Religion In Colonial America by William Warren Sweet New York
Charles Scribners Sons 1942 To our three sons PAUL ROBINSON SWEET
WILLIAM WARREN SWEET, JR. RICHARD WILLIAMS SWEET Preface r Pi HE
PURPOSE of this volume is to place religion in its proper
perspective in American colonial history. Religion has been JJL the
most neglected phase of American history. The average college
student could pass a better examination in Greek mythol ogy than on
American Church history, and is better informed on the Mediaeval
popes than he is on the religious leaders of America. It is hoped
that this volume and the others that are to follow will help to
remedy this lamentable situation-The present volume tells the story
of the beginnings of organized religion in America of the struggle
for survival of the transplanted religious bodies of their gradual
growth and expansion, and of their increasingly important part in
the developing life of the American people. A knowledge of this
story is essential if the soul and spirit of America is to be
understood, The early chapters of the volume deal with the
transplanting to the colonies of a cross-section of western
European religion as it existed in the seventeenth century. To 1660
the dominant reli gious groups in America were the offshoots of the
dominant reli gious bodies of Protestant Europe, representing the
conservative wing of the Protestant Reformation. This resulted in
the bringing over of the European tradition of Church-State
relationship, and it was put into operation in all the colonies
established up to that time, except in Rhode Island and Maryland.
After 1660, however, a whole new set of liberalizing influences
began to operate, which by the endof the colonial period had
completely changed the entire situation. From this time forward the
right wing bodies became less and less important while the left
wing religious groups, finding in Anglo-America for the first time
a chance to develop, waxed stronger and stronger. In the
seventeenth century there was little in the way of religion that
could be called dis tinctively American in the eighteenth century
America began to viii Preface turn its back more and more upon
European influence, with the result that a distinctively American
religious scene began to appear. In the last two chapters the
principal theme is the American ization of Christianity. The
eighteenth century saw American religion more and more democratized
and, in the Great Colonial Revivals, for the first time religion
reached down to the masses. In the process the old European
Church-State relationship was gradually changed, and with
independence came the opportunity to bring to a successful
completion the century-and-a-half struggle for religious freedom
and the separation of Church and State. How this, the greatest of
all of American contributions both in the realm of religion and
politics, was achieved cannot be under stood unless the course of
colonial religious development is care fully followed-The growing
interest in American cultural history renders a larger
understanding of the religious development of America a necessity.
The attempt to appraise American culture apart from religion is a
contradiction in itself, for culture has to do with the moral and
religious as well as the intellectual life of a society. Until
recent years this phase of American history, outside New England,
was not only neglected, itwas minimized and even despised by some
who liked to think of themselves as trained his torians. For the
last generation and more a majority of our histor ians have been
economic determinists, and consequently stressed our materialistic
development to the neglect of those matters which have to do with
the mincl and the spirit. No nation of the world has had its
political, and economic life so fully analyzed as has ours on the
other hand, no great people of modern times have been so neglectful
of the spiritual and idealistic phase of their development...
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