John Winthrop: A Familiar Society

A Familiar Society

John Winthrop was the power holding leader for the English colonists while traveling and arriving in The New World. When the colonists arrived, his ideals for the society were to have a community based on unity and religion and create "A city upon a hill." He believed that leaving the ideals of England's society, would ultimately help him to achieve the city that the colonists strived for. However, with his demanding notions for a unified community and high demand for everyone to have personal relationship with God, he created a similar society to what the colonists had known in The Old World. Old England implemented certain rules to control the residents cultural interactions, similarly, Winthrop built his society
The members of Old England were forced to be religious and follow Christianity. When Winthrop was implementing his religious ideals onto The New World it becomes apparent that his religious expectations for the people are equally strict. Winthrop states, "...To serue the Lord and worke out our salvacion vnder the power and purity of his holy Ordinances." (Winthrop, p 24) Winthrop forces the residents of The New World to create a personal relationship with God and follow God's lead everyday as long as they live. The way Winthrop forces his religious beliefs onto the people in The New World is homogenous to the way Old England obliged the people to join Christianity. John Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony strived to dismiss the ideas The Old World had implanted about community and religion, but in making their own principles the similarity between the two worlds can be seen. It is still up for debate wether Winthrop was successful in creating a "city upon a hill," but he surely created a society the colonists new all too