Of Plymouth Plantation - A Religious Aspect

The Pilgrims came to the New World with on thing in mind: Religious Freedom. Religious freedom to able to practice Christianity in the way they see it should be practice and not in the way the Church of England tells them it should be practice. And so they fled to the New World. Among them was William Bradford who became a great governor for the young settlement and also the man who wrote Of Plymouth Plantation, a book documenting all of the stuggles the settlers were forced to encounter. The Pilgrim's belief in religious freedom helped shaped the America we know today and greatly influenced American Christianity.



William Bradford's early childhood was what sparked his religious fervor. He was an orphan adopted by his uncle who is farmer. Due to William Bradford's fragile health, the young Bradford spent much of his time reading the Bible. By the age of twelve when he heard the sermons of a nonconformist minister Richard Clyfton, Bradford was absorbed into Christianity. In his book Of Plymoth Plantation, Bradford constantly refers to how a certain action "pleases God" or how the "Spirit of God" sustained them. He writes the documentary in a similiar style to the Old Testement.



Upon arriving in the New World, the settlers were forced to face a dilemma. How to create a church different from the old one? But it was through the struggles of defining the church laws and the shaping of the church to fit the outside world and the Puritan cultures many that the Plymouth Church was able to contribute to one of the greatest religious movement in America. Not only that , but the book Of Plymouth also tells about the roots of a core American belief. Aside from enriching the Christian culture, it also became the starting pebble of what would become a cornerstone of American Rights: The right to practice any religion and the right to practice it in a way they choose.



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Sources Sited:



"Church and Religion." Ed. Mayflowerhistory. Web www.mayflowerhistory.com/History/plymoth7.php



The Plymouth Church and Evolution of Puritan Religious Culture. 66.4 (1993): 570-59. JSTOR. Web.