John Eliot’s Puritan Ministry to New England “Indians”

“This fine and illuminating study of John Eliot’s ministry among the Algonquian people in the Massachusetts ‘praying towns’ challenges traditional images of what it meant to be a seventeenth-century puritan in New England. It also makes an important contribution to the general debate about modern concepts of ‘mission’ and ‘conversion’ to Christianity.”


—Jane Dawson, John Laing Professor emerita of Reformation History, University of Edinburgh





“For several centuries, historians have described the ways in which the puritans who established settlements in the New England colonies shaped the formation of what became the United States. Focusing on John Eliot and his missionary efforts, Kim’s exciting new book makes a different case—that the American experience profoundly shaped what it meant to be a puritan.”


—Crawford Gribben, Professor of Early Modern British History, Queen’s University Belfast





“Seventeenth-century puritan divine John Eliot, known as the ‘apostle to the Indians,’ is most famous for establishing a network of ‘praying towns’ for native converts in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Traditionally viewed as a ‘missionary,’ Kim argues that applying categories of modern Christian missions to a figure such as Eliot—and particularly Eliot—is misleading. In this revisionist study, Kim argues that it is more historically sensitive and illuminating to understand Eliot as a minister employing Reformed understandings of pastoral theology in a unique context.”


—Kenneth P. Minkema, Executive Editor and Director, the Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University