established the New Haven Colony in 1638. Assisting him in the formation and administration of the colony was Theophilus Eaton, a boyhood friend and a wealthy businessman who saw great commercial opportunity in the venture overseas. Eaton also shared Davenport’s commitment to establish a community in New England that would place both the church and the society around it exclusively under biblical laws. Under Davenport’s extreme orthodoxy, New Haven became a theocracy, more thorough than Massachusetts. Davenport and Eaton together applied an unbending moral discipline that became intolerable to most of the citizenry, as a contemporary study of legal decisions in the New Haven Colony demonstrates.16 Eventually, Davenport left Connecticut for New Jersey, which he hoped would be a more hospitable climate. In addition, and perhaps most important in a practical sense, New Haven’s choice of political alliances led to a loss of support in England in the 1650s, virtually eliminating its colonial status.
By contrast, Hooker’s approach in Hartford was more moderate. He and his congregation had departed Cambridge, Massachusetts, to put some geographic distance between themselves and another rigid Puritan, Rev. John Cotton, the quintessential conservative Congregationalist in New England. Once in Hartford, Hooker often revealed a broader perspective and greater flexibility in his approach to both ecclesiastical and governmental issues. Most readers will be familiar with his conviction that the authority of the government depended on the free consent of the people. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, usually ascribed to Roger Ludlow and endorsed by the neighboring villages of Windsor and Wethersfield, was set in motion by a sermon of Hooker’s on May 31, 1638. The Fundamental Orders became the basis for Connecticut’s constitution, the first in America and the basis for the U.S. Constitution a century and a half later.
Unique among colonial leaders in New England, Hooker’s preaching, based on biblical patterns, sought to place the responsibility for choosing the colony’s leaders in the freemen among the population rather than relying only on the learned abilities of the clergy or on royal wisdom. It represented another major shift in Connecticut’s approach to the various issues that faced the new colony. Though not exceptional in its format, the subsequent eleven fundamental orders made no mention of the Crown’s authority; had no religious test for the privilege to vote; put the election of the governor, deputies, and magistrates in the hands of the colony’s freemen; and granted the general court full authority. Connecticut, as a result, became an exceptionally free, moderate, and middle-of-the road state, not only in its religious culture but also in its political organization. As Connecticut evolved and ultimately became one of the United States of America in 1776, it also became accustomed to respond to crime in ways that, although still basically retributive, were more moderate in tone and gradually more rational than religious, distinguishing it not only from New Haven but also from the rigid Puritan base established in Massachusetts Bay.
Hooker also believed and taught that even the most errant and stubborn human being was not beyond the reach of God’s love in this world. Along with his associate, Rev. Samuel Stone, for example, Hooker decided to allow admittance to the church membership as soon as an applicant had achieved some hope of their salvation rather than forcing them to wait until definitive experiential proof of faith was available, because “God receives into covenant partnership the weak as well as the strong.”17 That small measure of leniency, tame by modern standards of flexibility, was contrary to the long-standing Puritan tradition. Hooker believed spiritual change was incremental and often hidden from view. His assumption that no one was beyond God’s reach became a foundational part of Connecticut culture, with vast implications for its approach to justice.
The adaptation of a rigid religious discipline to the varied conditions of the Americas serves as an early example of the application of the rehabilitation ideal that came to be an essential part of U.S. culture. Adopted widely by the prison reform movement of the nineteenth century and eventually embraced by the founders of the CPA, this ideal is acknowledged whenever the United States is described as a “second chance” nation, a metaphor that runs throughout American history. Over the course of the next century, Hooker’s more compassionate approach prevailed, producing what came to be called the “Congregational Way,” characterized by an “extensive and universal charity.”18
A second essential link in the evolution of progressive religious influences on the New England culture was the work of the reverend Jonathan Edwards (1703–58). Though his pastorates were in Massachusetts, his preaching had an immense impact on Connecticut pastors through his role in the First Great Awakening (1730–50).19 He is remembered today, unfortunately, for his few fire-and-brimstone sermons (e.g., “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”). Edwards was, in fact, orthodox in most of his theological positions and preached a strong biblical message about the reality of God’s requirements and the threat of losing the gift of salvation. But he was far more influential during his pastorates through his steady proclamations about living lives of unselfish charity and the duty of all Christians to be good Samaritans as they worked out their eternal salvation in daily life.
The center of Jonathan Edwards’s preaching and writing during the First Great Awakening in the 1730s was characterized by a “sense of the heart,” amplified by rationally faithful analysis of the scriptures and of the situation facing each individual Christian. What an individual believed was important to Edwards, but much more significant was how an individual experienced God and acted toward others. The concept of a covenantal relationship with other Christians and the community at large was critical for Edwards, linked to the biblical stories of the ancient covenants made by God with humanity. In addition to the quest for a heavenly reward, his audiences wherever he spoke were told that their personal decision to be part of the church was a key not only to their eternal destiny but even more so for the community they shared on earth. Heartfelt love of one’s neighbor rather than theological self-righteousness was, for Edwards, the truly spiritual effect of conversion and the confirmation of its reality. He believed that the most virtuous act one could perform was to help a stranger without expecting anything in return. Even more than the doing of evil deeds, it was the failure to let God’s grace work itself out creatively in ways that build up community that put the Christian in the path of God’s wrath.20
Jonathan Edwards’s powerful intellect and writings strengthened the trend in Protestantism toward conversion as a willful response to God’s love, not just a passive acceptance of divine love. Other eminent nineteenth-century preachers carried on the trend. Many, if not most of them, had been trained at Yale Divinity School, where faculty members like Nathaniel Taylor built the Edwardian strain of theology into a reformed Calvinist curriculum.
Nathaniel Taylor became one of New England’s leading Protestant thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century, teaching and writing a system of Christian thought known as New Haven Theology (also known as New England Theology). Appointed to the Yale faculty in 1822, he taught there for the rest of his life. During his tenure New England was caught up in the Second Great Awakening, a widespread religious revival in America, generally east of the Mississippi and contained within the years between 1790 and 1830. The Second Great Awakening occurred primarily in Protestant churches. The denominations engaged in the revivals were principally Baptist and evangelical Methodist congregations and pastors, but the movement was embraced by a number of Congregational churches as well, including some prominent congregations in New England. Although the transformative power of the movement dissipated after 1830, the passion for conversion in the United States lingered until the Civil War.
Of interest to our narrative is the fact that the center of Nathaniel Taylor’s approach was a theological perspective contrary to the Second Great Awakening, utilizing the insights of the Enlightenment and open to the new sciences being developed. The New Haven Theology, which Taylor taught at Yale Divinity School for several decades, featured an increased optimism about the human capacity to choose the direction of personal and societal life, including religious beliefs. Such a modification of Calvin’s idea of the total depravity of humans stirred theological controversy, but it was in harmony with the diversified culture developing in the new nation. Taylor also promoted another novel concept for the time, the obligation of the church to be involved in society’s problems through participation in voluntary associations as well as through personal charitable acts. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his tour of the United States in 1833–34, proclaimed voluntary societies to be one of the principle