A fictionalized episode from the life of Anne Hutchinson, who arrived with her family in Massachusetts in 1634, but was soon banished for holding religious meetings and teaching ideas with which Puritan ministers disagreed.

Biography of Anne Hutchinson, founding mother of civil democracy and religious liberty in early colonial America.

When English colonizers landed in New England in 1630, they constructed a godly commonwealth according to precepts gleaned from Scripture. For these 'Puritan' Christians, religion both provided the center and defined the margins of existence. While some Puritans were called to exercise power as magistrates and ministers, and many more as husbands and fathers, women were universally called to subject themselves to the authority of others. Their God was a God of order, and out of their religious convictions and experiences Puritan leaders found a divine mandate for a firm, clear hierarchy. Yet not all lives were overwhelmed; other religious voices made themselves heard, and inspired voices that defied that hierarchy. Gifted with an extraordinary mind, an intense spiritual passion, and an awesome charisma, Anne Hutchinson arrived in Massachusetts in 1634 and established herself as a leader of women. She held private religious meetings in her home and later began to deliver her own sermons. She inspired a large number of disciples who challenged the colony's political, social, and ideological foundations, and scarcely three years after her arrival, Hutchinson was recognized as the primary disrupter of consensus and order--she was then banished as a heretic. Anne Hutchinson, deeply centered in her spirituality, heard in the word of God an imperative to ignore and move beyond the socially prescribed boundaries placed around women. The Passion of Anne Hutchinson examines issues of gender, patriarchal order, and empowerment in Puritan society through the story of a woman who sought to preach, inspire, and disrupt.

An Incredible Life .... a Tragic Death! America's first feminist, female minister, and martyr. True, Dramatic, Inspiring! "If Anne had been a man, she'd be in all the history books." Her exciting story has been neglected for 350 years. Read how Anne Hutchinson came to America from a comfortable life in England, to settle in rugged, four-year-old Boston. The conditions were extremely harsh. The women, with constant child-bearing, suffered the most. Spiritually minded, loving Anne became involved in helping the women in the Colony understand "the God of Love, not Law." Anne's zeal for God's truth in an all-male clergy led to an outright inquisition, and, ultimately, to her excommunication and banishment. Soon thereafter, came her tragic and untimely death, along with her young children.

Thomas Dudley was born in 1576 in Yardley-Hastings, Northampton, England. His parents were Roger Dudley and Susanna Thorne. He was a nineteenth generation descendant of William the Conqueror. He married Dorothy Yorke (1582-1643) 25 April 1603 in Hardingstone, Northampton. They had five children. They emigrated in 1630 and settled in Massachusetts where he was assistant governor and governor from 1630 to 1653. He married Katherine Deighton, daughter of John Deighton and Jane Bassett, 14 April 1644. They had three children. He died 31 July 1653 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York.

Traces the lives of four women who struggled for civil rights and justice in seventeenth-century America.

A biography of the Puritan woman who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for disagreeing with the prevailing religious practices.

Her steps were determined and steady, even though the plank of the wooden ship bobbed up and down in the glittering but frigid water that splashed against the wet dock. In the first light of day, these were the times tinged with the hues of promise shadowed only by the vague unknown.

By exploring the historical, theoretical, and practical elements of the tradition of testimony, Anna Carter Florence seeks in this much-anticipated book to establish the historical and contemporary validity of women's preaching and to introduce testimony to a new generation of preachers and teachers. She begins with the stories of three women whose preaching was often described as testimony: Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Sarah Osborn, and Jarena Lee. Then, she examines biblical and theological perspectives on testimony. Finally, she explores how testimony plays out in a preacher's life, offering constructive proposals for preaching as well as helpful guidelines, direction, and exercises.