Jonathan Edwards

Even though Edwards was trying to evoke emotion out of his congregations, I feel that using the idea of "An Angry God" was a little overboard. I do not think it is right to scare someone into doing something, or scaring them to be better Christians. There are many ways to get people to be better Christians or to at least think about how they are living their lives instead of scaring them out of their wits. I am sure that this approach did have some success but I personally would not enjoy having someone preach to me about hell and brimestone all the time and how I would be going to hell if I were to make a mistake, which is only human. 

I feel that preaching about an angry God would just get old after a time and in my mind it would not be very motivating, but everyone is different. 

Carnival Post

Faith was a big theme throughout the class blogs and the class seemed struck by how they could connect with some of the writers' struggles with faith, keeping to what God would like from us and their own journey of life and faith.
A common topic wrote about for Anne Bradstreet was of how vulnerable she was through her writing and how her writing can be relatable to whoever reads it. The class seems to have gotten an honest vibe from her writings and how she is able to put all of her emotions into her poetry and is able to reach out to her audience through the use of her own humanity. It also seems that people have a newfound interest in poetry from the way that Bradstreet was able to grab some of the class' attention and by using her emotions, her struggles by how relatable they are to us.
For Mary Rowlandson, however, there were some doubts about a few things in her writing and how it may seem somewhat far-fetched. Some of the class also felt that her writing lacked an "honest struggle" and seemed to be the stereotypical Puritan.
John Smith has evoked from the class a sense of self-promoting and how some of the things in his piece of writing are a little unbelievable and seem to have been dramatized and how it seems unreal about how he did not take any lodgings for himself but made sure everyone else had somewhere to stay. As Crista wrote in her blog, "he milked his stories."
Esther asked some great questions when it came to John Winthrop: "Can America, or any nation, truly be a Christian nation? Is a government based on Biblical ideals even possible? Is seperation of church and state beneficial or harmful?" Throughout the blogs of Winthrop and Smith, I feel like a common theme seems to be that there needs to be a mixture of both Smith and Winthrop's ideas to make a country successful and thriving.
It seems that throughout these blogs people were intrigued by the somewhat differing views on all of the authors we have read. Overall, the class was struck by how relatable these writings are to our society today.

Cotton Mather

In class we discussed how Mather just wanted to report on the trials, but the last line of his writing he began, "This rampant hag," (149). I feel that by him putting this into the writings showed that he was not just reporting the trials, but also slipping in his own views about the matter.

We also discussed how he was also not a direct part of the Salem Witch Trials but he was also not completely against it either. I find it odd how he found some of the happenings concerning but they were not large enough for him to do anything about them. Mather did not stand up when he thought something was wrong so the Trials just continued to go on. This is relatable because if someone sees something bad or wrong happening, people today will just act like nothing happened or rationalize or justify it. I feel this is a real problem because innocent people got hurt in the Trials and innocent people get hurt today as well. The Salem Witch Trials can be a great example of what can happen when nothing is done and it can blow up to be an even bigger deal.

Mary Rowlandson

Once again there are numerous trials to go through, this time Mary Rowlandson has to go through the loss of a child, not knowing where the rest of her family and husband are and having to live with the Indians. She believes that she is going through all of this heartbreak because she has not lived a pure Puritan path and she has had some missteps, not just because the Indians decided to raid her village and kill and kidnap whomever they wanted.
One thing I found interesting is in The Second Remove where the Indians showed compassion towards Rowlandson and allowed her to get onto one of the Indians' horses with her mortally wounded child after she fell down with it. I feel that this aspect showed how the Indians did have hearts and were not always completly savage as in other accounts. This happened again in The Third Remove when they sat Rowlandson and her child atop the horse behind one of the Indians.
In class we discussed how the Indians tried to comfort Rowlandson by saying "your master will knock your child in the head." I think this could also be a threat because they could have been annoyed by the moaning of the child and all the noise it was making and just wanted to make the child be quiet.

John Smith

There are definitely differences between Disney's Pocahontas and what actually happened in history but I feel that if all the details had been put into the movie it would have gotten too bogged down and became too long. John Smith was a great influence on the shaping of America. Some of the things that he writes seem a bit far-fetched; such as how he provided most of his men with houses or some type of lodgings but he did not bother to build one for himself. He makes himself out to be very generous to others, and I am sure that he was a generous man but I feel that he makes himself out to be much better than he actually was.
Through  the section from the third book, it seems that Smith made the first move to be violent towards the natives. Smith was the one who scared the 'savages' from their homes along the river in order to get supplies for him and his men, which led to the actual assault from the natives. Things could have been more civil had he not tried to steal what the natives had gotten for themselves; he should have thought things through more clearly than to "let fly his muskets, ran his boat on shore; whereat they all fled into the woods" (47). If only things had actually started more peacefully and not resort to scaring or being violent towards a new people.

Anne Bradstreet "Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666"

Anne Bradstreet was lucky to receive a higher education than most women of her time. I feel like she made such bounds through being able to be a women writer. Even with the Puritan beliefs that she believed, she kept with her writing as well as with the household duties of the Puritan age and I find that very admirable.
I find it very relatable that even though she was a very devout Puritan, even she struggled with the Scripture. It shows that even the most faithful followers of God have their doubts every now and then. People today even say they do not believe the stories of Scripture unless they are a witness to God's glory and miracles. It shows that even though there have been struggles and doubts throughout time for the most faithful and strict followers, if one keeps his or her faith, even through doubt, then the relationship they have will God will continue to grow and become stronger.

I was most entrigued by Bradstreet's poem of "The Burning of Our House" because of the emotions that it was able to evoke from me. She was able to get me to feel the fear and despair of the burning that she felt and how terrible it was. I think that by writing, "Let no man know is my desire" (line 6) Bradstreet would never wish something of that destruction on anyone else and hopes that no one else would ever have to go through it either. Even in this terrible time, she was able to keep her faith in God and continue with her Puritan beliefs; even after she had some moments of anger on why God would do something so terrible. I enjoyed how she showed through this writing her faith in God and continued to praise Him throughout. At the end of this poem she showed how materials items are not important and that what we will receive from God will be that much greater.