Utopian Visions of John Winthrop, Research Paper Example

According to Kathleen M. Hogan of the University of Virginia, the historical yearning for some type of American utopia dates back to the earliest days of U.S. history when the Puritans arrived in North America after voluntarily leaving Great Britain in the early to mid 1600’s in search of religious and political freedom. Thus, as Hogan reminds us, the need for an American utopian community “emerged from a series of impulses that are deeply ingrained in the American psyche” and which are best exemplified by three of the original American colonies, being the Commonwealths of Massachusetts, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, all of which were settled by individuals who felt that the Word of God as expressed in the Holy Bible must serve as the foundation for American society (“Introduction: American Utopias”).

One of these individuals was John Winthrop (1587-1649), a wealthy British Puritan lawyer who strongly believed that the “New World” (i.e., North America and the original three colonies/commonwealths) had to be based upon the “European ideal of the utopian pastoral. . . and the Hebrew narrative of the search for the Promised Land” as in the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt under the guidance of Moses. Winthrop and his fellow Puritans also believed that what became the United States had to be based “in a Covenant with God to found an ideal society that provided an example to a corrupt world” (Hogan, “Introduction: American Utopias”).

By definition, the Puritans or more correctly Protestant separatists practiced some of the theological or religious principles of Calvinism, named after John Calvin who believed that every human being was born full of sin because of inheriting Original Sin from Adam and Eve as mentioned in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Calvin “reasoned that since God has infinite power and knowledge He knows everything that has ever occurred in the universe and everything that will occur;” therefore, God “knows what every human on earth has done and will do” and knows “who is predestined to receive His grace, have a conversion experience, and spend eternity in heaven” (Emory, “The Legacy of Puritanism”).

Thus, for John Winthrop and his fellow Puritans steeped in the theological teachings of Calvinism and to some extent old English Protestantism, the idea of utopia which can be defined as an idealistic and symbolic society where peace and harmony reign supreme for everyone, was a sort of early version of “Manifest Destiny,” meaning that Winthrop was convinced that North America and the land which became the original thirteen American colonies was destined by God to be conquered by the English. As Emory Elliott relates, after becoming governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which he saw as the Puritan “City Upon a Hill” or a beacon of religious freedom for all the world to see, Winthrop came up with the idea to create in the New World a Christian utopia where his people could “practice their religion in peace with each congregation having its own elected minister and its own covenant with God” (“The Legacy of Puritanism”).

In order to accomplish this lofty goal, Winthrop created a theocracy in which church members voted and owned property. All of the elected leaders like Winthrop then ran the government with magistrates and the clergy as second in command. Of course, the city of Boston as the biblical “City Upon a Hill” was to be the new Zion with its citizens as God’s new Chosen People (Elliott, “The Legacy of Puritanism”). However, Winthrop’s idealistic utopia failed to materialize, due to a number of disagreements between the Puritans and other influential religious sects and denominations. But nonetheless, Winthrop’s utopian ideal remained in the minds of the Puritans until the American colonies came into being with their governments based on English political doctrine instead of religious theocracy.

Works Cited

Elliott, Emory. “The Legacy of Puritanism.” 2008. Web. Accessed July 5, 2015. <http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/legacy.htm>.

Hogan, Kathleen M. “Introduction: American Utopias.” 2015. Web. Accessed July 5, 2015. <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hnS/Cities/intro.html>.

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