4Real Forums: Religious Life of the Colonials

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Across Time and Place
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Topic: Religious Life of the Colonials

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Babs
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Posted: March 04 2010 at 9:04am \| IP Logged

We are getting ready to study the religious life of the colonials in American History and I am wondering how you ladies have taught about the reformation. We mainly use living books and really like our timeline. This will be the first time we have really studied it in depth, the boys are approximately in 4th and 6th grade and really enjoy reading. I just pulled out the Didache, The History of the Church, to help educate myself before I tackle this subject. I would appreciate any suggestions you could offer.

God Bless,
Barb

guitarnan
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Posted: March 04 2010 at 9:50am \| IP Logged

Generally, I present the basic idea that the Puritans were unhappy with both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic churches. I go back a little and explain how the Calvinists, Lutherans and Anglicans split off (with not much detail about our buddy Henry VIII). Then I move forward to the New World. Of course the New Englanders were mainly Puritan, but many Virginia colonials weren't, and of course there's Maryland and Pennsylvania...and the Spanish and French settlements were, of course, Catholic. There's so much to keep straight on the New World side!

If your emphasis is on U.S. history, you probably don't need to go into a super-long explanation of the Reformation. Your boys already know there are different religious denominations in the U.S., and their current studies will explain how they got here.

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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.

Babs
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Posted: March 04 2010 at 11:43am \| IP Logged

Nancy,

You are right, I wouldn't need to get too far into the reformation but because we haven't really studied it at all I think I need to address the whole situation because as you said, there is so much to keep straight. I think I need to provide some background about why there are so many different Christian denominations. I guess I want them to see how these other groups came about so they understand the history of the true Church, and that these aren't just different flavors they might choose. I am not expressing this very well but I hope you understand.

guitarnan
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Posted: March 04 2010 at 12:23pm \| IP Logged

I do understand and it makes sense to present these ideas now.

We have the same Didache book you do and I think it does a wonderful job of presenting this topic. There's a lot to it, of course - post-Renaissance thought as well as the issues within the Church that caused Luther to start down the path to separation.

In my son's college U.S. history class, the textbook mentioned the backgrounds of all the main faith groups that emigrated to the American colonies, giving a couple of paragraphs to each. I think you'll be okay with a simple overview based on Didache.

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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.

Karen T
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Posted: March 04 2010 at 2:32pm \| IP Logged

One thing I have mentioned to my kids is how the Puritans and other pilgrims often came here specifically b/c they had wanted freedom to worship in their own way, yet once they were here, many of those groups were very rigid about not allowing anyone to remain with them who did not worship exactly as they did. We've used that for a discussion about how when you go off on your own and stop following the true Church that Jesus instituted, it makes it easier to keep splintering off into further divisions.

Karen T

DianaC
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Posted: March 06 2010 at 8:45am \| IP Logged

When we visited Colonial Williamsburg, we had an audience with Patrick Henry (well, the Historian who portrayed Patrick Henry, and was excellent!). I know I learned more in that 30 minute period about the real ins and outs of the colonial period than from any other source.

Someone asked him about Religion of the period and here are some of the things he said:

Everyone had to be members of the Anglican Church and had to attend services at least one Sunday out of a month. Everyone had to tithe - this was how the poor in the community were cared for. You "could" be a Baptist or a Presbyterian, etc. but you still had to be a member of the Anglican Church and carry out the duties listed above. To be a Baptist or Presbyterian minister, you had to petition for a license (or certification of some sort - I don't recall the specifics. You could not be Catholic - it was against the law.

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