Secular transformation of Puritan idea of America’s special mission in the period of Enlightenment

Puritanism gave Americans a sense of history as a progressive drama under the direction of God, in which they played a role akin to, if not prophetically aligned with, that of the Old Testament Jews as a new chosen people.

Perhaps most important was the strength of Puritanism as a way of coping with the contradictory requirements of Christian ethics in a world on the verge of modernity. It supplied an ethics that somehow balanced charity and self-discipline.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Puritanism had both declined and shown its tenacity. Though “the New England Way” evolved into a relatively minor system of organizing religious experience within the broader American scene, its central themes recur in the related religious communities of Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and a whole range of evangelical Protestants.

Puritanism, however, had a more significant persistence in American life than as the religion of black-frocked caricatures. It survived, perhaps most conspicuously, in the secular form of self-reliance, moral rigor, and political localism that became, by the Age of Enlightenment, virtually the definition of Americanism.

pilgrims were supplemented by the slogans of the founding fathers ”. Now America's special mission is seen not so much in returning to biblical norms as in building a just and democratic society here on earth that provides each individual with the freedom to realize himself.

Mythologization of Founding Fathers in American culture

The Founding Fathers of the United States, or simply the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of American leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, led the war for independence from Great Britain, and built a frame of government for the new United States of America upon liberal and republican principles during the latter decades of the 18th century. In general, they include the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and those who worked on drafting the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights eleven years later.

The Founders are depicted as heroic icons or despicable villains, demigods or devils, the creators of all that is right or all that is wrong with American society. The mythologization of the Founding Fathers forms an important aspect to American exceptionalism. In reality, it shouldn't need to be said that the Founders were all very flawed human beings who disagreed with each other on any number of issues.

In recent years the Founder whose reputation has been tossed most dramatically is Thomas Jefferson Most respect him as the creator and narrator of the American democratic system.Still, people disrespect him for his the most explicit assertion of the supposed biological inferiority of African Americans.

The Founding Fathers played key roles in the founding of the country, but some played particularly critical parts. As with any group, their strength was often gained from their differences.