American Religion

In the mid 1700’s America was beginning to form its own identity. They were a new country starting on their own and only knew one form of government and one society. The country needed to decide on being ruled by one central government or being governed by the states, but the one thing that all American’s knew and agreed on was that they feared tyranny, tyranny in all forms.

For over a thousand years church and state had been joined as a governing alliance that suppressed the common man and the majority of people. A tyrannical leader opposed everything that the new America represented in their fight for independence, they declared a fight against all tyranny and the combined church and state that they had seen their entire lives was a representation of such. The American Revolution was not only a struggle for civil liberties but also religious. The Anglican Church hoped to impose bishops that were similar to the lordly princess that were seen in England. Americans were completely opposed to this idea, and as William Livingston, a Presbyterian, said, “imposing a bishop posed a threat to liberty, property, and conscience even greater than the Stamp Act.” Luckily for the Americans no bishops ever ended up coming over. With that result a disabandonment of an Anglican rule became an immediate mission for states such as Virginia.

The ideals that the leaders of the country were hoping to instill in the country were unlike any that American’s had seen, since they were all from Europe. The leaders of this new country were creating one in which people had personal freedoms. Government would not control their lives and one main facet that they would not allow to be controlled was religion. Thomas Jefferson was one who routinely spoke up against the controlling of religion. He is quoted with saying “ Almighty God hath the mind free.” He was a very smart main with a very religious background and one of his most important traits was that he was tolerant of all people’s beliefs. He was noted to have said “ if all mighty God restrained from coercing either the bodies or the minds of men and women, how utterly absurd it must be for fallible and uninspired men to arrogate to themselves the right to exercise domino over the faith of other.”

Americans were a little skeptical of these new ideals, but were tolerant of