History of religion in the United States

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Sections incoherently placed throughout the article. Please help improve this article if you can. (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

This article is part of a series on the
History of the United States
Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the oldest church building and oldest congregation in the United States.
Timeline and periods Prehistoric and Pre-Columbian Era until 1607 Colonial Era 1607–1765 1776–1789     American Revolution 1765–1783     Confederation period 1783–1788 1789–1815     Federalist Era 1788–1801     Jeffersonian Era 1801–1817 1815–1849     Era of Good Feelings 1817–1825     Jacksonian Era 1825–1849 1849–1865     Civil War Era 1849–1865 1865–1917     Reconstruction Era 1865–1877     Gilded Age 1877–1896     Progressive Era 1896–1917 1917–1945     World War I 1917–1918     Roaring Twenties 1918–1929     Great Depression 1929–1941     World War II 1941–1945 1945–1964     Post-World War II Era 1945–1964     Civil Rights Era 1954–1968 1964–1980     Civil Rights Era 1954–1968     Vietnam War 1964–1975 1980–1991     Reagan Era 1981–1991 1991–2008     Post-Cold War Era 1991–2008 2008–present     Modern Era 2008–present
Topics American Century Antisemitism Civil unrest Racial violence Cultural Cinema Music Newspapers Sports Demography Immigration Economy Banking Education Higher education Flag Government Abortion Capital punishment Civil rights Corruption The Constitution Debt ceiling Direct democracy Foreign policy Law enforcement Postal service Taxation Voting rights Journalism Maritime Military Army Marine Corps Navy Air Force Space Force Coast Guard Party Systems First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Religion Social class Slavery Sexual slavery Technology and industry Agriculture Labor Lumber Medicine Railway
Groups African American Asian American Chinese American Filipino American Indian American Japanese American Korean American Thai American Vietnamese American European American Albanian American English American Estonian American Finnish American German American Irish American Italian American Lithuanian American Polish American Serbian American Hispanic and Latino American Mexican American Jewish American Middle Eastern American Egyptian American Iranian American Iraqi American Lebanese American Palestinian American Saudi American Native Americans Cherokee Comanche Women LGBTQ Gay men Lesbians Transgender people
Places Territorial evolution Admission to the Union Historic regions American frontier Manifest destiny Indian removal Regions New England The South The West Coast States AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Territories DC AS GU MP PR VI Cities Urban history Cities
Outline List of years Historiography Category Portal
v t e

Religion in the United States began with the religions and spiritual practices of Native Americans. Later, religion also played a role in the founding of some colonies, as many colonists, such as the Puritans, came to escape religious persecution. Historians debate how much influence religion, specifically Christianity and more specifically Protestantism, had on the American Revolution.^[1] Many of the Founding Fathers were active in a local Protestant church; some of them had deist sentiments, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. Some researchers and authors have referred to the United States as a "Protestant nation" or "founded on Protestant principles,"^[2][3][4][5] specifically emphasizing its Calvinist heritage.^[6][7] Others stress the secular character of the American Revolution and note the secular character of the nation's founding documents.^{[citation needed]}

Protestantism in the United States, as the largest and dominant form of religion in the country, has been profoundly influential to the history and culture of the United States. African Americans were very active in forming their own Protestant churches, most of them Baptist or Methodist, and giving their ministers both moral and political leadership roles. The group often known as "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants" have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States, while the so-called "Protestant work ethic" has long held influence over American society, politics, and work culture.^[8][9] In the late 19th and early 20th century, most major American Protestant denominations started overseas missionary activity. The "Mainline Protestant" denominations promoted the "Social Gospel" in the early 20th century, calling on Americans to reform their society; the demand for prohibition of liquor was especially strong. After 1970, the mainline Protestant denominations (such as Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians) lost membership and influence. The more conservative Protestant evangelical, fundamentalist, and charismatic denominations (such as the Southern Baptists) grew rapidly until the 1990s and helped form the Religious Right in politics.

Though Protestantism has always been the predominant and majority form of Christianity in the United States, the nation has had a small but significant Catholic population from its founding, and as the United States expanded into areas of North America that had been part of the Catholic Spanish and French empires, that population increased. Later, immigration waves in the mid to late 19th and 20th century brought immigrants from Catholic countries, further increasing Catholic diversity and augmenting the number of Catholics substantially while also fomenting an increase in virulent American anti-Catholicism. At the same time, these immigration waves also brought a great number of Jewish and Eastern Orthodox immigrants to the United States. Protestantism in general (i.e. all of the Protestant denominations combined) remains by far the predominant and largest form of religion and the dominant and predominant form of Christianity in the United States, though the Catholic Church is technically the largest individual religious denomination in the United States if Protestantism is divided into its various denominations instead of being counted as a single religious grouping. Overall, roughly 43% of Americans identify as Protestants, with 20% identifying as Catholics, 4% identifying with various other Christian groups such as Mormonism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, and Jehovah's Witnesses; and 2% identifying as Jewish. Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims account for 1% each of the population.

As Western Europe secularized in the late 20th century, the United States largely resisted the trend, so that, by the 21st century, the US was one of the most strongly Christian of all major Western nations. Religiously-based moral positions on issues such as abortion and homosexuality played a hotly debated role in American politics. However, the United States has dramatically and rapidly secularized in recent years, with around 26% of the population currently declaring themselves "unaffiliated", either in regard to a religion in general or to an organized religion.^[10]