Week 14: (Lack of) Religious Diversity (much of) Religious complexity

The colony of Connecticut was founded in the early 17^th

century with the full intention of operating under Biblical parameters. This ecclesiastical autonomy from the Anglican Church served to model the Puritan ideals for living within a framework whose ultimate authority was God above any earthly, though submitting to earthly authority within the precepts of such submission as laid out in scripture. The resultant religious system was popularly known as Congregationalism, named for the unique nature of the churches’ authority as autonomous from any regional or national association.

The Congregational system remained the majority religious group through the colonial period, with the Connecticut government, called the Establishment, or Assembly, acted as the civil ruling body. In 1708 an allowance by the English crown allowed the minority dissenting churches in Connecticut to form, but few actually did before the Awakening. These marginal religious groups included Anglicans, Baptists, Quakers, and a smattering of Presbyterians with a few others. Interestingly enough, after the Awakening revivals in Connecticut, these marginal groups gained momentum due the growth in population and the plain theological schisms that ensued within the Congregational polity.efault d

In 1708 the Saybrook Platform was passed effectually giving ecclesiastical authority to pastors and taking it out of the hands of the congregation. This Platform was enacted to help truncate the number of dissenting churches and to address the declining spiritual interest of the people of the community. The Saybrook Platform was a colony-wide reform effort that carried a sense of politic with it; religious though it was in function, it affected life for everyone in the colony and introduced divisiveness among the people. This type of public interest would gain momentum as the 18^th century progressed and culminate in revolutionary ideologies of the 1770’s. The Platform was a source of contention that gained momentum during revival fires in the 1730’s and ‘40s.

In 1735 a marked change occurred that would precipitate the protestant Great Awakening five years later. Jonathan Edward’s (a Connecticut native) church in Northampton, Massachusetts and Jonathan Marsh’s parish church in Windsor, Connecticut experienced an outpouring of God’s spirit on these respective congregations. Until this time, the general spiritual state of the Connecticut churches had been in a seemingly gradual decline since really the founding of the colony. Described as a spirit of declension, ministers constantly exhorted their congregations to repent of sinful idolatrous lethargies and return to worshiping Jesus Christ exclusively. It is arguable that a decline in spiritual interest directly correlated with economic expansion and increased material acquisitions available. This distraction with temporal interests abruptly changed colony-wide starting in 1735.

Benjamin Trumball, in his Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut, records this precipitating awakening occurred first in Windsor, then in East-Windsor (where Timothy Edwards, Jonathan Edwards’ father, was minister), in Coventry, Durham, Lebanon-Crank, Mansfield, Bolton, Tolland, Hebron, New Haven and Norwich. These were only pockets that experienced an increase in affections and attention to Christ and the majority of the colony remained in a state of spiritual lethargy.

These small awakenings gathered much momentum during the winter of 1740-1741, when Anglican George Whitefield visited New England. Whitefield, an Anglican reformer, gave highly emotive yet doctrinally sound sermons reflecting Calvinistic dogma, appealed for the people’s repentance and return to God. His open-air venue preaching and itinerancy gave way not only to mass popularity and support, but critics of his embellishing followers as well. Protestants in Connecticut soon became either aligned with the label Old Lights or New Lights, or even, like the Edwardses, moderates.

The once marginalized religious groups such as Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians were soon amalgamated into the New Light grouping, who offered a more ecumenical view than the staunch and antiquated Old Light view. These two factions shaped Connecticut religion throughout the mid 18^th century, and precipitated the opinionated viewpoints that would soon shape revolutionary era rhetoric.

Bushman, Richard L.. From Puritan to Yankee. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.

Trumball, Benjamin. A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical. New Haven: Maltby, Goldsmith and Co., 1818.