UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Timeline of Major Religious
Events
THE COLONIAL ERA
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1607
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The First Anglican church is established in Virginia. The Church of England, or Anglican Church is the result of England's separation from The Roman Catholic church during the Protestant Reformation. The main difference between the two being that the head of the church in England is the King not the Pope. Established Royal English Authority in the New World.
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1620
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English Separatists (known later as Pilgrims) arrive on the Mayflower seeking religious freedom. The Separatists think that the Anglican church is, despite splitting-off from Roman Catholicism, still too close to the Catholic model in its organization and authority. The Puritan wish to be far removed from English religious authority established the New World and New England as a place of refuge for religious dissenters.
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1636
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Another group of English seeking distance from the Authority of the Anglican church were the Puritans, seeking to "purify" the last vestiges of Roman Catholicism from the Church of England. Many fled to New England where they founded the Massachusetts Bay colony in a Great Migration of emigrants. The Puritans were extremely intolerant of any who might bring God's wrath through their "anti-puritans" actions. One who challenged their authority was Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island in 1636. Williams created a refuge for those wishing to practice religion outside the direction of the Puritan leadership. "The dissent from Puritanism would be as important to the settlement and expansion of New England as Puritanism itself."
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1638
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Roger Williams founds the Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, advocating religious freedom and separation of church and state. Eventually, Baptism will draw many colonists, the enslaved included, to worship outside traditional churches and authority. This would help democratize religion in the American colonies.
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1730s & 1740s
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The First Great Awakening (c. 1730–1760) was a major religious revival in the American colonies that reshaped colonial society, politics, and identity. It emerged as a reaction against the formalism, rationalism, and complacency of colonial churches, and it had profound effects on both religious life and the broader political climate.
Religious and Social Changes
Political and Cultural Impact
Long-Term Significance
The First Great Awakening not only revitalized Protestantism in the colonies but also embedded values of personal liberty, religious pluralism, and resistance to centralized authority into colonial culture. These values would become central to the revolutionary movement and the founding of the United States.
-American History Central
Religious and Social Changes
- Democratization of Faith: The Awakening emphasized personal conversion, the “new birth,” and the ability of every individual to have a direct relationship with God, challenging the authority of clergy and established churches.
- Denominational Shifts: It strengthened new Protestant groups like Baptists and Methodists, while causing splits in older denominations such as Congregationalists and Presbyterians between “Old Lights” (traditionalists) and “New Lights” (revivalists).
- Religious Freedom: The movement fostered a sense of shared evangelical identity across denominations, promoting the idea that colonists had the right to influence religious and political leaders.
Political and Cultural Impact
- Common American Identity: By uniting diverse Protestant groups under a shared evangelical ethos, the Awakening helped lay the groundwork for a sense of common identity that would later support revolutionary ideals.
- Individualism and Self-Government: The emphasis on personal responsibility and moral reform aligned with Enlightenment values, reinforcing the belief that individuals could shape their own destinies and challenge authority.
- Preparation for Revolution: The Awakening’s stress on challenging established power structures—whether clerical or royal—contributed to the ideological underpinnings of the American Revolution.
Long-Term Significance
The First Great Awakening not only revitalized Protestantism in the colonies but also embedded values of personal liberty, religious pluralism, and resistance to centralized authority into colonial culture. These values would become central to the revolutionary movement and the founding of the United States.
-American History Central
THE EARLY REPUBLIC
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1790s-1840s
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Profoundly changing American society, The Second Great Awakening started on the frontier (Kentucky and Tennessee) and spread North and East. It was part reaction to the bland intellectuality of the Enlightenment, part reaction to the passions of the American Revolution, and part embrace of the desire to spread equality.
Emphasis: Emotional preaching, camp meetings, personal salvation
Leaders: Charles Grandison Finney, Lyman Beecher, and many others
Famous Location: The “Burned-Over District” of western New York
Impact: Evangelical (Individual/Personal) denominations, like Methodist and
Baptist, grow, reform movements are inspired, and religion moves sway
from the Calvinist belief in predestination to the belief in individual
and immediate salvation. The reform movements (abolition) that shape
the Antebellum period stem from this! Women and African-Americans
are empowered by participation in these reforms.
Emphasis: Emotional preaching, camp meetings, personal salvation
Leaders: Charles Grandison Finney, Lyman Beecher, and many others
Famous Location: The “Burned-Over District” of western New York
Impact: Evangelical (Individual/Personal) denominations, like Methodist and
Baptist, grow, reform movements are inspired, and religion moves sway
from the Calvinist belief in predestination to the belief in individual
and immediate salvation. The reform movements (abolition) that shape
the Antebellum period stem from this! Women and African-Americans
are empowered by participation in these reforms.