societies, valuing the role of a working wife who was seen as the husband’s equal before God. Sex, in the Puritan understanding, was a gift from God that was to be celebrated by husband and wife, and romantic love was just as much a part of marriage as companionship and procreation.

Under the influence of historians like Max Weber and Christopher Hill the Puritans have been accused, to varying degree, of following a money-grubbing form of capitalism (another much- maligned term). As is often the case in most critiques of capitalism, the critic confuses free market capitalism with self-centred, materialistic mercantilism. While it may be fair to say that the Puritans were capitalists in the true sense of the term, they were certainly not what contemporary critics of capitalism accuse them of being. The Puritans saw work as a responsibility first and foremost before God, and not a means of amassing piles of money. God intended money to be used philanthropically for the benefit of the community, even as it was the rightful property of the individual. In the Puritan view, being rich or poor was all in God’s providence and both had its positive and negative aspects. The rich were duty-bound to help the poor, but out of their free response to God’s mercy, not coercion by the state. Neither work nor money were ends in themselves, rather they were means toward the true end of glorifying God. The Puritans were both individualists and communitarians holding the two in balance, unlike the rugged individualist or the collectivist of modern political-economic thought.

However, Ryken’s book is not all aglow with commendation of the Puritans, as his chapter “Learning From Negative Example: Some Puritan Faults” explains. Although Puritan teaching is a model of balance, at times the Puritans themselves would go too far in protecting their views by erecting a seemingly legalistic edifice of rules to protect freedom. The Puritans recognized the value of entertainment and leisure, but sometimes diminished both. Depending on the Puritan one is reading, their prolixity is one of their more “salient traits.”
This chapter is admirable in seeking to portray the Puritans, as the subtitle states, “as they really were” – warts and all. However, at times it is hard to reconcile Puritan faults with Ryken’s overall apologetic. If the Puritans were in the main balanced on these various views, how do we account for their eccentricities and imbalances? At certain points it seems almost as though the faults contradict what earlier he argued for as strengths. We are told that the Puritans were adept at pithy phrasing and getting to the point of an argument or a discourse. Yet, they were also verbose. This can be confusing for one who has no experience reading Puritan works.

One other problem with what is an otherwise outstanding book is that Ryken does not address the Puritan view of the gospel and the cross. While Christ is mentioned in certain quotations from select Puritans, and there is a short discussion related to this theme at the end of the book, the rest of it is silent on this important Puritan theme. For instance, the chapter on Puritan preaching is negligent in regard to “preaching Christ crucified.” While it is good to know how their preaching influenced nations and that they emphasised the intellect in the listener’s understanding, the content of the sermon, namely Christ, is lacking. The Spirit is discussed in the section of affective preaching, but there is no direct discussion of Jesus as the cause of affection. Again, the section on worship deals well with church policy, vestment controversies and the like, but there is nothing on adoring Christ for his person and work. There is a doctrinal discussion of the centrality of the inscripturated Word in worship, but not the incarnate Word. Both of these concerns are significant enough that it makes Worldly Saints a lesser book than it deserves to be. In all other respects it is excellent. With those reservations, I still highly recommend it as an important introduction to and defense of the Puritans.

Great introduction to the Puritans. ( )

Misconceptions can often grow wider and more insidious as history passes. This is true of modern evangelicalism’s understanding of the Puritans and the heritage which today’s Christians have inherited from them. Leland Ryken seeks to correct this misunderstanding in his work, Worldly Saints, The Puritans As They Really Were. Ryken believes that modern Christians not only need to have their errors about the past corrected, but their souls instructed by these great saints of old. J.I. Packer, quite the Puritan scholar in his own regard, writes a hearty forward, not only introducing Ryken’s book, but preparing the reader to enter a world unknown to modern man. For the Christian, Packers forward is convicting and instructive. He points out the radical man-centeredness that separates Puritan theological giants from our own cartoonish theologies. Packer sets the stage for Ryken’s devotional and convicting style writing, as a preacher, he admonishes his readers to glean from these great men of faith.
Ryken lifts his subjects from historical fog and clearly exposes many of the modern fallacies that have unfairly been attributed to the Puritans. Ryken includes source material from both sides of the Atlantic, quoting copiously from such Puritan greats as, Baxter, Watson, Mather, Perkins, the richness of the material is apparent in every chapter. Ryken introduces his material in his initial chapter by a consideration of the modern myths surrounding the Puritan roots of modern Christianity. Laying out every possible stereotype, Ryken renders each one unacceptable in light of historical data and seeks to dispel any misunderstanding by letting the Puritans themselves speak. His chapters each deal with a particular area of Puritan life, marriage, work, family, preaching, education, etc. And in each chapter he allows the Puritan writers of old, to speak to each issue. The articulation is concise and lucid as the Puritans themselves debunk modern misconceptions.
Ryken’s chapter on the Puritan view of marriage is among his finest. He skillfully sets the Puritan view in opposition to its antecedent, the Roman Catholic view. In so doing, Ryken shows the history of interpretation that preceded the reformed understanding of marriage as a good gift from God and not a mere concession on the part of the Creator. This reactionary look at the theology of the Puritans gives the reader a great advantage in understanding what the Puritans were protesting in their own experience. The doctrines that they emphasizes were often the very doctrines that had been neglected by the Roman Catholic Church. Or, the absence of certain elements in their worship, i.e. heavy liturgy, shows the reaction the Puritans had to the high church stylings of the Church of England. A Puritan doctrine of work is contrasted to modern capitalistic misconceptions that surround the so-called, “Puritan work ethic.” Puritans did not see work as a product of the fall but as a gift, calling and vocation from the grace of God. The was no dichotomy in the Puritan system. The calling of a preacher was no different then the calling of a shop keeper, both were to work steadily to the glory of God. Ryken’s chapter on Puritan preaching is as invigorating as its topic. Puritan sermons were thunderously popular yet unwaveringly biblical. Puritan sermons were long
“godly and learned” becomes the oft repeated description of Puritan preaching
Ryken informs his readers that the root of the American University system can be traced back to the Puritan desire for learned preachers. Ryken’s inclusion of their use of word pictures is superb.
As to the organization of the book, Ryken is a disciplined author. His material flows in organized metrical parts. Each section is amply divided into manageable parts and each chapter closes with a bibliography for further reading and a few memorable Puritan quotes. The book reads very quickly because of his obvious commitment to clear synthesis of material. The reader leaves the work feeling well instructed and equipt to take on further study if the need be.
Ryken does not gloss over the flaws of the Puritans. He devotes an entire chapter to matters in which he believes they overcorrected or erred. He accuses them of using too many words, having too many rules and not redeeming the doctrine of recreation. Ryken does well to avoid anachronistic analysis of his subjects. But it may not have been unwarranted to include the Puritans role in the rise of American slavery and how their views of justice may have conflicted not only with modern sensibility but also with Biblical truth. The single criticism of the work is the strange silence in the chapter on social action in the Puritans increasing role in the propagation of the American slave trade. Especially with all of his interaction with Cotton Mather, Ryken could have mentioned this in his section on Puritan faults. Overall, Ryken is preeminently fair and writes as an admirer. His view is idealized at times, and he never seeks to hide the fact that he is a gushing admirer. But, the Puritans don’t need another critic and Ryken proves to be a welcome friend.
Personally and devotionally helpful, the work is suited to convict its readers of their own shortcomings. Insofar as the Puritans were exemplary saints their writings prove illustrative of God’s truth empowered in application. The Puritans were excellent practitioners and sought to live in a redeemed community. More then their seriousness or church order or any other aspect of the Puritan example two areas are most profound. First, their overwhelming commitment to the sufficiency of scripture was abundantly illustrated. This commitment was shown by the encouragement by the clergy to search the scriptures upon hearing a sermon, their confidence in God’s revelation to instruct them on all matters of life and their unswerving love for the word of God. Second, their absolute concern for personal holiness. Every exercise in normal life and ecclesiastical matters were seen as ultimately spiritual. The Puritans stand as examples to the modern Christian. Spiritual redwoods, our Christian heritage is seen as a towering, mighty and timeless concern for the glory of God manifest in the souls of men. The book begs to be personally considered by the reader. When confronted by the towering examples of these great saints, one must consider their doctrine and lives. Precision was core to their theology. Their God was precise so their lives matched. To adopt a Puritan view of life is to recognize that precision is God’s will for one’s life.