Colonial%20American%20Religion

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Colonial American Religion

• Overview, Geography, Key Figures

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Map showing EuropeanColonies1700-1763
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The Thirteen British Colonies

• Each of the Thirteen Colonies had a distinct
  religious orientation
• The Colonies can be divided into three geographic
  groups for convenience in understanding their
  religious development

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The Southern British Colonies

• Southern Colonies Virginia, the Carolinas,
  Georgia - founded as Crown Colonies, they lived
  by the Elizabethan settlement and were bound to
  maintain conformity to the Church of England,
  enforced by the state.
• Despite this official religious outlook, these
  colonies were often not very religiously pious.

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The New England Colonies

• New England Colonies Massachusetts Bay, Rhode
  Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire (earlier,
  absorbed colonies of New Haven and Plymouth, too)
• These colonies were founded by Puritans and/or
  Radical Reformers religion was a primary reason
  for their existence.

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The Mid-Atlantic Colonies

• Mid-Atlantic Colonies - New York, New Jersey,
  Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware - adopted
  religious pluralism because they attracted trade.
  This area created some lasting and successful
  experiments in religious tolerance.
• Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, for
  themselves and other Radical reformation groups.
  Maryland was, at times, a refuge for British
  Catholics.

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Pilgrims Non-Conformist Separatists

• Pilgrims had refused to conform to the Church of
  England. Temporarily fleeing to Holland, they
  eventually settled in Plymouth colony, south of
  Boston.
• This artistic re-imagining of the Mayflower
  Compact features William Brewster, one of Pilgrim
  leaders.

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Puritans Conformist Reformers
The Arabella The perfectly functional ship on
which the Puritans arrived from England in 1630

• Puritans sought to purify the Church of England.
• They were conformists who sought to reform the
  Church of England
• They received a legitimate charter from King
  Charles I to settle in Massachusetts in 1630

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Charles I the Puritans Anti-Christ

• Came to throne in 1625
• Distrusted Puritans
• Sought to re-establish divine right of kings and
  absolute rule by monarch
• Dismissed Parliament
• Puritans believed he was the anti-Christ
  predicted in the Book of Revelation
• Famous portrait by Van Dyck

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Puritans Have to Decide

• Stay in England and fight evil King Charles?
• OR
• Move to New World and launch a religious utopia
  that will prove to the world the justice and
  godliness of the Puritan cause?

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Puritans Decidefor Regicide!

• Some stay in England to fight evil King Charles,
  and win a revolution in England
• AND OTHERS
• Move to New World and launch a religious utopia
  that will prove to the world the justice and
  godliness of the Puritan cause, by founding the
  Puritan colony of Massachusetts

Execution of King Charles I, 1649
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The Puritan Reputation

• The Puritans were quite strict with themselves,
  and with others
• Note, from the current catalog of SJSUs English
  Department, the course offerings in British
  theater.
• Puritans, in control of England from 1642 to
  1660, closed all the theaters.

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John Winthrop (1588-1649)

• First Governor of Massachusetts Colony
• Puritan leader who wrote A Model of Christian
  Charity aboard the Arabella
• Technically separates government and religion,
  but also maintains that religion should be
  uniform throughout colony.
• Clergy and political officials should be visible
  saints.

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A Model of Christian Charity

• Thus stands the cause between God and us we are
  entered into covenant with Him for this work
• But, Mr. Winthrop, how can this be? God does not
  often appear like in Biblical times
• we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath
  given us leave to draw out our own articles.

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Covenant and Contract

• John Winthrop was a lawyer
• He uses both covenant and commission
• A covenant is a special kind of contract
• A covenant involves
• ongoing commitment
• reciprocity on both sides
• personal relationship between parties
• often a structural inequality between parties

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A Model of Christian CharityHow Will We Know
Gods Will?

• We have professed to enterprise on these
  actionswe have hereupon besought Him of favor
  and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to
  hear us and bring us in peace to the place we
  desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and
  sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict
  performance of the articles contained in it.
• But the Puritans ship was nearing Boston

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A Model of Christian CharityIf We Disobey,
Theres Hell to Pay

• But if we shall neglect the observations of
  these articles which are the ends we have
  propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall
  fall to embrace this present world and prosecute
  our carnal intentions, seeking great things for
  ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely
  break out in wrath against us, be revenged of
  such a perjured people, and make us know the
  price of the breach of such a covenant.

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A Model of Christian CharityThe Puritans as
Covenant Community

• Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to
  provide for our posterity is to follow the
  counsel of Micah to do justly, to love mercy, to
  walk humbly with our God.
• Micah, one of the minor prophets at the end of
  the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, is used here to
  affirm the prophetic mission of the Puritans, but
  also to counsel humility

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A Model of Christian CharityThe Puritans as
Covenant Community

• For this end, we must be knit together in this
  work as one man. We must entertain each other in
  brotherly affection we must be willing to
  abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the
  supply of others necessities.We must delight in
  each other, make others conditions our own,
  rejoice together, mourn together, labor and
  suffer together, always having before our eyes
  our commission and community in the work, our
  community as members of the same body.

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A Model of Christian CharityWe Will Be the
People Most Pleasing to God

• So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the
  bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and
  delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and
  will command a blessing upon us in all our ways,
  so that we shall see much more of His wisdom,
  power, goodness, and truth than formerly we have
  been acquainted with.
• Meaning if the Puritans can establish their
  utopic vision, God will be closer here in America
  than elsewhere God Bless America

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A Model of Christian CharityThe Puritans are a
Community

• We shall find that the God of Israel is among
  us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a
  thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a
  praise and glory, that men shall say of
  succeeding plantations The Lord make it like
  that of New England.
• The Puritans see their narrative in epic terms of
  Biblical proportions

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A Model of Christian CharityThe Puritans are
Exemplars to the World

• For we must consider that we shall be as a city
  upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.
  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in
  this work we have undertaken, as so cause Him to
  withdraw His present help from us, we shall be
  made a story and a byword through the world

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A Model of Christian CharityIf We Fail, We
Injure Gods Reputation!

• we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak
  evil of the ways of God and all professors for
  Gods sake we shall shame the faces of many of
  Gods worthy servants, and cause their prayers to
  be turned into curses upon us, till we be
  consumed out of the good land whither we are
  going.

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Uses of City on a Hill

• The phrase comes from the Bible, the Gospel of
  Matthew, during Jesus Sermon on the Mount
• Politicians, though, attribute it to Winthrop
• American politicians have adopted the phrase to
  stand for American exceptionalism

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John F. Kennedy City on a Hill

• I have been guided by the standard John
  Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship
  Arabella three hundred and thirty-one years ago,
  as they, too, faced the task of building a new
  government on a perilous frontier.?"We must
  always consider," he said, "that we shall be as a
  city upon a hillthe eyes of all people are upon
  us.?Today the eyes of all people are truly upon
  usand our governments, in every branch, at every
  level, national, state and local, must be as a
  city upon a hillconstructed and inhabited by men
  aware of their great trust and their great
  responsibilities.?For we are setting out upon a
  voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that
  undertaken by the Arabella in 1630. We are
  committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no
  less awesome than that of governing the
  Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by
  terror without and disorder within. (Jan 9,
  1961 speech)

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Ronald Reagan City on a Hillpt. 1

• ...I've spoken of the shining city all my
  political life, but I don't know if I ever quite
  communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my
  mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks
  stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed,
  and teeming with people of all kinds living in
  harmony and peace, a city with free ports that
  hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there
  had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the
  doors were open to anyone with the will and the
  heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it
  still

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Ronald Reagan City on a Hillpt. 2

• And how stands the city on this winter night?
  More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it
  was eight years ago. But more than that. After
  200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong
  and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has
  held steady no matter what storm. And shes still
  a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have
  freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost
  places who are hurtling through the darkness,
  toward home.
• Weve done our part. And as I walk off into the
  city streets, a final word to the men and women
  of the Reagan Revolution the men and women
  across America who for eight years did the work
  that brought America back.
• My friends, we did it. We werent just marking
  time we made a difference. We made the city
  stronger we made the city freer and we left
  her in good hands. All in all, not bad not bad
  at all.

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Ronald Reagan City on a Hillpt. 3

• And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the
  United States of America.
• Thus concludes Ronald Reagans Farewell Speech to
  the Nation, delivered on January 11, 1989
• Notice that he checks in to make sure America
  followed the covenant during his time as a leader.

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Michael Dukakis1988 Speech Accepting Democratic
Presidential Nomination

• And my friends, what we have done reflects a
  simple but a very profound idea, an idea as
  powerful as any in human history. It is the idea
  of community, the kind of community that binds us
  here tonight. It is the idea that we are all in
  this together, that regardless of who we are or
  where weve come from or how much money we have
  each of us counts and that by working together
  to create opportunity and good life for all, all
  of us are enriched, not just in economic terms,
  but as citizens and as human beings.

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Michael Dukakis1988 Speech Accepting Democratic
Presidential Nomination

• The idea of community, an idea planted in the New
  World by the first governor of Massachusetts. We
  must, said John Winthrop, love one another with
  a pure heart, fervently. We must delight in each
  other, make each others condition our own,
  rejoice together, mourn together, and suffer
  together. We must, he said, be knit together as
  one knit together as one.
• Now John Winthrop wasnt talking about material
  success. He was talking about a country where
  each of us asks not only whats in it for some of
  us, but whats good and whats right for all of
  us.

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Pat Robertson1988 Speech Addressing
RepublicanNationalConvention

• Pat Robertson, a well-known televangelist and
  preacher, had competed for the 1988 Republican
  Presidential Nomination.
• He did not win the nomination, but he had
  enough support that American political protocol
  ensured that he could address the convention
• He was livid that Dukakis had appropriated
  Winthrops speech, and so Robertson decided to
  return Winthrops speech to the Republican party
• Robertsons speech delivered August 16, 1988,
  one month after Dukakis

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Pat Robertson1988 Speech Addressing
RepublicanNationalConventionpt. 1

• Ladies and Gentlemen, the Republican Party wants
  to write a tale of another city.
• We are the children of those who tamed the
  wilderness, spanned a continent, and brought
  forth the greatest nation on the face of the
  earth. We are the heirs of those who enriched the
  world with the electric light, the telephone, the
  airplane, mass-produced automobiles, the
  transistor, and countless wonderful inventions.
• Yet we are the heirs of a more enduring legacy
  than mere material progress. We are heirs of a
  legacy of ideas -- a legacy of freedom -- of
  equality -- of opportunity. A legacy of
  government of the people, by the people, and for
  the people. We are the heirs of an experiment in
  freedom that has given hope and promise to all of
  the people on this earth.

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Pat Robertson1988 Speech Addressing
RepublicanNationalConventionpt. 2

• We see a city set on a hill. A shining light of
  freedom for all of the nations to see and admire.
  A city made great by the moral strength and
  self-reliance of her people. A city where
  husbands and wives love each other and families
  hold together. A city where every child, whether
  rich or poor, has available to him the very best
  education in the world. A city where the elderly
  live out their lives with respect and dignity,
  and where the unborn child is safe in his
  mother's womb. A city where the plague of drugs
  is no more and those who would destroy and debase
  our children with illegal drugs are given life
  sentences in prison with no chance for parole. A
  city where the streets are safe. Where criminals
  are locked up and the law abiding can walk about
  without fear. A city where the water is pure to
  drink, the air clean to breathe, and the citizens
  respect and care for the soil, the forests, and
  God's other creatures who share with us the
  earth, the sky, and the water. A city with
  limited government but unlimited opportunity for
  all people.

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The Puritans Discontents
Anne Hutchinson at her trial (left) Roger
Williams wandering south into Rhode Island (right)

• The New World could not contain the religious
  energies of a people empowered to think for
  themselves.
• The most significant of the rebels were Anne
  Hutchinson and Roger Williams, both of whom
  clashed directly with John Winthrop.

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Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643)

• Raised by her father, a rebellious proto-Puritan
  minister.
• He provided Anne a strong education
• Moves to Massachusetts Bay Colony with her
  husband in 1630s
• Starts womens discussion group
• Critiques Puritan ministers
• Claimed direct communication with God
• Antinomianism (challenge to necessity for
  authorities)
• Put on trial for sedition
• Her miscarriage used as evidence against her (she
  had 15 pregnancies, most resulting in live
  births!)
• Exiled from Massachusetts Bay

• Anne Hutchinson at her trial

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Roger Williams (1603-1683)

• Ultimate Protestant thinker, he changed his
  denominational affiliation numerous times born
  Church of England (Anglican), to Puritan, to
  Non-Conformist, to Baptist, to Seeker

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Roger Williams (1603-1683)

• Exiled from Massachusetts Bay, he founded Rhode
  Island, and demanded total separation of religion
  and state, in order to protect the search for
  religious truth from the sordid nature of
  politics.

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Native Americans and Williams

• Roger Williams treated the Native peoples as
  human equals, learned their languages, wrote the
  first functional grammar of an Algonquian
  language, and negotiated with the Narragansett
  tribe for the use of their land in establishing
  Rhode Island.

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The Bloudy Tenant of Persecution (1644)

• Roger Williams wrote this treatise in response to
  both the excesses of Massachusetts Bay Puritans,
  and the European Thirty Years War of religion
• Tenant here is related to tenacity the
  Bloody Hold that Religious Persecution had/has on
  the minds of Christians (Catholic and Protestant)

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• First, that the blood of so many hundred
  thousand souls of Protestant and Papists, spilt
  in the wars of present and former ages, for their
  respective consciences, is not required nor
  accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace.
• Note Papist is a derogatory name that
  Protestants gave to Catholics it means followers
  of the Pope.

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The Two-Step of How Protestants Argue

• Secondly, pregnant scriptures and arguments are
  throughoutproposed against the doctrine of
  persecution for cause of conscience.
• Thirdly, satisfactory answers are given to
  scriptures, and objections, produced by Mr.
  Calvin, Beza, Cotton, and the ministers of New
  England churches, and others former and later,
  tending to prove the doctrine of persecution for
  cause of conscience.

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The Two-Step of How Protestants Argue

• pregnant scriptures and arguments are used to
  support a position people are saved by faith
  alone, in the word of God (Bible), so all
  arguments must have a scriptural basis
• However, other Protestants hold opposing
  viewpoints, supported by scripture
• Therefore, Williams must demonstrate how his
  opponents are misinterpreting scripture

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Fourthly, the doctrine of persecution for cause
  of conscience is proved guilty of all the blood
  of the souls crying for vengeance under the
  altar.
• There is a cost, in eternal guilt and shame, for
  holding a wrong doctrine, according to Williams.
  This is a cosmological presupposition that our
  sins/failings/crimes have eternal consequences.

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Fifthly, all civil states with their officers of
  justice in their respective constitutions and
  administrations are proved essentially civil, and
  therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of
  the spiritual or Christian state of worship.
• The function of government is a legitimate one
  (e.g. establishing and administrating laws), but
  it does not allow government to judge or
  administer matters of the spirit. This is a
  direct critique of the Elizabethan Settlement.

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Williams Christian Integrity

• Sixthly, it is the will and command of God
  (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) that
  a permission of the most paganish, Jewish,
  Turkish (Muslim), or antichristian consciences
  and worships be granted to all men in all nations
  and countries and they are only to be fought
  against with that sword which is only (in soul
  matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of
  Gods spirit, the Word of God.

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Williams Christian Integrity

• Williams was a Seeker, who changed denominations
  frequently in his search
• Williams was always a religious exclusivist
• Here, though, he says that religious pluralism is
  a situation that God permitted
• Williams maintains that if you use coercion to
  convert people, you do not believe in the power
  of your own religious ideals

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Seventhly, the state of the Land of Israel, the
  kings and peoples thereof in peace and war, is
  proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern
  nor precedent for any kingdom or civil state in
  the world to follow.
• Note This is a direct critique of Winthrop in
  Massachusetts, who claimed that Massachusetts was
  a New Israel.

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Eighthly, God requireth not a uniformity of
  religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil
  state, which enforced uniformity (sooner or
  later) is the greatest occasion of civil war,
  ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ
  Jesus in his servants, and the hypocrisy and
  destruction of millions of souls.

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Ninthly, in holding an enforced uniformity of
  religion in a civil state, we must necessarily
  disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jews
  conversion to Christ.
• Note Williams Rhode Island became the first New
  England colony to have Jewish settlements,
  because of his policy of religious tolerance

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Tenthly, an enforced uniformity of religion
  throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the
  civil and religious, denies the principles of
  Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ
  is come in the flesh.
• Note This combines Williams desire to separate
  church and state, because they perform different
  functions, and to maintain that authentic belief
  does not require government enforcement. Both of
  these are Radical Reformation ideals.

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Eleventhly, the permission of other consciences
  and worships than a state professes, only can
  (according to God) procure a firm and lasting
  peace (good assurance being taken according to
  the wisdom of the civil state for uniformity of
  civil obedience from all forts).
• Note True peace comes from living with
  difference of opinion, not suppressing it (but
  the state has a right to obedience to civil laws
  diversity of opinion about stop signs helps no
  one).

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Précis of Bloudy Tenent

• Twelfthly, lastly, true civility and
  Christianity may both flourish in a state or
  kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of
  diverse and contrary consciences, either of Jew
  or Gentile.
• Note Williams (or any persons) ability to
  practice his religion with integrity, is not
  dependent on everyone agreeing with him, or the
  state enforcing one religion. Likewise, the
  states functions (true civility) are not
  injured by diverse religious practices.

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The Society of Friends in America

• Quakers
• George Fox
• Mary Dyer
• William Penn

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The Dialectics of Radicalism

• However radical you think you are, there is
  always someone more radical than you.
• The English Puritans, who staged a successful
  revolt, found this out when the Quakers came along

Above, the Puritan army Below, George Fox
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George Fox(1624-1691)

• Shoe-maker
• Starts preaching 1647
• Itinerant preacher, travels around England
• Has mystical experiences of openness to God
• Name Quaker came from an opponent, but stuck!
• Fox opposed the Puritan view of hierarchy and
  order

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Quaker Beliefs, Forms and Practices

• Inner Light - Holy Spirit
• silent worship (cultivating introspection and
  quiet)
• pacifism (If we give you a rifle will you fight
  for the Lord? But you cant kill the Devil with
  a gun or a sword (George Fox song)
• no priests or institutional church, just meeting
  houses
• Against ritual unprogrammed services
• Equality of all people before God, including
  women and uneducated
• Did not honor titles of kings or aristocracy
• Simplicity in dress and manner
• No oath-swearing in courts
• You should always be telling the truth!

57
Women Quakers

• Women preached the Quaker message
• Margaret Fell, wife of George Fox, helped start
  this denomination
• Quakers have been in the forefront of womens
  rights since their founding

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Women Quakers

• First Quakers to come to colonies were women, or
  women were prominently included in early Quaker
  settlements and preaching teams
• Elizabeth Harris, 1655, first Quaker in the
  colonies (in Maryland/Virginia area)
• 1656 two Quaker women arrive in Massachusetts Bay
  Colony, and are promptly exiled to Barbados

59
Mary Dyer

• Quaker martyr for
• Religious Freedom
• in North America

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Radical Religious Seeker

• Mary Dyer, 1611-1660
• Puritan settler in Massachusetts in 1630s
• Friend to radical antinomian, Anne Hutchinson
• Became a member of Quakers upon a visit to
  England, 1650s
• Lived in liberal Rhode Island, but traveled to
  New Haven and Massachusetts to speak of Quakerism

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Quaker Ministry

• Traveling Quaker preachers worked in mixed-gender
  groups of two-six people
• They did not conduct services, but explained the
  new doctrines of Quakerism
• The mixed-gender teams showed that the Quakers
  respected womens autonomy in a way distinctly
  different than their contemporaries.
• Mixed-gender teams were also controversial,
  because women traveling without their husbands
  was considered sexually scandalous.

62
Mary Dyers trips to Massachusetts

• She traveled to Massachusetts three times,
  despite a law making Quaker preaching a capital
  offense.
• The first time, she and her male companions were
  exiled back to Rhode Island.

63
Second Mission to Massachusetts

• Mary Dyer travels with William Robinson,
  Marmaduke Stephenson, and Nicolas Rogers in
  October 1659
• Dyer, Robinson and Stephenson are arrested and
  put on trial by Governor John Endicott they are
  found guilty and sentenced to death "for their
  rebellion, sedition, presumptuous obtruding
  themselves upon us, notwithstanding their being
  sentenced to banishment on pain of death, as
  underminers of this government. . ."

John Endicott, Puritan Governor of Massachusetts
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First Execution

• October 27, 1659, all three are led to the
  gallows. William Robinson was first executed.
  Marmaduke Stephenson was next. His last words
  were we suffer not as evil-doers, but for
  conscience sake.
• The noose was placed around Mary Dyers neck,
  before she was pardoned, and given into the
  custody of her husband.

65
Mary Dyer returns to Massachusetts

• In May of 1660, she returned to Massachusetts,
  even though her reprieve had carried strict
  orders of exile.
• She was arrested and again condemned.
• She apparently welcomed martyrdom, but also hoped
  the Puritans would not make themselves guilty of
  her blood, but look within to the voice of the
  Spirit.
• (they did not)

66
Mary Dyers Execution

• She was executed June 1, 1660, on Boston Common.
• She went to her end quite consciously and
  defiantly.
• One of her condemners said "She hangs there as a
  flag for others to take example by."

19th century depiction of Dyers march to the
scaffold
67
Religious Studies StudentVisits the Mary Dyer
Statue

• The execution of Dyer marked the apogee of
  Puritan power such executions were forbidden
  after 1661
• Bostons been apologizing ever since!
• The quote from Dyer on the base reads My life
  not availeth me in comparison to the liberty of
  truth.

Leigh Ann Hildebrand, November 2010
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Roger Williams v. George Fox
By 1672, all was safe George Fox was able to
visit Rhode Island Roger Williams
challenged him to a debate Records exist of
both sides points-of-view, - Williams because
he published an anti-Fox pamphlet - Fox
because he kept a journal (maintaining a journal
became an important Quaker practice)
69
George Fox and the New World

• Persecution of Quakers in England under the
  monarchy continued, especially depriving Quakers
  of opportunities in education and professional
  positions
• Fox thought it wise that Quakers establish
  communities in the New World

70
William Penn (1644-1718)

• Son of famous admiral
• While at collegehe heard dangerous new Quaker
  ideas
• His father sent him (as punishment) to Ireland
• There he met George Fox, and became a Quaker

The young William Penn (ca. 1666)
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William Penn (1644-1718)

• His father disowned him
• He was imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to
  doff his cap
• While there he wrote a famous Quaker pamphlet,
  No Cross, No Crown
• He gave up all military dress. For a while he had
  retained his ceremonial sword Fox told him wear
  it as long as you can

The older William Penn (ca. 1682)
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William Penn

• Penn asked King Charles II for the land in
  Pennsylvania as a safe place for Quakers and
  other Radical Reformation groups to settle.
• Penn, like Roger Williams, negotiated with the
  native peoples for the use of the land

73
Pennsylvania (Penns Woods)
74
Holland in the Colonial World

• How to remain independent
• Build into economic powerhouse
• Attract new religious and economic talent
• New Amsterdam (excellent harbor, a.k.a NYC)
• Dutch Reformed Church protestant, Magesterial,
  Calvinist
• They do not aggressively proselytize the native
  peoples

75
Holland in the Colonial World

• Economic model of religious tolerance
• 1650s Governor Peter Stuyvesant, of New Holland
• Wants to reject Jewish settlement in 1654
• Stuyvesant refers to them as a "deceitful race"
  who would "infest and trouble" the colony, bring
  down real estate values, etc. etc.
• receives letter from Dutch corporation signed by
  Jewish and Christian leaders, vetoing his
  rejection of Jewish settlers

76
Holland leaves North America

• The colony changes hands in 1664
• British decide to maintain it as a religiously
  plural place
• Governor Stuyvesant tearing up the letter
  demanding turnover of Holland to the British he
  hated reading the mail!

77
What Religious Freedom meant to New York The
Huguenots

• Huguenots were French Protestants, persecuted
  by their Catholic government
• A group of Huguenots moved to New York colony
  in 1677, and settled a Hudson River area that
  they called New Paltz, after the German city, Der
  Paltz, that gave them refuge initially
• By 1689 they had established schools in the
  area Protestantism demands literacy
• The Hudson River Valley had four major language
  groups by the end of the 17th century Dutch,
  English, French, and Native (Mohawk primarily)

78
Maryland Haven for Loyal British Catholics

• Maryland (allegedly named after Charles Is wife,
  Henrietta Marie) founded by Calvert family, a
  prominent family of loyal English Catholics,
  known by the title of Barons of Baltimore
• Colony founded in 1634
• First Catholic Mass in a British colony delivered
  March 25, 1634

79
Maryland Troubled Haven

• During the Puritan revolution in England,
  Maryland became a place of tumult, with
  Protestant (Church of England) uprisings against
  Catholic leadership
• This led to the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649,
  an important step in the history of religious
  tolerance
• But the Puritans invaded in 1650
• Toleration act restored by Calvert in 1659

80
Mainline Protestantism

• Lutherans, Methodists,
• United Church of Christ,
• Presbyterians, and Episcopalians

81
Lutherans

• The various Lutheran churches all stem from
  Martin Luther, and are therefore a part of the
  Magisterial Reformation.
• Lutheran churches in Europe are centered around
  central Europe and Scandinavia, and include a
  number of national churches.
• Lutherans in the colonies were most represented
  in New Sweden, a brief-lived Swedish colony,
  later absorbed into New Jersey and Delaware.

82
Lutherans in U.S. History

• When immigration to the United States began to
  accelerate in the 1820s-1850s, settlers from
  Germany and Scandinavia were prominent. Many of
  these new Americans were Lutherans.
• Settlement patterns of these new immigrants led
  them to the upper Midwest therefore, Lutherans
  have traditionally been numerous in states like
  Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Iowa, and
  Missouri, but can be found in good numbers
  throughout the country.

83
Presbyterians

• The Presbyterian Church is a Magisterial
  Protestant church, based in Scotland, formed in
  the 1550s and 1560s. Its theological basis is
  Calvinistic.
• The term Presbyterian refers to their form of
  organization and governance by elders, known as
  Presbyters.
• Scottish immigration to the colonies, and later
  to the United States, included significant
  settlements throughout the eastern seaboard,
  Appalachia, and the upper Midwest. They also
  sponsored an aggressive home missionary
  campaign in the nineteenth century, that
  proselytized and established colleges and other
  institutions.

84
Episcopalians

• The Episcopalian church is the American name for
  those who follow the practice of the Church of
  England. Following the American Revolution,
  Anglicans thought it would be better to re-name
  their religious practice so as not to appear
  disloyal, and to better reflect their churchs
  bishop-based form of organization.
• The Episcopal Church is strongest on the East
  Coast, where it played a role in all of the
  original colonies.

85
Congregationalists

• The name Congregationalist meant that this
  denomination organized itself around each
  individual congregation (those who attend church
  at a single location). The logic of
  Congregationalism is that each congregation can
  be self-governing, because the people within it
  know each other better than an external, distant
  authority (meaning they rejected rule by a pope,
  bishop, or king)
• The Pilgrims were Congregationalists the
  Puritans soon became so in America.

86
Methodists

• The Methodist church has aspects of a Radical
  Reformation denomination, but it is also an
  offshoot of the Church of England. It was started
  in the 18th century by two brothers, John and
  Charles Wesley, who feared that modern life and
  urbanization was distracting people from their
  religious needs. They devised a method for
  individuals to stay focused on religion through
  daily prayer and reflection.
• The Wesley brothers traveled to the colony of
  Georgia in the 1730s.

87
Methodists in American History

• The Methodists grew quite quickly during the
  First Great Awakening.
• Their notion of itinerant preachers is quite
  evangelical in outlook.
• At the time of the American Revolution, they were
  the largest denomination in the colonies, and
  supported the revolutionary cause.
• They have continued to grow, though they are
  currently one of the liberal, mainstream
  denominations.