The New World Times

         The plague of other religions is weakening the village. At this time, everyone must listen to the voice of God through those in power of the church. Those who do not may suffer horrible consequences, such as torture and death. There are many ways to disobey the church. These are heresies, something that does not go with the orthodox way of doing something, in this case, worshipping God. What follows are what some of those heresies are, and more in-depth descriptions of punishments for committing these heresies.

          First, the heresies. Some heresies are simply worshipping a deity other than God, like Satan or one of the many gods from other pagan - a religion with multiple gods - beliefs. This was one of the worst heresies to commit because someone was directly saying that they do not believe in what the church wanted them too. This was easily punishable by death or banishment. However, this heresy is quite ironic for the main reason that the Puritans came to the New World was to have freedom of religion. Protesting against the church at all was easily a heresy that could be punishable by death or banishment, like most other heresies. Almost all protests were not allowed, those that were allowed were petty ones that focused mainly on small arguments between neighborhoods or on the price of certain materials. Usually, these were settled by the heads of each side coming to an agreement, then life would go on as if nothing had happened. The church saw many things as a protest, such as not believing in a God or gods at all. They saw this as a protest against their power. A third heresy is to worship God in an unnatural way, such as not having been circumcised or to not believe in Trinity, or the belief of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The church hated this because it was considered a grave sin that could never be forgiven. Once again, these could be punished by death or banishment, to “cleanse” the impurity and have their town be safe again.

          Now into more details about punishments. Some were simple, such as being hanged for the whole town to see or being stoned to death. Sometimes people could be burned at a stake for a slow and painful death. Sometimes people were banished from their village out to the woods, where they could die of hunger, get eaten by a wild animal, or if it was winter, could freeze to death.There are some odd punishments, such as being put in a sack that was to be hanged in a tree and swung back and forth. These punishments caused severe dizziness and nausea, and sometimes caused hallucinations, but was usually nonfatal. Many were more for pain, such as tying the person of interest to a chair and repeatedly making small incisions in their skin. A less humane method of torture that was commonly used for those who did not worship God was called a strappado, in which the person of interest’s arms was tied to a pulley and yanked out of their sockets.

          Some of these methods of punishment might sound familiar because these are common punishments for witchcraft. Witchcraft was considered a strong Christian heresy because those who practiced witchcraft were worshipping a deity other than God. In fact, some say that witchcraft was a hidden form of paganism. There were some forms of punishment and interrogation specifically made for witchcraft. These included dunking the accused in water. If they floated, they were a witch, and if they drowned, they were innocent. This is why heresies are so important to the Salem Witch Trials; they tell us why there was so much fear and betrayal that poisoned trust in this time of horror.