Editing American Revolution (section)

====Protestant dissenters and the Great Awakening====
{{main|English Dissenters|First Great Awakening}}
{{see also|List of clergy in the American Revolution|Quakers in the American Revolution}}
Protestant churches that had separated from the [[Church of England]], called "dissenters", were the "school of democracy", in the words of historian Patricia Bonomi.<ref name=Bonomi>Bonomi, p. 186, Chapter 7 "Religion and the American Revolution"</ref> Before the Revolution, the [[Southern Colonies]] and three of the [[New England Colonies]] had official [[established church]]es: [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregational]] in [[Province of Massachusetts Bay|Massachusetts Bay]], [[Connecticut Colony|Connecticut]], and [[Province of New Hampshire|New Hampshire]], and the Church of England in [[Province of Maryland|Maryland]], [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]], [[Province of North-Carolina|North-Carolina]], [[Province of South Carolina|South Carolina]], and [[Province of Georgia|Georgia]]. The [[Province of New York|New York]], [[Province of New Jersey|New Jersey]], [[Province of Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]], [[Delaware Colony|Delaware]], and the [[Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations]] had no officially established churches.<ref name="Colonial America">{{cite book|first1=Oscar T.|last1=Barck|first2=Hugh T.|last2=Lefler|title=Colonial America|publisher=Macmillan|place=New York|year=1958|page=404}}</ref> Church membership statistics from the period are unreliable and scarce,<ref>{{cite book|first1=John Mack|last1=Faragher|title=The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=1996|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofco00fara/page/359 359]|isbn=978-0306806872|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofco00fara/page/359}}</ref> but what little data exists indicates that the Church of England was not in the majority, not even in the colonies where it was the established church, and they probably did not comprise even 30 percent of the population in most localities (with the possible exception of Virginia).<ref name="Colonial America"/>
<!--- The following paragraph is hidden because it is mind-numbing statistics that have nothing whatsoever to do with this section; it's not deleted completely on the off chance that someone can edit it to make it pertinent to this section:
By the time of the Revolutionary War, 82 to 84 percent of the approximately 2,900 churches in the Thirteen Colonies were affiliated with non-Anglican Protestant denominations, with 64 to 68 percent specifically affiliated with Protestant Dissenter denominations (Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker) and the other 14 to 20 percent being Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, or German Reformed. Some 14 to 16 percent remained Anglican but were declining in number, and the remaining 2 percent of the churches were Catholic.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Oscar T.|last1=Barck|first2=Hugh T.|last2=Lefler|title=Colonial America|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers (United States)|Macmillan]]|place=New York|year=1958|page=404|quote=The number of churches of each denomination at this time has been estimated as follows: Congregational 658; Presbyterian 543; Baptist 498; Anglican 480; Quaker 295; German and Dutch Reformed 251; Lutheran 151; Catholic 50.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=John Mack|last1=Faragher|title=The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofco00fara|url-access=registration|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=1996|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofco00fara/page/358 358–359]|isbn=978-0306806872}}</ref> --->

[[John Witherspoon]], who was considered a "new light" [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]], wrote widely circulated sermons linking the American Revolution to the teachings of the [[Bible]]. Throughout the colonies, dissenting [[Protestantism|Protestant]] ministers from the Congregational, [[Baptists|Baptist]], and Presbyterian churches preached Revolutionary themes in their sermons while most [[Church of England]] clergymen preached loyalty to the king, the [[Supreme Governor of the Church of England|titular head]] of the English [[state church]].<ref name=Nelson1961>William H. Nelson, ''The American Tory'' (1961) p. 186</ref> Religious motivation for fighting tyranny transcended socioeconomic lines.<ref name=Bonomi/> The Declaration of Independence also referred to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as justification for the Americans' separation from the British monarchy: the signers of the Declaration professed their "firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence", and they appealed to "the Supreme Judge for the rectitude of our intentions".<ref>Kidd (2010), p. 141</ref>

Historian [[Bernard Bailyn]] argues that the evangelicalism of the era challenged traditional notions of natural hierarchy by preaching that the Bible teaches that all men are equal, so that the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not in his class.<ref>Bailyn'', The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution'' (1992) p. 303</ref> Kidd argues that religious [[Disestablishmentarianism|disestablishment]], belief in God as the source of human rights, and shared convictions about sin, virtue, and divine providence worked together to unite rationalists and evangelicals and thus encouraged a large proportion of Americans to fight for independence from the Empire. Bailyn, on the other hand, denies that religion played such a critical role.<ref name="Thomas S. Kidd 2010">Thomas S. Kidd, ''God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution'' (2010)</ref> Alan Heimert argues that New Light anti-authoritarianism was essential to furthering democracy in colonial American society, and set the stage for a confrontation with British monarchical and aristocratic rule.<ref>Alan Heimert, ''Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.</ref>