The Puritan roots of the self-improvement culture

At a recent party in San Francisco, I caught up with an acquaintance whom I had not seen in a long time. A thoughtful guy, kind and emotionally intelligent. Life had been good to him lately: he moved in with his new girlfriend and seemed very happy with the relationship. He said the first few months of dating were surprisingly easy, that both of them immediately knew the relationship would become serious. How did they know, I asked. 

“Well, it was just obvious that each person had done the work.”

The work. 

At that moment, it was clear to me that I was witnessing an emblematic milestone in Western secular culture because I knew, without even asking, that work in the context of our conversation did not mean physical labor or commitment to the relationship. It meant that my acquaintance and his girlfriend, prior to meeting each other, did whatever was necessary to improve their “inner selves.” 

They introspected. They reflected. They journaled. They read. They healed. They both saw a therapist. I know for sure that he also had a life coach. The “work” was the emotional—and in some cases even spiritual—exercise that helped them identify unhelpful behaviors. What are examples of such behaviors? The list is long: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious-avoidant attachment, trauma response, lack of personal boundaries, lack of professional boundaries, projection, catastrophizing, and many, many others. It doesn’t even matter which unhelpful behavior they worked on; what matters is that the work helped overcome that unhelpful behavior. The work led to personal growth. 

This wasn’t a onetime observation. A year ago, at another party, I sat next to a girl who told me that she had started distancing herself from people in her life who were not interested in working on themselves. Many times over the past few years, I have also heard people say that not going to therapy or not having interest in personal growth is a deal-breaker in dating. Mainstream publications are rife with articles and columns that take this stance, like this one in Vox or this one in The Cut. 

Sharing personal stories of working on faulty behaviors, through deep reflection, has become a way of socializing in fast-paced, secular metropolitan cities. Self-improvement is what my friends and I often talk about when we hang out. Some friends are proponents of therapy. Some are proponents of life coaching. Others love to read self-help books and learn frameworks that chart the path toward wholesomeness. Toward self-actualization. 

I have tried and loved all of them. My journey of self-improvement started in 2001, at the mere age of nine. My parents decided I needed to see a child psychologist after I had watched The Sixth Sense and could not sleep for weeks because I was convinced I was seeing dead people. Mind you, this was 2001 in Southern Europe, which meant this was a highly confidential operation because a nine-year-old kid in therapy was undoubtedly a crazy nine-year-old. Thank you for that, Haley Joel Osment. 

The psychologist at the time concluded I simply had too much free time to think and that I should be preoccupied by numerous extracurricular activities to the point of exhaustion. It took me a decade to accept that “too much free time to think” was a euphemism for anxiety, and so, many years later, I became the first person in my college friend group to start going to therapy. 

I became more aware of my anxiety and my unhelpful behaviors. I started reading a lot about mental health. I quit drinking. I became better at setting personal boundaries. I worked on my emotional regulation. I then started working in the life coaching industry and got a fantastic coach who helped me out even more. Simply put, my mid and late twenties were all about self-improvement.

Coincidentally, as I was working on my inner self, the Western world became more attuned to the idea of self-improvement, and suddenly, more people were into it. But, in the past two years, I started noticing that working on yourself took a new meaning. It became a way to signal goodness to others, a way to market your sense of virtue. 

That is, if you are someone who works on the inner self, it is a sign that you are aware of your faults, of all the traits that make you less of an ideal human, and that you are committed to correcting them. And, obviously, that means you can’t spend time with people who don’t see those faults in themselves and who are not ready to do the work to correct them, right? 

I noticed this pattern of thinking in myself last summer, when I had a conversation with my dad, a staunch adherent of the boomer principles of life. Which is to say that he says what he thinks and what he thinks is that the newer generations are too thin-skinned these days. He was telling me that my vocal disapproval of an upcoming big family reunion was a sign of my selfishness, and I was telling him that I was simply setting personal boundaries. We fought. 

“He’s projecting his need to be a people-pleaser again,” I remember having this thought as we yelled at each other. “This is triggering me, he really needs to see someone and work on this.” 

Yuck. It was the first time I noticed a thought like this with an objective eye. I sounded obnoxious. As if I felt I was morally superior to my dad because he doesn’t see his own depravities, while I, the wholesome human I am, worked so hard to correct my own wickedness. 

My self-improvement started to feel eerily self-righteous. And, my observation so far has been that, wherever there is an air of self-righteousness, there is an undercurrent of deep-seated Puritanism. Prompted by these anecdotes, I went down the rabbit hole of learning more about the history of the Puritans. 

The learnings were striking, the similarities too conspicuous to ignore. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the Puritan history of modern Western secular society is indeed the high-octane fuel that keeps the self-improvement culture in motion.

I have mockingly referenced Puritanism so many times in my life, but I admittedly knew very little about the Puritans, and the “very little” was based solely on what I learned through watching Charmed—that the Puritans were allergic to alleged witches. So, here’s an essential crash course on Puritan history in case you, like me, like to reference Puritanism without actually knowing anything about the Puritans.

Roman Catholicism was the main religion in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, and the Catholic Church tightly regulated the relationship between individual believers and God. For the most part, it was all swell until the Church began using its power to do shady deals, like allowing sinners to buy forgiveness with money, otherwise known as the indulgence system.¹

There was a small group of people who were not only unhappy with this entrepreneurial streak but who also believed the Church was too liberal in its definition of salvation. These renegades believed that only through faith, not through good works, could a person be saved from their sins. Put differently, you could “love thy neighbor” all you wanted to, but unless you were committed in your faith to God, there was no salvation for you. 

The first person to take a strong stance on this was Martin Luther, a German priest and author. In 1517, he published 95 theses, a manifesto that challenged the Church’s indulgence system and that proposed a new way of looking at the relationship between individual believers and God. Most notably, Luther—and his soon-to-be followers otherwise known as the Lutherans—believed that what mattered the most was the individual’s faith, and that the Bible was the unquestionable source of truth.² This attitude would become known as Justificatio sola fide (Justification by faith alone) or, simply, sola fide. 

In a nutshell, Luther protested against Roman Catholicism. That’s how Protestantism, as a distinct branch of Christianity, was born. Luther’s teachings inspired other thinkers, which led to numerous variations of the Protestant ideology. Of the most notable importance was John Calvin, a French theologian and reformer, who expanded Luther’s ideas into his own branch of Protestantism, later known as Calvinism. Over the next few decades, the Lutheran branch of Protestantism spread primarily through Germany and Scandinavia³, while the Calvinist branch found its way to England. 

This meant Protestantism became popular in England as well, but some English Protestants thought the Queen was simply not doing enough to reform the Church of England, to truly push this movement all the way through. These folks believed their only way out of the never-ending Catholic sin was to leave England altogether. By 1620, they sailed aboard the Mayflower to New England and landed near Plymouth, Massachusetts in New England. Though today they often get clustered under the Puritan umbrella, these 102 separatists were actually the Pilgrims.⁴ 

Now, there was a group of English Protestants who did not want to leave England. They wanted to keep fighting and to purify the Church of England by eradicating Catholicism. Non-separatists is how historians call them. In 1630, however, they realized that getting rid of Catholicism was a mission impossible, so they did what the Pilgrims did ten years earlier. With an official charter from the King of England to establish a colony and to extend a purely-Protestant non-separatist branch of the Church of England, these 1,000 voyagers came to New England and created the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston. These folks were the actual Puritans. 

Let’s take a step back and think about the implications of these migrations, because this is where things get interesting. Most Puritans were Calvinists⁵, which means the tenets of Calvinism were influential in the creation of modern-day America. There is much more nuance to all of this and it’s not a clean split (for instance, the Scottish Calvinist Protestants are technically called Presbyterians⁶, and there are many Lutherans around the American Midwest today), but what matters is that Puritans brought a very particular flavor of Protestantism to America. 

Much of the research literature points out that Puritans, both men and women, were well-read and literate. These were the folks who founded Harvard⁷ (and who indeed burned witches, so think about that irony for a moment). After all, that was the whole point: they wanted to understand the Bible themselves without interference from the Church. Many historians have also noted that Puritans were exhaustingly introspective and subjected themselves to intense self-examinations, be it through journaling or through exacting studies of the Bible and their own beliefs. ^{8 9} 

There we go, I thought. Sounds familiar to the in-vogue introspection of the self-improvement industry today. Why, though? Clearly, something about Calvinism and its tenets could explain why Puritans acted this way, but what was that something? And what was so special about John Calvin’s teachings to justify the creation of an entirely distinct branch of Protestantism? 

Finding answers to these questions was surprisingly hard. There is a lot out there about Calvinism, from the importance of covenants to The Five Points of Calvinism, but barely any evidence to prove the alleged causal relationship between Calvinist principles and Puritan introspective tendencies.  

I eventually discovered a 2007 essay¹⁰, buried in the depths of the internet, written by Phillip Cary, a professor of philosophy at the Eastern University in Pennsylvania, for his guest lecture at the Concordia Theological Seminary in Indiana. I am no theologist and know very little about religion, but I thought his essay was a great piece of writing. 

The essay provides a perceptive comparison of the Lutheran versus Calvinist way of thinking, and shows that a simple but critical difference between the Lutheran and Calvinist syllogism—a type of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning using two assumed-to-be true premises—in the interpretation of the Bible explains pretty much everything about the tenets of Calvinism. 

In the essay, Cary points out that both Luther and Calvin taught believers are justified by faith alone. Calvin learned this from Luther, so it’s a common Protestant tenet they share: sola fide. Implicit in that statement is the notion that both Luther and Calvin did not believe in the idea of good works, which the Catholics loved. For the two of them, faith is about the belief in the premise of the gospel. There is, however, a critical nuance rarely discussed elsewhere. Cary emphasizes that the two thinkers differed in how they applied deductive reasoning when interpreting the Bible. 

Martin Luther’s syllogism, according to Cary, is based on the following: 

Major premise: Christ told me, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.” 
Minor premise: Christ never lies but only tells the truth. 
Conclusion: I am baptized (that is, I have a new life in Christ).

Cary says about this syllogism: “[…] Luther’s sola fide does not mean that we rely on faith alone, but rather that we rely on the word of God alone. For that is what faith does: it relies on the truth of the word, not on itself.”

Contrast this to John Calvin’s syllogism, which Cary calls the “The Standard Protestant syllogism” and which, we can infer, influenced how the Puritans who settled in New England thought about the Bible:

Major premise: Whoever believes in Christ is saved.
Minor premise: I believe in Christ.
Conclusion: I am saved. 

On the Calvinist reasoning, Cary writes: “Notice what this requires of us: not just that we believe, but that we know we believe. I call this the requirement of ‘reflective faith.’ Protestant faith has to be reflective in that it is not enough just to believe, you have to believe you believe, maybe even know you believe.” 

If you are a Calvinist, Cary argues, you must teach that those who truly believe are sure to receive the gift of perseverance in faith to the end of their lives. From what I gathered through other readings, this the Perseverance component in The Five Points of Calvinism. 

“Calvin teaches,” Cary continues, “that believers can and should know they are predestined for salvation, which means they can and should know they will persevere in faith to the end, which means they can and should know they are eternally saved, now, already in this life […].”

Notice how agonizingly circular this all sounds. According to Calvin, you theoretically are able to know whether you are predestined for salvation, which, if you are, means you have received the gift of perseverance in faith to the end of life. Which, if you did, means you should know that you believe because, obviously, your faith is the type of faith that perseveres to the end. Uh, what? How does one know that? 

Cary explains: “This is where reflective faith comes in as an essential element in Calvin’s theology. [Calvin] makes a distinction between temporary faith and true saving faith, which of course is faith that perseveres, and he thinks we can and should know if we have true faith. The people with temporary faith may just be mistaken about the status of their faith, which of course is a rather terrifying possibility. […] How am I supposed to make this distinction between temporary and true faith? Where am I supposed to look? Disastrously, I am supposed to look inward.”

“So if you are a good Calvinist,” Cary expands, “you are supposed to notice this—notice that you are getting more inwardly sanctified, which gives you assurance of faith, that is, assurance that you really do have true faith. […] lnstead of looking at myself and finding a sinner—for as Luther rightly says, even the righteous man sins in all his good works—and thus being driven in repentance to take hold once again of the gospel alone as the sole assurance of mv salvation, I am supposed to look at my own heart and see something reassuring. I am supposed to see that I have made real spiritual progress and that I am becoming more inwardly holy and righteous.”

But, as Cary points out, “[…] For this reflective faith, faith relying on itself, is how faith becomes a work, something we must do and accomplish in order to be saved. Then it has exactly the same problems as justification by works. You can always wonder if your works are good enough, and, if you are honest, the answer will be: ‘No, they are not good enough.’”

What Cary shows is that both currents of reasoning are agonized by the same question: how can I find the assurance that I, the sinner that I am, will be saved? But they find solace in different answers. 

The Lutherans accept that it’s hard to trust God and that faith is sometimes a lot of work and that there is a distinct possibility their faith is not good enough, but that ultimately what matters is God’s word alone. When you get baptized, it is Christ himself who, through the mouth of the minister, says “I baptize you,” so who cares if your faith is not good enough? Essentially, let go and let God, and go live your life.

The Calvinists, or the Standard Protestants, and therefore their descendants in Puritans, instead take on that burden and spend their entire lives trying to figure out if they will be saved. You can’t just trust in God’s word alone, you have to know that you have faith and that your faith is good enough. What better way to do that than to constantly reassess your commitment to God, searching for signals that you made progress on the quality of your faith? That you improved your faith. Or, many centuries later in the secular world, searching for signals that you made progress on your inner self. That you improved your inner self.

The parallels to the self-improvement culture are uncanny. Even so, three follow-up questions immediately come to mind. One, who is God in the secular world? Both the Lutheran and Calvinist syllogism are about the strength of faith in Jesus Christ, and Puritans, as well as other Protestants, obviously cared deeply what Christ thought of them and their faith. But, who is God today for a secular individual, who is doing therapy or coaching or simply reading self-help books? Who or what is this individual believing in? 

I can’t answer this question confidently, but my best guess is that it is a persona marketed to us as the ideal secular citizen. I remember reading an interview with one of my favorite musicians, Marie Davidson, for the Guardian, in which she said: “You’re supposed to love work, have tons of friends, you’re supposed to go out, you’re supposed to have kids … You’re supposed to do everything, but that’s not real. That’s bullshit for me, that’s a persona that consumerism created to sell products.” This answer feels right to me. It’s perhaps this idea of wholesomeness, of an ideal state in which an individual is physically, mentally, and morally healthy, uncorrupted by misfortunes and difficulties of life. 

Two, what is the secular world being saved from? This I find a bit easier to answer because I think the similarity is clearer. Be it the Puritans or the secular world today, everyone wants to be saved from their own impurities. Puritans wanted to be saved from their sins, and many of those sins (examples: adultery, witchcraft) would not necessarily make a modern secular individual feel unworthy. But, make no mistake, the secular world is haunted by evils as well. Just think about it: emotional regulation, anger management, getting rid of “toxic” behaviors, reducing anxious thoughts, learning to not get worked up. We don’t see these as sins, but we definitely see them as behaviors that need to be purified. 

Three, does this mean self-improvement is bad? I don’t think so; on the contrary, I think it can be great. After all, I know many people, including myself, who benefitted from dedicating time to work on themselves. Just like I think it can be great to have faith and to be a believer. If it makes you happy and if it gives you peace, whether that’s acknowledging the work you’ve done on your inner self or appreciating the strength of your faith, I don’t see anything wrong with that. 

That said, I think it’s worth paying attention to those moments when we start to feel excessive pride, a sense of moral superiority over others, through our reflective pursuits. Religious or secular, believer or non-believer, faith or self-improvement, no matter who we are and what we believe in, there is a fine line between virtue and delusion, and not knowing which side we’re on is, tragically, when our virtues cause our inevitable downfall. 

Articles and essays that have sparked my interest in understanding the roots of self-improvement culture and that I enjoyed reading

1. “You Don’t Have to Work on Yourself Forever,” by Shayla Love for VICE (2020).
2. “Sola Fide: Luther and Calvin,” by Phillip Cary for Concordia Theological Quarterly (2007).
3. “How the Life Coaching Industry Sells Pseudo-Solutions to Our Deepest Problems,” by Ronald Purser for Current Affairs (2023).
4. “Techno workaholic Marie Davidson: “I’m a total maniac who is very hard on myself,” by Whitney Wei for The Guardian (2018).

References

1. The Protestant Reformation, National Geographic Education. ↩︎
2. AMST 140Y: Religion in American Life and Thoughts, The Pennsylvania State University (2006) ↩︎
3. Lutheranism by region, Wikipedia; graph: By percent of total population, 77+ million worldwide as reported on February 17, 2024, referencing a 2020 statistic. ↩︎
4. “Pilgrims, Puritans, and the importance of the unexceptional,” by John Moore for Washington University in St. Louis (Arts & Sciences). ↩︎
5. The Protestant Reformation, National Geographic Education. ↩︎
6. “The Puritans: A Transatlantic History by David D. Hall,” by Darryl G. Hart, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. ↩︎
7. “Pilgrims, Puritans, and the importance of the unexceptional,” by John Moore for Washington University in St. Louis (Arts & Sciences). ↩︎
8. The Puritan and his God, Chapter 3 from the book Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction by Francis J. Bremer. ↩︎
9. Thoreau’s departure from American Puritan tradition: The self and divinity, by Alan M. Busch, Florida Atlantic University Digital Library. ↩︎
10. “Sola Fide: Luther and Calvin,” by Phillip Cary for Concordia Theological Quarterly. ↩︎