The Synecdoctic Reason For Love

John Winthrop and John Cotton both touch on points of synecdoctic culture in their respective sermons. The reason Winthrop mainly gives for being charitable, which in the context of the time meant to love each other, to other people is that we are all part of one body, the body that connects us all to Christ who is essentially the head of this body. Every p He says that love, encompassing all aspects whether it be just caring about another or helping someone out, are the ligaments that hold this body together. No person is their own separate entity but we are all part of the whole. This is difficult for our current culture to understand because we are very focused on the self. Our self is what matters most to us. Puritan society cannot differentiate between the self and the group because of this connection of the metaphorical body. To care about others is to care about the self because we are all connected. Cotton touches on this towards the end of his sermon when he mentions similar ideas, I believe taken from the same Bible passages, that one should not only looking your things but the things of other. There are a few other instances in the sermon in which there can be a connection made to these ideas, such as the idea of not defrauding creditors. It is important to pay off debts because that is a part of the group well being. Caring for the whole group will bring prosperity. There are many things that we today look on about Puritan culture that is negative. Their intolerance of anything that deviates from what they believe is the right way to live is certainly a negative. However I believe that these views of synecdoctic culture could help us a lot today. Many problems that we now have result from people only caring about individual gain. That viewpoint is responsible for our current economic situation which is threatening to collapse our society which will affect both rich and poor. So by not caring about the group it has the potential to hurt them individually. Winthrop says that there needs to be a rich and a poor, whether that is so is arguable, however he makes it a point that they should both care about each other. Both Winthrop and Cotton touch on the topic of enemies, or people believed to be outside the saved group such as Native Americans. Both say to be kind to these people but it is unclear whether or not these people are part of the body and whether their well being also affects the other individuals. It seems clear that by Puritans actions towards some of these groups that they probably are not considered part of the same body.