Historical Perspectives

First Encounters: Native Americans and Christians

Diverse Native American religions and cultures existed before and after the arrival of European colonialists. In the 16th to 17th centuries, Spanish conquistadores and French fur traders were generally more violent to Native Americans than were the...

Establishment or Tolerance?

Many American colonies were founded by dissenting or establishment English religious sects that sought to practice their own traditions freely but were, in some cases, less lenient toward other sects. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, founded by Roger...

The "Free Exercise" of Religion

In colonial and revolutionary Virginia, James Madison argued for the “free exercise” of religion and Thomas Jefferson opposed the “establishment” or government support of religion. Such measures were included in the U.S. Constitution, particularly in the...

African Religion in America

Africans forced into slavery in America brought with them a diverse range of African polytheistic and Muslim religious traditions. These traditions were often syncretized with one another and with Christianity in America. The diverse American religious...

Alternative Altars

Many new religions and religious sects were founded in America in the mid-19th century, including Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Scientology. Many of these new religions arose out...

Catholic and Jewish Immigrants

New immigration to the United States in the 19th century changed the American religious landscape and sparked nativist, anti-immigration responses. Irish immigration led to anti-Catholic sentiment, and Jewish immigration to antisemitism. Later, Italian...

Asians and Asian Exclusion

Chinese and then Japanese immigration to California in the 19th century was met with much nativist racism, suspicion, and negative stereotyping. Asian wives and families were not allowed to immigrate with working men, leading to a large male population...

Parliament of Religions, 1893

The World’s Parliament of Religions convened in Chicago as part of the 1893 World's Fair. Its goal was to bring together world religious leaders on common ground. The event introduced many Americans to the world’s religions. However, some critiqued the...

God's Melting Pot

The metaphor of the United States as a “melting pot” first gained prominence during the wave of European migration from the 1880s to 1910s. A simplistic assumption of the “melting pot” asserts that all American immigrants become the same, while a more...

The Right to Be Different

In the early 20th century, Horace Kallen argued that the image of the “melting pot” did not and should not epitomize the American immigrant experience. Instead, Kallen advocated for cultural pluralism, in which different groups could retain cultural...

Xenophobia: Closing the Door

In the early 20th century, during rising waves of immigration, white nationalist groups gained ground in American culture and governance, resulting in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which put low and strict national quotas on immigrants hoping to enter the...

A Three Religion Country?

In 1955, Will Herberg published Protestant, Catholic, Jew . He argued that America had become a “three religion country,” where religious commitments matter more than ethnic ones, and that, despite irreconcilable religious differences, Americans together...

A New Multi-Religious America

The lightening of restrictions on immigration starting 1960s allowed for new waves of diverse immigration to America. As recent immigrant religious groups become more established in America they often build places of worship by either blending with...