Student Notes on The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

"A Model of Christian Charity" by John Winthrop

I can understand how this was a written as a method of uniting Puritan settlers in order to survive; for one, Winthrop’s describes having faith in God as having enormous humility and generosity, not only asserting that “the rich and the mighty should not eat up the poor[,]”... but the traditional Christian philosophy of loving your neighbor as well. Stating that all men “might by all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection[.]” Looking at the Christian principles Winthrop shares here, one can clearly see his attempt in creating a thriving community for Puritans as well as appealing to Puritanical beliefs.

Ambivalence

• Wordy Shipmates seems to take a critical yet supportive stance on the Christian ideology of the Puritans. On one hand, Vowell points out the dangers of thinking one group as “a beacon of righteousness”(24), as she makes evident by quoting descendants of the Puritan faith such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, who claimed that the removal of Indians via epidemic was “dealings of God’s wonder working providence” (32). While simultaneously arguing that the community and solidarity that the Puritans exuded has been in many a missing component in the ideology of the “Modern America”. She uses former president, Ronald Reagan, as an example claiming that he misconstrued the Winthrop quote he loved to use so much; forgetting the foundations of solidarity and community Winthrop preached by leaving “thousands of poor kids who had to skip lunch and sleep in poisoned neighborhoods” (66).
• . . . Vowell does not necessarily just slander the Puritans throughout her entire book, but shows some appreciation for them such as when she says “I admire the Mayflower Pilgrims’ uncompromisable resolve to make a clean break, and their fortitude, so fundamental to the American national character” (10). 
•  ". . . I find the Arbella passengers' qualms messier and more endearing. They were leaving for the same reasons the Pilgrims left, but they had either the modesty to feel bad about it or the charitable hypocrisy to at least pretend to" (10). 

Puritans vs. Other Protestants

Arminianism (supported by King Charles and Bishop Laud): "the dogma that a believer's salvation depends merely on faith, is at odds with the Puritans' insistence that salvation is predetermined by God" (9).

• 1620:  Mayflower Separatists  (more radical) to Plymouth
  1630:  Arbella Non-Separatists (less radical) to Massachusetts Bay. Want to reform the Church of England from the inside.

Ichabod's Parents?

• She also defends the Puritans against the idea that they were anti-intellectual, pointing to the founding of Harvard to prove that they actually held higher-education in high regard. 
• The Puritans in Boston were "communitarian English majors" (13).
• Compare with anti-intellectualism in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Puritan Text vs. Catholic Pope

• Consider Protestant investment in God's word (the Bible), not God's church (with the Pope in Rome)
• "... [Luther's] larger message became the core ethos of Protestantism: the Bible, not an earthly pope, is the highest authority" (6).
• In John Calvin's Geneva Bible, "the one the Calvinists on the Mayflower and most travelers in the Winthrop feelt carried with them to America," the Pope is referred to as "the Antichrist" and "the beast in the bottomlist pit . . which hath his power out of hell" (40).
• ". . . Puritan lives were overwhelmingly, fanatically literary. Their single-minded obsession with one book, the Bible, made words the center of their lives--not land, not money, not power, not fun" (13).

Who owns greed?

• According to Max Weber (1905), the "Protestant work ethic" embedded in the Puritans' legacy . . ."led to a culture of tireless labor and ambition and a new religion--capitalism" (44).

The Afterlife of the Puritans

I find it strange that every student in America has the same experience learning about history. Vowell wrote that “Americans have learned our history from exaggerated popular art for as long as anyone can remember” (Vowell 24). One would think that over the years the education system would change to incorporate a more accurate picture of what happened when the Pilgrims and Puritans came to America.

Faith and Imperialism

• Consider Winthrop's admonition: "We must not look only on our things, but also on the things of our brethren" (56) A call to community or a call to imperialism?
• While reading The Wordy Shipmates, I was surprised that the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony displayed an Indian saying, “Come over and help us” (Vowell 27). The Puritans’ idea of their importance to the world was heavily inflated, and it was the Indians who ended up needing to help the Englishmen who came over to the New World in 1620. I wonder if the Puritans were aware of this fact. This self-importance is also seen in the sense of entitlement that the Puritans had towards the land in New England. John Winthrop wrote, “God hath thereby cleared our title to this place,” concerning the plague that wiped out ninety percent of the Indians in the New World. (Vowell 31). They believed themselves to be chosen by God to enter what would be America just as God chose the Israelites to enter the promised land. 
• “The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief” (1). This is the opening line of Vowell’s book, and it seems it is also the best summary. She goes on to explain what she means in the next few sentences. By dangerous she means lethal, and her thesis is “by the time Cotton says amen, he has fought Mexico for Texas, bought Alaska from the Russians, and dropped napalm on Vietnam” (1). Throughout her book, she relates much of American history, including the not so good parts, to the ideas which the Puritans supposedly instilled in the country. These ideas have bred the idea of “American exceptionalism” Vowell argues, saying that the Puritans’ idea of being God’s chosen people was passed onto America with its ideas such as Manifest Destiny. She even says her reason for writing the book is because “the country [she] lives in is haunted by the Puritans’ vision of themselves as God’s chosen people” (24). . . .  While I agree that America might have gotten its idea that it is God’s chosen nation from the Puritans, I would argue the Puritans are not necessarily the ones at fault here. When they saw themselves as God’s chosen people, their main focus was them as the Church, something which America does not necessarily agree with. Since they viewed themselves as the Church, they recognized there were things which the God’s people simply should not do. Dropping napalm on Vietnam and committing atrocities against the Natives would most likely be looked down upon by the Puritans while Americans after their time would argue otherwise. Then again, Vowell also sees a difference between the Puritans understanding of being God’s chosen people as opposed to those who succeeded them when she summarizes Cotton saying “Break God’s laws and suffer ye His wrath” (4).

Puritans vs. "All men are created equal"

• Winthrop's Christian Charity is not in agreement with "The Declaration of Independence"
  "Compare [Winthrop's] hard, cold fact that 'some must be rich, some poor' to the shocking sentence of the Declaration of Independence, written 146 years later: "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happines" (37).