The Major Contributions Of Dissenting Minority Religions And The Collective Efforts Of Non Elite Followers

David Barton’s Original Intent: The Courts, The Constitution, and Religion, breaks down the significance of how religion was intended in the First Amendment and its effect on the phrase, “Separation of Church and State.” Barton well illustrates how the founding fathers incorporated the position of religion into the First Amendment. Barton explains how the House Judiciary Committee believes, “The founders did respect other religions; however, they neither promoted pluralism nor intended that the First Amendment do so” (175). They continue to discuss how the founding fathers were all Christians and they expect it to remain that way in the lives of the citizens. In Barton’s views of the First Amendment, he believes it has changed dramastically

During pre-Revolutionary America there were efforts made to attain not only political liberty but also religious freedom. The booming dissenting churches in Virginia had presented several pleas against religious discrimination to the Virginia House of Burgesses in the 1750s and 1706s. Some of Virginia’s statesmen and politicians included James Madison and Thomas

Colonial America was a time of great change and discovery. The era was a time of conflict between people’s secular desires as innovation boomed and their spiritual growth as they discovered more about God and explored new religious ideas. In his essay, Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies, David D. Hall accurately argues that despite the secular advances of the Colonial Era, religion was undoubtedly the most prevalent area of Americans’ focus because the power of God was being manifested into their lives in so many irrefutable ways.

Thomas Jefferson wrote of the Catholic Church in France: ‘History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.’ Jefferson, in his own book of biblical stories, suggested that religion was a set of moral conventions that promoted social harmony. But with antipathy between America’s Protestant and Catholic populations at the time, social harmony had yet to be promoted. Howard Zinn writes that the prejudice apparent in the Civil War period included not only ‘racial hatred for blacks’ and ‘nativist fury against immigrants’, but also ‘religious warfare against Catholics.’

In the documentary A New Eden: God in America, the class was given the opportunity to explore America’s chase to religious freedom and the political challenges it took to achieve such and opportunity where people for the first time were given a chance to seek religious faith that was not imposed upon them, but one that they can personally choose to live for themselves. The problem that would come about during the arrival Catholic immigrants’ as it was thought to believe their arrival would come to oppose the very religious they worked so hard for, while from their perspective they were merely trying to live an average life in America with all it has to offer just like everyone has. The challenge was most expressed in a judicial case of public

By the middle of the 1700’s, a significant organization took place. From New England to Georgia, different groups of Baptists began to form churches. They had only one doctrinal requirement that united them, i.e., the believer’s baptism by full immersion in water; also, Baptists then had different theological doctrinal beliefs. Notwithstanding, in the 1700’s, Baptist leaders sought to unify and homogenize the Baptist theology; they founded colleges and formed associations. However, the cause of “religious liberty,” was also a unanimous and significant characteristic that united the majority of Baptists. Their participation within their communities distinguished from other denominations. The Baptists were not contending for tolerance but for absolute “religious liberty.” Theirs demand was not for their right only but for the right of all dissenters and non-conformists as well. Some historians affirm that religious liberty in America was accomplished due to the diligence of the American Baptist, which now is proven to be the greatest contribution to American science and statecraft.”11

In the trial of Anne Hutchinson, we meet a well intentioned yet lost people described and labelled as the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. These self governing Puritans, once a people who sought God to set them on their way, settled only to be found as a people who simply lost their way. This journey to lost began when first motivated by a desire for religious reform and separation from the liturgy, ceremonies and practices of the Church of England. Once they banned together, they set on their way and traveled in groups to the New World. With the Word of God as their ultimate authority and the desire for a personal relationship with God, these people landed in Boston in 1630 united to self govern the newly founded Massachussets Bay Colony. Unfortunatly, this self rule resulted in a government of intolerance, fear and a liturgy not much different from what was once found in the Church of England. A system designed to set apart outward morality, or sanctification, to strengthen the authority of the Church only worked to neglect the place of true piety purposed to strengthen the spiritual lives of the people it served.

Furthermore, both primary documents center on religion, ‘congregational church and church officials’ mentioned in the Virginia Laws and ‘in the name of God’ stated in the Compact. This proves that the starting colonial self-governments were frameworks of theocracies. In addition, both sources referred to not only devotion as key to survival in the foreign lands, but also obedience and order. The third document also is based on religion, but it highlights a concept that both other documents deride, religious tolerance.

Within the colony of Massachusetts, religion played an important role in shaping the community’s people and interests. The reason for the Puritans move to North America was to escape the convictions the Christians of England were placing on them (Divine, 89). Winthrop and his followers believed that in this new land they must create a place where they could come together as a people and build the perfect religious society (Divine, 90). In a speech about his vision for the land, John Winthrop said, “We must delight in each

From 1689 to 1754, new societies in North America required diversity in religion, laws restricting slaves, and class structure. The Glorious Revolution in England shifted power in the English colonies. Catholics were excluded from the freedom given to Protestants by the royal charters. Catholics were also removed from public office and lost power while Protestants gained rights when the Anglican Church eventually became Maryland’s official church. Previously, Protestant men were unable to vote and excluded from voting lists and now they had the rights to vote and be a part of the religious group. “Baptists, Anglicans, and others were now free to build their own church and worship as they wished.” (Fraser 96)

During his term as Secretary of State to George Washington, Jefferson, who was not particularly religious, is highlighted by his continued use of language of faith to further his policy. After Jefferson’s retreat to his Paris home where the infamous Hemings affair begins, Hitchens then touches on the causes of Jefferson’s presidential elections and his policy as the 3rd President of the United States. Here Hitchens continues to stress the importance of Jefferson’s views formed early in his life and how he successfully conveyed them to garner public support. In closing, Hitchens outlines the days of Jefferson after he left the presidency with poor approval rating and a feeling of self-pity. In spite of this, Hitchens makes a crucial point to his main thesis: Jefferson’s founding of The University of Virginia as the first secular university in America displays his devotion toward improving America as he sees it should. The amount of work Jefferson put toward making the university separate from any religious affiliation strongly suggested that he cared greatly about the future of Americans to

Religion and freedom is a topic so critical and (in the First Amendment) an outcome so pivotal that it is hard to envision causal associations being overlooked in the pre-Revolutionary period. However, that has been to a great extent the case as British approach and practice have been investigated solely from the point of view of political oppression or financial misuse. Carl Bridenbaugh has convincingly indicated how extraordinary was the provincial trepidation of a ministerial oppression designed by the Church of England. Conceived in destitution, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had turned into a rich Tennessee legal advisor and rising youthful government official by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His administration in that contention earned Jackson national distinction as a military saint, and he would turn into America 's most influential–and polarizing–political figure amid the 1820s and 1830s. After

Since the colonization of America there has been a dramatic attempt to establish a “more Perfect Union” that “secure(s) the blessings of liberty” (Constitution, pg. 104). These attempts began with John Winthrop’s desires to construct a society that, according to him, will be seen through the eyes of others as a “city upon a hill” (Winthrop, pg. 9). John Winthrop bases the concept of the city on a hill through the teachings of Christianity as he references the Bible to support his arguments in creating a society that is based on “Justice and Mercy” (Winthrop, pg. 2). In many ways Winthrop’s essay was not just an attempt to create a Christian society, but also an attempt to lay out his argument of creating the perfect community in where “members of the same body…partake on each other’s strength and infirmity” (Winthrop, pg. 9). Winthrop’s great experiment set forth the motion of the creation of

This paper is a book critique of The Godless Constitution. The first chapter of the book is titled “Is America a Christian Nation?” and it is an introduction for the rest of the book. In this chapter, the main idea is to open the reader’s mind about that the constitution was created with the idea that religious believes will not influence in the politics of the nation. The authors state that “The principal framers of the American political system wanted no religious parties in national politics” (Kramnick and Moore, 23). Actually, the creation of a constitution without influence of religion was not an act of irreverence. The authors believe that the creation of the constitution was a support to the idea that religion can preserve the civil morality necessary for democracy, without an influence on any political party. The end of the chapter is the description of the following chapters and with a disguise warning that both authors were raise in religious families and they wrote the book with high respect for America’s religious traditions (Kramnick and Moore, 25). The second chapter, called “The Godless Constitution” explains how the different terms to talk about God were taken out and a “no religious test” clause was adopted with little discussion. This clause was a “veritable firestorm” during the ratification debates in several states (Kramnick and Moore, 32). For many people the “no religious test” clause was considered as the gravest defect of the Constitution (Kramnick

In the article “The Good of religious pluralism” written by Peter L. Berger, the paper outlines four ways that pluralism benefits religions rather than being a threat that its often seen as today to individual religions and their beliefs. The first benefit that he lists is that “it becomes more difficult to take a religious tradition for granted” (Berger 41), he believes this is a benefit because pluralism allows other people to hold different beliefs and values and gives people a sense of doubt which allows people to wonder about other beliefs and hold true to their own. Secondly, “pluralism opens freedom to the individual, and freedom is a gift that should be allowed to all.” (Berger 40) Berger believes that religious freedom is a fundamental right for humans to pursue whatever