Dr. Jeffrey Perry, an associate professor of history at Tusculum University, delivered an insightful lecture “Religion in Colonial America” Tuesday, Feb. 5, in the Chalmers Conference Center of the Scott M. Niswonger Commons.
Kicking off the 2019 Theologian-In-Residence series, Dr. Jeffrey Perry, an associate professor of history at Tusculum University, delivered an insightful lecture entitled “Religion in Colonial America.”
The lecture, delivered Tuesday, Feb. 5, in the Chalmers Conference Center of the Scott M. Niswonger Commons on the Tusculum campus, focused on the role of religion in the English colonies from their settlement in the early 17th Century through the “Great Awakening” of the mid-18th Century. Dr. Perry also provided historical context by discussing the origins of the Protestant Reformation through the actions of Martin Luther.
“To understand religion and colonial America, we have to begin back in Europe at an innocuous event in 1517 as Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the wall of the church door,” Dr. Perry said. “He did not know, of course, this was going to instigate a revolution. Luther, upon doing it, was trying to instigate a debate – a debate about indulgences specifically.”
Dr. Perry highlighted criticisms of the Catholic Church at the time that had been growing, including priests who did not adhere to the celibacy vow. Another issue was that priests, monks and nuns did not have to take part in civic duties, such as serving in the military and paying taxes.
So when Luther posted his 95 Theses, it mushroomed into the Protestant Reformation and the individualizing of faith, he said. Reformers emphasized a new relationship with God and a belief that the Bible was the sole authority.
In England, King Henry VIII denounced Luther in 1521, which led Pope Leo X to name him the “Defender of the Faith.” But the good relationship changed about a decade later when Henry divorced his wife, Catherine of Aragon, leading to his excommunication. Henry responded by securing through Parliament another title – head of the Church of England – bringing the Protestant Reformation to England and strengthening his power.
There were ebbs and flows in the monarchy’s approach toward Catholicism in subsequent reigns, with King Edward VI moving the country further away, Queen Mary I restoring the faith and Queen Elizabeth I bringing back Protestantism.
Turning to North American colonies, Dr. Perry noted the Pilgrims and Puritans that established colonies at Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth sought religious freedom and uniformity.
“The Protestants who built the first colonies in New England wanted to make Christianity the central part of these colonies – spiritually, of course, but also very much physically,” he said.
Dr. Perry described the Pilgrims as radical separatists who believed the Church of England could not be redeemed because it is had gone beyond reform. They were not pleased with remaining Catholic rituals, music that still retained a Catholic flavor and the prevalence of Arminian doctrine, which is the idea that individuals can make choices that affect their salvation, he said. Pilgrims are Calvinists, who believed their salvation hinged on God, he said.
Later came the Puritans, who shared the same grievances with the Catholic Church, but they were idealists rather than separatists, Dr. Perry said. He said they believed they could fix the problems within the Church of England through reform. By the early 1640s, 16,000 of them had arrived at Massachusetts Bay.
Dr. Perry said they remain a misunderstood group, which focused on family, developed congregational discipline, but were not unbending. Like the Pilgrims, the Puritans believed their salvation was dependent on God.
In Virginia, King James I chartered the Virginia Company of London to bring Christianity to Indians. Dr. Perry noted the colony’s first legislative assembly, Virginia’s House of Burgesses, met in 1619, with religion as a primary concern. Ministers were required to preach on Sunday, and all colonists were required to attend worship services or face civil punishment.
In 1624, Virginia became a royal colony, and the Church of England was established in the commonwealth. Taxes were imposed to support the Church of England, and they had to be paid not only by Anglicans but also members of other congregations, he said.
“Between this time and the 1780s, if you were born in Virginia, you were by default an Anglican and a member of the parish in which you were born,” Dr. Perry said. “That is going to change, motivated by many of the congregations you are part of, Presbyterians and Baptists especially, who later took on the church-state establishment.”
He discussed the major changes that occurred in the colonies in religious affiliation. Before 1690, 90 percent of the population was Congregationalist or Anglican, but that number dropped to 35 percent by 1770. As the American Revolution neared, 18 percent were Scottish and Scots-Irish Presbyterians and 15 percent were English and Welsh Baptists. Quakers, German Lutherans and German Reformed each had about 5-10 percent.
“Part of this diversity is because of the establishment and growth of what we call the middle colonies – New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and even Delaware,” Dr. Perry said. “These are also known as restoration colonies because they were established during the Restoration Period. Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in particular became sort of the center of American Protestantism.”
Dr. Perry said the founding of Pennsylvania has origins in the Quakers, a religious group that began in the mid-17th Century in England, with George Fox as an early leader and founder. This group’s belief system emphasized an inner light, that everyone could find religious truth that was not found solely in the Bible.
During his presentation, Dr. Perry also talked about the colonization of Maryland, which was chartered to George Calvert in 1932. The philosophy behind that colony was to create a refuge for Catholics who were not as welcome in other colonies. In spite of this plan, Catholicism did not dominate in that colony, with only four parishes of this denomination by 1650. Catholics remained a minority of the settlers, he said.
The lecture also discussed a variety of prominent people who played roles in religion’s development in the colonies, including Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who criticized New England’s religious and civil authorities. They were banished, but their calls for religious liberty and free grace were influential later, Dr. Perry said.
He quoted Williams from 1644 as saying, “All civil states, with their officer of justice, in their respective constitutions and administrations, are proved essentially civil and, therefore, not judges, governors or defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship.”
Another person Dr. Perry highlighted was William Penn, who converted to Quakerism and was imprisoned multiple times in the 1660s due to his strong advocacy of his beliefs. Nonetheless, King Charles II of England in 1681 granted him a large tract of land in North America, perhaps as a way to quell the commotion the Quakers had caused, he said. But he said this decision worked out well for Penn, who desired to create “a holy experiment” in Pennsylvania.
“When he first travels to Pennsylvania in 1682, he writes up its frame of government, the first of a handful of them,” Dr. Perry said. “Although he created a very unwieldy system of government, it had some important elements that become central to our constitution 100 years later. One of them is religious freedom. Another one is no taxation without representation. And then there was the due process of law.”
Dr. Perry will also lecture in week two of the four-week series, with a talk called “A Revolution in Church and State.” That lecture will be held Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Chalmers from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
To reserve a seat and receive lunch in the Tusculum cafeteria afterward, please call the Institutional Advancement office at 423-636-7303 or email kkidwell@tusculum.edu. The session and meal are free, but Tusculum appreciates donations.