Chapter 1 HST

-Lutherans were largest group of protestants,

• -Second were Calvinists: rely on God and not on humanity in
• religious matters, God is sovereign; some were Puritans

• -All Protestants battled Catholics for European control,
• therefore, “The New World” was important for Catholics

• -First modern revolutionaries (revolution around 1640’s and
• 50’s)

• -Relationship between God and the Nations, saw themselves as
• a new Israel, therefore, wanted America to be Biblically based, John Winthop
• (governor) said America was a “city on a hill”

• -“beacons to the world demonstrating the virtues of a
• republic

• -not everyone was happy, Anabaptism formed as an “outsider
• version of Christianity”

• -Baptist movement began (illegal in England), Roger Williams
• was one of the first clergymen: separation of church and state, considered
• radical

• -said
• that even the poorest person could be a spiritual equal

-Puritans executed King Charles I in 1649

-emphasized Spirit being an “Inward Light” in all people

• -simplicity and pacifists, women and men spiritual equals,
• Bible alone

• -Anne Hutchinson, died at hands of Indians in 1643 after
• claiming direct voice from God’s spirit

• -William Penn “Holy Experiment,” allowing people to have
• spiritual freedom in Pennsylvania, his land

• -George Fox, started Society of Friends condemned slavery in
• 1657

series of revivals among Presbyterians in Mass.

• -George Whitefield (Calvinist) traveled and preached; start
• of “revivalism”

• -John Edwards was another leading preacher in Mass. and was
• a missionary to the Indians

-big impact on women and black people in church

• -Great Awakening reflected many of attitudes of American
• Revolution

-strong ethnoreligious diversities contributed

• -technological and scientific revolutions seemed to lead
• people away from religion, however many of the scientific ideas were not at all
• contradictory, but complimentary

-Declaration of Independence

• -Jefferson and Locke’s thoughts
• from English Enlightenment (universal moral laws from reason)

• -Strong connections to the Puritan
• covenant

-Politics

• -Commonwealth or Dissenters came
• from Puritans didn’t want too much executive power on the government, big
• impact on Americans

• -revolutionary traditions all
• thought virtue was essential to American republican enterprise

• -Christian preachers popularized
• the political connotations of millennial age of Christ and they referred to the
• Papacy as the Antichrist, meaning Catholic defeat meant being closer to new
• millennium

• -Eventually America was a nation
• with many Christian principles, but
• seemingly allowed the country to be an object of worship, national loyalty
• demanded above religious loyalty in times of war (except pacifists)

-U.S. Constitution

• -established freedom of religion
• along with Enlightenment thought and guaranteed church and state separation

• -created a “wall of separation” as Jefferson put it
• (he may or may not have wanted that)