On that old-time religion. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. In Harperâs, Marilynne Robinson has a [long new essay]( about the 17th-century Puritan thinker and preacher Hugh Peters (or Peter; both were used). Peters was born in England in 1598 and emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635; in 1641, he went back to England, where he participated in the English Revolution and became Oliver Cromwellâs chaplain and adviser. After the Restoration, he was put to death by what Robinson calls the âingeniously horrible and protracted punishment of half-hanging, burning, and dismemberment typically reserved for traitors and Jesuits.â For many years now, Robinson has been arguing in essays for Harperâs, the NYRB, and elsewhere that early modern Puritanism is foundational to Americaâs liberal culture and its democratic ideals â and that that fact has been systematically repressed. Her resuscitation of Peters is another entry in that project. Along with John Winthrop and several others, Peters was the author of the â[Body of Liberties]( a 1641 Massachusetts legal code that, Robinson says, âsubstantially anticipated the Bill of Rights.â Robinson is both deeply learned and passionately partisan about the Puritans. She is the only living writer I know of who succeeds in communicating something of the thrilling adventures of Puritan freedom and Puritan conscience to general-audience readers. At the same time, she sometimes seems too willing to assume that her audienceâs knowledge of the subject doesnât extend beyond viewings of The Crucible. Robinsonâs essays suffer from a pattern of omission that can make her, at her worst, a propagandist â seriously distorting both the record of the Puritans themselves and the large academic literature about them. SPONSOR CONTENT | Microsoft [Cloud computing tools are changing research in exciting ways]( Consider this apparently authoritative statement: âAmericans, even or especially historians, tend to treat the early New Englanders as dogmatists: narrow, pious simpletons.â Even or especially historians? The claim is peculiar. Well over a hundred yearsâ worth of scholarship has understood the Puritans as â just to name a few â innovators in the application of logic to religion; intellectuals at the cutting edge of natural philosophy; avatars of Transcendentalism and nature-worship; and (Robinsonâs special topic) ancestors of both the legal theory and the ethos of American democracy. Indeed, that last theme has constituted something like an obsession in the literature. The notion that historians caricature the Puritans is itself a caricature. And in Robinsonâs essays, itâs attached to a speaking silence: the minimization or neglect of the manifold brutalities of the Massachusetts theocracy. As Peter Laarman [writes in a response]( to Robinsonâs ârefusal to acknowledge the dark side of Puritanismâ published in Religion Dispatches, âWould it have killed her to make brief mention of the pious settlersâ treatment of the indigenous people â stealing their food, burning their villages, seizing their land â or, for that matter, their treatment of Quakers and of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson?â Indeed, the Massachusetts Bay Colonyâs execution of a handful of Quakers in the middle of the 17th century triggered reprisals from England on grounds, more or less, of religious liberty. And Robinsonâs hero, Hugh Peters? As Laarman observes, âRobinson fails to mention that Peters played a major role in the 1637 trial of Anne Hutchinson and was one of the ministers who demanded that Hutchinson be banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding heretical views.â No one knows this history better than Robinson. Surely her admiration for the Puritans â and her transmission of that admiration to her many fond readers, among whom I include myself â can survive an unexpurgated account. Read Marilynne Robinsonâs âOne Manner of Law: The Religious Origins of American Liberalismâ [here]( and Peter Laarmanâs âBreaking Up With Marilynne Robinsonâ [here](. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [Reclaiming Academeâs Idealism]( By Joshua Doležal [STORY IMAGE]( Lessons from Václav Havel for a profession in decline. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | OPINION [Abortion Bans Put Colleges in Legal Limbo]( By Katie Rose Guest Pryal [STORY IMAGE]( Post-Dobbs, weak medical privacy endangers students â and the rest of us. Recommended - âWriting is actually physically very pleasurable to me. I like doodling in the margin and all that.â Thatâs the great Australian novelist Helen Garner, speaking in a [newly unearthed 1989 interview]( recently published in Public Books. For more on Garner, check out Merve Emreâs LRB essay, â[On the Dizzy Edge]( (2019).
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- âIn a manner reminiscent of the cloak-and-dagger methods of Deep Throat, The Leaker told the Politico reporters that the draft would be left in some publicly accessible but obscure place on an agreed-upon evening.â â [David Lat speculates about the Supreme Court leaker](. Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. Yours, Len Gutkin SPONSOR CONTENT | K16 Solutions [Ithaca College Finds a More Viable Solution for Migrating to its New Learning Management System]( Discover the process and benefits of one institution's transition of 3,500 courses to a new Learning Management System (LMS). FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [What Community Colleges Need to Thrive]( [What Community Colleges Need to Thrive]( Community colleges and the students they serve were disproportionately hit during the pandemic. Learn how steep enrollment declines and the pandemic's economic fallout complicated these institutions' road to recovery, and what strategies leaders can use to reset and rebuild. [Order your copy today.]( NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2022 [The Chronicle of Higher Education](
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