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Jan 1, 1533
Puritans
Came to the New England colonies to escape religious persecution. Led by John Winthrop, 900 Puritan colonists landed in Massachusetts Bay. Attempted to “purify" the Church of England and their own lives was based on the teachings of John Calvin. Using the New Testament, they believed that each person individually was responsible to God. Their belief that their destiny was predetermined, their self-imposed isolation, and religious exclusivity, would later lead to witch hunts beginning in 1688. -
Lutherans
Members came from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. The Lutherans settled on the East Coast and American Midwest, and celebrated worship services in their native tongues. From their first foothold in 1619, Lutherans began to establish a sum total of 150 synods. Set a large precedent for the future of religion as many people still practice Lutheran worship services. -
Congregationalists
Based on the Calvinist tradition and strictly opposed to external authorities, Congregationalists came to New England and established the Plymouth Colony in 1620. As part of the Separatist movement, Congregationalists broke from the Anglican Church and established independent congregations in which God was the absolute authority. -
Pilgrims
Led by William Bradford, A form of puritan (separatists) who wanted to completely break away from the Church of England. They emigrated to the Americas on the Mayflower to find safe haven, after negotiating for rights with the Virginia company. The Pilgrims refused to conform to the Church of England and received a charter from the London Company, creating Plymouth colony. -
John Winthrop
Established Plymouth colony (one of the leaders). Massachusetts Bay colony's first governor. Gave the city upon a hill speech. Puritan leader. He was instrumental in forming the colony's government and shaping its legislative policy. He envisioned the colony, centered in present-day Boston, as a "city upon a hill" from which Puritans would spread religious righteousness throughout the world. -
Catholics in Maryland
Maryland was considered the safe haven for Catholics. Colony was founded by Lord Baltimore. The colony offered religious freedom to all Christian colonists, a place where Catholics and Protestants could live in harmony (religious refuge). -
Roger Williams
Williams was exiled from the colony of Massachusetts for not being Puritan enough. He founded Rhode Island for separation of Church and State and allowed complete religious freedom. He was ordered to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious beliefs and was an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans. -
Religious Freedom of Rhode Island
After Roger Williams was exiled from Massachusetts, he bought land from neighboring Indian tribes and founded Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, church and state were completely separated and anybody could be any religion they chose. He also made peaceful relations with Natives. -
Anne Hutchinson
She preached the idea that God communicated directly to individuals instead of through the church elders and was therefore exiled from Massachusetts in 1637. Her followers founded the colony of New Hampshire in 1639. Anne provoked an intense religious and political crisis in the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1636 and 1638. -
Baptists
Individuals who belong the Christian belief and believe that Baptism should only be performed on the believers of faith. Split off from the Puritans. They emphasized free will and universal redemption and equality for all, completely believed in the Bible. -
Quakers
Founded in 1647 by English preacher George Fox, also known as the Society of Friends, emphasized a direct relationship with God. One’s conscience, not the Bible, was the ultimate authority on morals and actions. William Penn’s writings about freedom of conscience formed the basis of religious understanding for Quakers around the world. Penn established Pennsylvania, an American religious sanctuary in the late 17th century. -
Maryland Act of Toleration
The act was passed by the Maryland Assembly and granted religious freedom to Christians. This act provided religious toleration to all Christians living in Maryland. However, it allowed the death penalty for Jews, atheists, and anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus. It ensured that Catholics, who feared persecution, were sheltered. -
William Penn
Penn founded the Province of Pennsylvania, the British North American colony that became the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, who was given a large piece of the American land from King James II of England. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, he was also one of the few colonies to have good relations with the Indians, making several successful treaties. -
Anglican/Church of England
The national church of England (and all other churches in other countries that share its beliefs), created by Henry VIII. The Church of England was first planted on American soil at the ill-fated Roanoke colony in Virginia, when their first services were held on August 13, 1687. -
Witch Hunts
The legal lynching in 1692 of twenty individuals, nineteen of whom were hung and one of whom was pressed to death. Two dogs were also hung. Hunts and accusations began in Salem, Massachusetts. The hunts represented the widening social stratification of New England and the fear of many religious traditionalists that the Puritan heritage was being eclipsed by Yankee commercialism. -
The 1st Great Awakening
(1730–1755) The 1st Great Awakening was a sudden outbreak of religious fervor in the colonies due to an arid rationalism in New England, formalism in liturgical practices, as among the Dutch Reformed in the Middle Colonies, and the neglect of pastoral supervision in the South. One of the first events to unify the colonies and had a permanent impact on American Protestantism. Helped break down differences between them. Important Figures: (Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent) -
Old/New Lights
Old lights were orthodox members of the clergy who believed that the new ways of revivals and emotional preaching were unnecessary, tried to continue previous ways. New lights were the more modern-thinking members of the clergy who strongly believed in the Great Awakening. People were interested in the change as they have migrated to a new world. -
Methodists
Members of a Christian Protestant denomination originating in the 18th-century evangelistic movement of Charles and John Wesley and George Whitefield. Methodist preachers reshaped the spiritual landscape throughout the South. Offering a powerful emotional message and the promise of religious fellowship, revivalists attracted both individuals who had no church affiliation and pious families searching for social ties as they migrated to new communities in the Second Great Awakening. -
Spanish missions in their colonies
(1769-1833) Key to Spanish power, influence, and expansion. Spanish missions were Spain's key promoter of expansion on the frontier in the early 19th century. The goal of these missions was to convert Native Americans, and have them preside on mission lands as farmers. Missions were protected by presidios, which were forts near each mission. The mission system began its decline in the 1830s when missions were "secularized" and Native Americans began to flee and return to their nomadic ways. -
Shakers
A religious group that established small Utopian communities, ranging from Maine to Kentucky. The name Shaker came from a ritual shaking dance that the members of the group performed. The Shakers did not believe in having children, and so they only relied on converts to expand the community, slowly fell because of not having children. They got their name from their ecstatic dances that were a part of their worship. They also maintained equality between men and women. -
2nd Great Awakening
(1790–1840) A series of religious revivals, based on Methodism and Baptism. Preachers stressed a religious philosophy of salvation through good deeds and tolerance for all Protestant sects. The revivals attracted women, Blacks, and Native Americans. It also impacted moral movements such as prison reform, the temperance movement, and anti-slavery ideas. It progressed society greatly as did the 1st Great Awakening. Important Figures: Charles Grandison Finney, Lyman Beecher, Barton Stone. -
1st amendment
Freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, & religion. And, government cannot establish any official religion. For example, separation of church and state. Congress could not make no law to prohibit free speech and peaceful assembly (protest). -
Native American Boarding Schools
(1810-1917) Long term Native American schooling unlike traditional lifestyles. The government paid religious societies to provide education to Native American children on reservations. The Bureau took Indian children away from their families and sent them to boarding schools run by whites, where they believed the young people could be educated to abandon tribal ways but in reality, it was forced by the government. -
Charles G. Finney
(1825–1835) Finney was active in the years during 2nd Great Awakening. Known as the "father of modern revivalism". He believed that conversions were human creations instead of the divine works of God, and that people's destinies were in their own hands. His Social Gospel offered salvation to all. He was a Presbyterian minister who appealed to his audience's sense of emotion rather than their reason. His "fire and brimstone" sermons became common. -
The Book of Mormon
A sacred book of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Mormons, and it believed by members of the church to be an abridgment by a Mormon prophet of a record of certain ancient peoples in America, written on golden plates, and discovered and translated by Joseph Smith. -
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the sect (officially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) was a product of the intense revivalism of the "Burned Over District" of New York. Smith establishment of the Mormon faith started a movement within America of values including no drinking, gambling, and an unorthodox view of marriage. The church believes that "Mormon" should properly be applied only to its members. -
Mormons
Joseph Smith founded and led the way. Smith wrote The Book of Mormon in 1830. Smith reported to being visited by an angel and given golden plates in 1840; the plates, when deciphered, brought about the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Book of Mormon. The Mormons were much more conservative and successful than other communities. Mormons practiced polygamy which led to their persecution and migration to Utah by Brigham Young and grew to have a large following. -
Transcendentalism
(1836-1860) A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's, in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature, and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter, intuition is valuable, that each soul is part of the Great Spirit, and each person is part of a reality where only the invisible is truly real. Promoted individualism, self-reliance, and freedom from social constraints, and emphasized emotions. -
YMCA
Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations. Established before Civil war and combined physical and other kinds of education with religious teachings. Nonpolitical Christian lay movement that aims to develop high standards of Christian character through group activities and citizenship training -
Brigham Young
The successor to the Mormons after the death of Joseph Smith. He was responsible for the survival of the sect and its establishment in Utah, thereby populating the would-be state. -
Social Gospel Movement
(1870-1920) Worked to improve lives of the poorer and less fortunate. Movement led by Washington Gladden - taught religion and human dignity would help the poor overcome problems of industrialization. Didn't focus on religion, but on the fact that improved living conditions begot improved morality. -
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
This organization advocated for the prohibition of alcohol, using women's supposedly greater purity and morality as a rallying point. Advocates of prohibition in the United States found common cause with activists elsewhere, especially in Britain, and in the 1880s they founded the World Women's Christian Temperance Union, which sent missionaries around the world to spread the gospel of temperance. -
Polygamy Federally Outlawed
The US federal government threatened The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and made polygamy illegal through the enforcement of Acts of Congress such as the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act. Forced Mormons to move out to Utah -
Church of Christ
Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ (Christian Science) in 1879. She preached that the true practice of Christianity heals sickness. -
Progressive Era
(1890-1920) A movement, or groups of different reform movements, that took place at the turn of the 20th century until WWI directly caused by industrialization and urbanization. This movement sought to improve life in the industrial age by making moderate political changes and social improvements through governmental action. They wanted to limit the power of corporations, improve the democracy so it benefited the people, and strengthen justice. -
Radio Evangelists
(1920s) Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson were the two leading radio evangelists who attacked drinking, gambling, dancing, and communism and jazz music. -
Scopes Trial
A highly publicized trial where John Thomas Scopes violated a Tennessee state law by teaching evolution in high school. Scopes was prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan and defended by Clarence Darrow; Scopes was convicted but the verdict was later. Displayed the fundamentalism prevalent in rural areas at the time. -
Father Charles Coughlin
(1926-1936) The Catholic priest from Michigan Whose anti-New Deal harangues in the 1930's became so anti-Semitic, fascist, and demagogic that he was silenced by his superiors. -
Billy Graham
American evangelical Christian evangelist, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister. One of the most popular evangelical ministers of the era. Star of the first televised "crusades" for religious revival. He believed that all doubts about the literal interpretation of the bible were traps set by Satan. He supported Republicans and a large increase to money in the military. -
Televangelists
(1950s) Evangelical ministers to reach a large nationwide audience. Baptist Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts, and Roman Catholic Fulton J. Sheen took to the television airwaves to spread Christianity. -
Conservative Resurgence Movement
(1960s) In the 1950s conservatives had established a strong base of support in the growing Southwest. A growing number of businessmen and political leaders from the Sunbelt, many of whom had prospered in the postwar industrial boom, began playing a greater role in national politics. -
Epperson v. Arkansas
Case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Arkansas law barring the teaching of evolution in public schools violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which generally prohibits the government from establishing, advancing, or giving favor to any one religion. -
Roe v. Wade
Legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. The court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy.