Historic beginnings

Throughout history, Christians have tried to live out their beliefs to the best of their abilities. This pursuit caused a great deal of conflict between Protestants in 16th century England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Puritans began aggressively challenging the church’s long-held beliefs and attempting to reshape the Church of England.
   
Like many religious debates today, people during these times faced issues that questioned their Christian identity and most deeply held beliefs. Over the years, Puritan views continued to influence several religious groups including Baptists, according to Samford University professor Scott McGinnis.
   
In his newly published book, “George Gifford and the Reformation of the Common Sort: Puritan Priorities in Elizabethan Religious Life,” McGinnis focuses on this transitional time through the study of one puritan minister. 
   
“George Gifford (1548–1600) lived in a time when the English church was being shaped by zealous reformers that their enemies knew as ‘Puritans’ — initially a derogatory term,” McGinnis explained. “Gifford and others believed that Protestant doctrine and practice needed to be more firmly planted in the Church of England. 
   
“In my book, I was concerned with how Gifford as a minister in the English church sought to translate Protestant doctrines into a language accessible to the average layperson, those he called ‘the common sort’ of Christian,” he said.
   
Published by Truman State University Press as Volume 70 of the Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies series, the book reveals how one minister fought for theological and practical reforms that would change the basis of worship and pastoral ministry of the church.
   
“On the one hand, he (Gifford) was something of a Protestant populist in his belief that the simple uneducated person might have a spiritual common sense that often was lacking in the more learned,” McGinnis stated. 
   
“The gospel was simple, accessible to all, and too much learning might breed arrogance rather than insight. From this perspective, the ‘common sort’ were full of spiritual potential, and only in need of a shepherd,” he said.
   
“On the other hand,” McGinnis continued, “Gifford could also be quite critical of commoners’ attachment to tradition and unwillingness to immerse themselves in the practices of Puritan piety — frequent sermons, Scripture-reading, strict moral codes, etc. 
   
“Puritan preaching frequently emphasized the high and difficult call of the Christian life, and how few ever lived up to the challenge. The result was much writing about guilt, repentance and security.”
   
According to McGinnis, Puritan ministers wrote extensive essays and lobbied members of Parliament to accomplish their purposes since church and state were so closely intertwined in 16th century England.
   
“You had to practice religion as the monarch dictated,” he said. “So, to effect change in the church, it was necessarily a political act. Early Baptists reacted against this marriage of church and state.”
   
He added, “Many Puritans made the charge that the English church was Protestant in name only, and that many of English people retained too many of the beliefs and attitudes of their medieval Catholic past.”
   
Instead, they promoted “frequent sermon attendance, lay Bible study, much devotional reading (and) reform of morals that appealed to some segments of a rising literate class and repelled others, who saw the spirituality the Puritans recommended as too demanding and legalistic,” McGinnis noted.
   
He feels his book reveals how people have debated whether Christianity is something you believe, something you do or a combination of both throughout Christian history.
   
“I think the Puritan approach to religion — a strong inward sense of wrestling with one’s faith and a strong external desire to regulate community morals — continues to be very influential on certain segments of American Protestantism, especially those with a revivalist past, like Baptists and Methodists,” McGinnis said. 
   
“I suppose my book gives people a chance to think about how other Christians at a different time attempted to live out what they believe. Ideally, the study of history allows us to see ourselves in a new light.”
   
McGinnis received a Ph.D. and master of arts degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and began teaching at Samford in 2002. 
   
He also earned a master of arts degree in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas; a master of business administration degree from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa; and a bachelor of science in business administration from Samford.