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Religion In America

Decent Essays

The growth of religion in America is one that is a complex thought and it has created a large development for what our currently country stands. Many main concepts are used for this time as to what caused America to grow, however there were a few that were on the controlling factors. The creation of Church of England and the reaction of that were created was the stating factor in a long journey. That journey then allowed for some individual leaders to rise and motivate others around them to start asking the hard questions that cracked the hard shell of the status quo. Because of these leaders at the individual level spoke up, they allowed for larger groups to make their voices here as more cultures and areas became available to the people around …show more content…

As more land was discovered and claimed, new ideas and practices began to press people to their limits to change. For example, to accommodate Catholics, Maryland adopts the Toleration Act, which provided freedom of worship and protection to all who believed in the divinity of Jesus. Soon after the colony of Maine passes legislation creating religious freedom for all citizens, but only on the condition that those of “contrary” religious beliefs behave “acceptably.” Not all roads to freedom of religious is are smooth, the act in Maryland was reversed within a decade when Anglicans took over the Maryland Assembly. Other religious were suffering with the idea that religious persecution was still existing in the new area. An example of this is the Jews, whose had left Portugal and Spain for Holland, are forced to flee the Catholic Inquisition again when Portugal captures Brazil from the Dutch in 1653. The Jews sail up the Eastern seaboard on a Dutch ship and land in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which is now seen as New York. The colony is managed by a for-profit company, the Dutch West India Company. The corporation’s governor-general, Peter Stuyvesant, does not wish to permit the Jews to settle there, because he does not believe that the Jews can be absorbed without undermining the Dutch Calvinist religious coherence of the colony. Despite his objections, the company orders Stuyvesant to allow the Jews to stay, so long as they do not become a burden on the public, and do not worship publicly. The Jewish practice grew stronger and many heard about Roger William's idea of religious freedom in Rhode Island and sailed into Newport harbor. These Jews, who like other escaped persecution in Catholic Europe, founded the second Jewish settlement in the American colonies. One other group to touch upon in the melting pot of religious freedom and expression are The Quakers. They

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