Religion and Early American History

Religious Origins

The quest for religious freedom is often stated as a motivating factor in the colonization of North America, but its exact nature is often misunderstood. Our concept of religious freedom today means that people of all faiths Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or any other, including those who lack faith, should be free to follow their own religious inclinations without interference from others and especially not from the government. During a time of colonization England and the rest of Europe were in the throes of monumental religious controversies. The religious tension was more than just Catholic and Protestant; Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists, Baptists and others all had their own particular forms of worship and systems of belief. People who came to America in the 17th and 18th centuries were not seeking land of religious freedom for all so much as a land where they could practice their own form of religion free of interference from rival denominations.

One overriding theme of religion in colonial America was hatred of everything Catholic. Thousands of people died in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe during the struggles between Catholics and Protestants, beginning with King Henry VIII’s replacement of Catholic Rome with his own Anglican structure, a conversion that was later rejected by his daughter Queen Mary, who clung tenaciously to her Catholic faith. When the Protestant Elizabeth came to the throne, she was constantly advised to be wary of Catholic suitors for her hand as well as Catholic threats to English sovereignty.

That religious tension was carried into the colonies, as much of British colonial policy—such as it was—was directed against Spain. Catholic Maryland was an exception to the religious exclusionism, but even there problems existed, as tension existed between Maryland and surrounding colonies. The famous Maryland act of religious toleration passed in 1649 was repealed before very long.

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 contact 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 and the 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 four hundred 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.

The Role of Religion

To say that religion played a large role in American history is an understatement.  The section you have read on the Reformation in Germany and England should have led you to understand that religion was an 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 slavery in America; Catholics in Maryland, who passed a law of religious toleration, only to repeal it when religious conflict sharpened.  All 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 the taxes Virginians paid went to the parish to pay Anglican ministers and other church personnel.

The American colonists knew that religious wars had torn Europe apart from the time of the Reformation, including such bloody events as the Thirty 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 would become as full of bloody persecutions as those they had left behind.  Gradually 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 Irish Catholics began to arrive in large 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 right to dictate religious practice to its citizens, many more leaders such as Jefferson,  Madison, and others urged that a line of separation between church and state be established and made permanent, as was done in 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 such as Jonathan Edwards are remembered for their “fire and brimstone” sermons, and in fact the very term fire and brimstone comes from Edwards’s “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 Great Awakening

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 as 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 continued through the ages.

Religion and the Revolution

Although the American Revolution was not fought over religious matters, the legacy of the religious strife in the world preceding the revolution provided the impetus for the American founding fathers to see to it that religion would not become a divisive issue in the new republic.  Starting with George Mason’s Virginia Bill of Rights, written in 1776, which stated that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience,” the state of Virginia and the nation followed a policy of keeping religion and politics officially separated.  With the Virginia statute on religious freedom written by Thomas Jefferson, endorsed by James Madison, and enacted in 1786, the states gradually began to remove all connections between governments and churches.  (Note:  Mason’s Virginia Bill of Rights formed the basis for the Declaration of Independence and parts of the Constitution.)

The First Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” although it did not apply originally to the several states, did nevertheless foster an atmosphere suggesting a wall between church and state.  Anyone who follows current events even in the 21st century understands that religious conflicts have not disappeared from American culture.  All the same, the steps taken by the founding fathers to minimize religious controversy have stood the country in good stead.

An additional note should be added here about the relationship of colonial American attitudes toward religion and the coming of the American Revolution. As discussed above, a large number of the colonists who came to America did so in order to be able to a practice their religion freely, without interference from any higher authority.  As we have seen, that desire for religious independence was not a cry for universal religious freedom, although in colonies such as Pennsylvania religious diversity was not only tolerated, it was encouraged.

As the colonists became ever more independent-minded in the 1760s and 1770s, however, it could not escape many of them that the British desire to increase its dominion over the American colonies was to be done with the complicity of the Anglican Church.  The Anglican Church, after all, was the Church of England, and it was supported by English law with King George at its head. Thus the state controlled religion, and the Church of England helped the state control its people.  This propensity to enforce political control through religious doctrine was recognized by the colonists.

As John Adams later noted in a letter to Dr. Jedediah Morse in December 1815, the “apprehension of Episcopacy” was part of the revolutionary ideas percolating among the American colonists. He went on: “Passive obedience and non-resistance, in the most unqualified and unlimited sense, were [the church’s’] avowed principles in government, and the power of the church to decree rites and ceremonies, and the authority of the church in controversies of faith, were explicitly avowed.” Thus was the power of Parliament, and the colonists soon began to see “that parliament had no authority over them in any case whatsoever.”

With those ideas as background, Adams, Madison, Jefferson and others sought to ensure the American government would never be allowed to use religion as a device to ensure political control. Thus the separation of church and state, embedded in the Bill of Rights, was seen as yet another safeguard against tyranny.

Colonial Home | Updated January 27, 2010 | Academic American Home