The Mayflower and Pilgrims' story is a quintessential American story. These were misfits and dreamers from the old world who had come to the belief that in the New World, through their hard work and ingenuity, they could make a better life for themselves, for their children, and for their descendants; that's the American story. It's this story that's often told in our classic school textbooks, but I like to share about their religious sensitivities that aren't often told in much detail and are not well known unless you have done some digging around other resources.
The Mayflower Pilgrims were from the general milieu of the Puritan movement in England. The Pilgrims believed that the English Reformation was incomplete. Theologically they were inspired mostly by Calvinism but also did have some unique features; for example, they had much more of an experiential piety emphasizing the need for an inter testimony and inter-experience of one's election and regeneration and also emphasizing more a personal faith than perhaps the typical continental Calvinist would. In fact, in New England in later years, once the Pilgrims and Puritans had established communities and congregations there, admission into a congregational church depended on the ability to give a persuasive account of this kind of inter-religious experience.
The Puritans, especially the non-conforming Puritan clergy in England, were harassed by the Bishops, but they were not outright persecuted that is because they did remain basically within the structure of the state church. But they were sometimes harassed and sometimes removed from office at times when things would come to a head. The flashpoint would be whether the minister would be willing to wear a surplice when conducting a service and whether or not if he would be willing to make the sign of the cross when he baptized the baby. The strict Puritan clergy was not willing to do those things, though often deposed from office but deposing from office was pretty much the worst punishment puritan experienced in the late fifteen-hundreds and early sixteen-hundreds.
It was also from among the Puritans in England during this time in history were those myths originated that Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter were actually pagan in origin and should not be observed. So the agenda for further reform in the Church of England called for a more pronounced Calvinism and public doctrine, and also, there would be no set days of worship and no Christian Holidays except for Sunday Sabbath. They did not want there to be any liturgical forms that were not specifically called for in the Bible, and they did not want there to be any singing freely composed hymns. They thought only Psalms and Psalms paraphrased should be sung. All of this was the general milieu from which the Mayflower Pilgrims emerged.
From this milieu, a smaller group of separatists did eventually reach the conclusion that the Church of England as an institution was unreformable and so broke away and rejected the whole concept of the state church, whether it be Anglican or Puritan or whatever. They broke away and established independent and illegal congregations. The separatist was persecuted because at that time of history in England and with most of the countries in Europe, there was no tolerance for the public practice of dissenting religion, so they did become the object of attention of the authorities. They were spied on, were often arrested, and were overtly persecuted compared to the mainstream Puritans.
We could say those Puritans were less tolerant of the Church of England as an institution, but interestingly enough, they were more tolerant of the individuals who perhaps had not come to see things their way. Another major difference is they had come to embrace a strongly congregational or conventual church polity as compared to the Presbyterian church polity that mainstream Puritanism had wanted to introduce within the Church of England.
King James, of course, was not sympathetic at all to the separatist. In effect, he famously had said on one occasion, "I will make them conform themselves or I will throw them out of the land or else do worst." So they took that as sort of an invitation they should just leave England, but an interesting thing is when they tried to leave England, he and his officials stopped them. But eventually, they did relent, and so in 1609, a sizable group of these separatists did leave England. They migrated to Holland, where there was religious tolerance, and established independent English-speaking congregations. It's that group that became known in history as the Pilgrims.
-Pr. David Jay Webber
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