Anne Hutchinson: Revolutionary Religious Leader

Anne Hutchinson

In a very real way Anne Hutchinson was breaking the so-called glass ceiling by preaching / teaching through "devotional prayer and bible study meetings" (Lippy, 25). That is because women were not authorized to participate in formal leadership in the Puritan Church at that time. Beyond just breaking the rules for women, Hutchinson went too far according to the Puritan values when she claimed that God actually spoke to her, which was apparently seen as a threat to the male pastors, Lippy explained on page 26. This paper will explain how and under what circumstances Hutchinson revolutionized and/or challenged religion and society in the early 17th century.

Anne Hutchinson's Legacy

Hutchinson got into conflict with Puritans in Massachusetts because by reporting that she was in direct communication with God, and by preaching instead of "teaching," several issues resulted: a) Puritans believed God's grace was linked to the ministry of the church and to the ministers, hence, Hutchinson was bucking the system because she was not an ordained minister (besides being a woman; there were no female pastors at that time); b) Hutchinson's assertion that God's grace can flow down "directly to all people" -- which removed the clergy from the equation; and c) by asserting that she had direct communication with God, she was also denying what had been written in the Scriptures, which was seen as heresy (Lippy, 26).

Paul Reuben explains that Hutchinson was "brilliant" and "articulate" and that she went her own way in terms of the religious laws that the Massachusetts Bay Colony had laid down; she insisted, Reuben recounts, that "…true Godliness came from inner experience of the Holy Spirit" and not necessarily from conforming with the laws of the Church at that time (Reuben, 2011). That approach to spirituality was revolutionary at that time, because instead of all the weight of salvation and grace always on the shoulders of the pastors -- and the Church, and the Scriptures -- Hutchinson's teachings transferred those covenants to the individual. If a person's life was filled with doing things for others (unselfishness and advocacy), Hutchinson taught that that person would be saved whether or not he or she had gone through all the church dogma and rituals. As her meetings became increasingly well-attended (men and women participated) they also became controversial because she was teaching religious and spiritual values that bucked the system.

Those that supported her theories and her right to hold these twice-a-week meetings became polarized from those who questioned her right to go against traditional church teachings. If you questioned the Church, then you also questioned the State, Reuben explains. She was put on trial, accused of heresy and of doing acts that were "not fitting for her sex" (women were supposed to be subservient to men), and was banished from the Colony (Reuben, p. 4/6).