ABSTRACT

Institutionalization Focusing on the attempt to institutionalize the original principles of social ordering, this chapter concentrates on the growing divergence between authority and community over the first generation of settlement. e divergence of both institutional realms was felt in a number of developments that characterized mid-century Puritanism. ese were: (a) the continual growth of alternative loci of membership and authority among sectarian and protesting groups, such as Baptists and Quakers; (b) the development of tensions between ministers and their congregants and, indeed, a general crisis in authority; (c) a perceived (at least by the ministers) falling off in piety and religious sentiment; and (d) a questioning of the fundamental tenets of collective meaning and purpose.