The Factors That Allowed the Development of Religious Freedom and Pluralism in Colonial America

predominant form of religious organization in Western civilization has been the state church. In America nearly two hundred years ago, an alternative pattern began to emerge, characterized by freedom of conscience, constitutional separation of church and state, and voluntary support of religious activity.”1 Concerning this same subject Sidney Mead declares, “The importance of this change can hardly be overestimated. Professor W. E. Garrison has rightly called it one of ‘the two most profound revolutions which have occurred in the entire history of the church …’.”2 If the organization of the Christian church for one and a half millennia3 had been one of religious uniformity and coerced compliance to the state church, what happened in Colonial America that could cause a complete overthrow of that system and move toward a denominational form of church organization? It will be shown that the factors that allowed for the emergence of religious freedom and pluralism in early America include several ideological thrusts, such as Rationalism and Pietism, as well as some environmental circumstances, such as the wide-open space of the new land, which gave rise to a multiplicity of well established religious groups at the time of American nationalization