General Discussion

Unlike the evangelicals who arose from the Great Awakening of the 18th century, to be a Puritan minister, you were required to be educated. Well educated for many of them. Cambridge and Oxford educated for some. They also staunchly believed in universal literacy so that everyone in the community could read and understand the bible. They created the first university in America, Harvard, primarily for the education of the ministry. It's' named after....you guessed it....a Puritan minister who bequeathed the fledgling university his personal library of over 300 books. That's a lot of books by anyone's standards in 1636. That was also Puritanism's undoing.

All that focus on education was Pandora's box. It didn't take long for Puritanism to cool into a more benign form, Congregationalists. Even Universalists. It seems fundy religion and a focus on education cannot coexist. They're mutually exclusive. Thus, you get the New England of today. The most educated region of America and the least religious. And that's why my adopted region is Blue from the Champlain Valley to the coast of Maine. From Long Island Sound to the Canadian border.