The American revolution obviously transformed government. It less obviously transformed religion. One of the reasons Americans are still more prone to be religious than people in other developed countries is because religious entrepreneurship has meant more choices than simply the state religion or apostacy.
It was not until 1951 that Swedes had the option to legally quit the Lutheran Church and stop paying 1.1% of their annual income. About 25% of Swedes claim to be religious, in contrast to about 75% of Americans who face far more popular options. One explanation for how religious are Americans is that as you provide more options for how to be religious, more people will take that option.
The Amish, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Black churches like the National Baptist convention were among the better-known Christian churches that began in the 1800s. And of course, those were just the ones you’ve heard about. As with so many varieties of startups, most faded into obscurity.
The proper contrast for the creative liberties Americans took with religion is not our modern world in which cults have moved from the domain of religion to the domain of politics. Rather, it is Europe from where so many immigrants came. Pope Pius IX (who was pope from 1846 to 1878) condemned ideas of religious freedom, of freedom of speech and of the press, and of the separation of church and state as incompatible with Christianity. It was only in the 1960s, with the Second Vatican Council, that the Roman Catholic Church fully rejected the notion of the divine rights of kings – and with it accepted the notion of democracy. In 1870 – a decade after Darwin published Origin of Species - the Vatican ruled that the pope’s pronouncements were infallible. Pius declared that “Religion is immutable; not an idea, but the truth. Truth knows no change.” All Catholics, he declared, were bound to reject the view that “the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” The pope prior to Pius IX had banned railroads and insisted Catholics not participate in scientific conferences or elections. [Most of that information from David Kertzer’s The Pope Who Would be King.)
Tangled among these novel expressions of religious freedom, some Americans tried their hand at creating utopia. Folks creating new religions were preparing their congregants for a better afterlife; the utopians were working to create a better beforedeath.
Nashoba in Tennessee, for instance, was a utopian, interracial community whose members were working to end slavery. Some utopians had communist principles of joint ownership, or were transcendentalists who believed in the divine experience inherent in the everyday and not some distant heaven.
These utopians' casual disregard for social conventions is quite whimsically captured in Chris Jennings’ Paradise Now in his description of one.
The Fruitlandians lived in single red farmhouse that, aside from a bust of Socrates, contained few creature comforts. They abstained from all animal products and animal labor, refusing even to bridle a horse. (One woman was supposedly ejected for nibbling a bit of fish.) The community included a nudist and a man who refused to eat tubers because any vegetable that grows downward displays questionable ambitions. A Fruitlandian named Joseph Palmer spoke out against the practice of shaving and advocated spiritually cleansing obscenity. “Good morning, damn you,” was his preferred salutation. At a time when long beards were not in style, Palmer’s bushy whiskers provoked such an outrage that he was denied communion and rocks were thrown at his house. When two men tried to shave him by force, Palmer fought back, ending up in jail. (His gravestone, which depicts him with immense facial hair, reads: “Persecuted for wearing the beard.”) The most famous alumna of Fruitlands was Louisa May Alcott, eldest daughter of the community’s founder and the eventual author of Little Women. Dressed in miniature linen bloomers, she and her three younger sisters represented most of the commune’s youth population.
Curiously, it was a group that blended the aim of creating an ideal community with religion that first sent women to the polls. In 1870, Utah became the first state where women voted.
Nationally, it was a bit of a footrace between the post-utopian progressives and pre-utopian religious entrepreneurs to realize their goals through legislation. In early 1919, the 18th amendment outlawed alcohol. In 1920, women gained the right to vote.
The notion that you could worship your own God in your own way was a private matter. The notion that you could create utopia now was a matter for a small group. Progressives were the most practical of all these groups in terms of policy – pushing for efforts like ending child labor, regulating food and drugs and the length of the workweek and giving women the right to vote. Progressives were the most practical but also the most intrusive; in a democracy you need a majority of the community to align with you. They were not separating themselves from the community but instead insisting that it come along with them to a better place.
The progressive movement is less curious than the creation of new religions or utopias. It is obvious that you’re not promising salvation. Still, while a 40-hour workweek and kids in school rather than factories may not be utopia, it does free up weekends to simulate living in one.
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