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Especially Diverse Middle• In 1690, 90% of Congregations were
Congregationalist (New England) or Anglican (Virginia); by 1770, only 35% were.
• By 1770, Scot and Scots-Irish Presbyterians (15%) and Welsh Baptists (15%) were the largest rivals.
• Non-English bodies like the German Reformed, German Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and Mennonites made up nearly 25% of all congregations by 1770.
• This diversity was driven by immigration, denominational growth in denominations already present in 1690, and persistent folk beliefs (occult, magic).
French Protestants
• Hugenots primarily in Boston, New York, and South Carolina (2500 between 1680-1700)—but they tended to assimilate into existing congregations and intermarry with non-Hugenot families.
The Germans• Lutherans and German Reformed• Lutherans especially settled in New York and
Pennsylvania.• Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787) beginning in
1742 worked with immigrant Germans to organize congregations and encourage faithful worship.
• M. sought to create educated ministers to counter the loss of Lutherans to German Pietistic communities of faith with their lay ministers.
• Created the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1748, the first Lutheran Synod.
• Emphasis was on the confessional tradition of pure Lutheran Doctrine.
Muhlenberg
Old TrappeChurch,est. by M.
German Reformed (Calvinists)
• First Synod organized in 1747.• Original Congregants tended to be common
laborers who were “redemptioners” or “indentured servants.
• Limited their ability to do church work.• Emphasized a plain liturgy—plain gospel and pure
worship for a plain people.• Centered in Pennsylvania, but also in New York
and the back country of Maryland and North Carolina.
German Pietists or sectarians
• Mennonites—followers of Menno Simons—came to Pa. after 1680.
• More extreme Mennonites were the Amish, followers of the ideas of Jacob Amman.
• “Dunkers” or Church of the Brethren centered in Ephrata. Pa. and produced German language religious materials.
• Moravians—especially active in communal settlements in western Pa. and in doing evangelical work among Indians.
• Key for the Pietists: emphasis on proper living, rather than advocacy of proper doctrine alone.
Jews
• First Jews were from Brazil and settled in New York.
• First Synagogue was established in New York.
• Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazic Jews.
• Notable settlements in Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, and Newport.
Methodists
• Movement within Anglican Church
• John Wesley (1703-1791)
• Armenianism
• Francis Asbury (1745-1816)
Baptists
• From Wales and England
• Calvinists
• “adult” immersion
• 60 Congregations by 1740, from Massachusetts to the Carolina Backcountry
Schisms
• Nature of the religious ecology encouraged schism.
• Dissenting Baptists in Rhode Island known as Rogerenes (Saturday worship and faith healing), led by George Rogers (1670s)
• George Keith led a splinter group within the Quakers—they became Keithian Quakers and Keithian Baptists, while Keith became a Church of England minister denouncing Quakers. (1690s-1700s)
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