The spiritual and existential communism of the early Christians was revived in the seventeenth century with the Anglo-American Puritans, who attempted to revive the ethics of Christian love, sacrifice, mutuality, and communalism. To be right with God, according to the Puritans, meant to live out His commandments in the here and now.
In their attempt to restore true and pure Christianity, the Puritans took the apostolic letters and the Acts of the Apostles as guidebooks for how to walk and follow in the footsteps of Christ and his disciples. The founders of the Plymouth, Massachusetts-Bay, Connecticut, New Haven, and Rhode Island colonies all attempted to create Bible commonwealths that would embody Christ’s ethical teachings.
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