Today we're pleased to share with you an audio essay written and read by Jenny Lynn DeClerc,

entitled Women Were Puritans 2.

Jenny Lynn's new book is Five Puritan Women, Portraits of Faith and Love.

Women Were Puritans too by Jenny Linda Clerk.

It's sort of comical to think of how many Christians today perceive the Puritans as a group of men.

Of course, many of those male, pastors, theologians, and authors were highly influential and cannot be ignored.

But where did they come from? Who did they preach, teach,

and write for? How did any of them have kids? Like in all centuries of the church, half of the

Puritan believers in 17th century England were women. And like Puritan men, they were equally as

interested and involved in continuing the work of reforming religion in their country

and contributing to society at large.

Women were Puritans too, and until we get that into our brains, we can't really understand

Puritanism at all, that movement so concerned with genuinely loving God in their communities,

churches, and families, all of which are incomplete without women.

But I am one to talk. The first time I read the writings

of a Puritan woman was only after completing my undergrad and master's degrees in historical theology,

writing a thesis on Puritanism, and starting my doctoral studies in it. Happy for me, the supervisor at my

new job, working with J.I. Packer's rare Puritan books at

Regent College, was an expert in studying the experiences of women and children in the history of

Christianity, and she struck the match that would burn into my fiery passion for discovering and

sharing the stories of the women in my favorite era. Like I mentioned before, these women can be properly termed Puritans because they fit smack

dab in the middle of the best definitions of Puritanism that we have. Not only did they exhibit the outward

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