CCHI 665 DB 2 Essay

The act of treating a person or group of people unequally because of their beliefs is identified as religious discrimination. This is closely related to religious persecution, with the most extreme case, including the execution of individuals according to their beliefs. Often, the persons discriminated against are those within the minority group of society, leaving them outnumbered to the majority of the population. The course of American history has been plagued with intolerance and differences in opinion. Within three separate eras a significant event has occurred that brought about discrimination upon a set group of religious believers. The colonization of North America occurred as a result of religious persecution in Europe. Those events

A Research Paper on the “The Contribution of Baptists in the Struggle for Religious Freedom”

Along with the division between rural and urban plantation missions, in the 1830s and 1840s, concern arose among Southern churchmen after acknowledging that multitudes of districts in the Southwest had churches that could not contain even “one-tenth of the Negro populations; besides others in which there are no churches at all”. The fact that nearly all Southwestern slave states lacked Christian institutions before plantation missions meant that religion played little to no role in the lives of the majority of slaves residing within these boundaries. Even after missionaries brought the gospel to both rural and urban slaves at home, the prevalence of plantations missions varied from state to state. This deviation shaped the role of religion in the lives of black slaves depending on which state they lived and worked in. Although missionaries urged all slaveholders to actively participate in catechizing their slaves, since the plantation mission movement geographically centered in lowland South Carolina and Georgia masters and

Religion played an integral role in the lives of Americans, and with the expulsion of English rule, the newly founded nation also felt the need to move away from the English church. In the late 18th century the rhetoric of the American Revolution inspired one of the new churches called the Methodists, and they preached aginst the institution of slavery and called on every slave owner to release their slaves from bondage. The Churches message convinced very few to release their slaves, and the abolitionist message threatened the livelihood of the newly formed church. Even in the supposedly

One historical conflict that arose between upholding religious freedom and the tactics used to control religious groups was The Philadelphia Bible Riots. Anti-Catholic groups protested “the use of the Catholic Bible in public schools.” (Koppleman, 2014, p. 143) Violence ensued, ending with fifty-eight deaths, forty-five homes, two Catholic Churches and a Catholic School being burned down.

Religion professor Stephen Prothero says Baptists "were seen as a significant threat" in colonial Virginia. To support his statement, the Anglicans and their elites were deeply rooted in their traditional religion beliefs. Baptists’ new way of thinking about religion was, it is about “the heart”, and it threatened the Anglicans’ way of religious views, it is all about “the head”. Anglicans religious intolerance with the Baptists is what lead to the great shift to religious freedom.

Religion has had a severe influence on society and by looking at the diverse attitudes that Christians employed regarding their religion through time one is likely to observe that many individuals who interpret religion erroneously are likely to put across hostile behavior toward innocent individuals. History has seen several Christians who stood up to mainstream religious thinking and who lobbied in regard to alternative methods of being religious. The cases of Margery Kempe and Martin Luther are two of the most notable examples of Christians who dared to put across their personal beliefs during a time when the Church harshly criticized and oppressed individuals like them.

Although the Africans brought to America were already religious, the white Christians found it necessary to force the slaves to worship as they did.

During the 1600s, England’s inhabitants were forced to believe and follow the rules and laws of the official religion of the country. The lack of religious freedom angered many people within England, but news of a new beginning arose and created hope for many. News of new land caused encouragement and left no excuse for anyone to stay and continue to be oppression that was dealt out daily throughout the lives of many in England. In 1620, a group of people called the Pilgrims voyaged across the Atlantic Ocean seeking salvation from the violent grip of England. The Pilgrims, as they are known today, escaped England in search of religious freedom, specifically to be able to freely follow and live in Christianity. It has resulted in America being created on a religious foundation. Yet, this apparent fact was one that ultimately stalled America as a society. Today in the twenty-first century, people have taken religion and the Bible and corrupted it. Large amounts of people have taken the Bible and religion and are using it for their selfish goals of spreading propaganda. Many social issues that are present today, such as the treatment of the LGBT community, abortion, racism, feminism, gender roles, and war, has been created or instigated by people’s misinterpretation of the Bible or ignorance of religion. The ultimate truth is that man and women alike have been dictating the lives of many and one’s view

Historically speaking, the black Church has been the social center of Afro-American life. This idea is explored in Albert Rabouteau’s Slave Religion. There are scholars who have claimed that that there is no record of slaves and their practice of religion. However, Raboteau disproves this idea by providing evidence of slaves and their relationship to religion. There were slaves who regularly held their own religious meetings. Some did it secret and had to hide their connection to their faith. Many slaves found comfort in religion and risked punishment for practicing their faith. There were slaves that attended secret prayer meetings in secluded places—such as in the woods—in order to avoid punishment. Peter Randolph was a slave until he was freed in 1847; he described slave meetings that were held out in a swamp to avoid patrols. This showed the extent to which some slaves had to go to in order for these religious meetings to take place. With their religious meetings, slaves could often forget their sufferings temporarily and express gratitude for life, show each other a sense of togetherness and community, and picture a life in which their future is better. There were those who were encouraged by their master to be spiritual, but at the end of the day they knew that their masters did not want their freedom and that alone set them apart. If a slave owner required his slaves to attend mass, it was often to control the

There was further evidence of the driving spiritual aspect in their theological democratic government. There government was very simple. There was a governor elected every year by the town's citizens. The only people allowed to be a citizen of the town were members of the church. Every aspect of their life revolved around their religion. The main reason they fled to America was to filter "popish idolatry" out of the Church of England and only by extraction from the corruption of Europe. America was their proverbial "clean slate."

In Colonial Williamsburg, Bruton Parish Church had about 2,000 members that worshiped in this building. People had to pray at the church at least once a month. Some of the members had different beliefs, but still went to a place that worshiped what the British wanted. Bruton Parish encouraged freedom of religion and to pray to whoever people wanted. The patriots learned about freedom of religion at Bruton Parish Church and wanted to have their own religious view. With many church members, people would talk about current events and would find out important news by having multiple conversations among many different people. After having a dispute at the Capitol building, sometimes members of the council and burgesses would go to the church and

As slavery grew in the Southern part of modern America the population of African Americans quickly began to surpass the population of European Americans. Although many of these African slaves had not experienced Christianity, non-Christian slaves were further discriminated for their race and religion. Protestants Missionaries from Moravian, Baptist, and Methodist groups began to evangelize to slaves in spite of the cultural and language barriers. In some cases free black men served as translators and liturgists from white missionaries. Many slaves began acceptance of Christianity for either comfort during their captivity or as an act of defiance against slave owners. Although several groups had some success evangelizing slaves, “John Wesley developed the most effective organizing for propagating the gospel widely dispersed population of mainland North America.” (87). On the heels of Wesley, George Whitfield began an intellectually based evangelism of North America. The third great missionary to the slaves in North America was Samuel Davies, who noticed and critiqued the “overly zealous” excitement of converted slaves. The foundation of Methodism allowed Methodist circuit riding pastors to evangelize to slave groups. Just as evangelism to slaves was reaching a peak, the Revolutionary War ended the revival period. However, this allowed black

I will never forget, I saw a real old darkey woman slave down on her knees praying to God for his help. She had a bible in front of her. Course she couldn’t read it, but she did know what it was, and she was prayin’ out of her very heart, until she drawed the attention of them old Klu Klux and of ‘em just walked in her cabin and lashed her unmerciful. He made her get off her knees and dance, old as she was. Of course the old soul couldn’t dance but he just made her hop around anyhow”. In this quote the word unmerciful really stood out. The Klu Klux unmercifully lashes the old lady, and then humiliated her for her beliefs. Why was this allowed? Because the people were only owned by their masters. Slaves are almost like a cup. You see a cup, you say “that is a nice cup”, so you buy it. When that cup is bought with your money, it belongs to you. That is how they viewed slaves. If you were to buy a slave you had access to do what you please with

A quote from Leah Garret characterizes a contrasting relationship between slaves and Christianity. She states that, “De slaves went to church wid dey marsters. De preachers always preached to de white folks first, den dey would preach to de slaves. Dey never said nothin’ but you must be good, don’t steal, don’t talk back at your marsters, don’t run away, don’t do dis, and don’t do dat. Dey let de colored preachers preach but dey give ’em almanacs to preach out of. Dey didn’t ’low us to sing such songs as “We Shall Be Free” and “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” Hey always had somebody to follow de slaves to church when de colored preacher was preachin’ to hear what wuz said and done. Dey wuz ’fraid us would try to say something ’gainst ’em” (Federal Writers Project). This