Colonial Religious Diversity

Regional Beliefs and Bodies, 1680-1760

Brewton ParishAnglican Church

Especially Diverse Middle• In 1690, 90% of Congregations were

Congregationalist (New England) or Anglican (Virginia); by 1770, only 35% were.

• By 1770, Scot and Scots-Irish Presbyterians (15%) and Welsh Baptists (15%) were the largest rivals.

• Non-English bodies like the German Reformed, German Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and Mennonites made up nearly 25% of all congregations by 1770.

• This diversity was driven by immigration, denominational growth in denominations already present in 1690, and persistent folk beliefs (occult, magic).

French Protestants

• Hugenots primarily in Boston, New York, and South Carolina (2500 between 1680-1700)—but they tended to assimilate into existing congregations and intermarry with non-Hugenot families.

The Germans• Lutherans and German Reformed• Lutherans especially settled in New York and

Pennsylvania.• Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787) beginning in

1742 worked with immigrant Germans to organize congregations and encourage faithful worship.

• M. sought to create educated ministers to counter the loss of Lutherans to German Pietistic communities of faith with their lay ministers.

• Created the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1748, the first Lutheran Synod.

• Emphasis was on the confessional tradition of pure Lutheran Doctrine.

Muhlenberg

Old TrappeChurch,est. by M.

German Reformed (Calvinists)

• First Synod organized in 1747.• Original Congregants tended to be common

laborers who were “redemptioners” or “indentured servants.

• Limited their ability to do church work.• Emphasized a plain liturgy—plain gospel and pure

worship for a plain people.• Centered in Pennsylvania, but also in New York

and the back country of Maryland and North Carolina.

German Pietists or sectarians

• Mennonites—followers of Menno Simons—came to Pa. after 1680.

• More extreme Mennonites were the Amish, followers of the ideas of Jacob Amman.

• “Dunkers” or Church of the Brethren centered in Ephrata. Pa. and produced German language religious materials.

• Moravians—especially active in communal settlements in western Pa. and in doing evangelical work among Indians.

• Key for the Pietists: emphasis on proper living, rather than advocacy of proper doctrine alone.

Jews

• First Jews were from Brazil and settled in New York.

• First Synagogue was established in New York.

• Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazic Jews.

• Notable settlements in Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, and Newport.

Touro Synagogue

Methodists

• Movement within Anglican Church

• John Wesley (1703-1791)

• Armenianism

• Francis Asbury (1745-1816)

John Wesley

Francis Asbury

Quakers

• George Fox (1624-1691)

• William Penn (1644-1718)

• Quaker Party

• Pacificm

Baptists

• From Wales and England

• Calvinists

• “adult” immersion

• 60 Congregations by 1740, from Massachusetts to the Carolina Backcountry

Presbyterians

• Mostly Scots-Irish

• 130 Congregations by 1740

• Church governance

Schisms

• Nature of the religious ecology encouraged schism.

• Dissenting Baptists in Rhode Island known as Rogerenes (Saturday worship and faith healing), led by George Rogers (1670s)

• George Keith led a splinter group within the Quakers—they became Keithian Quakers and Keithian Baptists, while Keith became a Church of England minister denouncing Quakers. (1690s-1700s)

Folk Religion

• Grace Sherwood tried for witchcraft in Va. In 1705.

• Nicholas Trott in S. C. and Increase Mather in Mass. encouraged prosecution of witches.

• “cunning people”• Astrological Socieites• Almanacs