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The Protestant Interest: New England After Puritanism
During the early eighteenth century, colonial New England witnessed the end of Puritanism and the emergence of a revivalist religious movement that culminated in the evangelical awakenings of the 1740s. This engrossing book explores the religious history of New England during the period and offers new reasons for this change in cultural identity.
After England’s Glorious Revolution, says Thomas Kidd, New Englanders abandoned their previous hostility toward Britain, viewing it as the chosen leader in the Protestant fight against world Catholicism. They also imagined themselves part of an international Protestant community and replaced their Puritan beliefs with a revival-centered pan-Protestantism. Kidd discusses the rise of “the Protestant interest” and provides a compelling argument about the origins of both eighteenth-century revivalism and the global evangelical movement.
After England’s Glorious Revolution, says Thomas Kidd, New Englanders abandoned their previous hostility toward Britain, viewing it as the chosen leader in the Protestant fight against world Catholicism. They also imagined themselves part of an international Protestant community and replaced their Puritan beliefs with a revival-centered pan-Protestantism. Kidd discusses the rise of “the Protestant interest” and provides a compelling argument about the origins of both eighteenth-century revivalism and the global evangelical movement.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2004
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About the author
Thomas S. Kidd
40 books118 followersThomas S. Kidd teaches history at Baylor University, and is Senior Fellow at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion. Dr. Kidd has appeared on the Glenn Beck tv program, the Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager radio shows, and written columns for USA Today and the Washington Post. He is a columnist for Patheos.com. His latest book is Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots. Other books include God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution. His next book projects are a biography of George Whitefield, and a history of Baptists in America.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 3, 2026
This is a very helpful book that speaks to a very neglected piece of Christian history. It explains who the Protestants were after the end of the Puritan movement, with the Massachusetts Charter and the Glorious Revolution, and before the advent of the First Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards’ revivals at Northampton. The text makes a compelling case for the Protestant Interest’s influence on the modern evangelical movement, with its emphasis on global Protestantism and anti Catholicism. It revealed to me that the quantity of Christian nationalism that exists today is nothing new. For the Protestant Interest, Protestants on an international basis rallied around Brittain as the center of Christianity.
March 29, 2014
How did Puritanism become evangelicalism? Using New England as a case study, Thomas Kidd examines a key moment in that transition: the Protestant interest, a blend of Protestant internationalism, British nationalism, and anti-Roman Catholicism.
November 15, 2008
A very interesting thesis, but not altogether satisfying in approach. The book is too brief and its presentation of evidence too unsystematic. It is, however, a good start.
Kidd attempts to answer the question of what New England's Puritans became in the eighteenth century as they stopped being Puritans. Instead of the usual Puritan-to-Yankee social trajectory, Kidd describes an ideological evolution from radical Calvinism to (relatively) latitudinarian Protestant internationalism within the protective umbrella of Williamite British nationalism. The farflung Puritans of the New World, one might say, gradually rejoined Europe and the British Atlantic empire after 1689.
Kidd provides snapshots of the early eighteenth century to show this evolution in progress. Benjamin Colman's accession to the pastorate of Boston's Brattle Street Church in 1699 marks the emergence of a moderate trans-Atlantic evangelicalism in New England. Early newsprint raised Americans' consciousness of European wars and of reputed Catholic atrocities, reminding readers of their place in an empire that represented the world's best defense against the Roman menace. America's burgeoning almanac trade ratified that idea by melding Calvinist traditions with other ways of understanding the cosmic order -- blending Calvinism with scientific inquiry, astrological prognostication, and the ecclesiastic and royal calendars. Local Indian wars such as Father Rale's War and Grey Lock's War made the perceived French-Jesuit missionary threat particularly pressing. The lingering fear of Jacobitism throughout the early eighteenth century shows that New Englanders saw their ecclesiastic interests as linked with England's. (This is perhaps a rather weak bit of evidence; I'm not sure how that situation represented a break with the seventeenth century.) And in the years leading up to the ecumenical Great Awakening, New England's ministers suspected that the Millennium was approaching, that God was about to break the pope's global power; this also drew them into a closer sense of affinity with Britain and Protestantism generally.
I would like to see a longer, less desultory defense of the author's thesis. As it is, I am intrigued but not quite satisfied.
Kidd attempts to answer the question of what New England's Puritans became in the eighteenth century as they stopped being Puritans. Instead of the usual Puritan-to-Yankee social trajectory, Kidd describes an ideological evolution from radical Calvinism to (relatively) latitudinarian Protestant internationalism within the protective umbrella of Williamite British nationalism. The farflung Puritans of the New World, one might say, gradually rejoined Europe and the British Atlantic empire after 1689.
Kidd provides snapshots of the early eighteenth century to show this evolution in progress. Benjamin Colman's accession to the pastorate of Boston's Brattle Street Church in 1699 marks the emergence of a moderate trans-Atlantic evangelicalism in New England. Early newsprint raised Americans' consciousness of European wars and of reputed Catholic atrocities, reminding readers of their place in an empire that represented the world's best defense against the Roman menace. America's burgeoning almanac trade ratified that idea by melding Calvinist traditions with other ways of understanding the cosmic order -- blending Calvinism with scientific inquiry, astrological prognostication, and the ecclesiastic and royal calendars. Local Indian wars such as Father Rale's War and Grey Lock's War made the perceived French-Jesuit missionary threat particularly pressing. The lingering fear of Jacobitism throughout the early eighteenth century shows that New Englanders saw their ecclesiastic interests as linked with England's. (This is perhaps a rather weak bit of evidence; I'm not sure how that situation represented a break with the seventeenth century.) And in the years leading up to the ecumenical Great Awakening, New England's ministers suspected that the Millennium was approaching, that God was about to break the pope's global power; this also drew them into a closer sense of affinity with Britain and Protestantism generally.
I would like to see a longer, less desultory defense of the author's thesis. As it is, I am intrigued but not quite satisfied.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews