American History

American History

Introduction

The issue of religious freedom has played a significant role in the history of the United States and the remainder of North America. Europeans came to America to escape religious oppression and forced beliefs by such state-affiliated Christian churches as the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. That civil unrest fueled the desire of America's forefathers to establish the organization of a country in which the separation of church and state, and the freedom to practice one's faith without fear of persecution, was guaranteed. That guarantee was enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

The splintering of Christianity resulted in more than 900 denominations of that faith currently existing in the United States, of which the vast majority of Americans are members. The U.S. was the first western nation to be founded predominately by Protestants — not Roman Catholics. That fact alone expresses America's willingness to experiment with the novel and a defiance of tradition. Its history includes the emergence of utopian societies, religious fanaticism, and the opening of the door to such eastern religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Taoism. Such has been the winding road of religious evolution in America.

Evangelical movement roots and branches

Evangelism has played an integral part in the history of religion in America, from colonial times to the present, while its methods of dissemination have changed dramatically. Spreading the “Good News” during colonial times was done through books printed by the Puritans on the press brought to Boston in 1638, or carried across the Atlantic on ships loaded with colonists. During the Great Awakening of the 1740s, white Protestant evangelists proselytized to black Americans. The Methodists were most successful, owing to their belief in a “near” rather than “distant” god, self help, liberation of sin through conversion, and their lively preaching and singing methods of worship during evangelical revivals. During the 19th century, Methodists held camp meetings in the frontier states.

Evangelism turned to elaborate crusades in the 20th century when such preachers as Billy Sunday attempted to convince nonbelievers that they should "jump ship" from their ancestral Christian denominations. Tent revivals, broadcast by radio and television, were dynamic with charismatic preachers who captured the attention of millions of people.

"Televangelists" of the 1950s through the late 1980s brought a personality-based form of worship to the small screen, until scandals involving Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts, beginning in 1988 and 1989, created widespread distrust of them. While they were relegated to cable networks, evangelistic websites slowly began to crop up on the Internet during the early 1990s. Because of the anonymous nature of that interactive communication tool, people felt more comfortable sharing their personal beliefs and faith over the Internet with a large audience, or with one unknown person. They incorporated multimedia presentations with sound, the written word, movies and video technologies.

Major Protestant denominations in the colonies

Although they crossed the ...