Religion in Revolutionary America

Religion was the most pervasive intellectual and cultural force in colonial American society, shaping the way colonists understood themselves, their communities, and their relationship to political authority. The American Revolution was not a religious movement in any direct sense, but it was profoundly influenced by the religious culture of the colonies—by the legacy of the Great Awakening, by the diversity of denominational traditions, by the political theology of the clergy, and by the revolutionary generation’s commitment to religious liberty.

The Religious Landscape

Denominational Diversity

The colonies were the most religiously diverse society in the Western world. The Church of England (Anglicanism) was the established church in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia, and had a strong presence in New York and other Middle Colony cities. Congregationalism, the descendant of New England Puritanism, was established in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Presbyterianism was strong in the Middle Colonies and in the southern backcountry. Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Dutch Reformed, German Lutherans, Moravians, Catholics, and Jews all had significant presences in various colonies.

This diversity was a source of both tension and tolerance. In colonies with established churches, dissenters—those who worshipped outside the established denomination—faced legal disabilities, including restrictions on holding office, paying taxes to support the established church, and conducting marriages and funerals. However, the practical difficulty of enforcing religious uniformity in a diverse society led to a de facto toleration that was more extensive than the legal framework suggested.

The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s was the most transformative religious event in colonial American history. The revival, led by itinerant preachers like George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, and Jonathan Edwards, swept through the colonies, converting thousands and reshaping the religious landscape. Whitefield, an Anglican evangelist from England, preached to enormous crowds in open-air meetings from Georgia to New Hampshire, drawing audiences of 10,000 to 20,000 in an era when the largest colonial cities had populations of 30,000 or fewer.

The Great Awakening had profound social and political implications. It challenged the authority of established clergy by emphasizing the individual’s direct relationship with God and the importance of personal conversion experience over institutional affiliation. It empowered laypeople, including women and African Americans, who participated actively in revival meetings and formed new congregations when established churches failed to accommodate their spiritual needs. It created a network of evangelical communication that crossed colonial boundaries and denominational lines, anticipating the intercolonial cooperation that would characterize the revolutionary movement.

The Awakening also produced a division between “New Lights” (those who embraced the revival) and “Old Lights” (those who opposed it) that shaped colonial politics. In New England, the New Light faction tended to be more resistant to British authority, while the Old Light faction was more inclined toward accommodation. This correlation was not absolute, but it reflected the broader tendency of evangelical religion to challenge established authority and to emphasize individual conscience over institutional obedience.

Religion and Revolutionary Ideology

The Political Theology of Resistance

Many colonial clergy, particularly among the Congregationalists and Presbyterians, provided theological justification for resistance to British authority. The concept of a “covenant” between rulers and ruled, drawn from Reformed political theology, paralleled the Lockean social contract theory and gave the revolutionary cause religious legitimacy. If a ruler violated the covenant by governing tyrannically, the people had not only a political right but a religious duty to resist.

Sermons were the most common form of political discourse in colonial America, and the pulpits of New England and the Middle Colonies became platforms for revolutionary argument. Ministers like Jonathan Mayhew of Boston, whose 1750 sermon A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission argued that resistance to tyranny was a Christian duty, laid the intellectual groundwork for the revolutionary movement decades before the political crisis of the 1760s.

The concept of “providence”—the belief that God directs the affairs of nations—was central to the revolutionary understanding of the conflict. Patriots interpreted military victories as evidence of divine favor and military defeats as occasions for repentance and reformation. The ultimate success of the Revolution was widely interpreted as a providential event, confirming the righteousness of the American cause and the special role of the United States in God’s plan for human history.

The Anglican Dilemma

The Church of England occupied an awkward position during the Revolution. As the established church of the British state, Anglicanism was institutionally connected to the Crown. Anglican clergy took oaths of allegiance to the king and prayed for the royal family in their services. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which supported Anglican missionaries in the colonies, was a British institution.

Many Anglican clergy remained loyal to the Crown during the Revolution, particularly in the northern colonies. Samuel Seabury of New York, later the first American Episcopal bishop, published pamphlets defending British authority and opposing the Continental Congress. However, some Anglican clergy supported the patriot cause, particularly in Virginia, where the Anglican establishment was more integrated with the colonial political elite.

The Revolution effectively disestablished the Church of England in America. After the war, the American Anglicans reorganized as the Protestant Episcopal Church, independent of the Church of England and governed by American bishops. This reorganization reflected the broader principle that American religious institutions should be independent of European authority—a principle that applied to other denominations as well.

Religious Liberty

The Revolutionary Commitment

The revolutionary generation’s commitment to religious liberty was one of its most significant achievements. The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) declared that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.” The Declaration of Independence, while not specifically addressing religion, grounded its political theory in the assertion that all men were “endowed by their Creator” with certain rights—a formulation that acknowledged a divine source for human rights without specifying a particular religious tradition.

The state constitutions adopted during the Revolution generally included protections for religious liberty, though the extent of these protections varied. Some states, like Virginia, moved toward full disestablishment. Others, like Massachusetts, maintained religious establishments while extending toleration to dissenters. The process of disestablishment was gradual: Massachusetts did not fully disestablish the Congregational Church until 1833.

Jefferson’s Virginia Statute

Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777 and enacted in 1786, was the most comprehensive legislative expression of religious liberty in the revolutionary period. The statute declared that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever” and that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” Jefferson considered the statute one of his three greatest achievements, alongside the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia.

The Virginia Statute was opposed by those who believed that religious establishment was necessary for social order and moral governance. Patrick Henry proposed a “general assessment” bill that would have taxed citizens to support the Christian denomination of their choice—a compromise between full establishment and full disestablishment. The defeat of Henry’s bill and the enactment of Jefferson’s statute reflected the growing strength of the disestablishment movement, which was supported by an unusual coalition of evangelicals (who opposed state interference in religion) and rationalists (who opposed religious privilege).

The First Amendment

The First Amendment’s religion clauses—the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause—reflected the revolutionary generation’s commitment to religious liberty while leaving significant questions unresolved. The Establishment Clause prohibited the federal government from establishing a national church but did not require the states to disestablish their own religious arrangements. The Free Exercise Clause protected the right to worship according to one’s conscience but did not specify the limits of that right.

The interpretation of the religion clauses has been the subject of ongoing debate. Some scholars argue that the framers intended a strict separation of church and state, while others argue that they intended only to prevent the federal government from favoring one denomination over others. This debate has practical consequences for contemporary issues including school prayer, public funding of religious institutions, and religious exemptions from generally applicable laws.

Religion and the War

Chaplains and Military Religion

Religion played an important role in the Continental Army. Congress authorized chaplains for the army, and many regiments had ministers who conducted services, provided pastoral care, and preached sermons that connected the military struggle to religious duty. George Washington, who was not known for personal piety, nonetheless emphasized the importance of religion in maintaining military discipline and morale. He ordered that chaplains be appointed to every brigade and that soldiers attend divine services.

The religious diversity of the army was remarkable. Soldiers from different denominations and regions worshipped together, creating an ecumenical experience that was unusual in colonial society. Catholic soldiers from Maryland, Jewish soldiers from South Carolina, and Baptist soldiers from Virginia served alongside the Congregationalist and Presbyterian majority, contributing to a growing acceptance of religious pluralism.

Religion Among Enslaved People

The Revolution had significant implications for the religious life of enslaved people. The evangelical emphasis on individual conversion and spiritual equality created opportunities for enslaved people to participate in religious life. Baptist and Methodist congregations, which were less hierarchical than the established churches, attracted growing numbers of Black worshippers. The first independent Black churches—primarily Baptist—were founded in the postwar period, reflecting both the revolutionary rhetoric of liberty and the evangelical emphasis on spiritual autonomy.

However, the relationship between Christianity and slavery was complex. Some slaveholders encouraged the Christianization of enslaved people, believing that it would make them more docile. Others feared that Christian teachings about spiritual equality would inspire resistance to bondage. Enslaved people themselves adapted Christianity to their own circumstances, creating a distinctive African American religious tradition that emphasized deliverance from bondage and the hope of justice.

The Revolution’s Religious Legacy

The Revolution’s most enduring religious legacy was the principle of religious liberty—the idea that government should not establish a particular religion or interfere with the free exercise of conscience. This principle, grounded in both Enlightenment rationalism and evangelical Protestantism, was one of the Revolution’s most radical achievements. It distinguished the United States from virtually every other nation in the Western world and established a model that would be widely imitated in the centuries that followed.

The Revolution also transformed the religious landscape by accelerating the growth of evangelical denominations—particularly Baptists and Methodists—that emphasized individual conversion, lay participation, and religious equality. These denominations would become the dominant religious forces in American life by the mid-nineteenth century, shaping the nation’s moral culture and its political movements.

The tension between religious liberty and religious influence in public life—a tension that was present from the Revolution’s inception—remains one of the most contested issues in American politics. The revolutionary generation’s solution—protecting individual conscience while allowing religious expression in public life—has been challenged and reinterpreted in every generation, but the basic framework established during the Revolution continues to shape American religious culture.

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