Free American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante Page B

Bible and serving God through action were the most important human activities.
    Anne, her judges, and many of their contemporaries read the Bible with an intensity that many of us now associate only with studying a poem, when we carefully plumb the meaning of each word. Scripture was the source not only of meaning but also of truth. Studying the Bible enabled one to live in God’s way, according to his dictates. Nowadays, the Bible may seem like an antique, a relic from which we learned stories in childhood, or it may seem nonessential, the gratuity in the drawer beside the bed in every roadside motel. But to the Puritans, the Bible, recently translated, was new, relevant, and powerfully true. For them, the Word was the world.
    As one’s sole and constant reading matter, the Bible is not a bad choice, for it abounds in drama, poetry, and mystery. The Puritans had little else in the way of entertainment, in part because they spurned most forms of amusement except alcohol in moderation, tasty food, and matrimonial sex. In the Bible they found countless intriguing questions that served to occupy their minds as they performed the menial tasks necessary to settle a wilderness. What do these words of Christ’s mean? they asked themselves. More compellingly, they worried, Have I Christ in my heart or not? Have I true grace? How does one prepare for saving grace? How do I know I am saved? What is the right evidenceof this? How shall I go into heaven? These sorts of questions kept Puritans awake at night imagining the very flames of hell and roused them hours before dawn, their hearts in a panic.
    The events foretold in the book of Revelation—pouring of vials, unfolding of seals—were as real to them as the dirt beneath their feet. They were actively awaiting Judgment Day, when the Holy Spirit would descend from heaven to condemn some and redeem others. In which group will I be? Do I deserve to partake of the Lord’s Supper after services? How do I know I have a sign or seal of God’s grace? How can I, such a great sinner, sit down to the Lord’s Table?
    These were among the questions asked by Anne’s peers in casual conversation, during childbirth, or around a sickbed, which she felt competent to address. A ministerial word from the midwife Hutchinson, as she wiped a laboring woman’s brow or soothed a teenager mourning her dead mother, was eagerly received. As naturally as the women of Boston sought protection from the cold of winter, they came to Anne to quiet their anxieties about salvation (being saved by God), assurance (knowing with certainty that one is saved), and God’s great and mysterious gift of his grace. Many of them were illiterate, all had the constant burden of keeping house for their families, and most had little opportunity for mental stimulation. In these lives of physical labor, Anne’s brilliant explorations of subtle points in Scripture and sermon provided them with inspiration and even entertainment.
    In running women’s meetings, in fact, Anne was following local custom, as she explained to the court. Upon her arrival in Boston in 1634, she had noted that local women met regularly in their homes to discuss the weekly Bible reading and the ministers’ sermons—occupying their minds with theology while keeping their hands busy with quilting and embroidery. These religious discussions, sometimes called “gossipings,” grew out of the ban on women participating in any activities at church. Women were barred not only from the ministry but also from voting on church membership, participating in services, and talking in the church. Within the meetinghouse they were segregated from men, entering by a different door and sitting in a separate side of the building. This custom, which has no precedent in the churches of England or Rome, was an innovation of the colonists and a few Reformed sects in Europe, with Old Testament origins. InOrthodox Judaism men and women worship separately, and women do not