Gallery of famous 17th-century Puritan theologians: Thomas Gouge, William Bridge, Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, William Bates, John Owen, John Howe, Richard Baxter.

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries, including, but not limited to, English Calvinists. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England. The designation "Puritan" is often incorrectly used, notably based on the assumption that hedonism and puritanism are antonyms.^[1] Historically, the word was used pejoratively to characterize the Protestant group as extremists similar to the Cathari of France, and according to Thomas Fuller in his Church History dated back to 1564, Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and "precisian" with the sense of modern "stickler".^[2]

Puritans were blocked from changing the established church from within, and severely restricted in England by laws controlling the practice of religion, but their views were taken by the emigration of congregations to the Netherlands and later New England, and by evangelical clergy to Ireland and later into Wales, and were spread into lay society by preaching and parts of the educational system, particularly certain colleges of the University of Cambridge. They took on distinctive views on clerical dress and in opposition to the episcopal system, particularly after the 1619 conclusions of the Synod of Dort were resisted by the English bishops. They largely adopted Sabbatarian views in the 17th century, and were influenced by millennialism.

In alliance with the growing commercial world, the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, and in the late 1630s with the Scottish Presbyterians with whom they had much in common, the Puritans became a major political force in England and came to power as a result of the First English Civil War (1642–46). After the English Restoration of 1660 and the 1662 Uniformity Act, almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England, some becoming nonconformist ministers, and the nature of the movement in England changed radically, though it retained its character for much longer in New England.

Puritans by definition felt that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, and that the Church of England was tolerant of practices which they associated with the Catholic Church. They formed into and identified with various religious groups advocating greater "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and in that sense were Calvinists (as many of their earlier opponents were, too), but also took note of radical views critical of Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva. In church polity, some advocated for separation from all other Christians, in favor of autonomous gathered churches. These separatist and independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.

Background[link]

The term "Puritan" in the sense of this article was not coined until the 1560s, when it appears as a term of abuse for those who found the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 inadequate. Puritanism has a historical importance over a period of a century (followed by 50 years of development in New England), and general views must contend with the way it changed character and emphasis almost decade by decade over that time.

Elizabethan Puritanism[link]

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the Puritans appeared as a reforming movement. Politically, they attempted unsuccessfully to have Parliament pass legislation to replace episcopal polity with a congregational form of church governance, and to alter the Book of Common Prayer. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Puritans constituted a self-defined group within the Church of England who regarded themselves as the godly; they held out little hope for those who remained attached to "popish superstitions" and worldliness.

Puritanism was fundamentally anti-Roman Catholic: Puritans felt that the Church of England was still too close to Roman Catholicism and needed to be reformed further. Many of the rituals preserved by the Church of England were not only considered to be objectionable, but were believed by some nonconformists to put one's soul in peril. Three major educational foundations of the 1580s and 1590s — Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and Trinity College, Dublin — were strongly Calvinist in tone and became Puritan by reputation. Emmanuel under Laurence Chaderton had a head who had earlier at Christ's College, Cambridge aimed at a Puritan training for the ministry, while still conforming to the Church of England. The Dublin college came close to being the outstanding Puritan seminary, taking Emmanuel as its model but reputedly becoming more "godly" yet.^[3][4][5]

Puritanism[link]

The accession of James I brought the Millenary Petition, a Puritan manifesto of 1603 for reform of the English church, but James wanted a new religious settlement along different lines. He called the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, and heard the views of four prominent Puritan leaders including Chaderton there, but largely sided with his bishops. Well informed by his education and Scottish upbringing on theological matters, he dealt shortly with the peevish legacy of Elizabethan Puritanism, and tried to pursue an eirenic religious policy in which he was arbiter. Many of his episcopal appointments were Calvinists, notably James Montague who was an influential courtier. Puritans still opposed much of the Catholic summation in the Church of England, notably the Book of Common Prayer, but also the use of non-secular vestments (cap and gown) during services, the sign of the Cross in baptism, and kneeling to receive Holy Communion.^[6] Although the Puritan movement was subjected to repression by some of the bishops under both Elizabeth and James, other bishops were more tolerant, and in many places, individual ministers were able to omit disliked portions of the Book of Common Prayer.

The Puritan movement of Jacobean times became distinctive by adaptation and compromise, with the emergence of "semi-separatism", "moderate puritanism", the writings of William Bradshaw who adopted the term "Puritan" as self-identification, and the beginnings of congregationalism.^[7] Most Puritans of this period were non-separating and remained within the Church of England, and Separatists who left the Church of England altogether were numerically much fewer.

Conflict within the Church of England under Charles I[link]

James I was succeeded by his son Charles I of England in 1625. In the year before becoming King, he married Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon of France, a Roman Catholic daughter of the convert Henry IV of France, who refused to attend the coronation of her husband in a non-Catholic cathedral.^[8] She had no tolerance for Puritans. At the same time, William Laud, Bishop of London, was becoming increasingly powerful as an advisor to Charles. Laud viewed Puritans as a schismatic threat to orthodoxy in the church. With the Queen and Laud among his closest advisors, Charles pursued policies to eliminate the religious distinctiveness and "excesses" of Puritans. Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, and moved the Church of England away from Puritanism, rigorously enforcing the law against ministers who deviated from the Book of Common Prayer or who refused to read the Book of Sports after its re-issue in 1633, a shibboleth for the Sabbatarian views spread by Nicholas Bownde and Nicholas Byfield.

Charles relied largely on the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission to implement his policies, courts under the control of the King, not the Parliament, capable of convicting and imprisoning Puritans under prerogative.^[9] He adapted them as instruments of suppression, following the juristic methods of Elizabeth I in dealing in the 1590s with the supporters of Thomas Cartwright. The Puritan movement in England then allied itself with the cause of "England's ancient liberties"; the unpopularity of Laud was a major factor leading to the English Civil War, during which Puritans formed the backbone of the parliamentarian forces. Laud was arrested in 1641 and executed in 1645, after a lengthy trial in which a large mass of evidence was brought, tending to represent him as obstructive of the "godly" and amounting to the whole, detailed Puritan case against the royal church policy of the preceding decade.

Fragmentation and political failure[link]

The Westminster Assembly in a Victorian history painting by John Rogers Herbert.

The Puritan movement in England was riven over decades by emigration and inconsistent interpretations of Scripture, and some political differences that then surfaced.

The Westminster Assembly (an assembly of clergy of the Church of England) was called in 1643. Doctrinally, the Assembly was able to agree to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a consistent Reformed theological position. While its content was orthodox, many Puritans would have rejected portions of it. The Directory of Public Worship was made official in 1645, and the larger framework now called the Westminster Standards was adopted for the Church of England (reversed in 1660).^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}

The Westminster Divines were, on the other hand, divided over questions of church polity, and split into factions supporting a reformed episcopacy, presbyterianism, congregationalism, and Erastianism. Although the membership of the Assembly was heavily weighted towards the presbyterians, Oliver Cromwell was a Congregationalist separatist who imposed his views. The Church of England of the Interregnum was run on presbyterian lines, but never became a national presbyterian church such as existed in Scotland, and England was not the theocratic state which leading Puritans had called for as "godly rule".^[10]

Great Ejection and Dissenters[link]

At the time of the English Restoration (1660), the Savoy Conference was called to determine a new religious settlement for England and Wales. With only minor changes, the Church of England was restored to its pre-Civil War constitution under the Act of Uniformity 1662, and the Puritans found themselves sidelined. A traditional estimate of the historian Calamy is that around 2,400 Puritan clergy left the Church, in the "Great Ejection" of 1662.^[11] At this point, the term Dissenter came to include "Puritan", but more accurately describes those (clergy or lay) who "dissented" from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.^{[citation needed]}

Dividing themselves from all Christians in the Church of England, the Dissenters established their own separatist congregations in the 1660s and 1670s; an estimated 1,800 of the ejected clergy continued in some fashion as ministers of religion (according to Richard Baxter).^[11] The government initially attempted to suppress these schismatic organizations by the Clarendon Code. There followed a period in which schemes of "comprehension" were proposed, under which presbyterians could be brought back into the Church of England; nothing resulted from them. The Whigs, opposing the court religious policies, argued that the Dissenters should be allowed to worship separately from the established Church, and this position ultimately prevailed when the Toleration Act was passed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution (1689). This permitted the licensing of Dissenting ministers and the building of chapels. The term Nonconformist generally replaced the term "Dissenter" from the middle of the eighteenth century.

Terminology and scholarly debates[link]

Puritans who felt that the Reformation of the Church of England was not to their satisfaction but who remained within the Church of England advocating further reforms are known as non-separating Puritans. This group differed among themselves about how much further reformation was necessary. Those who felt that the Church of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether are known as separating Puritans or simply as Separatists. Especially after the English Restoration of 1660, separating Puritans were called Dissenters. The term "puritan" cannot strictly be used to describe any new religious group after the 17th century.

The practitioners knew themselves as members of particular churches or movements, and not by a single term. The word "Puritan" is applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches (and religious groups within the Anglican Church) from the later 16th century onwards, and Puritans did not originally use the term for themselves, considering that it was a term of abuse that first surfaced in the 1560s. "Precisemen" and "Precisians" were other early antagonistic terms for Puritans who preferred to call themselves "the godly." The word "Puritan" thus always referred to a type of religious belief, rather than a particular religious sect, and the attribution has been determined, generally, by a polemical context. Patrick Collinson has an extreme view that "Puritanism had no content beyond what was attributed to it by its opponents."^[12]

The literature on Puritans, particularly biographical literature on individual Puritan ministers, became large already in the 17th century, and indeed the interests of Puritans in the narratives of early life and conversions made the recording of the internal lives important to them. The historical literature on Puritans is, however quite problematic and subject to controversies of interpretation. The early writings are those of the defeated, excluded and victims. The great interest of authors of the 19th century in Puritan figures was routinely accused in the 20th century of consisting of anachronism and the reading back of contemporary concerns. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic view of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John Cotton.^[13]

Much of the religious history of the Puritans is written with a degree of anachronism or denominational bias, also. The analysis of "mainstream Puritanism" in terms of the evolution from it of separatist and antinomian groups that did not flourish, and others that continue to this day such as Baptists and Quakers, can suffer in this way, as well as risking an incoherent view of where the burden of belief lay for the "godly". The national context (England and Wales, plus the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland) frames the definition of Puritans, but was not a self-identification for those Protestants who saw the progress of the Thirty Years' War from 1620 as directly bearing on their denomination, and as a continuation of the religious wars of the previous century, carried on by the English Civil Wars. Christopher Hill, who has contributed Marxist analyses of Puritan concerns that are more respected than accepted, writes of the 1630s, old church lands, and the accusations that Laud was a crypto-Catholic:

Puritans were politically important in England, but it is debated whether the movement was in any way a party with policies and leaders before the early 1640s; and while Puritanism in New England was important culturally for a group of colonial pioneers in America, there have been many studies trying to pin down exactly what the identifiable cultural component was. Fundamentally, historians remain dissatisfied with the grouping as "Puritan" as a working concept for historical explanation. The conception of a Protestant work ethic, identified more closely with Calvinist or Puritan principles, has been criticised at its root, mainly as a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy aligning economic success with a narrow religious scheme.

Beliefs[link]

Calvinism
John Calvin
Background Christianity St. Augustine The Reformation John Calvin Five Solas Synod of Dort
Theology Five Points (TULIP) Covenant Theology Regulative principle
Documents Calvin's Institutes Confessions of faith Geneva Bible
Influences Theodore Beza John Knox Huldrych Zwingli Jonathan Edwards Princeton theologians
Churches Reformed Presbyterian Congregationalist Reformed Baptist Low church Anglican
Peoples Afrikaners Huguenots Pilgrims Puritans Scots
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There were substantial works of theology written by Puritans, such as the Medulla Theologiae of William Ames, but there is no theology that is distinctive of Puritans. "Puritan theology" makes sense only as certain parts of Reformed theology, i.e. the legacy in theological terms of Calvinism, as it was expounded by Puritan preachers (often known as lecturers), and applied in the lives of Puritans.

Core beliefs[link]

In the relation of churches to civil power, Puritans believed that secular governors are accountable to God to protect and reward virtue, including "true religion", and to punish wrongdoers. They opposed the supremacy of the monarch in the church (Erastianism), and argued that the only head of the Church in heaven or earth is Christ.

The idea of personal Biblical interpretation, while central to Puritan beliefs, was shared with Protestants in general. Puritans sought both individual and corporate conformity to the teaching of the Bible, with moral purity pursued both down to the smallest detail as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level. They believed that man existed for the glory of God; that his first concern in life was to do God's will and so to receive future happiness.^[15]

Like some of Reformed churches on the European continent, Puritan reforms were typified by a minimum of ritual and decoration and by an unambiguous emphasis on preaching. Calvinists generally believed that the worship in the church ought to be strictly regulated by what is commanded in the Bible (the regulative principle of worship), and condemned as idolatry many current practices, regardless of antiquity or widespread adoption among Christians, against opponents who defended tradition. Simplicity in worship led to the exclusion of pre-Reformation vestments, images, candles, etc. Puritans did not celebrate traditional holidays which they believed to be in violation of the regulative principles.

Diversity[link]

Various strands of Calvinist thought of the 17th century were taken up by different parts of the Puritan movement, and in particular Amyraldism was adopted by some influential figures (John Davenant, Samuel Ward, and to some extent Richard Baxter). In the same way, there is no theory of church polity that is uniquely Puritan, and views differed beyond opposition to Erastianism (state control), though even that had its small group of supporters in the Westminster Assembly. Some approved of the existing church hierarchy with bishops, but others sought to reform the Episcopal churches on the Presbyterian model. Some separatist Puritans were Presbyterian, but most were early Congregationalists. The separating Congregationalists believed the Divine Right of Kings was heresy; but on the other hand there were many royalist Presbyterians, in terms of allegiance in the political struggle.

Migration also brought out differences. It brought together Puritan communities with their own regional customs and beliefs. As soon as there were New World Puritans, their views on church governance diverged from those remaining in the British Isles, who faced different issues.^[16]

Demonology[link]

Puritans believed in demonic forces, as did almost all Christians of this period. Puritan pastors undertook exorcisms for demonic possession in some high-profile cases, and believed in some allegations of witchcraft. The exorcist John Darrell was supported by Arthur Hildersham in the case of Thomas Darling;^[17] Samuel Harsnett, a sceptic on witchcraft and possession, attacked Darrell. But Harsnett was in the minority, and many clergy, not only Puritans, took the opposite viewpoint.^[18] The possession case of Richard Dugdale was taken up by the ejected nonconformist Thomas Jollie, and other local ministers, in 1689.

The context of the Salem witch trials of 1692-3 shows the intricacy of trying to place "Puritan" beliefs as distinctive. The publication of Saducismus Triumphatus, an anti-sceptical tract that has been implicated in the moral panic at Salem, involved Joseph Glanvill (a latitudinarian), Henry More (a Cambridge Platonist) as editor, and Anthony Horneck, an evangelical German Anglican, as translator of a pamphlet about a Swedish witch hunt; and none of these was a Puritan. Glanvill and More had been vehemently opposed in the 1670s by the sceptic John Webster, an Independent and sometime chaplain to the Parliamentary forces.

Millennialism[link]

Puritan millennialism has been placed in the broader context of European Reformed views on the millennium and interpretation of Biblical prophecy, for which representative figures of the period were Johannes Piscator, Thomas Brightman, Joseph Mede, Johannes Heinrich Alsted, and John Amos Comenius.^[19] Both Brightman and Mede were Puritan by conviction, and so are identified by their biographers, though neither clashed with the church authorities. David Brady describes a "lull before the storm" in which, in the early 17th century, "reasonably restrained and systematic" Protestant exegesis of the Book of Revelation was seen with Brightman, Mede and Hugh Broughton; after which "apocalyptic literature became too easily debased" as it became more populist, less scholarly.^[20] Within the church, William Lamont argues, the Elizabethan millennial views of John Foxe became sidelined, with Puritans adopting instead the "centrifugal" views of Brightman, while the Laudians replaced the "centripetal" attitude of Foxe to the 'Christian Emperor' by the national and episcopal Church closer to home, with its royal head, as leading the Protestant world iure divino (by divine right).^[21] Viggo Norskov Olsen writes^[22] that Mede "broke fully away from the Augustinian-Foxian tradition, and is the link between Brightman and the premillennialism of the seventeenth century".

The dam then broke in 1641 when the traditional retrospective reverence for Thomas Cranmer and other martyred bishops in the Acts and Monuments was displaced by forward-looking attitudes to prophecy, among radical Puritans.^[21]

Cultural consequences[link]

Some strong religious views common to Puritans had direct impacts on culture. The opposition to acting as public performance, typefied by William Prynne's Histriomastix, was not a concern with drama as a form. John Milton wrote Samson Agonistes as verse drama, and indeed had at an early stage contemplated writing Paradise Lost in that form. N. H. Keeble writes:

But the sexualisation of Restoration theatre was attacked as strongly as ever, by Thomas Gouge, as Keeble points out.^[23] Puritans eliminated the use of musical instruments in their religious services, for theological and practical reasons. Church organs were commonly damaged or destroyed in the Civil War period, for example an axe being taken to the organ of Worcester Cathedral in 1642.^[24]

Education for the masses was so they could read the Bible for themselves. Educated pastors could read the Bible in its original languages of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, as well as church tradition and scholarly works, which were most commonly written in Latin. Most of the leading Puritan divines studied at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge before seeking ordination.

Diversions for the educated included discussing the Bible and its practical applications as well as reading the classics such as Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. They also encouraged the composition of poetry that was of a religious nature, though they eschewed religious-erotic poetry except for the Song of Solomon. This they considered magnificent poetry, without error, regulative for their sexual pleasure, and, especially, as an allegory of Christ and the Church.

Social consequences and family life[link]

The Snake in the Grass or Satan Transform'd to an Angel of Light, title page, ca. 1660

Puritan culture emphasized the need for self-examination and the strict accounting for one’s feelings as well as one’s deeds. This was the centre of evangelical experience, which women in turn placed at the heart of their work to sustain family life. The words of the Bible, as they interpreted them, were the origin of many Puritan cultural ideals, especially regarding the roles of men and women in the community. While both sexes carried the stain of original sin, for a girl, original sin suggested more than the roster of Puritan character flaws. Eve’s corruption, in Puritan eyes, extended to all women, and justified marginalizing them within churches' hierarchical structures^{[citation needed]} . An example is the different ways that men and women were made to express their conversion experiences. For full membership, the Puritan church insisted not only that its congregants lead godly lives and exhibit a clear understanding of the main tenets of their Christian faith, but they also must demonstrate that they had experienced true evidence of the workings of God’s grace in their souls. Only those who gave a convincing account of such a conversion could be admitted to full church membership. While women were typically not permitted to speak in church, they were allowed to engage in religious discussions outside it, and they could narrate their conversions.^{[citation needed]}

The English Puritan William Gouge wrote:

“...a familie is a little Church, and a little common-wealth, at least a lively representation thereof, whereby triall may be made of such as are fit for any place of authoritie, or of subjection in Church or commonwealth. Or rather it is as a schoole wherein the first principles and grounds of government and subjection are learned: whereby men are fitted to greater matters in Church or common-wealth.”

Order in the family, then, fundamentally structured Puritan belief. The essence of social order lay in the authority of husband over wife, parents over children, and masters over servants in the family. John White wrote in his Genesis commentary of a wife as "but a helper", a view called "typically puritan" by Philip C. Almond.^[25]

Ideas of proper order both sharply defined and confined a woman’s authority. Indeed, God's word often prescribed important roles of authority for women; the Complete Body of Divinity stated that

“...as to Servants, the Metaphorical and Synecdochial usage of the words Father and Mother, heretofore observed, implys it; for tho’ the Husband be the Head of the Wife, yet she is an Head of the Family.”^{[citation needed]}.

Samuel Sewall, a magistrate, advised his son’s servant that “he could not obey his Master without obedience to his Mistress; and vice versa.”

Authority and obedience characterized the relationship between Puritan parents and their children. Proper love meant proper discipline;, the family was the basic unit of supervision. A breakdown in family rule indicated a disregard of God’s order. “Fathers and mothers have ‘disordered and disobedient children,’” said the Puritan Richard Greenham, “because they have been disobedient children to the Lord and disordered to their parents when they were young.” Because the duty of early childcare fell almost exclusively on women, a woman's salvation necessarily depended upon the observable goodness of her child.^{[citation needed]} Puritans further connected the discipline of a child to later readiness for conversion. Accordingly, parents attempted to check their affectionate feelings toward a disobedient child, at least after the child was about two years old, in order to break his or her will^{[citation needed]} . This suspicious regard of “fondness” and heavy emphasis on obedience placed pressures on the Puritan mother. While Puritans expected mothers to care for their young children tenderly, a mother who doted could be accused of failing to keep God present. A father’s more distant governance should check the mother’s tenderness once a male child reached the age of 6 or 7 so that he could bring the child to God’s authority^{[citation needed]} .

New England Puritans[link]

Particularly in the years after 1630, Puritans left for New England (see Migration to New England (1620–1640)), supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other settlements. The large-scale Puritan emigration to New England then ceased, by 1641, with around 21,000 having moved across the Atlantic. This English-speaking population in America did not all consist of colonists, since many returned^{[clarification needed]}, but produced more than 16 million descendants.^[26][27] This so-called "Great Migration" is not so named because of sheer numbers, which were much less than the number of English citizens who emigrated to Virginia and the Caribbean during this time.^[28] The rapid growth of the New England colonies (~700,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate and lower death rate per year.

Cotton Mather, influential New England Puritan minister, portrait by Peter Pelham.

Education[link]

New England differed from its mother country, where nothing in English statute required schoolmasters or the literacy of children. With the possible exception of Scotland, the Puritan model of education in New England was unique. John Winthrop in 1630 had claimed that the society they would form in New England would be "as a city upon a hill;"^[29] and the colony leaders would educate all. These were men of letters, had attended Oxford or Cambridge, and communicated with intellectuals all over Europe; and in 1636 they founded the school that shortly became Harvard College.

Besides the Bible, children needed to read in order to “understand...the capital laws of this country,” as the Massachusetts code declared, order being of the utmost importance, and children not taught to read would grow “barbarous” (the 1648 amendment to the Massachusetts law and the 1650 Connecticut code, both used the word “barbarisme”). By the 1670s, all New England colonies (excepting Rhode Island) had passed legislation that mandated literacy for children. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law that required towns to hire a schoolmaster to teach writing.

Forms of schooling ranged from dame schools to “Latin” schools for boys already literate in English and ready to master preparatory grammar for Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. Reading schools would often be the single source of education for girls, whereas boys would go to the town grammar schools. Indeed, gender largely determined educational practices: women introduced all children to reading, and men taught boys in higher pursuits. Since girls could play no role in the ministry, and since grammar schools were designed to “instruct youth so far as they may be fited for the university,” Latin grammar schools did not accept girls (nor did Harvard). Most evidence suggests that girls could not attend the less ambitious town schools, the lower-tier writing-reading schools mandated for townships of over fifty families.

Restrictions and pleasures[link]

Window, Old Ship Church, Puritan meetinghouse, Hingham, Massachusetts

In modern usage, the word puritan is often used to describe someone who is strict in matters of sexual morality, disapproves of recreation, and wishes to impose these beliefs on others. This popular image is more accurate as a description of Puritans in colonial America, who were among the most radical Puritans and whose social experiment took the form of a theocracy. The first Puritans of New England certainly disapproved of Christmas celebrations, as did some other Protestant churches of the time. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659. The ban was revoked in 1681 by the English-appointed governor Sir Edmund Andros, who also revoked a Puritan ban on festivities on Saturday nights. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.^[30] Likewise the colonies banned many secular entertainments, such as games of chance, maypoles, and drama, on moral grounds.

They were not, however, opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation.^[31] Early New England laws banning the sale of alcohol to Native Americans were criticized because it was “not fit to deprive Indians of any lawfull comfort aloweth to all men by the use of wine.” Laws banned the practice of individuals toasting each other, with the explanation that it led to wasting God's gift of beer and wine, as well as being carnal. Bounds were not set on enjoying sexuality within the bounds of marriage, as a gift from God.^[32] In fact, spouses (albeit, in practice, mainly females) were disciplined if they did not perform their sexual marital duties, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 7 and other biblical passages. Puritans publicly punished drunkenness and sexual relations outside marriage.

Opposition to Quakerism[link]

The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were the most active of the New England persecutors of Quakers, and the persecuting spirit was shared by the Plymouth Colony and the colonies along the Connecticut river.^[33] In 1660, one of the most notable victims of the religious intolerance was English Quaker Mary Dyer who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony.^[33] She was one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs. In 1661 King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism.^[34] In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act.^[34]

The Puritan spirit in the United States[link]

Late 19th century view, the Puritan stereotype in a sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

Alexis de Tocqueville suggested in Democracy in America that Puritanism was the very thing that provided a firm foundation for American democracy. As Sheldon Wolin puts it, "Tocqueville was aware of the harshness and bigotry of the early colonists"; but on the other hand he saw them as "archaic survivals, not only in their piety and discipline but in their democratic practices".^[35] The theme of a religious basis of economic discipline is echoed in sociologist Max Weber's work, but both de Tocqueville and Weber argued that this discipline was not a force of economic determinism, but one factor among many that should be considered when evaluating the relative economic success of the Puritans.

See also[link]

• Church covenant
• Independents
• List of Puritans
• Plymouth Rock
• Salem witch trials
• Separatists
• Work ethic

Notes[link]

	Calvinism portal
	Christianity portal
	History portal

References[link]

Look up puritan in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Puritan

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Puritans

• Coffey, John and Paul C. H. Lim (2008). The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-86088-8
• Collins, Owen (1999). Speeches That Changed the World, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-22149-1.
• Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1895). The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. pp. 10–11. http://books.google.com/?id=8w8CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10. 
• Lancelott, Francis (1858). The Queens of England and Their Times. New York: D. Appleton and Co. p. 684. ISBN 1-4255-6082-2. http://books.google.com/?id=N2I0XNdlphUC. 
• C. S. Lewis (1969). Selected Literary Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07441-X. 
• Morone, James A. (2003). Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History, Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10517-7.
• Neal, Daniel (1844). The History of the Puritans. New York: Harper. ISBN 1-899003-88-6. http://books.google.com/?id=72gPAAAAYAAJ. 
• Spurr, John. English Puritanism, 1603-1689. Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-21426-X. 
• West, Jim (2003). Drinking with Calvin and Luther!, Oakdown Books, ISBN 0-9700326-0-9

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Calvinism portal

James Innell Packer (born July 22, 1926) is a British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the low church Anglican and Reformed traditions. He currently serves as the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in Gloucester, England, the son of a clerk for the Great Western Railway, Packer won a scholarship to Oxford University. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, obtaining the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (1948), Master of Arts (1954), and Doctor of Philosophy (1954).

It was as a student at Oxford that he first heard lectures from C. S. Lewis, whose teachings would (though he never knew Lewis personally) become a major influence in his life. In a meeting of the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, Packer committed his life to Christian service.

He spent a brief time teaching Greek at Oak Hill Theological College in London, and in 1949 entered Wycliffe Hall, Oxford to study theology. He was ordained a deacon (1952) and priest (1953) in the Church of England, within which he was associated with the Evangelical movement. He was Assistant Curate of Harborne Heath in Birmingham 1952-54 and Lecturer at Tyndale Hall, Bristol 1955-61. He was Librarian of Latimer House, Oxford 1961-62 and Principal 1962-69. In 1970 he became Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol, and from 1971 until 1979 he was Associate Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, which had been formed from the amalgamation of Tyndale Hall with Clifton College and Dalton House-St Michael's.

In 1979, Packer moved to Vancouver to take up a position at Regent College, eventually being named the first Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology, a title he held until he was named a Regent College Board of Governors' Professor of Theology in 1996. He is a prolific writer and frequent lecturer, but he is best known for his book, "Knowing God". He is a frequent contributor to and an executive editor of Christianity Today.

Packer served as General Editor of the English Standard Version, an Evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and Theological Editor of the Study Bible version.

Packer is associated with St. John's Vancouver Anglican Church, which in February 2008 voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) because the St. John's church believes that the ACC is no longer teaching in accordance with Scripture. St. John's joined the Anglican Network in Canada.^[2] Packer, on 23 April, handed in his licence from the Bishop of New Westminster.^[3] In December 2008 Dr Packer was appointed an honorary Clerical Canon of St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney in recognition of his long and distinguished ministry as a faithful teacher of Biblical theology.^[4]

A sample of his work: "The unceasing activity of the Creator, whereby in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory".

Views on controversial issues[link]

Inerrancy[link]

In 1978, he signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which affirmed a conservative position on Biblical inerrancy.

Gender roles[link]

Packer is a Complementarian and serves on the advisory board of Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He thus subscribes to a traditional view of gender roles - that a husband should lovingly lead, protect and provide for his wife and that a wife should joyfully affirm and submit to her husband's leadership. Complementarians also believe the Bible teaches that men are to bear primary responsibility to lead in the church and that as such only men should be elders.^[5] In 1991 Packer set forth his reasons for this in an influential yet controversial article called 'Let's Stop Making Women Presbyters'.^[6]

Calvinism[link]

Packer holds to Reformed theology, also known as Calvinism.^[7]

Evolution[link]

In 2008 Packer wrote an endorsement for a book called 'Creation or Evolution: Do We have to Choose?' by Denis Alexander. The book advocates theistic evolution and is critical of Intelligent Design. Packer said of the book: 'Surely the best informed, clearest and most judicious treatment of the question in its title that you can find anywhere today.'^[8] This perhaps reveals Packer's current position in the evolution/intelligent design debate.

However, he has also expressed caution as to whether the theory of evolution is actually true, 'its only a hypothesis... its only a guess... so as science, in terms of philosophy of science... evolution is by no means proven and as a guess it is very strange and contrary to all analogies...' He also said, 'the biblical narratives of creation... don't obviously say anything that bears one way or another on the question of whether the evolutionary hypothesis might be true or not...'^[9]

The most recent information on Packer's position on evolution comes from his foreword to Reclaiming Genesis by Melvin Tinker.^[10] Reclaiming Genesis is a 'pro-evolution' book with the subtitle 'The Theatre of God's Glory - Or a Scientific Story?' in it Packer writes "Melvin Tinker is fully on wavelength in this lively and enlivening series of expositions. His book is wise, popular, and powerful. I heartily commend it."

Ecumenism[link]

In recent years, he has supported the ecumenical movement but believes that unity should not come at the expense of abandoning orthodox Protestant doctrine. Nonetheless, his advocacy of ecumenicism has brought sharp criticism from some conservatives, particularly after the publication of the book Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission (ed. Charles Colson, Richard J. Neuhaus) in which Packer was one of the contributors. Some conservatives also feel that Packer's views on Mother Teresa are quite liberal.^[11]

Packer took the side of evangelical ecumenism in opposition to Martyn Lloyd-Jones in 1966, then co-authored a work with two Anglo-Catholics in 1970 (Growing into Union) that many evangelicals felt conceded too much biblical ground on critical doctrinal issues. The publication of that work led to the formal break between Lloyd-Jones and Packer, bringing an end to the Puritan Conferences.

Works[link]

• Fundamentalism and the Word of God (1958; reprinted 1984) ISBN 0-8028-1147-7
• Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (1961 by Inter-Varsity Fellowship) (reprinted 1991) ISBN 0-8308-1339-X
• Our Lord's Understanding of the Law of God (1962)
• The Church of England and the Methodist Church: Ten Essays (1963)
• God Speaks To Man: Revelation and the Bible (1965)
• Tomorrow's Worship (1966)
• Guidelines: Anglican Evangelicals Face the Future (1967)
• What did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution (1973)
• Knowing God (1973, reprinted 1993) ISBN 0-8308-1650-X
• I Want To Be A Christian (1977) ISBN 978-0-8423-1842-6
• The Ten Commandments (1977) ISBN 978-0-8423-7004-2
• The Evangelical Anglican Identity Problem: An Analysis (1978) ISBN 978-0-946307-00-5
• The New Man (1978) ISBN 978-0-8028-1768-6
• For Man's Sake! (1978) ISBN 978-0-85364-217-6
• Knowing Man (1979)
• God Has Spoken (1979) ISBN 978-0-87784-656-7
• Beyond the Battle for the Bible (1980) ISBN 978-0-89107-195-2
• Freedom and Authority (1981: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy)
• A Kind of Noah's Ark? : The Anglican Commitment to Comprehensiveness (1981) ISBN 978-0-946307-09-8
• God's Words: Studies of Key Bible Themes (1981) ISBN 978-0-87784-367-2
• Freedom, Authority and Scripture (1982) ISBN 978-0-85110-445-4
• Keep In Step With The Spirit: Finding Fullness In Our Walk With God (1984, reprinted 2005) ISBN 0-8010-6558-5
• The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today (1984)
• Through the Year with J. I. Packer (1986) ISBN 978-0-340-40141-5
• Hot Tub Religion (1987) ISBN 978-0-8423-1854-9
• Among God's Giants: Aspects of Puritan Christianity (1991) ISBN 978-0-86065-452-0
• A Passion for Holiness (1992) ISBN 1-85684-043-3
• Rediscovering Holiness (1992) ISBN 0-89283-734-9
• Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (1993) ISBN 0-8423-3960-4
• A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (1994) ISBN 0-89107-819-3
• Knowing Christianity (1995) ISBN 978-0-87788-058-5
• A Passion for Faithfulness: Wisdom from the Book of Nehemiah (1995) ISBN 978-0-89107-733-6
• Decisions - Finding God's Will: 6 Studies for Individuals or Groups (1996) ISBN 978-0-85111-376-0
• Truth & Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (1996) ISBN 978-0-87788-815-4
• Life in the Spirit (1996) ISBN 978-0-340-64174-3
• Meeting God (2001) ISBN 978-1-85999-480-1
• God's Plans for You (2001) ISBN 978-1-58134-290-1
• Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (2002)
• Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle (2002) ISBN 978-1-58134-358-8
• The Redemption and Restoration of Man in the Thought of Richard Baxter (2003, based on his 1954 Oxford dissertation) ISBN 1-57383-174-3
• Knowing God Through The Year (2004) ISBN 978-0-8308-3292-7
• 18 Words: The Most Important Words You Will Ever Know (2007)
• Praying the Lord's Prayer (2007) ISBN 978-1-58134-963-4
• Affirming the Apostles' Creed (2008) ISBN 978-1-4335-0210-1
• Collected Shorter Writings in four volumes

[edit] In the Anglican Agenda Series

• Taking Faith Seriously (2006) ISBN 978-0-9781653-0-7
• Taking Doctrine Seriously (2007) ISBN 978-1-897538-00-5
• Taking Repentance Seriously (2007) ISBN 978-0-9781653-4-5
• Taking Christian Unity Seriously (2007) ISBN 978-0-9781653-6-9

Collections[link]

• The J. I. Packer Collection, edited by Alister McGrath (1999) ISBN 978-0-8308-2287-4
• Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer
  • Volume 1: Celebrating the Saving Work of God (1998) ISBN 978-0-85364-896-3
  • Volume 2: Serving the People of God (1998) ISBN 978-0-85364-904-5
  • Volume 3: Honouring the Written Word of God (1999) ISBN 978-0-85364-882-6
  • Volume 4: Honouring the People of God (1999) ISBN 978-0-85364-905-2

Co-authored[link]

• The Spirit Within You: The Church's Neglected Possession with Alan Stibbs (1979) ISBN 978-0-8010-8142-2
• The Bible Almanac with Merrill C. Tenney and William White (1980) ISBN 978-0-8407-5162-1
• Christianity: The True Humanism with Thomas Howard (1985) ISBN 1-57383-058-5
• New Dictionary of Theology with Sinclair B Ferguson and David F Wright (1988) ISBN 978-0-8308-1400-8
• Knowing and Doing the Will of God with LaVonne Neff (1995) ISBN 978-0-89283-927-8
• Great Power with Beth Feia (1997) ISBN 978-0-85476-836-3
• Great Grace with Beth Feia (1997) ISBN 978-0-85476-837-0
• Great Joy with Beth Feia (1999) ISBN 978-0-85476-838-7
• Never Beyond Hope: How God Touches and Uses Imperfect People with Carolyn Nystrom (2000) ISBN 978-0-8308-2232-4
• Knowing God Journal with Carolyn Nystrom (2000) ISBN 978-0-8308-1185-4
• J. I. Packer Answers Questions for Today with Wendy Murray Zoba (2001) ISBN 978-0-8423-3615-4
• Hope, Never Beyond Hope: Six Studies for Individuals or Groups with Leader's Notes with Carolyn Nystrom (2003) ISBN 978-0-85111-355-5
• One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus with Thomas Oden (2004) ISBN 0-8308-3239-4
• Battle for the Soul of Canada: Raising up the Emerging Generation of Leaders (2006) ISBN 978-0-9782022-0-0
• Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty To Delight with Carolyn Nystrom (2006) ISBN 978-0-8308-3345-0
• Guard Us, Guide Us: Divine Leading in Life's Decisions with Carolyn Nystrom (2008) ISBN 978-0-8010-1303-4
• In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement with Mark Dever (2008) ISBN 978-1-4335-0200-2

Works about[link]

• Alister E McGrath, To Know and Serve God: A Life of James I. Packer (1997) ISBN 978-0-340-56571-1
• Alister E McGrath, J. I. Packer: A Biography (1997) ISBN 978-0-8010-1157-3
• Roger Steer, Guarding the Holy Fire: The Evangelicalism of John R. W. Stott, J. I. Packer and Alister McGrath (1999) ISBN 978-0-8010-5846-2
• Don J Payne, The Theology of the Christian Life in J. I. Packer's Thought: Theological Anthropology, Theological Method, and the Doctrine of Sanctification (2006) ISBN 978-1-84227-397-5
• Timothy F George, J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought (2009) ISBN 978-0-8010-3387-2

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview with J.I. Packer about his work on the English Standard Version Bible
• Extensive list of published works and online articles from Monergism.com
• What did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution by J.I. Packer, on www.theologynetwork.org
• Penal Substitution Revisited by J.I. Packer, on www.theologynetwork.org

The Books were an American duo, formed in New York City in 1999, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their releases typically incorporate samples of obscure sounds and speech.^[1][2] They have released three critically acclaimed albums on the German label Tomlab, and released their fourth studio album, The Way Out, on Temporary Residence Limited in July 2010.

History[link]

[edit] 1999–2002: Thought for Food

Zammuto and de Jong first met in New York City in 1999 as they shared the same apartment building.^[3] De Jong invited Zammuto to dinner at his apartment, where he played him some of his collection of audio and video samples, including a Shooby Taylor record.^[4] Zammuto said of their meeting that "we both kind of knew at that moment that we listened (to music) in interesting ways and had similar approaches to music."^[5] Soon after, they began playing what they considered to be pop music, in comparison to their own works, under the name The Books.^[5]

In 2000, The Books started work on what would become their début album Thought for Food.^[6] Zammuto and de Jong moved locations constantly during this time,^[6] recording in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and finally in the basement of a hostel in North Carolina where Zammuto worked for a while after hiking the Appalachian Trail.^[5][7]

Thought for Food was released on October 22nd, 2002.^[8] Praised by critics for its distinctive sound,^[9] it featured extensive sampling from obscure sources coupled with mostly acoustic instrumentation.

[edit] 2002–2003: The Lemon of Pink

Shortly after the release of Thought for Food, the band relocated to North Adams, Massachusetts, near where Zammuto had graduated from Williams College in 1999, studying chemistry and visual arts.^[10] Zammuto and de Jong began the recording of The Lemon of Pink around this time. Anne Doerner, a guest vocalist on the album, said the process was much more arduous than the recording of Thought for Food, with Zammuto working on the album for five straight months.^[5]

The Lemon of Pink was released to critical acclaim^[11] on October 7th, 2003.^[12] It is similar in style to Thought for Food, but oriented more around vocals performed mostly by Anne Doerner.

[edit] 2003–2006: Lost and Safe, Music for a French Elevator, Prefuse 73 Reads The Books

In 2004, the French Ministry of Culture asked The Books to compose music for a new elevator in their building. The Books released a Mini CD of this work in 2006, under the name Music for a French Elevator and Other Short Format Oddities by the Books.^[13]

On April 5, 2005, The Books released their third studio album, Lost and Safe. Zammuto has a greater vocal presence in this album, and the album was criticized for this change of sound.^[14] Aside from this, Lost and Safe was well received by critics.^[15] Throughout early 2005, The Books collobarated with the electronica artist Prefuse 73. The Books appear on his album Surrounded by Silence ("Pagina Dos"), and the E.P. Prefuse 73 Reads the Books E.P. collects remixes of material sourced from The Books' albums.

Before starting a three-month^[16] tour of North America in April 2006, The Books had played only one concert,^[7] in October 2003 at a festival in Chicago, Illinois.^[17] Zammuto has expressed apprehensiveness towards touring, but says it is necessary to make a living, given his belief that people downloading The Books' music via file-sharing^[18] has put him under financial strain.

[edit] 2006–2012: Hiatus, The Way Out and break-up

Following the release of Music for a French Elevator, the band took a break from recording to tend to their new families, tour in support of their albums, and pursue some of their own projects, which included Zammuto scoring a feature documentary about the Biosphere 2.^[10]

In 2007, The Books released Play All, a DVD of thirteen music videos and three previously unreleased tracks.^[19] The Play All videos are composed of found footage transformed into a collage that matches their music. The Books often screen these videos during their live performances.^[20]

The Books toured heavily between 2005 and 2007, including two tours in Europe and two Canadian shows.^[6] In early 2009 The Books covered the Nick Drake song "Cello Song" in collaboration with José González for the Red Hot Organization's Dark Was the Night fund-raising album.^[21]

The Books began working on The Way Out in late 2008.^[22] Zammuto spoke of the album's New Age themes in an interview in April 2009, saying they took samples from self-help and hypnotherapy cassettes. When asked to describe the album, Zammuto said "You're getting verrry sleepy."^[3] On April 5, 2010, the duo announced that The Way Out would be released through Temporary Residence Limited in July.^[22] On April 27 Pitchfork Media began streaming the track "Beautiful People",^[23] which Zammuto described as "a three part christian harmony mixed with a sort of euro-disco-trash beat, an orchestra’s worth of sampled brass and lyrics about the twelfth root of two (my favorite irrational number), trigonometry and tangrams".^[24] The album was released on July 20.

The Books played the ATP New York 2010 music festival in Monticello, New York, in September 2010 and are currently touring North American tour with the Black Heart Procession. The band have been chosen by Portishead & ATP to perform at the ATP I'll Be Your Mirror festival that they will curate in July 2011 at London's Alexandra Palace.^[25]

In January of 2012, Nick Zammuto announced in an interview via Pitchfork Media that The Books were splitting up to focus on other projects.^[26]

On April 3rd 2012, Nick Zammuto released Zammuto, under the moniker Zammuto.

Musical style[link]

The Books are commonly cited by critics to be of a genre of their own,.^[27] Zammuto has described it as collage music.^[18] Paul de Jong described it as "the new folk music...[w]e make our own instruments, use our own libraries of sound bites while trying to create something universally human."^[28] Although they have said that their influences include Nirvana, David Bowie, Roxy Music as well as new wave and classical music, these do not show prominently in their music,^[29] though Zammuto was directly influenced by electronic musicians Squarepusher, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada.^[30][31] The Books' music usually consists of acoustic instrumentation of folk melodies usually played on guitar, cello, banjo and more, combined with a diverse range of samples obtained from cassettes found in thrift stores,^[18] which are digitally processed and edited.^[5] They also rarely use a drum kit in recordings and performances, instead favouring inanimate objects like children's toys and filing cabinets, which are sampled and looped.^[29] Some observers contend that their music is aleatoric,^[32] but Zammuto has disagreed, saying the music is very tightly controlled.^[18]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Thought for Food (2002)
• The Lemon of Pink (2003)
• Lost and Safe (2005)
• The Way Out (2010)

EP[link]

• Music for a French Elevator and Other Short Format Oddities by the Books (2006)

DVDs[link]

• Play All (2007)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• The Books on Myspace
• The Books discography at Discogs
• [1] Interview with The Books
• [2] Interview with Nick Zammuto about his new band and the break-up of The Books

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

John Peel
John Peel in a studio in Yalding House
Birth name	John Robert Parker Ravenscroft
Born	(1939-08-30)30 August 1939 Heswall, England
Died	25 October 2004(2004-10-25) (aged 65) Cusco, Peru
Country	United Kingdom
Website	BBC minisite

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. He was known for his eclectic taste in music and his honest and warm broadcasting style.

He was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio, and he is widely acknowledged for promoting artists working in various genres, including pop, reggae, indie rock, alternative rock, punk, hardcore punk, breakcore, grindcore, death metal, British hip hop, and dance music.

Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular 'Peel sessions', which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist live in the BBC's studios, and which often provided the first major national coverage to bands that later would achieve great fame. (These 'sessions' are similar to 'Live Lounge' sessions recorded today for the station.) Another popular feature of his shows was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year.

Peel appeared frequently on British television as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s, and he provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.