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Puritan Contribution Essay

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The Puritan Contribution to American Culture In 1630, a group called the Puritans made their way to the New World, a part of it that would later become America. They brought with them a uniquely structured culture of their time, a structure shaped by factors of ideology and necessity that was to be shaped further by extenuating circumstances down the road. The Puritans undoubtedly had a massive impact on an infant America so long ago, an impact that can be seen to this day. With both forerunners to modern American ideology and social and political practices, and twisted stigmas that would take generations to water down and wash out, the Puritans left a mixed American legacy, but one that played a vital part in developing American society. The Puritans were, at heart, a religious group. Indeed, that was the primary purpose for which they left Europe and traveled to the New World: they desired the ability to assert their own religious practices in what they considered an empty world without persecution by a group with more power and conflicting ideas. This resulted in a variety of beneficial results as regards the common wealth, but was interspersed with a few less than benevolent practices. One of the better religious contributions, interestingly enough, came from the idea of predestination, the idea that no matter what an individual does, their fate to either heaven or hell has already been decided. This idea spurred people on to try to prove to their fellow inhabitants that they had been some of the few chosen to go to heaven, and to this end they worked harder and developed ideas of exceptionalism, the thought that one group of people is exceptional compared to the rest. John Winthrop, a devout and influential Puritan leader, said in 1630, “For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” (A Model of Christian

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