Colonial european and american ideas?

Question

what were some english religious ideas brought to the colonies that were later changed into the american way?

Answer 1

freedom to practice any religion was the main reason most people traveled to the colonies and religious tolerance is now the "american way"

Answer 2

Ok, so we are limiting ourselves to the beliefs that came to these shores from Britain.

Many of the separatists who had difficulties in England came to the Americas to practice their religion without interference from the Church of England. New England is particularly noted for this, with Massachusetts and its Congregationalists, Rhode Island with its separatists, and others. Pennsylvania was a royal grant to William Penn, who had assisted Charles with money when it was needed.

Most of these faiths arrived in the seventeenth century. One, begun in England by John Wesley, began in the eighteenth century. This proved to be the one which took so much from the American experience. The Great Awakening of the eighteenth century was predominantly Methodist, and took the frontier settlements by storm. As I understand it, the Methodist faith grew much faster in the American wilderness than it did in the countryside of England. Look at some of the churches in the areas east of the Mississippi river and see how far back they go. Parishes sprang up even before the law courts. There are travel accounts written by missionaries describing the warm welcome they received from a pioneer family in Illinois, who were just getting by themselves, but were glad to take a man of the cloth under their roof.

Then in the early twentieth century, particularly after World War I, the evangelical movement took shape, largely in small towns. It had it's fits and starts, a popular radio evangelist was believed kidnapped, and turned up in bed with the husband of one of her employees. The movement is still growing, however, with churches all over the USA.

Answer 3

It's not so much that religious ideas were "Americanized" unless you count Americans moving away from the church and becoming atheist while people in European countries cling to the old way of religion. People came to America because they were being religiously prosecuted by the British. The British were protestants and they prosecuted anyone who wasn't protestant, Roman Catholics, Quakers, etc. People came here with religious ideas which they had formed in England, but became American because the people came here and spread their religion. The idea of total religious freedom, guaranteed to us by the first amendment, was not guaranteed by the British. When the Bill of Rights were created, we were given freedom of religion, something we didn't have in Britain and so it was an "American idea."