Christianity's Impact on America

The approaching Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) of the United States of America provides an opportunity for this column to give an overview of the influence Christianity has had on the founding of the nation. This topic has become an issue of extremes for many, with some contending that America was founded solely and totally as a Christian nation, while others argue that Christianity had little or no influence on the country’s beginnings. Both extremes tend to go too far. Over the next few months, this column will provide a survey of the early Christian impact on the development of America.

Christianity’s Arrival in the New World

Historians have largely dismissed the long-held belief that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) actually “discovered” America. Along with the recognition of indigenous peoples who occupied the Americas for centuries before Columbus, we also have evidence for Viking explorers (e.g., Leif Erikson, c. eleventh century) arriving in the Americas before Columbus. While there’s no definitive evidence, it has also been suggested that Polynesian, Chinese, and Irish explorers may have been pre-Columbian travelers to the New World. Nevertheless, Columbus’s journey to the New World was most important for introducing Christianity to the western hemisphere and creating a sustained change in world history that is still felt and recognized today.

As every school child once knew (but doesn’t so much anymore), “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” and made his way to the New World. With the financial backing of the Spanish monarchy, the Genoese (i.e., Italian) explorer relied on Marco Polo’s descriptions of Asia and the poorly constructed medieval maps of his day to embark upon the courageous journey that he believed would land his vessels in Southeast Asia. Upon arriving in what we now know as the Caribbean Islands, Columbus identified the inhabitants as “Indians” and believed for the rest of his life that he had discovered a shorter route to Asia.

The reasons for Columbus’s remarkable journey reached back well before he was born. The Crusades of the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries brought about a new era of trade and travel that had long been unknown in Europe. As crusaders made their way back from the Middle Eastern conflicts, they often returned with spices and other commodities that soon gained a demand throughout Europe. Seeking to profit from the emerging appeal for these Asian products, entrepreneurs were anxious to develop cost-effective trade routes that inspired explorers like Columbus to investigate previously unknown travel journeys.

Columbus’s excursion was also influenced by the Renaissance—which had a significant impact upon Italy—of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The period before the Renaissance has often been inaccurately called the Dark Ages and described as a period of cultural and intellectual stagnation. Though this period is more accurately known today as the Middle Ages, it was not as intellectually vibrant as the cultural revitalization of the Renaissance. A part of the Renaissance’s renewal was the growth of a new sense of inquisitiveness and the development of new technologies that both inspired and enabled explorers like Columbus to make their dramatic voyages.

An additional influence on Columbus’ ocean voyage was the Protestant Reformation. Because much of northern Europe turned from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism, Europe’s Catholic sovereigns and Catholic Church hierarchy sought to expand and replace the regions that had been lost to the Reformers. In a journal entry from 1492, Columbus described the purpose of his journey as a mission “to the … countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith.” One may assume that the primary goal of Columbus’ journey was profit (which was certainly very important), but he made it clear that he also desired to spread the gospel. In fact, he took Catholic missionary priests with him on his additional journeys to the New World so they might more effectively convey Christianity to the “Indians” with whom he had made contact.

Catholic Settlers of the New World

Columbus blazed a trail that many other European explorers followed. The earliest New World expeditions to follow Columbus’ voyages were led by Portuguese and Spanish navigators. In the early sixteenth century, Portuguese explorers briefly settled in northeast Canada (Labrador) and took a more permanent residency in what we now know as Brazil. The Portuguese, however, had little or no influence whatsoever in the establishment of what is now the United States. Nevertheless, the Portuguese travelers to the western hemisphere, like Columbus, consistently brought missionary priests and chaplains with them to influence the areas of their settlement for the Catholic Church.

The Spaniards made far more ventures into New World settlement than the Portuguese, and they were slightly influential on the creation of what later would become the United States. Aside from the Portuguese colony of Brazil, most of South and Central America were claimed as Spanish territory. They colonized the Caribbean, and in North America, Spain claimed the southwest plus Florida. Like their predecessors, the Spanish conquistadores nearly always brought priests on their journeys to serve as missionaries to the tribal inhabitants of their settlement areas.

While Spanish colonization has been equated with bloodthirsty cruelty and thievery—known as the “Black Legend”—much of this has been exaggerated. To be sure, there were some atrocities committed against the indigenous peoples, and the Spanish found ways (often unkind ways) to seize immense quantities of their gold, yet not all the Spanish conquistadors participated in these brutalities. All too often, the pre-Columbian native cultures have been described as utopian societies of kind and moral people who lived peacefully amid their tribal neighbors. In reality, however, they acted barbarously toward one another, with human sacrifices to pagan gods and constant warfare among the various tribes as they enslaved one another, looted property, and slaughtered their enemies. Often, it was the missionary priests who accompanied the Spanish explorers who sought to end both the tribal savagery toward one another and those instances of European ruthlessness toward the native peoples.

In the early seventeenth century, French explorers made their way into what is now Canada and through the Mississippi River Valley down to New Orleans. These explorers, like those before them, brought Catholic priests as missionaries to the native people they would encounter.  While both the French and Spanish transported Catholic missionaries to the New World, they tended to have more of a cultural influence than a Christianizing influence. Conversions were often shallow and more of a syncretism of pagan religious ideas with Christianity. As such, the Christian influence of Spain and France upon the formation of the United States was extremely limited.

The final noteworthy Catholic settlement within what would become the United States was the colonization of Maryland. Maryland was initially established in 1634 as a haven for persecuted English Catholics. Realizing that they would not be able to survive as a Catholic colony, however, the leaders of Maryland made what may be their most important contribution to America when they passed the “Act Concerning Religious Toleration” (1649). This act gave all Christian groups the right to freely exercise their beliefs and was the beginning of a long process that developed into religious freedom within the United States.

Protestant Colonial Settlers

Protestant Christians were slower to inhabit the New World than their Catholic counterparts. Their movement was newer, and they continually struggled to survive amid European conflicts. The allure of the gold that the Spanish hauled back from the western hemisphere and their dreams of expansion (both territorially and religiously) ultimately motivated Protestant opportunists to establish several colonies along the east coast of what is now the United States.

The earliest Protestant settlement of the eastern seaboard was Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke colony on the coast of modern North Carolina. Though its inhabitants supported the Church of England, the Roanoke colony was planted primarily as a profit venture in 1584. By 1590, however, the colony had disappeared and is known today as the “Lost Colony.” In 1607, the first permanent English colony, Jamestown, was established in Virginia. While Jamestown was a colony founded upon financial motivations, there was also a religious impetus behind this settlement. As part of the Jamestown charter, the Church of England was identified as the “established” church of the colony. This meant that the Anglican Church was legally recognized and supported by the colony as its official church. Most of the other southern colonies followed Virginia’s lead in recognizing the Church of England as their religion.

In the middle colonies, Dutch Lutherans and Calvinists initially settled New York (1614) and New Jersey (1617), but both colonies eventually came under British control around 1664. Swedish Lutherans also established an outpost in Delaware in 1638, but they also fell to British authority over time, especially with the settlement of nearby Pennsylvania. In 1681, England’s king, Charles II, awarded William Penn, a Quaker nobleman, with a tract of land that became Pennsylvania (i.e., “Penn’s Forest”) as payment for a debt owed to Penn’s father. Desiring to establish a haven for Quaker outcasts but knowing that a Quaker colony would not be acceptable to the monarchy, Penn established his colony as a “holy experiment.” Penn’s experiment was religious toleration in Pennsylvania, which prompted various dissenting religious groups (Quakers, Anabaptists, Moravians, etc.) to relocate to this area.

The settlement region that had the greatest influence on the eventual formation of the United States was New England, specifically Massachusetts. The initial settlement of Massachusetts occurred in 1620 when a small band of Separatists established the Plymouth Colony. These colonists, known today as Pilgrims, were intensely religious and came to the New World with aspirations for worship that was free from governmental interference. To suggest that the early settlers of Massachusetts wanted religious freedom for all would be inaccurate; their actual interest was in freedom to practice their strict Puritan religion.

Thousands of additional settlers arrived in Massachusetts between 1620 and 1640 to become a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Under the governorship of John Winthrop, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a highly religious community. The Massachusetts Puritans (Congregationalists) sought to create a “Bible Commonwealth” that they envisioned as “A City Upon a Hill” to serve as a model for the world’s nations to follow. The Massachusetts Bay Colony not only absorbed the Plymouth Colony in 1691, but it was the prototype for the other colonies that would form in New England. Through the advocacy for self-government, moral living, and education, among other things, the New England Puritans made a momentous impact upon American culture and thought.

Conclusion

The inspirations for New World exploration and settlement might succinctly be described as “God, Gold, and Glory.” There’s no doubt that the early European travelers to America were pursuing fame and wealth, but it’s easy to overlook their concern for Christian evangelization. From the journeys of Columbus through the Puritan colonization of New England, the settlers of the Americas were identified by varying degrees of Christian commitment from both Catholic and Protestant traditions. The fact that they transported a Christian worldview to North America—not a Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, etc., worldview—significantly shaped the ethos of America.

While one cannot and should not conclude that the early explorers and colonists (with the possible exception of the Puritans) either discovered or settled America to create a Christian nation, it is equally inaccurate to suggest that Christianity had anything less than a substantial role in the discovery and settlement of what would later become the United States.

Dr. Rick Cherok serves as Managing Editor for Christian Standard, Executive Director of Celtic Christian Mission, and Director of Men's Services at Kentucky Christian University. He may be contacted by email at rick.cherok@gmail.com.