Anne Hutchinson and the Massachusetts Bay Colony

When Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston in 1634, John Winthrop was working to develop the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He intended this to be "a city upon a hill"--an example to the rest of the world of what society ought to be. He told his people that "When God gives a special commission he looks to have it strictly observed in every article," encouraging a "bond of love" where they must "love brotherly without dissimulation...love one another with pure heart fervently...bear one another's burdens." In short, he was using a fear of God and a pressure of the world to encourage a loving society based around team work and equality. He wanted the New World to become a sort of Utopia, where a team effort and mutual trust in God would prevail to keep a general peace and hope that could eventually spread throughout the world.

Unfortunately for Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson did not quite agree with his claims. She said that you could not win salvation by good works as Winthrop claimed, but purely by the grace of God. She said that one's final fate is predecided by the Lord, and your behavior on Earth could not alter His decision. Further than this, she claimed that all of this had been told to her by God, and that He would punish those who opposed her. This contradicted everything that Winthrop had said, and threatened the success of the colony. Hutchinson began to hold meetings in her home with as many as sixty people, most of whom were women, to spread her beliefs. She was becoming more and more dangerous. Just the fact that she was a woman standing up for herself was threat enough, but she took it further; she spread the word, and the majority of her audience was women. Women had very limited rights, and were also the ones that raised children. Hutchinson's daring threatened to rub off, which could have led to uprisings from women, or even simply the raising of children under Hutchinson's beliefs rather than Winthrop's. This threatened the success of the colony; if Winthrop lost power and importance due to a woman, all of his intentions would be destroyed. Hutchinson would have to go.

Personally I find it difficult to disagree with Winthrop's decision, not because I find it just, but because I find it logical. Winthrop's goal was a Utopian colony; he was basing this on a trust and fear in God and a hope that success in his teachings would lead to salvation after death. Hutchinson's beliefs were a threat to his success, which seems to have been mostly well-intentioned. Everyone wants to have an impact on the world; Winthrop's cause was noble. He wished to set an example of peace, love, and equality to the world. If the requirement to make this possible was to banish one rebel, I can follow the reasoning. It really comes down to a question of whether Utopia is worth banishing a single colonist for. I prefer to believe that Winthrop had good intentions than to believe that he wished to be the hypocrite that he was. The purpose of the New World was religious freedom; this was what he preached and what he expressed a belief in. Why, then, should he have found himself justified to banish a woman for enjoying this so-called freedom? In short, I can easily sympathize with Winthrop, but I can also see his mistakes.

Being very religious myself, I attended Church this morning and was assigned the Second Reading. Interestingly enough, it happened to be about this exact discussion, and I would like to include it:

Jas 2:14-18

What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear
and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them,
“Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well, ”
but you do not give them the necessities of the body,
what good is it?
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.

Indeed someone might say,
“You have faith and I have works.”
Demonstrate your faith to me without works,
and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

This struck me as being directly related to the question that Anne Hutchinson and John Winthrop so strongly disagreed with, and based on this excerpt (as well as my own general beliefs and interpretations) I find myself more inclined to agree with Winthrop on the works vs. grace debate. Personally I consider it somewhat unimportant whether our fate is set already or not (okay, so Heaven or Hell. Big deal. Do your best while you're on Earth, be the best person you can be, and maybe it will help you in the end, maybe it won't. We're not going to prove either case before we reach that point, and does it honestly matter? For now isn't it more important that we make the world a little better while we can? What comes next will come next!), but the belief that we can improve our position by being the best we can be will only lend hope, and reason, and general goodness to our lives. Winthrop was giving the colony a hope and a reason to push on through each struggle that they faced. Hutchinson, on the other hand, was snatching this away. Whether my opinion is righteously justified or not, I believe that Winthrop's words and actions were better for the colony than Anne's would have been, and though I can not call banishing her righteous, I do feel it had the better overall effect. I suppose this is really a matter of opinion, and it is difficult to choose one, but at this point in my understanding of the circumstances this is where I stand.