The first religious controversies in the new United States erupted between the “established” churches and the more spontaneous religious persuasions: Methodists, Baptists, and others. If the colony or the state didn’t have an established church, many religious citizens supposed, a godless society would result.

Out of the controversy came the First Amendment to the Constitution which forbade Congress to  set up an established religion. Americans were free to choose, without coercion. No persuasion was to be favored by the government.

Amazingly, the citizens of this country with no government-sponsored church, knowing a hodgepodge of differing persuasions, became more religious than Europe with its established churches.

A few Jews were present in America from early days. The first synagogue was established in Rhode Island in 1763.  Discrimination existed against Jewish groups in certain times and places, but the country never suffered the pogroms and organized persecution of the Old World. More Jews fled to North America for freedom and safety and founded thriving communities.

Catholics began coming in large numbers in the nineteenth century, eventually becoming the largest individual religious denomination in the U.S. Irish Catholics, particularly, were discriminated against at first but soon became part of the mainstream, as evidenced by the election of John Kennedy as the first Catholic president in 1960.

Now Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus have come. Atheists, agnostics, and those with no religious persuasion grow in numbers also. (See previous blog, Religious Freedom: Going Deeper.)

If past history is any indication, competition sharpens religious conviction over the long haul. Though some drop away, others rediscover the core of their faith and with it, renewal.