Key Points, Freeing Religion

The “Freeing Religion&4dquo; story line surveys religious life in colonial Virginia and explains how Native American, African, and European religions in the colony were shaped by the legally sanctioned Church of England, by the evangelical movement that inspired many Virginians to abandon the established church for dissenting sects, and by the philosophical, political, and social changes that culminated in the passage of a law guaranteeing the free exercise of religion.

Pervasive Presence

Religion permeated everyday life and learning in eighteenth-century Virginia.

State Church

Established and protected by law, the Church of England was the predominant religious institution in the Virginia colony.

Separation of Church and State

As many Virginians responded to the appeal of evangelical faith and the tolerant rationalism of the Enlightenment, they moved away from the idea of a single authoritarian church protected by the state and toward the concept of religion disassociated from government.

Cradle of Liberty

The personal appeal of evangelical faith and the ideals of the Enlightenment helped create an atmosphere in which democratic ideas developed.

Equal Before God

As evangelical Christianity’s message of equality before God filtered through African American culture, it merged with Old Testament images of deliverance to give many slaves a heightened sense of spiritual identity and new inner strength for resisting slavery.

Unwilling Subjects

Native Americans’ reluctance to convert to Christianity and adopt other English customs encouraged land-hungry colonists and British officials to conclude that encroachment on Indian lands and the near-extermination of native populations were justified.