Religion in Colonial America
Copyright © Henry J. Sage 1996-2005
Religion and Early American History
The religious origins of American colonization are very deep and are also part of the larger history of Christianity in the Western World. The Crusades of the Middle Ages are part of that story, for they helped to inspire the desire for exploration and contract with the Near and Far East. The Crusades also contributed indirectly to the forces that led to the Reformation, and such religious practices as the prosecution of witches, fear and oppression of heretics and various other negative as well as many positive religious impulses were transmitted by the colonists across the seas.
The Protestant Reformation itself, begun by Martin Luther, is probably the single largest event that impacted on Europe and therefore on its colonies in modern times. The Reformation set off, among other things, a shattering conflict between the Roman Catholic Church different Protestant groups, a conflict that was often played out on bloody battlefields between nations that adhered to the Roman faith and those that had broken away. Lesser conflicts, such as those that continue to plague such places as Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe and the Middle East are further dimensions of that great religious struggle that has been going on for 400 years or more. The troubles to which the Reformation gave birth played a direct role in the colonization of America, most notably in the desire of English Puritans to escape what they saw as intolerable conditions in England. That struggle in turn had its root in the English Reformation, by which King Henry VIII separated the English Church from Rome. By that time Protestantism itself had further subdivided into different sects and churches, and much of the religious disharmony in the early modern period occurred among Protestant sects as well as between Protestants and Catholics.
Americans to this day are inheritors of traditions and ideals passed down from the early Puritan settlers. Early in this century the German sociologist Max Weber wrote a book called “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Under various rubrics—the Yankee work ethic, for example—those ideas of Weber’s are still with us, and they have their origins in Puritan new England. From the Congregational religion, the Puritans also contributed to our political structure, initiating what became the “New England town meeting,” a still viable form of direct democracy. That localized means of government, whose origins were religious, helped define the way localities in that part of the country are governed to this day. Similarly, in the southern colonies, where the Anglican Church was dominant, the county, or parish, was the basic structure of church rule and therefore also of political rule. Government by county instead of by township or village is still the norm in much of the South.
Perhaps the most important legacy of religious attitudes that developed in colonial America was the desire of the colonists not to let religious differences infect the political process as had for so long been the case in Europe. Thus our First Amendment to the Constitution may be traced to colonial times as part of the religious legacy of that era.
To say that religion played a large role in American history is an understatement. The section you have perhaps read on the Reformation in Germany and England should have led you to understand that religion was a important factor in bringing early colonists to America. Whether they were Puritans escaping what they saw as Anglican persecution, Anglicans settling for the glory of God and country, German pietists, Dutch reformers, Quakers, Catholics or whatever brand of Christianity they practiced, many early colonists came here for religious purposes, and they brought their religious attitudes with them.
The varieties of religious experience in the colonies were widespread: Puritans in Massachusetts, who practiced the Congregational religion and made it part of their political structure; Quakers in Pennsylvania whose faith influenced the way they treated Indians, and who issued the first formal criticism of alvery in America; Catholics in Maryland who passed a law of religious toleration, only to repeal it when religious conflict became sharpened. All the colonies had strong religious values and strict practices; even Virginia Anglicans accepted readily the notion that the state should support the established religion. A part of such taxes is Virginians paid to the colonial government went to pay Anglican preachers.
The American colonists knew that religious wars had had torn Europe apart from the time of the Reformation, including such bloody events as the 30 Years War, the English Civil War and the fights between Catholics and Protestants in France. All of these events convinced the colonials that if they brought their religious conflicts to America and allowed them to continue, their lives to become as full of bloody persecutions as those they had left behind. Gradually, therefore, a sense of religious harmony began to emerge, and although it was interrupted from time to time in the course of American history, as when the Irish Catholics began during arrive in huge numbers in the 1800s, by the time of the American Revolution Americans had decided that they wanted a life free of religious strife. Just as Roger Williams, a dissenter from the Massachusetts Bay Puritan colony, argued that the state had no rights to dictate religious practice to its citizens, many more leaders such as Jefferson and Madison and others urged that a line of separation between church and state be established and made permanent, as it was the First Amendment to the Constitution.
It would be wrong, however, to think of religion in America as a completely oppressive institution. Read for example the poetry of Anne Bradstreet and see how her religious faith could bear her up in time of great sorrow, such as in the poem she wrote on the burning of her house. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards are remembered for their “fire and brimstone” sermons, and in fact the very term fire and brimstone comes from Edwards' “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God.” But if you study all of Edwards carefully, including some of those thundering sermons, you will discover that Edwards ultimately carried a message of hope and salvation, arguing that in spite of our sinful natures God loves all of us.
The first truly American event during the colonial period, according to some historians, was known as the “Great Awakening,” an event that took place in the early 1700s. This was a revival kind of experience where itinerant preachers, the most famous of whom was George Whitefield, traveled around from colony to colony urging the citizens to return to their faith in God. Jonathan Edwards, mentioned above, is also a figure associated with the Great Awakening.
The Great Awakening was the first of many periods of religious enthusiasm that seem to come and go cyclically in American history. Later on we will discuss the Second Great Awakening of the 1840s, out of which emerged, among other things, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons.
A great controversy goes on among observers of American history as to whether God played a real role in the American Revolution and early history, or whether Americans rejected the whole idea of religion is a significant value in American society, as suggested perhaps by the First Amendment. If one searches the Internet for information about religion in America, one will find a variety of opinions, many of them quite strong. Struggles over religious belief have come down into modern times; religious fundamentalism is still a lively part of American life. The conflict between America's concept of itself as a Christian nation and those who object to such formulations, both in the United States and in other places in the world, continues to appear on the front pages of our newspapers and magazines. So one ignores religion and its role in American history at one's peril—its influence is profound and its effects varied, but its role has always been one that has helped shape the course of American history.