Religion and The American Revolution
...us” 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. That alone proves the importance of religious freedom to these people. They overcame several barrios to unite under this one cause. With England half a world away, the revolutionary leaders such as Sam Adams had a field day coming up with rumors and eventually had every American thinking that in one way or another England was trying to take away there freedoms. If there was a single event that really gave the American Revolution life it was the a little paper written by Thomas Pain called “Common sense”. This very short pamphlet spread over night like a wild fire. It was being read everywhere by everyone. In bars, taverns, homes, schools, ect. Pain did a fantastic job of appealing to the normal people. A lot of them where illiterate, but pain wrote it in such a manor that everyone could understand what he was talking about. And what he was talking about was splitting with England. He mixed politics with a little religion and made the people believe that not only was it morally correct to separate with England, it was the only thing that made sense. He fired off insults about Monarchies and kings. It was just the kind of fire in the paints to get the people of the colonies ready to go to war. If Thomas Pain hadn’t wrote “ Common Sense” I don’t think the people would have been behind the war like they were. Please remember that this war took some years and it was thought that America didn’t have a chance. England had more money, guns, ammunition, cannons, ships, and army and navy that dwarfed the Americans army and basically inexistent navy. If the people were not totally behind the cause, I don’t think the Americans could have come out victorious as they did. That is why this pamphlet is so important. It got them the support of the common people to break away from England. Without it, the outcome could have been very different. There is another event that happened before the war. It was called the great awakening. Although it happened before the war it had a huge part in preparing the people of the colonies for war. The great Awakening was a sort of religious wild fire that swept over America. People were asking questions and preachers were giving answers. It seemed that ...