History of religion in American Colonies Essay

Many of the British North the Statesn colonies that in the end solveed the coup conduct States of the States were colonized in the 17th century by workforce and women, who, in the face of European apparitional perse cutting offion, ref utilize to compromise passionately held spectral convictions and f direct Europe.2 The Middle Atlantic colonies of spick-and-span Jersey, pascal, and doctor, were conceived and complete as plantations of religion. Some reposetlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motivesto catch fish as one recent Englander charge it only when the gigantic studyity left Europe to morality in the way they believed to be correct.They defended the efforts of their attractions to create a metropolis upon a Hill or a holy experiment, whose success would establish that Gods plan for churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneu rs who considered themselves militant Protestants and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church. puritansedit reference book editbetaprudes were incline Protestants who wished to reform and purify the church service of England of what they considered to be unacceptable residues of Roman Catholicism. on the 1620s, leaders of the position fix and church grew increasingly unsympathetic to puritan demands. They insisted that the Puritans conform to ghostlike physical exertions that they abhorred, removing their pastors from office and threatening them with extirpation from the existenceif they did not fall in line.Zealous Puritan laymen received savage punishments. For example, in 1630 a man was sentenced to intent imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose slit, an ear cut off, and his forehead branded S.S. (sower of sedition). head start in 1630, as umpteen as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America from England to gain the liberty to worship as they chose. Most settled in New England, but rough went as furthermost as the West Indies. Theologically, the Puritans were non-separating congregationalists. contrasted the Pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts in 1620, the Puritans believed that the perform of England was a on-key church, though in need of major reforms. E genuinely New England congregational church was considered an independent entity, beholden to no hierarchy. The membership was composed, at least(prenominal) initially, of men and women who had undergone a conversion experience and could prove it to some other members. Puritan leaders hoped (futilely, as it turned taboo) that, once their experiment was successful, England would imitate it by instituting a church order modeled after the New England Way. Persecution in Americaedit get-go editbetaAlthough they were victims of ghostly persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World conjecture that sanctioned it the need for uniformity of relig ion in the defer. Once in potency in New England, they desire to break the very have a go at it of Schism and vile opinions. The business of the extraction settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, was not Toleration, but they were professed enemies of it. 3 Puritans expelled dissenters from their colonies, a fate that in 1636 befell Roger Williams and in 1638 Anne Hutchinson, Americas first major fe manlike religious leader.Those who defied the Puritans by persistently returning to their jurisdictions risked capital punishment, a penalty imposed on the capital of Massachusetts martyrs, four Quakers, betwixt 1659 and 1661. Reflecting on the 17th centurys intolerance, Thomas Jefferson was unwilling to concede to Virginians any moral superiority to the Puritans. Beginning in 1659, Virginia enacted anti-Quaker rights, including the death penalty for refractory Quakers. Jefferson surmised that if no capital exploit took place here, as did in New England, it was not owing to the backup man of the church, or the spirit of the legislature.4 Founding of Rhode Islandedit commencement editbetaExpelled from Massachusetts in the winter in 1636, former Puritan leader Roger Williams issued an impassioned plea for freedom of conscience. He wrote, God requireth not an uniformity of faith to be inacted and implement in any civill state which inforced uniformity ( currentlyer or newr) is the bigest procedure of civill Warre, ravishing of conscience, persecution of deliverer Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisie and destruction of millions of souls.5 Williams later founded Rhode Island on the principle of religious freedom. He wel sleep togetherd population of religious belief, even some regarded as dangerously misguided, for nothing could change his suppose that forced worship stinks in Gods nostrils.6 Jewish refuge in Americaedit theme editbeta master(prenominal) article History of the Jews in the unify StatesA carload of twenty- collar Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Dutch Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam (soon to become New York City) in 1654. By the next year, this nonaged community had established religious services in the city. By 1658, Jews had arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, as well seeking religious liberty. Small twists of Jews continued to come to the British North American colonies, settling of importly in the haven towns. By the late 18th century, Jewish settlers had established several(prenominal) synagogues. Quakersedit book of facts editbetaThe ghostly Society of Friends form in England in 1652 most leader George Fox. Many scholarswho? today consider Quakers as radical Puritans because the Quakers carried to extremes some(prenominal) Puritan convictions.citation needed They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of plainness. Theologically, they expanded the Puritan theory of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to the idea of the subjective of the Spirit or the Light of Christ in every somebody. much(prenominal) article of belief struck many of the Quakers contemporaries as dangerous heresy. Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England and 243 had died of torture and mistreatment in jail.This reign of terror driven Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey in the 1670s, where they soon became surface entrenched. In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the commonwealth of protoactinium, many more Quakers were rest little to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they baron worship freely. By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania from England, Wales, and Ireland.citation needed Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs and practices, they differed with them over the requiremen t of compelling religious uniformity in society. Pennsylvania Germansedit quotation editbetaDuring the main years of German emigration to Pennsylvania in the mid-18th century, nigh of the emi turn overs were Lutherans, Reformed, or members of small sectsMennonites, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Moravians, and some German Baptist groups. The great majority became farmers.7 The colony was possess by William Penn, a leading Quaker, and his agents encouraged German emigration to Pennsylvania by circulating promotional literature touting the economic advantages of Pennsylvania as well as the religious liberty available there. The appearance in Pennsylvania of so many different religious groups do the province resemble an asylum for banished sects. Roman Catholics in docedit source editbetaFor their political opposition, Catholics were chevy and had for the most part been stripped of their civil rights since the reign of Elizabeth I. Driven by the dedicated duty of finding a refuge fo r his Roman Catholic brethren, George Calvert obtained a charter from Charles I in 1632 for the territory surrounded by Pennsylvania and Virginia.8 This Maryland charter offered no guidelines on religion, although it was assumed that Catholics would not be molested in the impertinent colony. His son master copy Baltimore, was a Catholic who inherited the grant for Maryland from his father and was in charge 1630-45. In 1634, Lord Baltimores devil ships, the Ark and the Dove, with the first 200 settlers to Maryland.They included two Catholic priests. Lord Baltimore assumed that religion was a private matter. He rejected the need for an established church, guaranteed liberty of conscience to all Christians, and embraced pluralism.9 Catholic fortunes fluctuated in Maryland during the rest of the 17th century, as they became an increasingly smaller minority of the population. later on the Glorious Revolution of 1689 in England, the performof England was legally established in the c olony and English penal laws, which deprived Catholics of the right to vote, hold office, or worship publicly, were enforced. Marylands first state constitution in 1776 restored the freedom of religion.10 Virginia and the church of Englandedit source editbetaMain articles History of VirginiaReligion in early Virginia and Episcopal Diocese of VirginiaHistory Virginia was the pear-shapedst, most populous and most important colony. The church building of England was legally established the bishop of London made it a favorite missional target and sent in 22 clergyman by 1624. In practice, establishment meant that topical anaesthetic taxes were funneled through the local parish to wish the needs of local government, such(prenominal) as roads and unequal relief, in addition to the salary of the minister. There never was a bishop in colonial Virginia, and in practice the local vestry consisted of laymen who controlled the parish and handled local taxes, roads and poor relief.11Th e Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg. Government and college officials in the capital at Williamsburg were mandatory to attend services at this Anglican church. When the elected assembly, the House of Burgesses, was established in 1619, it enacted religious laws that made Virginia a bastion of Anglicanism. It passed a law in 1632 requiring that there be a uniformitie end-to-end this colony both in substance and circumstance to the cannons and constitution of the Church of England.12The colonists were typically inattentive, uninterested, and world-weary during church services according to the ministers, who complained that the people were sleeping, whispering, ogling the fashionably dressed women, walk about and coming and going, or at best looking out the windows or staring blankly into space.13 The lack of towns meant the church had to serve disoriented settlements, while the acute shortage of trained ministers meant that piety was hard to practice outside the home. Some mini sters solved their problems by encouraging parishioners to become beloved at home, use the daybook of Common Prayer for private charm and devotion (rather than the Bible).This al downcasted devout Anglicans to lead an prompt and sincere religious animation apart from the unsatisfactory formal church services. However the stress on private devotion weakened the need for a bishop or a large institutional church of the sort Blair wanted. The stress on ain piety opened the way for the First prominent awakening, which pulled people forth from the established church.14 Especially in the back country, most families had no religious affiliation whatsoever and their low moral standards were shocking to proper Englishmen15 The Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and other ev sweet-scentedals directly challenged these idle moral standards and refused to tolerate them in their ranks.The evangelicals identified as sinful the handed-down standards of masculinity which revolved around gambling, drinking, and brawling, and arbitrary control over women, children, and slaves. The religious communities enforced new standards, creating a new male leadership post that followed Christian principles and became dominant in the nineteenth century.16 Baptists, German Lutherans and Presbyterians, funded their own ministers, and favored disestablishment of the Anglican church. The dissenters grew much faster than the established church, do religious division a factor in Virginia politics into the Revolution. The Patriots, led by Thomas Jefferson, disestablished the Anglican Church in 1786.17 Eighteenth centuryedit source editbetaAgainst a prevailing view that 18th century Americans had not perpetuated the first settlers passionate commitment to their faith, scholars now identify a in superior spirits direct of religious energy in colonies after 1700. According to one expert, religion was in the ascension rather than the declension another sees a emerging vitality in re ligious life from 1700 onward a troika finds religion in many parts of the colonies in a state of feverish growth.18 Figures on church attendance and church formation support these opinions.Between 1700 and 1740, an estimated 75-80% of the population attended churches, which were being built at a headlong pace.18 By 1780 the share of adult colonists who adhered to a church was between 10-30%, not counting slaves or Native Americans. North Carolina had the lowest percentage at about 4%, while New Hampshire and southeasterly Carolina were trussed for the highest, at about 16%.19 Church buildings in 18th-century America wide-ranging greatly, from the plain, modest buildings in newly settled rural areas to elegant edifices in the prosperous cities on the eastern seaboard. Churches reflected the customs and traditions as well as the wealth and social status of the denomi domains that built them. German churches contained features unknown in English ones. Deismedit source editbetaSee in any case DeismDeism in the United StatesDeism is a loosely used bound that describes the views of accredited English and continental thinkers. These views gained a small, un organised but influential number of adherents in America in the late 18th century. A form of deism, Christian deism, stressed morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, frequently viewing him as a sublime, but unaccompanied human, teacher of morality.18 Though their views were complex, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James capital of Wisconsin were adherents, in some respects, of Unitarianism. Jefferson in particular was an adherent of Deism and Unitarianism. Unlike Thomas Paine, this was not a radical, anti-Christian Deistism.Instead it was always respectful of Christianity, esteem the ethics of Christ, believed religion could and should play a beneficial place in society, and was open to the possibility that there was a benevolent God bear on in the affairs of men and nations.20 Deism similarly influenced the development of Unitarianism in America. By 1800, all but one Congregationalist church in Boston had Unitarian preachers teaching the strict unity of God, the subordinate genius of Christ, and salvation by character. Harvard University, founded by Congregationalists, became a source of Unitarian training. immense awaken emergence of evangelicalismedit source editbeta Main article First great(p) modifyIn the American colonies the First grand change was a wave of religious enthusiasm among Protestants that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, sledding a permanent squeeze on American religion. It resulted from powerful lecture that deeply affected listeners (already church members) with a deep sense of ad hominem guilt and salvation by Christ. Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the owing(p) Awakening made religion intensely personal to the average person by creating a deep sense of spiritual guilt and redemption. historiographer Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees it as part of a great international Protestant excitation that also created Pietism in Germany, the Evangelical Revival and Methodism in England.21 It brought Christianity to the slaves and was an suggestive event in New England that challenged established authority.It incited rancor and division between the old traditionalists who insisted on ritual and doctrine and the new revivalists. The new tendency of sermons and the way people practiced their faith breathed new life into religion in America. People became passionately and emotionally involved in their religion, rather than passively listening to intellectual discourse in a detached manner. Ministers who used this new style of preaching were generally called new lights, while the preachers of old were called old lights. People began to study the Bible at home, which effectively decentralized the means of informing the public on religious manne rs and was akin to the individualistic trends present in Europe during the Protestant Reformation.22The fundamental premise of evangelicalism is the conversion of individuals from a state of sin to a new birth through preaching of the Word. The First slap-up Awakening led to changes in American colonial society. In New England, the huge Awakening was influential among many Congregationalists. In the Middle and Southern colonies, oddly in the Backcountry regions, the Awakening was influential among Presbyterians. In the South Baptist and Methodist preachers reborn both whites and enslaved nigrifys.23 During the first decades of the 18th century, in the Connecticut River Valley, a serial publication of local awakenings began in the Congregational church with ministers including Jonathan Edwards.The first new Congregational Church in the Massachusetts Colony during the great awakening period, was in 1731 at Uxbridge and called the Rev. Nathan Webb as its Pastor. By the 1730s, they had sprinkle into what was interpreted as a general outpouring of the Spirit that bathed the American colonies, England, Wales, and Scotland. In mass outdoors revivals powerful preachers like George Whitefield brought thousands of souls to the new birth. The Great Awakening, which had spent its force in New England by the mid-1740s, split the Congregational and Presbyterian churches into supporterscalled New Lights and New boldnessand opponentsthe Old Lights and Old Side. Many New England New Lights became Separate Baptists. largely through the efforts of a charismatic preacher from New England named Shubal Stearns and paralleled by the New Side Presbyterians (who were eventually reunited on their own terms with the Old Side), they carried the Great Awakening into the southern colonies, igniting a series of the revivals that lasted well into the nineteenth century.18 The supporters of the Awakening and its evangelical thrustPresbyterians, Baptists and Methodistsbecame the larges t American Protestant denominations by the first decades of the 19th century. Opponents of the Awakening or those split by itAnglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalistswere left behind. Unlike the blurb Great Awakening that began about 1800 and which reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness.22 Evangelicals in the Southedit source editbetaThe South had originally been settled and controlled by Anglicans, who dominated the ranks of rich planters but whose ritualistic high church established religion had little bring up to ordinary men and women, both white and black.2425 Baptistsedit source editbetaEnergized by numerous itinerant self-proclaimed missionaries, by the 1760s Baptists were drawing Southerners, especially poor white farmers, into a new, much more democratic religion. Slaves were welcome at the services and many became Baptists at this time. Baptist services were highly emotional the only ritual was baptism, which was utilize by immersion (not sprinkling like the Anglicans) only to adults. Opposed to the low moral standards prevalent in the colony, the Baptists strictly enforced their own high standards of personal morality, with special concern for sexual misconduct, heavy drinking, frivolous spending, absent services, cursing, and revelry. Church trials were held frequently and if members who did not submit to disciple were expelled.26 Historians have debated the implications of the religious rivalries for the American Revolution.The Baptist farmers did introduce a new egalitarian ethic that largely displaced the semi-aristocratic ethic of the Anglican planters. However, both groups supported the Revolution. There was a penetrative contrast between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists and the opulence of the Anglican planters, who controlled local government. Baptist church discipline, misinterpreted by the ge ntry for radicalism, served to ameliorate disorder. The struggle for religious toleration erupted and was played out during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican church.27 Baptists, German Lutherans and Presbyterians, funded their own ministers, and favored disestablishment of the Anglican church. Methodistsedit source editbetaMethodist missionaries were also active in the late colonial period. From 1776 to 1815 Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury made 42 trips into the occidental parts to visit Methodist congregations. In the 1780s itinerant Methodist preachers carried copies of an anti-slavery entreat in their saddlebags throughout the state, calling for an end to slavery. At the same time, counter-petitions were circulated. The petitions were presented to the gathering they were debated, but no legislative action was taken, and after 1800 there was less and less religious opposition to slavery.28 Masculinity and moralityedit source editbet aEspecially in the Southern back country, most families had no religious affiliation whatsoever and their low moral standards were shocking to proper Englishmen.15 The Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and other evangelicals directly challenged these lax moral standards and refused to tolerate them in their ranks. The evangelicals identified as sinful the traditional standards of masculinity which revolved around gambling, drinking, and brawling, and arbitrary control over women, children, and slaves. The religious communities enforced new standards, creating a new male leadership role that followed Christian principles and became dominant in the 19th century.16 American Revolutionedit source editbetaReligion played a major role in the American Revolutioncitation needed by offering a moral sanction for opposition to the Britishan self-reliance to the average American that revolution was justified in the sight of Godcitation needed. As a recent scholar has observed, by turning co lonial subway into a righteous cause, and by crying the message to all ranks in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better.citation needed Ministers served the American cause in many capacities during the Revolution as military chaplains, as scribes for committees of correspondence, and as members of state legislatures, constitutional conventions and the Continental Congress.Some even took up arms, leading Continental Army troops in battle. The Revolution split some denominations, notably the Church of England, whose ministers were bound by oath to support the king, and the Quakers, who were traditionally pacifists. Religious practice suffered in certain places because of the absence of ministers and the destruction of churches, but in other areas, religion flourished. The Revolution strengthened millennialist arrive ats in American theology.At the beginning of the war some ministers were persuaded that, with Gods help, America effic acy become the superstar Seat of the glorious Kingdom which Christ shall rig upon Earth in the latter Days. Victory over the British was taken as a sign of Gods partiality for America and stimulated an outpouring of millennialist expectationsthe conviction that Christ would rule on earth for 1,000 years. This attitude combined with a groundswell of secular optimism about the future of America helped to create the buoyant mood of the new nation that became so seeming(a) after Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801. Church of Englandedit source editbetaMain article Episcopal Church (United States)The American Revolution inflicted deeper wounds on the Church of England in America than on any other denomination because the English monarch was the head of the church. Church of England priests, at their ordination, swore allegiance to the British crown. The Book of Common Prayer offered prayers for the monarch, beseeching God to be his defender and keeper, freehand him victory over all his enemies, who in 1776 were American soldiers as well as friends and neighbors of American parishioners of the Church of England.Loyalty to the church and to its head could be construed as treason to the American cause. Patriotic American members of the Church of England, curse to discard so fundamental a component of their faith as The Book of Common Prayer, revised it to conform to the political realities. later on the accordance of Paris (1783) documenting British recognition of American independence, the church split and the Anglican Communion created, allowing a cleard Episcopal Church of the United States to replace, in the United States, and be in communion with the Church of England. Great Awakenings and Evangelicalismedit source editbetaDuring the warrant Great Awakening, church membership rose sharply. Main articles Revivalism and Evangelicalism The great Awakenings were large-scale revivals that came in spurts, and moved large numbers of people from unchurche d to churched. It made Evangelicalism one of the dominant forces in American religion. Balmer explains that Evangelicalism itself, I believe, is quintessentially North American phenomenon, deriving as it did from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism.Evangelicalism picked up the peculiar characteristics from each strain warmhearted spirituality from the Pietists (for instance), doctrinal precisionism from the Presbyterians, and individualistic introspection from the Puritans even as the North American context itself has profoundly shaped the various manifestations of evangelicalism. fundamentalism, neo-evangelicalism, the theology front line, Pentecostalism, the charismatic campaign, and various forms of African-American and Hispanic evangelicalism.29 Second Great Awakeningedit source editbetaMain article Second Great AwakeningSee also Camp meeting and Revival meeting In 1800, major revivals began that spread across the nation the decorous Second Great Awakening in New England and the exuberant Great Revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. The principal religious innovation produced by the Kentucky revivals was the camp meeting. The revivals at first were organized by Presbyterian ministers who modeled them after the extended outdoor communion seasons, used by the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, which frequently produced emotional, demonstrative displays of religious conviction. In Kentucky, the pioneers loaded their families and provisions into their wagons and drove to the Presbyterian meetings, where they pitched tents and settled in for several days. When assembled in a field or at the edge of a forest for a prolonged religious meeting, the participants transformed the site into a camp meeting.The religious revivals that swept the Kentucky camp meetings were so intense and created such gusts of emotion that their original sponsors, the Presbyterians, as well the Baptists, soon repudiated them. The Methodists, however, a dopted and eventually domesticated camp meetings and introduced them into the eastern states,where for decades they were one of the evangelical signatures of the denomination. The Second Great Awakening (18001830s), unlike the first, focused on the unchurched and sought to instill in them a deep sense of personal salvation as experient in revival meetings. The great revival quickly spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee and southern Ohio.Each denomination had assets that allowed it to thrive on the frontier. The Methodists had an efficient physical composition that depended on ministers known as circuit riders, who sought out people in remote frontier locations. The circuit riders came from among the common people, which helped them establish rapport with the frontier families they hoped to convert. The Second Great Awakening exercised a profound usurpation on American religious history. By 1860 evangelicalism emerged as a soma of national church or national religion and was the grand enthralling theme of American religious life. The greatest gains were made by the very well organized Methodists. Francis Asbury (17451816) led the American Methodist movement as one of the most prominent religious leaders of the young republic. traveling throughout the eastern seaboard, Methodism grew quickly under Asburys leadership into the nations largest and most widespread denomination. The numerical strength of the Baptists and Methodists rose relation to that of the denominations dominant in the colonial periodthe Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Reformed. Efforts to apply Christian teaching to the resolution of social problems presaged the Social Gospel of the late 19th century. It also sparked the beginnings of groups such as the Mormons, the indemnity parkway and the Holiness movement. trey Great Awakeningedit source editbetaMain article Third Great Awakening The Third Great Awakening was a period of religious activism in American history fro m the late 1850s to the 20th century. It affected pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong sense ofsocial activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial theology that the Second Coming of Christ would come after mankind had reformed the whole earth.The Social Gospel Movement gained its force from the Awakening, as did the worldwide missional movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene movements, and Christian acquirement.30 The Protestant mainline churches were growing rapidly in numbers, wealth and breedingal levels, throwing off their frontier beginnings and become centered in towns and cities. Intellectuals and writers such as Josiah Strong advocated a muscular Christianity with systematic outreach to the unchurched in America and around the globe. opposites built colleges and universities to train the next generation. Each denomination supported active missionary societies, and made the role of missionary one of high prest ige.The great majority of pietistic mainline Protestants (in the North) supported the Republican Party, and urged it to endorse bar and social reforms.3132 See Third Party System The awakening in numerous cities in 1858 was interrupted by the American Civil War. In the South, on the other hand, the Civil War stimulated revivals and strengthened the Baptists, especially.33 afterwards the war, Dwight L. Moody made revivalism the centerpiece of his activities in Chicago by insane asylum the Moody Bible Institute. The hymns of Ira Sankey were especially influential.34 Across the nation drys crusaded in the name of religion for the prohibition of alcohol.The Womans Christian easing Union mobilized Protestant women for social crusades against liquor, pornography and prostitution, and sparked the demand for woman suffrage.35 The beautify Age plutocracy came under harsh attack from the Social Gospel preachers and with reformers in the Progressive Era who became involved with issues of c hild labor, compulsory elementary education and the protection of women from exploitation in factories. All the major denominations sponsored growing missionary activities inside the United States and around the world.3637Colleges associated with churches rapidly expanded in number, surface and quality of curriculum. The promotion of muscular Christianity became popular among young men on campus and in urban YMCAs, as well as such denominational youth groups such as the Epworth League for Methodists and the Walther League for Lutherans.38 Emergence of African American churchesedit source editbetaScholars disagree about the extent of the native African content of black Christianity as it emerged in 18th-century America, but there is no dispute that the Christianity of the black population was grounded in evangelicalism. The Second Great Awakening has been called the central and defining event in the development of Afro-Christianity.During these revivals Baptists and Methodists conv erted large numbers of blacks. However, many were disappointed at the treatment they received from their fellow traveler believers and at the backsliding in the commitment to abolish slavery that many white Baptists and Methodists had advocated immediately after the American Revolution. When their discontent could not be contained, forceful black leaders followed what was becoming an American habitthey formed new denominations. In 1787, Richard Allen and his colleagues in Philadelphia broke away from the Methodist Church and in 1815 founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which, along with independent black Baptist congregations, flourished as the century progressed.By 1846, the AME Church, which began with 8 clergy and 5 churches, had grown to 176 clergy, 296 churches, and 17,375 members. After the Civil War, Black Baptists desiring to practice Christianity away from racial discrimination, rapidly set up several separate state Baptist conventions. In 1866, black Bapt ists of the South and West combined to form the Consolidated American Baptist Convention. This Convention eventually collapsed but three national conventions formed in response. In 1895 the three conventions merged to create the National Baptist Convention. It is now the largest African-American religious constitution in the United States. Restorationismedit source editbetaMain article Restorationism (Christian primitivism)See also Dispensationalism and Restoration Movement Restorationism refers to the belief that a purer form of Christianity should be restored using the early church as a model.3963540217 In many cases, restorationist groups believed that contemporary Christianity, in all its forms, had deviated from the true, original Christianity, which they then attempted to Reconstruct, often using the Book of Acts as a guidebook of sorts.Restorationists do not usually describe themselves as reforming a Christian church ceaselessly existing from the time of Jesus, but as rest oring the Church that they believe was unconnected at some point. Restorationism is often used to describe the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. The term Restorationist is also used to describe the last mentioned-day Saints (Mormons) and the overlords recover Movement. Denominations and sects founded in the U.S.edit source editbetaMormonismedit source editbetaMain article History of the Latter Day Saint movement The origins of another distinctive religious group, the present(prenominal) Saints (LDS)also widely known as Mormonsarose in the early 19th century during the Golden Day of Democratic Evangelicalism. Founder Joseph metalworker, Jr., and many of his soonest followers came from an area of western New York called the burned-over district, because it had been scorched by so many revivals.Young Joseph Smith had a series of visions, revelations from God and visitations from angelic messengers, providing him with ongoing instruction in the execution of his role as a prop het and a restorationist. After publishing the Book of Mormonwhich he claimed to have translated by divine power from a record of antiquated American prophets recorded on golden platesSmith organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 6, 1830.Mormon theology was far out of the mainstream, and the Mormons were driven out of state after state Smith was assassinated and Brigham Young led the people out of the U.S. into Utah at the time virtually ungoverned. Rumors to the effect Mormons were practicing polygamy there were true the U.S. government went to Utah, clashed with the Mormons, and sought to disenfranchise the Church for practicing polygamy. The Church pulled away from plural marriages between 1890 and 1907, was allowed to hook on normal status, and Utah was granted statehood in 1896. Thanks to worldwide missionary work, the church now counts over 14 million members.41 ecclesiastics Witnessesedit source editbetaMain article History of Jehovahs Witnesse s Jehovahs Witnesses comprise a fast-growing denomination that has kept itself separate from other Christian denominations. It began in 1872 with Charles Taze Russell, but experienced a major schism in 1917 as Joseph Franklin Rutherford began his presidency. Rutherford gave new direction to the movement and renamed the movement Jehovahs witnesses in 1931.The period from 1925 to 1933 saw many meaning(a) changes in doctrine. Attendance at their yearly Memorial dropped from a high of 90,434 in 1925 to 63,146 in 1935. Since 1950 growth has been very rapid.42 During the World War II, Jehovahs Witnesses experienced mob attacks in America and were temporarily illegalise in Canada and Australia because of their opposition to the war effort. They won significant Supreme cost victories involving the rights of free speech and religion that have had a great impact on legal interpretation of these rights for others.43 In 1943, the United States Supreme accost ruled in West Virginia State Boa rd of Education vs. Barnette that groom children of Jehovahs Witnesses could not be compelled to salute the flag. Church of Christ, Scientistedit source editbetaMain article Church of Christ, Scientist The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879, in Boston by Mary Baker Eddy, the author of its central book, learning and health with Key to the Scriptures, which offers a unique interpretation of Christian faith.44 Christian Science teaches that the reality of God denies the reality of sin, sickness, death and the material world. Accounts of miraculous mend are common within the church, and adherents often refuse traditional health check treatments. Legal troubles sometimes result when they forbid medical treatment of their children.45The Church is unique among American denominations in several ways. It is highly centralized, with all the local churches merely branches of the mother church in Boston. There are no ministers, but there are practitioners who are integral to t he movement. The practitioners operate local businesses that help members heal their illnesses by the power of the mind. They depend for their clientele on the approval of the Church. Starting in the late 19th century the Church has rapidly lost membership, although it does not publish statistics. Its flagship newspaper Christian Science Monitor lost most of its subscribers and dropped its paper version to become an online source.46 Other denominations founded in U.S.edit source editbetaAdventism began as an inter-denominational movement. Its most vocal leader was William Miller, who in the 1830s in New York became convinced of an imminent Second Coming of Jesus. Churches of Christ/Disciples of Christ a restoration movement with no governing body. The Restoration Movement solidified as a historical phenomenon in 1832 when restorationists from two major movements championed by Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell merged (referred to as the Stone-Campbell Movement).Episcopal Chur ch founded as an offshoot of the Church of England now the United States branch of the Anglican Communion Jehovahs Witnesses originated with the religious movement known as Bible Students, which was founded in Pennsylvania in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell. National Baptist Convention the largest African American religious transcription in the United States and the second largest Baptist denomination in the world. Pentecostalism movement that emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit, finds its historic roots in the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California, from 1904 to 1906, sparked by Charles Parham Reconstructionist Judaism