1. Assurance of Salvation in the Early Seventeenth Century -- 2. Lively Stones: John Cotton and Anne Hutchinson -- 3. The Most Glorious Church in the World: Boston, c. 1636 -- 4. Practicing Puritanism in a Strange Land: Massachusetts, c. 1636 -- 5. Secret Quarrels Turn Public: Summer 1636-January 1637 -- 6. Convicting John Wheelwright: January-March 1637 -- 7. Abimelech's Faction: March-August 1637 -- 8. Reclaiming Cotton: August-September 1637 -- 9. The November Trials: October-November 1637 -- 10. An American Jezebel: November 1637-March 1638 -- 11. Holding Forth Darkly: March 1638-February 1641 -- 12. Godly Endings
Summary
"Making Heretics is a new narrative of the famous Massachusetts disputes of the late 1630s misleadingly labeled the "antinomian controversy" by later historians. Drawing on an unprecendented range of sources, Michael Winship fundamentally recasts these interlocked religious and political struggles as a complex ongoing interaction of personalities and personal agendas and as a succession of short-term events with cumulative results." "Previously neglected figures like Sir Henry Vane Wheelright assume leading roles in the processes that nearly ended Massachusetts, while more familiar "hot Protestants" like John Cotton and Anne Hutchinson are relocated in larger frameworks. The book features a striking portrayal of the minister Thomas Shepard as an angry heresy-hunting militant, helping to set the volatile terms on which the disputes were conducted and keeping the flames of contention stoked even as he ostensibly attempted to quell them."--Jacket
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-311) and index
