Colonial Traditions
These Catholic missionaries were especially active in New France and the Great Lakes, including missions among the Hurons.
Who were the Jesuits?
This Puritan governor of Massachusetts Bay famously described the colony as a Christian community that would be watched by the world.
Who was John Winthrop?
This wave of Protestant revivalism swept through the British colonies during the eighteenth century and emphasized personal religious conversion.
What was the Great Awakening?
In contrast to strict Calvinism, this theology emphasized human free will in responding to God’s offer of salvation.
What is Arminianism?
These English Protestants sought to further reform the Church of England and established Massachusetts Bay as a deeply religious society.
Who were the Puritans?
This outspoken Puritan woman challenged Massachusetts religious authorities and was banished during the Antinomian Controversy.
Who was Anne Hutchinson?
This Massachusetts Congregational minister and theologian became one of the most famous intellectual and religious figures of the Great Awakening.
Who was Jonathan Edwards?
This term describes a form of Protestant Christianity emphasizing personal conversion, the authority of the Bible, and spreading the Christian message.
What is Evangelicalism?
Members of the Church of England who established a particularly important colonial presence in Virginia were known by this name.
Who were the Anglicans?
Banished from Massachusetts, this religious dissenter founded Rhode Island and became an important advocate for liberty of conscience.
Who was Roger Williams?
This enormously popular itinerant preacher traveled throughout the colonies and became one of the best-known figures of the Great Awakening.
Who was George Whitefield?
Associated with figures such as Thomas Jefferson, this religious outlook stressed reason and natural religion rather than traditional Christian revelation and miracles.
What is Deism?
Also known as the Society of Friends, this Christian movement emphasized the “Inner Light” and became closely associated with Pennsylvania.
Who were the Quakers?
This Quaker leader founded Pennsylvania and envisioned it as a “Holy Experiment” protecting religious liberty and liberty of conscience.
Who was William Penn?
During the Great Awakening, supporters of the religious revivals were commonly given this name.
Who were the “New Lights”?
This part of the First Amendment prohibits the government from making a law “respecting an establishment of religion.”
What is the Establishment Clause?
This Protestant movement grew out of the ministry of John Wesley and became a major force in American revivalism.
Who were the Methodists?
This early American historian of religion wrote about the many different religious groups or “sects” present in the new United States.
Who was Hannah Adams?
This revivalist preacher promoted dramatic conversions and “new measures” during the Second Great Awakening.
Who was Charles Finney?
This religious leader reported receiving visions and revelations and founded the movement that became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Who was Joseph Smith?
This Protestant tradition emphasized believer’s baptism and became especially important in the growth of American evangelical Christianity.
Who were the Baptists?
This New England thinker and former Unitarian minister became the leading voice of Transcendentalism.
Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?
This region of western and central New York got its nickname from the extraordinary intensity of religious revivalism there in the early nineteenth century.
What was the Burned-over District?
This liberal Christian movement rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and became influential among educated New Englanders.
What is Unitarianism?
This Protestant theology strongly influenced the Puritans and emphasized God’s sovereignty and predestination.
What is Calvinism?
This French visitor wrote Democracy in America and commented extensively on the unusual relationship between religion and democracy in the United States.
Who was Alexis de Tocqueville?
This great wave of Protestant revivalism in the early nineteenth century helped fuel religious expansion, new movements, and reform efforts.
What was the Second Great Awakening?
This communal religious movement associated with Mother Ann Lee practiced celibacy and became famous for its distinctive worship and communal life.
Who were the Shakers?