Reference
- American Revolution, religion andAmericans drew upon religion to serve a number of tasks during the Revolutionary War (1775–83). In the process, they established a pattern for interpreting military conflict prominent throughout much of American history. Religion shaped the yearning for revolution and the language by which revolutionary hopes were expressed. In addition, church pulpits provided a ready forum for articulating revolutionary support or opposition. Many Americans also understood the Revolution itself, which drew upon the powerful themes of new birth and freedom from bondage, as a form of religious experience. Finally, the Revolution greatly influenced the development of American civil religion, as continuing generations have looked to their revolutionary birth as a source of national identity and purpose.
The yearning for revolution emerged out of two mainstreams of thought regarding social and political order: Puritanism and the Enlightenment views of liberals like John Locke and radical Whigs, who often combined Protestant dissent with republican political theory. Colonial Americans had come to think right political order was ordained by God, which allowed for the formation of critical views of political power: Power could be unjust. In the Calvinist (see Calvinism) tradition prominent in 17th-century England, humans were not obligated to suffer unjust authority, but rather were capable of modifying existing institutions to make them accord more with the divine will.
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Credo Reference is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and over 1,000 videos.
Primary Sources
- Religion and the Founding of the American RepublicPrimary source materials from the Library of Congress on religion and the founding of the American republic.
- Colonial ReligionA collection of primary sources on colonial religion from the Digital Public Library of America.
- The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791This site contains the entire English translation of the The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, originally compiled and edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites and published by The Burrows BrothersCompany, Cleveland, throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Online Resources
- Anne Bradstreet's Family Plots: Puritanism, Humanism, PosthumanismThis article explores the interface between textuality and materiality—of bodies, things, and places—in Bradstreet's writings, an intersection where Bradstreet resists and revises the spiritual metaphors of the male coterie within which she produced and published her poems, turning them instead toward living engagements with place.
- The political system of the United States of America and congregationalism (puritanism)The political system of the United States of America has derived from a variant (faction) of Protestant Christianity, Congregationalism or Puritanism, which emphasizes the importance of the Old Testament Judaism and the doctrine of predestination (pre-determination). As such, Puritanism played an essential role in the emergence of the American type of democracy and the cruel colonization of the present-day territory of the United States.
Three Quaker Activists
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Meet three important Quaker activists from the 17th and 18th centuries: a fiery hermit writer named Benjamin Lay, a shopkeeper and essayist named John Woolman, and a schoolteacher named Anthony Benezet, who set up Philadelphia's first Free African School. Reflect on the transformation in attitudes that was occurring during the 18th century.
Puritan Orthodoxy Faces Revolt
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Miller describes the formation of Puritan towns and the consequences of moral indecency. Williams, banished by Winthrop, founded a colony devoted to freedom of worship and separation of church and state in Rhode Island.
Perspectives
Religious Toleration in Colonial America?
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowLearn the key elements of a broadened approach to the study of history with this fast-moving examination of the origins of religious and racial tolerance in America. Grasp how the assumptions you've long held can differ dramatically from historical reality.
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowThere was no toleration of religious dissent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s. And there certainly was no room for religious argument for a woman! When Anne Hutchinson shared with others her religious ideas and gathered a following, the governor put her on trial for heresy. Explore the trials, defense, and punishment of the woman sometimes called "America's first feminist."