Religion and The American Revolution.
To understand what role religion had in the American revolution you have understand what the Americans themselves were like back then. People had to have a reason to fight the English, and religion was it. Religion was a huge thing; people were obsessed with morals, and virtues, and would fight anyone who oppressed them. Many of the colonists had come here simply to escape religious persicution. Back in Europe if you didn't convert to your "national religion" you would probably be arrested and many times killed. People lived in fear with their religious beliefs. Then a "new world" was found, and people flocked here to practice their own beliefs without fear. Religion was a very big part of life back then, and had been the cause of many wars, and was about to help bring on another one. .
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The Americans had been governing themselves for over a hundred years, with little or no help from England. Then after the French and Indian war England found it's self in a huge debt. So what did they do? They started imposing taxes on the colonies. This outraged the colonies and rightfully so. The colonies imagined themselves as a new and better England. So when England started trying to tax them they looked at them as oppressors. Jonathan Mayhew argued as did many that resistance to a tyrant (such as England was viewed) was a "glorious" cristian duty. This idea spread and soon Americans were up in arms refusing to be taxed without representation. The revolutionaries back then fed into this and began arguing that fighting England was the moral thing to do. And with religion as their weapon, they began blowing the sweet air of liberty and freedom into the little lungs of America. The colonies started uniting, which before this had not happed. The colonies had little in common with each other, different religions, languages, and attitudes. But when England started imposing unfair taxes, suddenly the colonies were coming together for a common good.
