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| Religious history of the United States | |
|---|---|
| Name | Religious history of the United States |
| Caption | Congregationalist meeting during the First Great Awakening |
| Location | United States |
| Period | Pre-Colonial–Present |
| Major events | Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, American Revolution, Civil War (United States), Civil Rights Movement |
| Notable figures | Puritans, John Winthrop, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham |
Religious history of the United States explores the development, diversity, contestation, and public influence of religious beliefs and institutions from pre-contact Indigenous spiritualities through colonial establishment, revolutionary-era debates, revivalism, immigration-fueled pluralism, antebellum reform, denominational conflict around the Civil War (United States), twentieth-century ecumenism and activism, and the late twentieth- and twenty-first-century emergence of secularization, new religious movements, and transnational faith networks. This history interweaves leaders, congregations, legal battles, missionary movements, and grassroots movements that shaped political culture, social reform, and immigrant identities across regions such as New England, the Chesapeake Bay, the American South, the Midwest, and the Western United States.
Before European contact, diverse Indigenous nations practiced cosmologies and ceremonial lifeways among groups such as the Haudenosaunee, Powhatan Confederacy, Pueblo peoples, Lakota, Navajo, and Anishinaabe. These spiritual systems centered on ancestral knowledge, seasonal rites, oral traditions, and ritual specialists like medicine people, often embodied in sites such as Chaco Culture National Historical Park and seasonal rituals connected to the Mississippian culture mound complexes. Encounters with explorers affiliated with Spanish Empire, French missions, and English settlers prompted processes of syncretism, resistance, and conversion among nations including the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminole.
English colonization brought Puritans to Massachusetts Bay Colony, Separatists to Plymouth Colony, and Anglicanism established in the Virginia Colony and Maryland. Dissenters such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson catalyzed the founding of Rhode Island and challenged ecclesiastical control, while Quakers under leaders like William Penn shaped Pennsylvania. The transatlantic revivals of the First Great Awakening featured itinerants including Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, provoking denominational realignments among Congregationalists, Baptists, and Methodists and influencing colonial politics during crises like the French and Indian War.
Revolutionary-era debates involved clergy such as John Witherspoon and lay statesmen like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin negotiating confessional influence while republican ideals circulated through texts like the Declaration of Independence and constitutional framings by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The postwar period saw disestablishment struggles in Virginia and the passage of protections such as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and instruments like the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. New movements emerged, including the founding of institutions like Princeton University's predecessors and itinerant circuit preaching that expanded Methodism across the Appalachian Mountains.
The Second Great Awakening energized camp meetings led by figures like Charles Grandison Finney and produced rapid growth among Baptists and Methodists in frontier regions, fostering voluntary societies such as the American Bible Society and the American Sunday School Union. Revivalism intersected with reform campaigns including the Abolitionism movement led by activists like William Lloyd Garrison, the Temperance movement linked to the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and early women's rights organizing exemplified by the Seneca Falls Convention where participants including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott addressed religious authority. The era witnessed the birth of new religious movements such as Mormonism under Joseph Smith and the migration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints under Brigham Young to the Utah Territory.
Mass migration from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, and China reshaped congregational life with influxes to cities like New York City, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. Catholic institutions expanded under leaders such as John Hughes and religious orders; Orthodox communities formed among Greek Americans and Russian Americans; Jewish life flourished with figures like Emma Lazarus influencing civic culture; and Protestant mainline denominations created mission networks, seminaries, and movements like the Social Gospel promoted by Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch. Nativist reactions produced political episodes including the Know-Nothing movement and debates over public schooling in the Parochial school debate.
In the mid-twentieth century, pastors and lay leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Ralph Abernathy connected African American churches including National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and African Methodist Episcopal Church to campaigns against segregation featured in events like the Montgomery bus boycott and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. White evangelical leaders like Billy Graham shaped national politics while Catholic figures such as Dorothy Day influenced social justice circles. Legislative milestones included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both shaped by faith-based advocacy and ecumenical coalitions spanning organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Council of Churches.
From the late twentieth century, scholars debate secularization amid the rise of politically active movements including the Religious Right and institutions like the Moral Majority under leaders such as Jerry Falwell Sr., while charismatic networks and televangelism amplified figures like Pat Robertson. New religious movements and Eastern imports fostered communities around leaders such as Sun Myung Moon and institutions like Vedanta Society and Soka Gakkai International, alongside the growth of Islamic organizations like the Islamic Society of North America. Global migration intensified religious pluralism with transnational ties to places such as Latin America, South Asia, and Africa, influencing debates over church-state questions adjudicated by the Supreme Court of the United States in cases touching on prayer, conscience, and religious freedom. Contemporary dynamics include interfaith initiatives, preservation of Indigenous spiritual rights, the influence of megachurches, ongoing debates over pluralism in public life, and scholarly attention to the roles of religion in shaping politics, culture, and migration in the twenty-first century.