Record-Keeping and Other Troublemaking: Thomas Lechford and Law Reform in Colonial Massachusetts

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Religious Organization ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
Vain Attempt ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
The Church

Historians have long discussed the different ways in which the first professional lawyer to practice in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Thomas Lechford, was at odds with colony authorities in his three-year stay there—from June 27, 1638 to August 3, 1641. Some accounts have focused on his religious views, since Lechford disagreed with the strict forms of church membership prescribed by the colony's religion, Congregationalism. When he returned to England, Lechford wrote a book called Plain Dealing in which he argued against this form of religious organization, claiming that he had received enough first-hand experience to recommend a return to the Church of England. This book has been an important source of information on religious and political arrangements in colonial Massachusetts, and so for many, the picture of Lechford as religious dissenter is familiar. Another important picture of Lechford, especially familiar to historians of the American legal profession, is Lechford the impecunious lawyer disbarred for the unethical practice of law. Lechford himself had written, “I am…forced to get my living by writing petty things, which scarce finds me bread.” He had been disbarred for “embracery,” pleading to a jury out of court, and it was assumed that this combination of circumstances forced him to return to England. James Savage wrote under his biographical entry for Lechford: “left here, aft. vain attempt to earn bread.” Other nineteenth-century scholars of colonial Massachusetts said much the same thing. William Whitmore, in an introduction to a collection of Massachusetts colonial laws, wrote that Lechford “was finally starved into returning to England.”

Principles Established in Rhode Island

1936 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-226
Author(s):  
R. E. E. Harkness
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
Roger Williams ◽  
The Church

Roger Williams is justly famous in history as the Pioneer Statesman of Religious Liberty. He can never be robbed of this distinction and honor. But it is not the only cause for which he should be famous. According to the well known story, arriving in Massachusetts Bay Colony on February 5, 1631, he declined an invitation to become minister of the Boston Church because it was constituted of “an unseparated people,” still holding fellowship with the Church of England, and because the civil magistrates of the Bay punished for breaches of the First Table, that is exerted authority in religious affairs. After years of controversy with the authorities of the Bay, sentence of banishment was passed upon him in October, 1635, and in January, 1636, he was forced to leave its jurisdiction. Reaching the Narragansett country, he established the Providence Community and later Rhode Island Colony.

Plymouth and the Bay

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
The North ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
The Church

During the 1620s the colony faced various challenges, some centering on a settlement to the north that came to be dominated by Thomas Morton. Morton was accused of selling guns and liquor to Natives and carrying on revels around a maypole he had erected. Plymouth sent Myles Standish and a small armed force to arrest Morton, and they sent him back to England. In 1628 the first settlers of what was to be the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived in Salem. These puritans were not separatists but turned to Plymouth for advice on how to organize their religious life. Samuel Fuller, Plymouth’s physician and a deacon of the church, visited Salem to aid those suffering from scurvy, but also persuaded John Endecott, the settlement’s leader, of the congregational principles on which the Plymouth congregation was based. The Salem settlers thereafter drew up their own covenant and subsequently chose their own ministers.

“The Most Glorious Church in the World”: The Unity of the Godly in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1630s

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Winship
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Antinomian Controversy ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
The Government

The dominant historiographical trend in Puritan studies, started by Patrick Collinson, stresses the conservative nature of Puritanism. It notes Puritanism's strong opposition to the separatist impulses of some of the godly and the ways in which it was successfully integrated into the Church of England until the innovations of Charles I and Archbishop Laud. Far from being revolutionary, Puritanism was able to contain the disruptive energies of the Reformation within a national church structure. This picture dovetails nicely with the revisionist portrayal of an early seventeenth-century “Unrevolutionary England,” but it sits uneasily with the fratricidal cacophony of 1640s Puritanism.The picture also sits uneasily with the Antinomian Controversy, the greatest internal dispute of pre-civil wars Puritanism. That controversy shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Accusations of false doctrine flew back and forth, the government went into tumult, and by the time the crisis had subsided, leading colonists had voluntarily departed or had been banished. In terms of its cultural impact in England, it was probably the single most important event in seventeenth-century American colonial history; publications generated by the controversy were reprinted in England into the nineteenth century.The Antinomian Controversy, evoking civil wars cacophony but occurring in the previous decade, offers a bridge across the current interpretive chasm between civil wars and pre-civil wars Puritanism. The crisis has generated a wide range of scholarly interpretations, but there is broad agreement that the Boston church, storm center of the crisis, was the source of its disruption.

scholarly journals The Church of England, Homosexual Law Reform, and the Shaping of the Permissive Society, 1957–1979

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Monica Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Homosexual Behavior ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
Moral Landscape ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church ◽  
Religious Decline

AbstractThis article re-examines existing narratives of British permissiveness and secularization through a discussion of the Church of England's role in shaping the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and ongoing debates on homosexuality in the 1970s. It suggests—contrary to existing narratives of religious decline and marginalization—that the views of church commentators, and the opinions of the Established Church more generally, remained of real cultural and political influence in the years leading up to the 1967 Act. Religious authorities were thus more responsible for the moral landscape of the permissive society than historians previously assumed. Nevertheless, British permissiveness was full of contradictions, not only in terms of the unexpected ways in which reform was shaped and brought about, but in terms of the constraints of the new moral settlement which decriminalized homosexual behavior within modest boundaries. Such contradictions were not confined to the opinions of religious commentators—they were the genuine essence of the position on which the moral consensus in favor of homosexual law reform was based. Through a consideration of the final collapse of this moral consensus in the years after 1970, this article reassesses questions of the nature and timing of British secularization. It considers how the Church of England, although anticipating and shaping earlier developments in approaches toward sexual morality, unintentionally left itself out in the cold in the years after 1970, as progressive opinion began to move away from the consensus on which the 1967 Act had been based.

1939–45—Puzzled People?

2019 ◽  
pp. 215-244
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
First World War ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
World War ◽  
Opinion Polling ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Data Gaps ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World ◽  
The Church

Analysis of the Second World War’s impact on religious allegiance is affected by data gaps and doubts about the accuracy of opinion polling and the rigour of membership roll revision. But the Church of England lost some market share, the Free Churches slid further towards nominalism, and the number of ‘nones’ grew, absolutely and relatively, more than in the First World War. Church membership losses were greatest in 1939–42. There were 1 million fewer Sunday scholars. Unlike the First World War, there was no temporary revival of churchgoing at the start of the Second World War, only continuous decline in Protestantism, with the index of attendance at ordinary services often reduced to ten or less, half of adults never attending or solely for rites of passage. The decrease is partly explained by wartime disruptions but churchgoing also faced competition from Sunday cinema and the BBC’s enhanced portfolio of religious broadcasts.

John Cotton and the Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Profile of Experiential Individualism in American Puritanism

1990 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-349
Author(s):  
Michael Jinkins
Keyword(s):  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Personal Saving ◽  
Antinomian Controversy ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theological Orientation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

There is much going on in the modern religious scene, particularly in America under the name of ‘Evangelical Christianity’, that seems strange to those of us whose Church experience is shaped more emphatically by an Old-World Presbyterian, Anglican or Lutheran theological orientation. The emphasis upon the individual and the individual's personal ‘saving’ experience sounds strange to ears more attuned to social responsibility and the development of the Christian character in the nurture of the Church community. Where does this emphasis on the individual and his or her personal experience come from? And how did it come to be so much a part of American Church life? Both of these questions could introduce ponderous volumes of social, historical and theological research. But, generally speaking, this tendency to reduce the religious life to an experience of salvation can be traced to the era in the history of dogma which gave rise to Reformed Scholasticism. On the American continent, this approach to Christian faith was promoted by the early Puritan settlers in the context of their own theological concern to maintain a particular manifestation of the nature-grace dichotomy which stressed the legal duly of the individual Christian, and to gain a sense of assurance of election, however elusive that sense might be. While it is well beyond the limitations of this brief essay to trace the development of the Puritan theological orientation, this study will examine one incident in the life of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to profile the development of this Puritan inclination toward experiential individualism which, in various forms, still endures.

scholarly journals Anne Bradstreet's War Upon Tyranny

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Megan Danielle Kluz ◽  
Vincent King
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Power Disparity ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
The Church ◽  
Direct Threat

In matters of religion, Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony had to tread carefully. If they strayed from orthodox beliefs, they ran the risk of reproach and even excommunication. This was especially true of women. Ann Hutchinson is a prime example. She was initially highly popular for her home meetings, but she began to draw notice from the powerful men in the colony. Hutchinson was preaching that people could speak to God directly, essentially disempowering the church and the clergy. To one Puritan leader, John Winthrop, this kind of message was a direct threat to their power; therefore, Winthrop made it his mission to bring Hutchinson to trial and banish her from the colony. She was not the only unfortunate female that fell victim to the stone-like oppression of the Patriarchy. Anne Bradstreet’s sister, Sarah Keayne, suffered a similar fate. She spoke out publicly against the injustices the Patriarchy committed against women. However, she failed to keep her social image intact. Winthrop and the other leaders stepped in to assert their authority against Keayne. As a result, Sarah Keayne was rejected by her husband and excommunicated from the church. Due to the fate of both women, the Puritan community was fearful that they, too, would become the next victims of the Patriarchy. Ann Hutchinson’s and Sarah Keayne’s social demise weighed heavily on Bradstreet’s mind. Given that Anne Bradstreet’s father and husband served on the court of magistrates that convicted Hutchinson, Bradstreet would have been all too aware of the dangers of criticizing the Patriarchy. Even though she was aware of these dangers, she did it anyway. But Bradstreet needed to be careful to remain well liked by her community, by both men and women. One social misstep would lead to her own excommunication, and women would be left with no one to fight for their basic rights. As Wendy Martin notes in An American Tritych, Bradstreet was a protofeminist who sought to change the power disparity between men and women to break the bonds of oppression for all women. This is particularly evident in the poems Martin does not examine. In “To Her Father with Some Verses,” Bradstreet acknowledges that women are indebted to the Patriarchy but turns this debt to her advantage by making the Patriarchy acknowledge her value as a female writer.

The Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-35
Author(s):  
Ingrid Slaughter
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
Review Group ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
To Come ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
The Church ◽  
Effective Procedures

The Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure 2007 is the longest and widest-ranging piece of legislation to come before the General Synod since the early 1980s. Like the recommendations of the Review Group under Professor Peter Toyne, to which it gives effect, the Measure focuses on the twin themes of mission and ministry. The Review Group's remit was ‘to ensure flexible and cost effective procedures which fully meet changing pastoral and mission needs’, and the Measure extends to areas of the life and legislation of the Church of England as diverse as the Church's provincial and diocesan structure, the delegation of episcopal functions, diocesan administration, and the processes for making changes to local church organisation and closing churches for regular public worship. The Measure also establishes a single central Church source of information and advice on church buildings. Finally, it provides a very practical example of the concept of a ‘mixed-economy church’ by laying down the legal framework for the new bishops' mission orders, which are intended to provide endorsement, supervision and support for a wide and growing variety of new mission initiatives, but without undermining the traditional parochial structures. The article sets out to provide an overview of the legislation, and to highlight the provisions that are likely to be of particular importance in practice or of particular interest for the study of ecclesiastical law.

Anglo-Catholicism, the ‘Crisis in the Church’ and the Cavalier Case of 1899

1991 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-258
Author(s):  
Martin Wellings
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Mission ◽  
Academic Achievements ◽  
Spiritual Leader ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
The Church

Much of the history of the late nineteenth-century Church of England is dominated by the phenomenon of Anglo-Catholicism. In the period between 1890 and 1939 Anglo-Catholics formed the most vigorous and successful party in the Church. Membership of the English Church Union, which represented a broad spectrum of Anglo-Catholic opinion, grew steadily in these years; advanced ceremonial was introduced in an increasing number of parish churches and, from 1920 onwards, a series of congresses was held which filled the Royal Albert Hall for a celebration of the strength of the ‘Catholic’ movement in the Established Church. In the Church Times the Anglo-Catholics possessed a weekly newspaper which outsold all its rivals put together and which reinforced the impression that theirs was the party with the Church's future in its hands. Furthermore, Anglo-Catholicism could claim to be supplying the Church of England with many of its saints and with a fair proportion of its scholars. Slum priests like R. R. Dolling and Arthur Stanton gave their lives to the task of urban mission; Edward King, bishop of Lincoln, was hailed as a spiritual leader by churchmen of all parties; Charles Gore, Walter Frere and Darwell Stone were scholars of renown, while Frank Weston, bishop of Zanzibar, combined academic achievements and missionary zeal with personal qualities which brought him an unexpected pre-eminence at the 1920 Lambeth Conference. In the last decade of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century, therefore, Anglo-Catholicism was the party of advance, offering leadership and vision and presenting the Church of England with a concept of Catholicity which many found attractive.

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