History of Religious Freedom, the Colonial Period

The struggle is real.  Many liberal thinkers in our country, including many in the law making and judicial branches of our government, have interpreted the oft touted separation of church and state (which is never mentioned in the Constitution, by the way) in ways that threaten the "soul conscience" so envisioned by Roger  Williams and other religious thinkers of the Colonial Period

Between 1680 and 1760 Anglicanism and Congregationalism, an offshoot of the English Puritan movement, established themselves as the main organized denominations in the majority of the colonies. As the seventeenth and eighteenth century passed on, however, the Protestant wing of Christianity constantly gave birth to new movements, such as the Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Unitarians and many more, sometimes referred to as “Dissenters.” [1]

We discussed Roger Williams, considered by many to be the father of the Baptist Church (although he later left it) and his role in religious freedom in America in yesterday's post.  Today, I'd like to study two other religious philosophers of this time who were influential in establishing diversity of religious belief in Colonial America:

William Penn

William Penn was born in England in 1644, son of a wealthy real estate baron, Sir William Penn.  In1681, King Charles II, in order to pay a debt owed to Penn's father, gave Penn a land grant in America which encompassed the current states of Pennsylvania and Delaware (the two states separated in 1704.) Penn emigrated to America and set up the city of Philadelphia on the upper Delaware River. 

Penn was a Quaker and a pacifist.  He struggled with the concepts of peace and war.  He would avoid war at all cost, but he also was an early proponent of the colonies uniting as an independent nation.  A Wikipedia article on his life states the following:

As one of the earlier supporters of colonial unification, Penn wrote and urged for a union of all the English colonies in what was to become the United States of America. The democratic principles that he set forth in the Pennsylvania Frame of Government served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution.[2]

Anne Hutchinson

Anne Hutchinson was born in England in 1591.  By 1636, she was living in the Colony of Massachusetts.  A mother of 15 children, she was a great religious philosopher and Puritan "counselor" to many. Her ideas conflicted in many ways with the Puritan clergy of the day.  She was tried and convicted as an apostate and, like Roger Williams, she was evicted from the colony.  With the help of Williams, she and her followers established the community of Portsmouth.  She held weekly meetings for women in her home to discuss the tenets of Christian theology.

When the Colony of Massachusetts threatened to take over Rhode Island and Delaware, Anne and her children fled to the Dutch-held Colony of New Amsterdam in an area that is now the Bronx in New York City.  She wanted to be away from the reach of the Puritan authorities in Boston.

Here is what Wikipedia says about her role in the development of Religious Freedom in America:

Hutchinson is a key figure in the development of religious freedom in England's American colonies and the history of women in ministry, challenging the authority of the ministers. She is honored by Massachusetts with a State House monument calling her a "courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration." She has been called the most famous—or infamous—English woman in colonial American history. [3]

We sometimes spend so much time on the Puritans in early America, but there were many others who contributed to the rich diversity of the colonies.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence represented the following faiths:

• Anglican/Episcopal
• Presbyterian
• Methodist
• Congregational
• Quakers
• Dutch Reformed
• Lutheran
• Catholic
• Unitarian
• Calvinist
• Huguenot

Two of them, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, although they affiliated to some degree with the Episcopal Church, considered themselves to be Diests - those who believe firmly in God, but who do not strictly affiliate with any given denomination. Only in a nation this religiously diverse could the miracle of liberty come to pass.  I am eternally grateful that it did on July 4, 1776!

 

Sources

[1]https://www.facinghistory.org/nobigotry/religion-colonial-america-trends-regulations-and-beliefs
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Hutchinson