You go to your church, I’ll go to mine
A few years ago I was talking with a man who raised an interesting question; “There’s only one God, why do we need so many different churches?” I let that one slide right by because I like to limit my controversial discussions to politics, for better or worse. But I was curious as to why he belonged to the church he did and not another one of the some 200 Christian denominations in America. I didn’t raise that point, either.
Religion is a serious topic in America and has been ever since the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in their quest to escape religious persecution in England. They may have escaped intolerance directed at their own beliefs, but they managed to develop a different type of religious intolerance of their own. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay banned the Puritan Minister of Salem, Massachusetts, Roger Williams from their Colony because his religious beliefs didn’t comply with their beliefs. In 1636 Williams, who faced punishment, fled the Colony of Massachusetts Bay to what is now Rhode Island. There, he bought land from the Narragansett Indians (whose language he spoke) and started his own church in 1638. That became The First Baptist Church in America. Williams believed that governments did not belong in religion and religion did not belong in government.
Most, if not all, groups of emigrants to the English colonies in North American came because of oppression of their particular religious beliefs—all Christian—in England. The official Church of England, the Anglican Church, would not allow those who were not members of that church to hold elective or appointed government office, just as Catholic France would not allow Protestants the right to hold government positions. They were second class citizens. That’s what the immigrants to America were escaping.
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