REL 100 Chapter Eleven: Denominationalism

Chapter Eight
Religious Freedom in the United
States: Denominationalism

The Reformation that Luther initiated in nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517
eventually produced many similar protests against the Roman Catholic church. Some of these protesting groups were
in Germany, but others came from Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. Some of them found their ways to
North America.
The Anglican church was the church of the settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Its members were loyal
to the king of England, who was head of the church in England. Since the time of Henry VIII, the Church of England
had been separate from the Roman Catholic church. Although Anglicans had many of the same views and practices
of their Catholic counterparts, they denounced the pope and had no use for anyone loyal to him. The Anglican church
was the established church of the Virginia colony. After the colonies declared independence from England, the
Protestant Episcopal church continued the Anglican tradition in the United States.

The Puritans and the Separatists who settled the Bay area of Massachusetts were in agreement with the Anglican
views of Catholics. Puritans and Separatists otherwise disagreed with Anglicans. In order to escape the power of the
king of England, some of the earliest settlers had lived in Holland. The Puritans thought the Church of England needed
more purification from Roman Catholic practices. The Separatists thought that they should be allowed to separate from
the Church of England and practice their Protestant ways without interference from the monarch. Since the monarch
of England condemned both positions in England, the Puritans and the Separatists found more freedom for their faith
in Massachusetts. Dedicated to practicing their religion as God led them, they prohibited any dissent. For example,
when Anne Hutchinson, a dissenter, sought to practice a different form of Protestantism she was driven from
Massachusetts. In 1637 she and her children settled in Rhode Island. Baptists received no welcome in Massachusetts
and had to make their homes elsewhere. Roger Williams, at one time a Baptist, settled in Rhode Island.

Coming from the Separatist tradition, the Baptists emphasized a gathered community of believers. They preferred
to baptize believers by immersion. Anyone led by the Spirit could be ordained to the clergy. Democratic in
government, the Baptists supported separation of church and state. Baptists have developed many independent
associations of churches.

In Pennsylvania, William Penn, a Quaker, received a charter that permitted him to conduct a holy experiment.
He founded Pennsylvania in 1681. Son of an admiral, Penn converted to Quakerism in 1667 and wanted to obtain a
colony where, free from bad example, he could conduct the experiment. Quakers had a haven there, but any person
who believed in God was received with tolerance. That meant that in Pennsylvania not only Protestants but Catholics
and Jews were welcomed. Over the centuries, many groups seeking to establish an ideal religious community sought,
and found, opportunities in Pennsylvania.

People from Switzerland and Scotland brought Presbyterianism. The Presbyterians traced their practices to John
Calvin and the Scot, John Knox. They settled along the East Coast in many colonies, one of them being North
Carolina. Not only were they anti-pope but also anti-Anglican. John Witherspoon (1723-1749), a Presbyterian
clergyman, signed the Declaration of Independence. He had come to America in 1768 to become president of the
College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. Presbyterians settled in many of the valleys in the Appalachian
Mountains.

The Methodist church, founded by John Wesley (1703-1791), a former clergyman of the Anglican church, also
represented a break with the Anglican establishment. His visit to the American colonies helped launch his "method"
of Christianity. His way was based on personal and organizational discipline. On the American frontier, his formal
services gave way to spirit-inspired meetings. The Methodist organization of circuit riders was especially adapted to
frontier conditions in the expanding American nation. So successful were Methodist efforts that a person could, with
some justification, speak of the nineteenth century in America as the Methodist era.

Although Lutherans were present in New York and Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century, their greatest
increase came in the nineteenth century. Immigrants from Germanic states and the Scandinavian countries brought
their practices, based on Luther's catechisms and the Augsburg Confession (1530). They formed their church initially
among their own language groups; in the twentieth century, they formed larger, more encompassing Lutheran bodies.
The largest groups are the Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church-- Missouri Synod.

Deism
Evangelical Protestantism was the major worldview in colonial America, but a small challenge was mounted by
those who held to Deism, especially among upper-class gentry. Sophia Hume, a South Carolina Quaker, warned about
"infidelity and deism" as early as 1748. But many of the early leaders, including George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine were Deists. This worldview may be traced back to
seventeenth-century "men of latitude" in England who wanted to break down demoninational barriers among Christians
by suggesting that only those affirmations on which all agreed were essential. They rejected dependence on scripture
and appealed to natural reason. Deists summarized their worldview in five principles: the existence of God, the need
for worship, the practice of virtue, repentance for wrongdoing, and eventual reward or punishment. American Deists
stressed in addition that the deity was a governing Providence who determined the destinies of nations. The second
basis for Deism was the "Enlightenment" -- the period from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution
(1789). This period of rapid scientific progress, exemplified in the work of Sir Isaac Newton, seemed to have solved
all the problems connected with understanding nature.
As long as the Deists did not attack "revealed" religion, Christians gladly united with Deists for common political
ends on the basis of common assumptions about "natural" religion. English Puritans, for example, had long preached
that the realm of nature was God's "great kingdom, the world." The realm of grace was "his special or peculiar
kingdom, the kingdom of grace." In the first, God rules "every natural man" by "the light of nature to a civil outward
good and end." In the second, God rules the Christians by his special revelation in Christ to an inward and spiritual
goal.
The Anglican churches suffered most from the American Revolution. For they lost all their privileges, prestige,
and support. Its unpopularity increased because many of the clergy were ardent supporters of the English king. Many
clergy fled and there was a need for an American bishop who could ordain clergy independent of England. For
ordination in England required an oath of allegiance to the British crown.
Samuel Seabury, urged by ten Connecticut clergy, secured episcopal consecration from the independent bishops
of Scotland. But the major roles in organzing an American Anglican church were played by Willian White and
William Smith. Their efforts led to a General Convention in 1785 to frame a constitution for the Protestant Episcopal
Church.
In contrast to the Anglicans, the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Baptists came out of the revolutionary
war with enhanced prestige. The Baptists in particular grew so extensively that by 1800 they constituted the largest
denomination in the new country, with twice as many adherents as any other denomination.
Nineteenth-Century Developments
Clues are legion that Americans felt suspended between primoridum and millennium and alienated from both
history and tradition during the early years of the nineteenth century. This led to rejection of traditional churches and
to an appeal for the rebirth of primitive Christianity. In one sense this merely continued the traditional Puritan quest
for the early church. The common appeal was often an ideological premise for assertions of religious freedom. In the
first three decades rejection of historic churches spread rapidly. One thinks of Elias Smith and Abner Jones, of James
O'Kelley and Barton Stone, of Sidney Rigdon and Parley Pratt, of Anne Lee's Shakers.
Lucy Mack Smith, mother of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, typified this movement when she complained
that "there was not then upon the earth the religion which I sought. I therefore determined to examine my Bible, and,
taking Jesus and His disciples for my guide, I endeavored to obtain from God that which man could neither give nor
take away." This reflected one of the two most significant manifestations of the recovery motif during the period.
These two primitive gospel movements were destined to rank among the largest of all religious movements in
America: the Christians/Disciples of Christ, led by Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, and the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith. These groups appropriated names that were primitive and
universal: Christians/Disciples of Christ and Church of Jesus Christ. Like the larger Republic which fostered their
birth, both groups embodied all the tensions, paradoxes and dilemmas that came from standing squarely in the stream
of history while at the same time finding identity in the innocence of the early church.
These movements, like the American Republic itself, were born from a passion for freedom. The Revolution had

made Americans free politically, but clerics and creeds still tyrannized the consciences of the faithful. The Christians
therefore simply sidestepped the traditional churches by moving outside of history to a realm of pure beginnings where
arguments drawn from history did not matter. These people argued that one of the characteristics of the primitive
church was freedom. They claimed that the church fell from its original purity, not when it spawned false doctrine
but rather when it enforced creedal uniformity under Constantine. Ironically, a further discomfort arose from the
religious pluralism of the new nation. These reformers wanted Christian unity, but a unity for which they pled would
not be contrived or legislated; rather, it would happen naturally through the compelling attraction of the recovered
primitive church. Alexander Campbell, for instance, fully expected all humanity to abandon the creeds and traditions
of men, whether Jewish, Islamic, or Christian, and to march into his fold. Further, and here is a third element in the
agenda, the introduction of a united, recovered primitive church, untrammeled by the footsteps of history, would
inaugurate the millenial dawn. The United States was the chosen country for this new beginning.
The basic dilemma involved pluralism. Indeed, so long as the Christians lived in their transhistorical possibilities,
standing with one foot in primitive Christianity and the other in the millennial dawn, they had no need to take seriously
the historical forms of Christianity. These reformers claimed that they were not a denomination at all and that once
the millennium arrived, all denominational structures would crumble. All that would be left would be the true body
of faithful now united and free in a primitive, apostolic community.
But the millennium did not dawn and Christian unity failed to transpire. As the millennial vision faded and the
denominations failed to fall, and as the Christians became increasingly conscious of their own identity as one group
among others, many crossed the line and the cosmic vision of liberty and unity became, at least for some, a vision
of sectarian exclusivism. The very lack of a tradition now constituted a tradition in its own right, the rejection of
theology became a fundamental theological maxim, and the commitment to transcend history became the substance
of the history of the particular people.

Another distinctive feature of American Protestantism has been the freedom of individuals to form their own
evangelistic crusades and movements. These movements have often begun with an evangelist "led by the spirit" to
operate outside denominational churches. Evangelists have appealed to people of all denominations to follow the living
spirit. In frontier days, evangelists preached their gospel in tent meetings. In more recent times they have preached
in city stadiums. Billy Graham is one example of a person who has his own ministry which he exercises in cooperation
with many established churches. The advent of radio and television gave evangelists access to hearers and money from
all over the nation and abroad. More recent examples included the ministries of Oral Roberts and M.G. "Pat"
Robertson. Although these ministries have been largely free from government interference, at the close of the
twentieth century the federal government has chosen to investigate some issues pertaining to the finances, investments,
and political activities of some evangelical organizations. We shall see more on this topic at the end of the chapter.

Millenialism: The Seventh Day Adventists
Adventism started in the United States with the preaching of William Miller (1782-1849), a Baptist. His study
of the Bible led him to suppose that Christ would shortly return to earth, when there would be the resurrection of the
faithful and the Kingdom of God would be established. His predictions made a strong impression. When he went on
to say that the Second Coming was due between spring 1843 and spring 1844, excitement among his followers
mounted. Farmers failed to harvest their crops; men left their business affairs; the eagerness of the waiting was
scarcely bearable, but yet sweet and joyous. When the promised event did not occur, it was heart-breaking. But the
faithful mostly stayed with Miller and his cause. One disciple wrote:

The passing of the time was a bitter disappointment. True believers had given up all for Christ, and had shared His presence and never before. The
love of Jesus filled every soul and with inexpressible desire they prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus, and come quickly," but He did not come.

We can see here something of the perennial and poignant attraction of the Christian eschatological hope: the
recurrence of hopes for the Millennium throughout Christian history is a facet of Christian experience that is puzzling
but significant. The Seventh-Day Adventists, the most powerful offshoot of Miller's movement continue as a zealous

missionary movement.
Jehovah's Witnesses
The Jehovah's Witnesses likewise await the Millennium. But their doctrines, first propounded by a Pittsburgh
businessman, Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), lie definitely outside the orbit of orthodox Christianity. They regard
Christ as a creature who will come to destroy the forces of Satan at Armageddon. They teach that sinners who are
not saved will perish; but the faithful will enter into a kingdom of joy and happiness. Despite scandals involving
Russell himself, the movement has grown. It is particularly active in underdeveloped countries, where its repudiation
of Christian orthodoxy and its promises for the future have a certain appeal. In their serene confidence of the coming
of the Kingdom, the Witnesses undertake no military service. In any event, the institutions of government are, they
hold, under the control of Satan. Thus they have proved recalcitrant and anarchistic, and have suffered some
persecution as a result. They are peaceful, but fanatical; they know their Bible backward and forward, but they are
rarely well educated. Such a movement appeals to those of modest education. The secret hope of the Milennium and
the marvellous way they can interpet the Bible are compensations for their deprivation.

Latter Day Saints
The dynamics and dilemmas of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were similar, though rooted in
a more explicit rejection of pluralism than characterized even the early Christians. Anxiety over pluralism was implicit
in the beginning when young Joseph Smith, perplexed by the competing claims of various Christian sects, retired to
the woods in 1820 to ask a simple question of the Lord: which of the churches is the true church? Significantly, the
Lord answered, "I must join none of them, for they were all wrong" and that "all their creeds were an abomination
in His sight." Seven years later, Smith's restoration of primitive Christianity commenced with the recovery of the
golden plates, the basis for the Book of Mormon. This Book of Mormon was a recovery of ancient Christianity once
delivered to the Americas but lost by the Nephites because of wickedness and lack of belief. With the establishment
of the Mormon Church in 1830, the restoration of the gospel and of the church was complete.
What now remained was the extension of the Mormon "gathering" throughout the earth, a "gathering" that would
inaugurate the religious unity on Mormon terms and, as a consequence, the millenial age. In holding to this familiar
recovery-unity-millennium progression, Mormons resembled the Christians. But there were two basic differences.
First, restoration for the earliest Christians was a metaphysical expectation; for the Mormons it was an accomplished
fact, predicated on the recovery of a tangible and visible book. To be sure, empirical reality was central to
Mormonism at every significant point. But second, while the Christians aimed at a recovery of New Testament
Christianity, Mormons aimed at a kind of "cosmic regeneration," blending multiple sacred times -- Eden, the
patriarchal age, the Israelite theocracy, and the teachings and practices of the early church. What defined sacred time
in the Mormon imagination was direct communication between God and humanity.
Joseph Smith II (1805-1844), a handsome young visionary, was born in Vermont. His mother was
continually searching for a religion that satisfied her. At the age of fifteen Joseph had a vision of "two Personages
whose brightness and glory defy all description." One pointed to the other saying, "This is my Beloved Son! Hear
Him!" The substance of the message that followed was that there was need for a restoration of the Gospel. Some years
later, Smith was guided by an angel to the discovery, according to his own account, of a number of golden plates
containing inscriptions. Along side of them lay a pair of supernatural spectacles (other traditions say stones) which
enabled Smith to read these inscriptions: he identified them with the Urim and Thummim mentioned in Exodus 28:30
as belonging to the high priest's apparel. Smith claimed that the language was Reformed Egyptian (Egyptologists have
no knowledge of this mysterious tongue). As a result of his decipherment, Joseph Smith published, in 1830, a work
called The Book of Mormon. It is from this that the Latter-Day Saints have obtained their nickname of "Mormons."
The contents are curious, and represent a mythology for the New World. That struck a chord in many hearts and
the success of the new church demonstrates this. Already there were current in some circles theories that the
American Indians were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel -- those, that is, who had disappeared from the view
of history at the time of King Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. According
to the Book of Mormon, these folk crossed the seas to the New World, continuing the religion of the Old Testament

and compiling further records of events and prophecies. However, only some of those who had come to the New
World remained faithful. The others abandoned the teachings and became savages. These were the Indians.
Ultimately the culture of the faithful remnant came to an end in 421 C.E. The only survivors, the prophet Mormon
and his son Moroni, hid these records in a cave in New York State, whence they were rescued briefly by Joseph Smith
under the guidance of Moroni, now appearing in angelic form. This book also relates how Christ visited the Western
hemisphere during the period after his ascension. On the basis of this primary myth and other visions of Joseph Smith,
he proclaimed the establishement of a new church, at Fayette in Seneca County, New York, on April 6, 1830.
Thus for Mormons the visit of an angel who said his name was Moroni to Joseph Smith during the night of
September 21, 1823 constitutes the foundation of Mormonism. The angel said he was the last prophet of a vanished
race that once inhabited the Americas. The angel told Joseph Smith of a collection of gold leaves or "plates" on which
was engraved a religious history many centuries earlier by Moroni and his father, Mormon. The next day Smith went
to a hill, "Convenient to the village of Manchester" (New York, near Rochester and Palmyra).

On the west slope he found a large rounded stone. Underneath he discovered a stone box containing the plates of gold and an instrument late used
to aid in translation, which apparently consisted of two transparent stones attached like eyeglasses to a breastplate and which was identified by the
angel as the biblical Urim and Thummim used by ancient seers.

Smith called the language "Reformed Egyptian".
The Book of Mormon is a chronicle of people who lived in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. It begins
in 600 B.C.E. when a small group of Hebrews fled from Jerusalem and travelled by caravan to the Indian Ocean.
There they built a boat and journeyed to the west coast of the Americas. In the new land, conflict divided them into
the Nephites and the Lamanites. After the crucifixion Christ appeared in the Americas and organized a church. When
unrighteousness reappeared, the people split into opposing groups. About 421 C.E. one group destroyed the other and
became the ancestors of the Indians of North, Central, and South America. Moroni, last prophet of the destroyed
group, buried the records in "Hill Cumorah", where they remained until discovered by Joseph Smith for "the latter
day saints."
The Book of Mormon relates how the prophet Ether foretells that a New Jerusalem will be prepared in America.

4. Behold, Ether saw the days of Christ, and he spake concerning a New Jerusalem upon this land.
5. And he spake also concerning the house of Israel, and the Jerusalem from whence Lehi should come -- after it should be destroyed it should
be built up again, a holy city unto the Lord; wherefore, it could not be a new Jerusalem for it had been in a time of old; but it should be built up
again, and become a holy city of the Lord; it should be built unto the house of Israel--
6. And that a new Jerusalem should be built up upon this land, unto the remnant of the seed of Joseph, for which things there has been a type.
7. For as Joseph brought his father down unto the land of Egypt, even so he died there; wherefore, the Lord brought a remnant of the seed of
Joseph out of the land of Jerusalem, that he might be merciful unto the seed of Joseph that they should perish not, even as he was merciful unto
the father of Joseph that he should perish not.
8. Wherefore, the remnant of the house of Joseph shall be built upon this land; and it shall be a land of their inheritance; and they shall build up
a holy city unto the Lord, like unto the Jerusalem of old; and they shall no more be confounded, until the end come when the earth shall pass away.
9. And there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and they shall be like unto the old save the old have passed away, and all things have become
new (Ether 13:409).

Organizing the new church in 1830, the recently married Joseph Smith used his charismatic leadership to attract
converts from the established churches, all of which, according to him, were unworthy of the new revelation. By
1831, he and his wife, Emma, had gathered a thousand people who sold everything, gave most of it to the new church,
and moved westward to establish a community that would be a model for the coming kingdom of God.
Of all the sacred times which Mormons sought to recover, the one which dominated the imagination was that of
ancient Israel. For this reason, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was far more than a church. It was a
kingdom, a new Israel. As God's kingdom, now restored in its ancient purity, it was destined to swallow all other
kingdoms and churches until, finally, the Saints would literally rule with Christ on earth.

Implicit in this representation of recovery was the innocence of the Saints and the degeneracy of the Gentile
religions. There was no subtlety of ideological development. Rather it was all very straightforward. The apostles of
the church stated in an 1845 proclamation to "All the Kings of the World, to the President of the United States of
America, to the Governors of the Several States, and to the Rulers and Peoples of All Nations." That proclamation
announced that "the kingdom of God has come, as has been predicted by the ancient prophets... even that Kingdom
which shall fill the whole earth and stand forever." The apostles then warned the world leaders that these events are
calculated, in their very nature, to reduce all nations and creeds to one political and religious standard, and thus put
an end to Babel forms and names and to strife and war." Sometimes the early zeal of the members asserted Mormon
innocence and Gentile depravity so thoroughly that visions of violence were by no means out of the question. Thus,
Martin Harris, for example, was reported to have issued the following prediction in 1832:

Within four years that there will not be one wicked person left in the United States;... the righteous will be gathered to Zion.... and there will be
no President over these United States, after that time.
I do hereby assert and declare that in four years from the date thereof (September 1832) every sectarian and religious denomination in the United
States will be broken down, and every Christian shall be gathered unto the Mormonites, and the rest of the human race shall perish.

Parley Pratt proclaimed that all who refused the message of the Saints "shall alike feel the hand of the almighty, by
pestilence, famine, earthquake, and the sword: yea, ye shall be drunken with your own blood... until your cities are
desolate... until all lyings, priestcrafts, and all manner of abominations, shall be done away." In the midst of such
visions, the Saints were confident of their innocence. They were, after all, not only God's representatives in a world
of Gentiles. They also stood removed from the finite sphere of history. Having replicated the primordium and now
providing the space for the millenium, they found their identity not in profane time but in a sacred time and space.
In the early years, this meant that the Saints were not responsible for violent retribution. Sidney Rigdon assured
the Missourians that any guilt for violence would be the Missourians' alone: "We will never be the agressors... a mob
that comes on to us to disturb us; it shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them,
till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us." When war finally erupted in 1838
between the Mormons and the Gentiles, the Mormons preserved their innocence by identifying their cause with the
cause of God. "I care not how many come against us," Joseph Smith proclaimed. "God will send us angels to our
deliverance and we can conquer 10,000 as easily as ten." But their innocence ultimately was rooted not in an abstract
identification with God but in a concrete identification with the sacred times: the times of Adam, of the patriarchs,
of ancient Israel, and of the primitive church. Thus, the armies of the Saints were not, as they appeared, mere
nineteenth-century mortals engaged in another war in the long stream of military history. They rather were "the armies
of Israel... established by Revelation from God," who soon would "take the kingdom" according to the prophecy of
Daniel.
Here was a new Israel in search of a promised land. The Saints settled in Kirtland, Ohio, and a prosperous
community was established. The enthusiasm and discipline of the Saints was impressive. But it sparked animosity in
the neighbors. Outbreaks of violence drove the community further west to Missouri. The place where the New
Jerusalem would arrive was then thought to be Independence, Missouri. Smith made it the center stake of the large,
geographical tent comprising the new community. There similar problems repeated themselves.
Mormons were different from other Christians. "Mormon writers themselves unanimously deny that Mormonism
is a Protestant church. They assert that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a restoration, not a
reformation." The Book of Mormon, their anthropomorphic ideas of God and Christ, and their intention to build a
physical kingdom aroused suspicion. Fear of Mormon political influence also played apart in local citizens' tarring
and feathering Smith.
They crossed the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, in Illinois. There a town of twenty thousand souls evolved, ruled
over by Joseph Smith theocratically. It was a state within the state. It had its own militia and discipline. A fine Temple
was built, and a university was established. Meanwhile missionaries were sent to the east and to Europe. The new

faith caught the imagination of many who were looking for their own Promised Land, and could not find it in the
machine shops of the English countryside and textile mills of Lancashire. It was the start of a new tide of religiously
motivated emigration.
Meanwhile further troubles were brewing in Nauvoo. Smith's powers and that of the community he led roused
fears in the rest of Illinois. The Saints were becoming a political force to be reckoned with. In addition, they gave
cause for alienation and hostility not simply because they were close, inward-looking people, but because in 1843
Joseph Smith revealed the seemingly scandalous doctrine of polygamy. To check the continued increase of a
self-contained group that granted little allegiance to state authority, the Governor of Illinois ordered Smith's arrest,
together with that of his brother Hiram.
In retaliation for criticism of him in a Carthage, Illinois, newspaper, Smith led a group of Mormons into town
to attack the paper. Citizens of the town captured and jailed Joseph Smith and his brother. Armed men broke into the
jail and shot the brothers to death. The founder was now a martyr.
The succession passed to Brigham Young (1801-1877), a patriarachal figure, authoritarian and prophetic, and
a clever administrator. Young supported Smith's view of plural marriages and baptism for the dead to Mormonism.
Evidently Nauvoo was not the Promised Land. The Saints were looking for a haven where they would be free of
hostility and violence of the unbelievers. The new Israel, then in 1846, set out on its greatest trek, into the wild and
unknown western frontier and beyond.
Fifteen thousand men, women and children, and several thousand cattle, wound their way west through bitter
and difficult country. In 1847 they came to the Zion for which they had been seeking. By the Great Salt Lake in Utah,
then a Mexican territory, they stopped and began to build a new and more glorious Temple. Crops were sown, houses
built. At first life was hard, but the new community was heartened by an apparently miraculous occurrence: the corn
crop was threatened by hordes of insects. Just when it appeared that catastrophe was inevitable, a flock of seagulls
consumed the insects. The successful ending of the long trek convinced the Saints that they were guided by
Providence.
Now polygamy, hitherto a subject of private practice, was officially established. A true theocracy was instituted,
ruled severely and sometimes violently by Brigham Young. Though most of the Saints remained faithful, others
became restless under his iron fist. A number were executed for apostasy. Meanwhile, Utah was ceded to the United
States. A commissioner from Washington was sent to administer the territory, though Young was recognized as
governor. The building of the transcontinental railroad destroyed Utah's seclusion. Under Young's second successor,
Wilford Woodruff, Utah became a state of the Union, but only on the condition of the renunciation of polygamy.
The high standard of education of the Saints and their industry and sobriety, together with their emphasis on
missionary activity, created a strong community. The Mormon Tabernacle and Temple in Salt Lake City is the center
for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For Mormons, it is the headquarters of an extensive administrative
organization for missions and benevolence. Its more profound meaning lies in the Temple open only to Mormons.
A marriage performed there is binding not only in this life but also for eternity.
The Absolute
The God of whom Mormons speak when talking to nonmembers is the God of this world. They believe that there
are other gods of other worlds; they worship only the God of this world. God and Jesus are of flesh and bone, lacking
blood. The Holy Spirit is spirit. Gods were once humans; they became gods. Humans now living may also become
gods.
The Cosmos
The world can be a very good place. Joseph Smith envisioned many prosperous model communities. The kingdom
of God can be developed on earth. There is little that is world-denying about Mormons, except for restrictions on
tobacco, hot drinks, and substance abuse. Humans are descended from Adam and Eve, who, once immortal, became
mortal due to sin. Since the coming of a savior, humans have an opportunity to regain immortality and live as gods.
Education is helpful for living a responsible life. Science and industry are useful in providing good lives for humans.
Persons who lived in the past, unless their descendants do something for them, remain short of the attainments open
to those who have the complete revelation. This opportunity is open to ancestors; people may search their family tree
and find names of ancestors who would have received the doctrine had they the opportunity. Their descendants can
have them baptized into the faith.
Baptism on behalf of the dead is possible only in a temple, which is open only to Mormons. Marriage for eternity

as well as for time is possible only in a temple open to Mormons. Neither baptism nor marriage is considered a
sacrament, but the requirement that they can provide higher benefits only if performed in a temple indicates their
importance. The sacrament is the Lord's Supper, celebrated each Sunday.
The good life offered to Mormons is open to all who are willing to make the effort. Efforts for good accompany
right beliefs. A Mormon should avoid any sex outside of marriage, and every healthy person should marry and have
children. Everyone is expected to work and strengthen the economy. Mormons are expected to donate 10 percent of
their income to the church and an additional 2 percent to the local congregation. Benevolence extends to
non-Mormons. Young men are expected to support themselves when they devote their lives to two years of missionary
activities. Since 1978 all males, including blacks, may be ordained to the priesthood. The church is organized around
a male hierarchy. The First Presidency has three members, one of whom is the president, incorporating the powers
of Smith, Young, and his successors. The president brings up-to-date revelations of God's will. Below the First
Presidency is a Council of Twelve Apostles, whose choice is by revelation. The Council of Seventy, with
responsibilities for the missionary work, comes next above the general boards and committees

Christian Science
Another example of religious freedom is the work of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), founder of Christian
Science. Joseph Smith had been dead for twenty-two years when Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) injured herself in
a fall on the ice in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1866. If Joseph Smith's quest began in a search for assurance in religious
truth, Eddy's began in a desire for physical and emotional healing. Appealing to the new interest in science, Mary
Baker Eddy sought to combine insights of science with the gospel. In particular, she was concerned with alleviating
suffering and promoting healing. She established the practice of healing through reading the Bible, interpreting it
through her principles in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Although the Church of Christ, Scientist, has
local congregations, Eddy wanted all Christian Scientists to belong to the mother church in Boston. Since her death,
the church has continued as a highly respected institution. In the late twentieth century, however, practicing Christian
Scientists have lost some court cases in which the state prosecuted parents who, because of their beliefs, have failed
to provide customary medical treatment for their sick children.
A modern exponent writes:

Theories about germs and microbes come from beliefs which hold that life is material and that disease is real. The Christian Scientist knows by
experience that his belief is demonstrable despite theories of disease involving germs, microbes and viruses.

Christian science aims to provide a religious theory to back up its spiritual healing. The movement has spread because
those who are cured remain loyal. In an age of psychosomatic illness, such faith healing can produce results, and these
outweigh the initial implausibility of the theory.
From a Calvinist family, Eddy was exposed to the healing methods of Phineas P. Quimby. But she went her own
way in constructing Christian Science She concluded that what is wrong with the world and humans has its origins
in a radical mistake of cosmic proportions about the nature of reality -- that it is dual in nature, both spirit and matter,
or worse, that reality is composed of matter alone.
Eddy wrote, "there is not life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." Her radical premise of the
non-existence of matter means that what our senses seem to perceive is an illusion. Material senses cannot detect spirit
and so give false testimony about the nature of reality. If matter is not real, then evil, sickness, pain, and death are
likewise not real. Her experience gave rise to a new scripture, Science and Health, and a new tradition. But Christian
Science was to be more than just a new understanding of the cosmos. It was a means to curing both sin and sickness.
She discovered that she could heal herself and others of pain, both physical and mental. She found herself
understanding "for the first time in their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration, and the Principle and
rule of spiritual science and metaphysical healing, -- in a word, Christian Science."
Like Mormonism, Christian Science called for a new interpretation of traditional theological ideas. Mormonism
derived much of its theological and practical dynamism from the nineteenth century and still does by embracing a
materialist metaphysics and the evidence of sense experience as conducive to discovering truth. Christian Science
found that same energy in an equally fervent rejection of matter and embracing of spirit. But while Mormonism

expanded greatly and continues to grow, the same cannot be said for Christian Science.
Eddy spoke to the National Convention in Chicago on June 13, 1888 and said among other things:

Science is absolute and final. It is revolutionary in its very nature; for it upsets all that is not upright. It annuls false evidence, and saith to the five
material senses,"Having eyes ye see not, and ears ye hear not; neither can you understand." To weave one thread of Science through looms of time,
is a miracle in itself. The risk is stupendous. It cost Galileo, what? This awful price: the temporary loss of his self-respect. His fear overcame his
loyalty; the courage of his convictions fell before it. Fear is the weapon in the hands of tyrants.
Men and women of the nineteenth century, are you called to voice a higher order of Science? Then obey this call. Go, if you must, to the dungeon
or the scaffold, but take not back the words of Truth.How many are there ready to suffer for a righteous cause, to stand a long siege, take the front
rank, face the foe, and be in the battle every day?....
Past, present, future, will show the word and Spirit of Truth -- healing the sick and reclaiming the sinner -- so long as there remains a claim of error
for Truth to deny or to destroy. Love's labors are not lost.... Human reason is innacurate; and the scope of the senses is inadequate to grasp the
word of Truth, and teach the eternal.
Science speaks when the senses are silent, and then the evermore of Truth is triumphant. The spiritual monitor understood is coincidence of the
divine with the human, the acme of Christian Science.
Seventy-five years after the founding of Christian Science what was to become Scientology appeared. If Eddy
looked to the healing passages of the Bible and her own insight for her new model of the universe, L. Ron Hubbard
(1911-1986), the founder of Scientology, turned to contemporary sources. The movement originated in a system of
self-help developed in early form in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, published in 1950. The book
is a treatise on the human mind. The Basic Dictionary of Dianetics and Scientology defines Dianetics as a system of
thought thus: "Dianetics is not psychiatry. It is not hypnotism. It is... defined as what the soul is doing to the body.
Dianetics is a system of analysis, control, and development of human thought which also provides techniques for
increased ability, rationality, and freedom from the discovered source of irrational behavior stemming from the
mind."
Dianetics developed from what initially was a self-help method to a more specifically religious symbol system and
was registered as The Church of Scientology in California in 1954. In its Catechism Scientology is defined as religious
in all senses, including ritual, creed, and a "religious philosophy in its highest meaning as it concerns itself with Man
and his relations to the Supreme Being and life, bringing Man to total freedom and truth."16
Believers explain that theirs is a religious philosophy that sees past traumas, physical or mental, as barriers to
rational behavior. These past traumas are called "engrams." When engrams began to emerge in the auditing process,
a question and answer procedure by which Scientology methods are used to elicit recollections of past traumas, not
just from the present life of Scientologists, but from past lives as well, Hubbard expanded the cosmology to take this
new information into account. At large in the cosmos of trillions of years of human history are "thetans," spiritual
beings free of the physical world but trapped in MEST (matter, energy, space, time). The goal of Scientology is the
restoration of knowledge of the thetan's true identity.
Theosophy
In cosmological terms, Theosophy took a more moderate course than Scientology and Christian Science.
Theosophy in America originated with the founding of the Theosophical Society by Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891)
and Colonel Henry Olcott (1832-1907) in 1875. Theosophy does not denigrate earthly life or the physical body as
illusory and useless for spiritual development. Rather Theosophy holds that earthly life is an essential but less
spiritually aware existence than is possible on less dense planes of reality. It views boths sprit and matter as equal
manifestations of the Absolute.
Blavatsky said the movement had three objectives: "(1) To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of
Humanity without distinction of race, colour, or creed. (2) To promote the study of the world's religion and
sciences.... (3) To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and
spiritual powers latent in man especially."
Theosophists claim that their aim is to recapture the ancient wisdom that Theosophists understand as having once
formed the foundation of a civilization in which science and religion were united. Bits and pieces of this wisdom were

believed to be scattered throughout the religions and philosophies of the world. Theosophy reassembles these into a
coherent system which mitigates the intellectual failings, superstitions, and tyrranies of traditional worldviews. At
the same time it reigns in the arrogance of science. The system assumes a cosmos in which the spiritual and material
are so intertwined that one can discern laws that apply to both. Particular attention has been paid to Eastern
worldviews and the occult.

Revivalism
Billy Sunday (1862-1935) dominated the revivalist movement of the early years of the twentieth century. He was
a former professional baseball player who wanted to identify with the "common man." He preached vigorously against
alcohol. The following extract from a sermon illustrates his flamboyant rhetoric.

Listen! Here is an extract from the Saturday Evening Post of November 9, 1907, taken from a paper read by a brewer. You will say that a man
didn't say it: "It appears from these facts that the success of our business lies in the creation of appetite among the boys. Men who have formed
the habit scarcely ever reform, but they, like others, will die, and unless there are recruits made to take their places, our coffers will be empty, and
I recommend to you that money spent in the creation of appetite will return in dollars to your tills after the habit is formed."
What is your raw materials, saloons? American boys. Say, I would not give one boy for all the distilleries and saloons this side of hell. And they
have to have 2,000,000 boys every generation. And then you tell me you are a man when you will vote for an institution like that. What do you
want to do, pay taxes in money or in boys?
I feel like an old fellow in Tennessee who made his living by catching rattlesnakes. One day when he was sawing wood his little five year old boy,
Jim, took the lid off and the rattler wriggled out and struck him in the cheek. He ran to his father and said, ,"the rattler has bit me." The father
ran and chopped the rattler to pieces, and with his jack-knife he cut a chunk from the boy's cheek and then sucked and sucked at the wound to draw
out the poison. He looked at little Jime, watched the pupils of his eyes dilate and watched him swell to three times his normal size, watched his lips
become parched and cracked, and eyes roll, and little Jim gasped and died.
The father took him in his arms, carried him over by the side of the rattler, got on his knees and said, "O God, I would not give little Jim for all
the rattlers that ever crawled over the Blue Ridge mountains."
And I would not give one boy for every dirty dollar you get from the hell-soaked liquour business or from every brewery and distillery this side
of hell....

Walter Lippmann observed the changes technology wrought on the United States between the two World Wars.
The effect of modern civilization, of which America was perhaps the best example, was "the dissolution of the bonds
which bound one man to another." Modern civilization dissolved the emotional ties and helped break up ethnic
tribalism. Lipmann liked to contrast the modern situation with the past. Life back in what he styled the ancestral order
was simpler, contained within narrower limits, and with far greater unity in the activity of each individual than
contemporary living allowed. Allegiance to the tribe, he claimed, would unite the tasks of the people's acts of
worship. No longer. "In the modern world this synthesis has disintegrated and the activities of a man cannot be
directed by simple allegiance." Of course, sects tried this and Fundamentalists, by organizing and isolating a way of
life complete with their own separate radio stations, Bible schools, publications, were "come-outers" who tried to
maintain synthesis and simple allegiance.
The Protestants of the federating churches and the Catholics and Jews gradually coming out of their ghettos could
not do this. Lippmann spoke of such citizens at the places where the lines of societal cleavage came together. He
described personal life along what had been called the "dozen oppositions along lines running in every direction," the
spiritual "cross clefts." As example, Lippmann said, "Each man finds himself the center of a complex of loyalties.
He is loyal to his government, he is loyal to his state, he is loyal to his village, he is loyal to his neighborhood. He
has his own family. He has his wife's family. He has his church. His wife may have a different church." This citizen
may be employer or employee, who must be loyal to his corporation, trade union, or professional society. He belongs
to a political party, to clubs, to a social set. "The multiplicity of his interests makes it impossible for him to give his
whole allegiance to any person or to any institution." It was this criss-crossing of loyalties that Lippmann thought
constituted modern society as pluralistic.
It was during this period that the United States was learning just how pluralistic it had become. This began to put

the mainstream churches at a disadvantage. For they had to compete not only against the new ideological forces but
also new religious groups which tried to remain unassimilated.
In the nineteenth century the combination of denomination plus creed plus region plus race produced deep clefts
in society and the North and South fought the civil war as a result. Southern versus Northern Baptist, Methodist, and
Presbyterian groups produced opposite justifications for the conflict, while white versus black Methodists or Baptists
in the South reinforced the separate camps regarding slavery.
The Great Depression of the 1930s produced the deepest crisis since the War Between the States. The conflict
between people in competing economic and social classes increased. The right and left had their best chance to
demolish each other. Differing reactions toward European and Asian totalitarianism (German Nazism; Japanese
Imperialism) threatened to tear society apart. Economic disorder led people to adopt extreme positions: fascism and
communism.
Two illustrations of the paradox of Lippmann's criss-crossing involvement are The Church of Christ Scientist and
the Seventh-day Adventists, both of which were discussed earlier in the chapter. The Church of Christ Scientist had
a doctrine which almost all Americans rejected, but the Christian Science Monitor won increasing acceptance and
came to be regarded as a leading newspaper in the United States. The Adventists, in order to protect Saturday worship
shared sympathies with Jews. Together they opposed "blue laws" in state after state and so extended the zone of
religious liberties, and so despite the official intense religiosity, the group contributed to burgeoning secularity.
After the start of the Second World War and for the next several decades, disruptions occurred between camps of
believers. Protestants formed an anti-Catholic organization and protested the appointment of an ambassador to the
Vatican by President Harry S. Truman. Many opposed the election of John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, as President of
the United States. "McCarthyism" and the communist witch-hunts were carried out in the name of religion. Religion
tended in some instances to reinforce racism.
Despite these signs of conflicts and actual conflicts, a new language developed. Words like consensus, dialogue,
ecumenism, interfaith, church unity, integration, merger, collegiality, etc. increasingly were sounded by various
worldview representatives. The World Council of Churches was founded and supporters gave religious symbols to
causes of the United Nations. Groups began to enforce religious and sexual equality.

The Unification Church
Mormonism originated in early nineteenth-century western New York and Unificationism, in mid-twentieth-centry
Korea. Despite the difference in space and time, both movements come together in their conception of the deity and
how the deity can be known. In both worldviews, God is a father who has been motivated by love to create the world
and his human children. Both acknowledge that God's nature is revealed in the natural world. By studying nature it
is possible to learn something of God. Both also claim the need for special revelation through emissaries divinely
chosen to transmit saving knowledge. Both claim that their special revelation has not ended. It was given to the
founders, Joseph Smith and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and will continue to be given as needed. Both accept
the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, but claim they are incomplete.

The Unification church began in the twentieth century in Korea. From there it entered the United States and other
countries. The symbol for the Unification church is its founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. He became widely
known in the United States through a number of public events that received national and international news media
coverage. A prayer vigil for the Nixon administration during the Watergate crisis placed him at the center of the
controversy. He stood where the spotlight was already focused. The Washington Monument, Madison Square Garden,
and Yankee Stadium are highly visible places where he has held his rallies. His 1974 rally in Madison Square Garden
attracted huge crowds, and impressive stories spread public recognition of the movement. His mass-wedding ceremony
of couples whom he had matched was pictured around the world. It was a gesture highly symbolic of his emphasis
on the new family and the importance of marriage in the foundation of the new society and kingdom of God.
Since his prison sentence for tax evasion, Reverend Moon has not been much in the media. The Unification church
has matured, changing its tactics, membership, and immediate goals. Having amassed considerable financial
resources, it has been able to disseminate its beliefs among more established members of society. The practices that
brought it notoriety and opposition have been reduced.

Reverend Moon sent the first missionaries to the United States in 1959. The message combined Christian with
Near Eastern values. With the arrival of the founder in the 1960s, the church grew rapidly. Though not yet as well
accepted as the Mormons, the Unification church has gained respect. It is a worldview that began in Christianity, but
has a new prophet who claims to bring a fresh and final revelation. It combines Confucian values with Judaism and
Christianity.
The Reverend Sun Myung Moon was born to Christian perents in Korea in 1920. On Easter Sunday of his
sixteenth year, he had a vision of Christ. He became the recipient of a revelation that would complete the interrupted
salvation of the world. Not only had all churches failed, but also, due to John the Baptist's failure to prepare the way
for him, Jesus Christ had failed. The new Messiah, Moon preached, will come from Korea in the twentieth century.
Japanese occupation of Korea, Communist warfare, and his incarceration as a political prisoner prevented his
launching the Unification movement until 1954.
The essential proclamation of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is set forth in the primary myth, the Divine
Principle, a book translated into English by Young Oon Kim. It contains an exposition of Old and New Testament
texts interpreted in the light of Reverend Moon's revelation. The prelude is set forth in an introduction that purports
to be a brief outline of basic scientific principles. The overriding theme is the family. God is the Father who seeks
for all of his children to live together with him in love. He created Adam and Eve to be the ideal father and mother
of the human race. They were to live in love of God the Father and eventually to marry and produce a child. These
four individuals, God, human father, human mother, and their child were to form the basic block upon which human
society would be built. Divine Principle states:

The four position foundation is manifested as God, husband and wife, and their offspring. With God as the origin, husband and wife as the
manifested subject and object, and their offspring as the result of their unity, one can see three distinct stages. Thus the four position foundation
becomes the basis of the three stages because it is fulfilled in three stages according to the O-D-U action. This is also the basis of the significance
of the number "twelve," because each of the four positions will take three objects, thus bringing about a total of twelve objects. The four position
foundation is the base for the fulfillment of God's goodness and is the ultimate goal of His creation. This is the base through which God's power
is channeled to flow into all of His creation in order for the creation to exist. Therefore, the formation of the four position foundation is ultimately
God's eternal purpose of creation.

Without this ideal four-legged unit, all subsequent human development would be wrong. Satan, who is very real
for Moon, took the form of a serpent and seduced Eve into having sex with him. Eve then seduced Adam. These
nonmarital sexual transgressions distorted the basic unit for human society. From that point, all has gone wrong;
God's various attempts cited in the Bible to redeem this fundamental error have until now ended in failure. Elaborate
numerology is used to reinterpret history in light of a few biblical events.
In the Divine Principle, even the mission of Jesus as the Christ was a failure. God did not intend that Jesus die.
Jesus was put to death because John the Baptist failed to take the necessary step of proclaiming himself to be Elijah
returned. There was a Jewish prophecy that Elijah must appear again before the Messiah can come. God's plan had
been that Jesus marry and produce a child, doing in effect what the first Adam had failed to do. In Moon's revelation,
the task must still be done. His revelation is that the Messiah will return in the twentieth century to become the the
ideal father, marrying an ideal wife, and producing an ideal child. The Messiah will not appear this time in Palestine
but in a new country that God has been preparing. That country is Korea.

The Absolute
The God of Christianity and Judaism is presented by Reverend Sun Myung Moon as a father who loves his
children. He is especially concerned for human families built on loyalty. The world is a good place. It should provide
materially satisfying lives for people. New recruits may be limited in their enjoyment of wealth, but there is nothing
wrong with the church and its leaders accumulating commercial enterprises and using their profits for religious
purposes. Leaders in business and government should be enlisted in support of the church.

Humanist Alternative
The Humanist Manifesto declared in 1933 that "the quest for the good life is still the central task of mankind."
In that quest, old doctrines played small part. A generation later the Manifesto was rewirrten. This statement was

made by William S. Fisk, lay president of a Unitarian-Universalist fellowships in Ohio.

But out of this necessity, man created more than gods. He created religion too; and these are not co-equal. For religion pervaded men's lives,
ordered their societies, set the patterns of behavior, set the goals of men's desires. Religion provided, and still provides, a repository for the highest
and best of man's thoughts and aspirations. In many forms, this is cloaked in divine sanction as a means of enforcement and promulgation, but
basically, all of man's hopes for his future, all of what he has learned on how to live and propser, all the essence of centuries of trial and error are
found in the values of the religions of the world....
Liberal religion, humanist religion, stands as living evidence of another alternative. We meet in our churches, yet there is no excommunication if
we do not attend. We possess, and will defend, firm ideals which have grown out of the treat religious traditions; yet we do not believe we will
live forever in fire if we fail a few times in living up to those ideals. Nor will most of us defend those ideals on any supernatural or divine basis,
for many of us would agree that there is no proof of a God who speaks and acts in the world of men. Yet we meet in a church and we speak of
our religion. Is this a clue to the future?

Conservative Evangelicalism
By 1980 alarm among conservatives of all sorts generated a new political coalition. This concern united large
numbers of conservatives, both Protestant and Catholic. They agreed on issues of family and sexuality, and on militant
patriotism and anticommunism. These issues attracted others who were religious rivals. Mormons, for example,
shared these concerns as did some conservative Jews. Reverend Sun Myung Moon capitalized on these political and
social resentments. One conspicuous issue that united these disparate sects and denominations was a sense of outrage
at the sexual permissiveness that was reflected in popular music, movies and advertising. Most effective of a number
of organizations was the Moral Majority.
The largest of the recent right-wing Christian movements is the Moral Majority founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell.
Falwell had organized the Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956 in Lynchburg, Virginia. In televisions broadcasts
("Old Time Gospel Hour"), Falwell spoke, from a conservative viewpoint, about the leading issues of the day. A
national audience responded. Religion mixed with politics and leaders such as Pat Robinson ran for President or most
recently addressed the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992.
Evangelical leaders cultivated grass roots support in ways that churches (excepting, of course, the Black churches),
had not done since the nineteenth century. But by 1990 the wave had begun to flatten out. Some of the strident
evangelical rhetoric softened as Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and even Roman Catholic congregations made room
for "born again" converts. The public face of evangelicalism turned red with embarrassment as charges of fiscal or
sexual impropriety were leveled against leaders such as Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggart. What the
next phase of this movement will be remains unclear.
This chapter has reviewed a number of non-mainstream movements as exemplifying the working of "freedom of
religion" within a pluralist United States. The next chapters will continue this examination.

Chapter Eight

Religious Freedom in the United States: Denominationalism