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.