Editing Southern Baptist Convention (section)

===American Revolution period===
Before the American Revolution, Baptist and [[Methodist]] evangelicals in the Southern United States promoted the view of the common person's equality before God, which embraced enslaved people and free blacks. They challenged the hierarchies of class and race and urged planters to abolish slavery. They welcomed enslaved people as Baptists and accepted them as preachers.{{sfn|Miller|Smith|1997}}

During this time, there was a sharp division between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists, attracted initially from yeomen and common planters, and the opulence of the Anglican planters—the enslaving elite who controlled local and colonial government in what had become an enslaved society by the late 18th century.{{sfn|Kolchin|1993}} The gentry interpreted Baptist church discipline as political radicalism, but it served to ameliorate disorder. The Baptists intensely monitored each other's moral conduct, watching especially for sexual transgressions, cursing, and excessive drinking; they expelled members who would not reform.{{sfn|Isaac|1974}}

In Virginia and most southern colonies before the American Revolution, the Church of England was the [[established church]] and supported by general taxes, as it was in England. It opposed the rapid spread of Baptists in the Southern United States. Particularly, Virginia prosecuted many Baptist preachers for "disturbing the peace" by preaching without licenses from the Anglican Church. [[Patrick Henry]] and [[James Madison]] defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution in cases considered significant in the history of religious freedom.<ref>{{Citation | last = Ketcham | first = Ralph L | title = James Madison: A Biography | place = Charlottesville, VA | publisher = University of Virginia Press | orig-date = 1971 | format = paperback | year = 1990 | page = [https://archive.org/details/jamesmadisonbiog00ketc/page/57 57] | isbn = 978-0-8139-1265-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/jamesmadisonbiog00ketc/page/57 }}.</ref> In 1779, [[Thomas Jefferson]] wrote the [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]], enacted in 1786 by the Virginia General Assembly. Madison later applied his ideas and those of the Virginia document related to religious freedom during the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]], when he ensured that delegates incorporated them into the [[United States Constitution]].

The struggle for religious tolerance erupted during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican churches in the South. The Baptists protested vigorously; the resulting social disorder resulted chiefly from the ruling gentry's disregard for public needs. The vitality of the religious opposition made the conflict between "evangelical" and "gentry" styles bitter.{{sfn|Beeman|1978}} Scholarship suggests that the evangelical movement's strength determined its ability to mobilize power outside the conventional authority structure.{{sfn|Kroll-Smith|1984}}