The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

The title of this book, The Puritan Dilemma, refers to the central problem that John Winthrop and the Puritans faced in their personal lives, religion, and politics: “[T]he paradox that required a man to live in the world without being of it” (31). Winthrop and other Puritans recognized that the world and its inhabitants are inevitably imperfect, yet their religion gave them an ideal of a better world, one which—though they would not see it fully realized until after death—they could at least try to imitate on earth. Their dilemma was whether to give up on those who did not share the same high ideals and withdraw into a separate, holier community, or instead to engage with the world despite its corruption. Morgan suggests that it is a dilemma shared by idealists everywhere and that, as Winthrop shows, normally the best answer is to work within an imperfect system rather than renounce one’s neighbors to pursue an elusive utopia.

Those Puritans who favored withdrawal became Separatists—the religious movement to leave the Church of England to create tiny “true” Christian churches. The Separatists posed the main threat that Winthrop combatted throughout his career. For Winthrop,