In Massachusetts the end of the establishment of the Congregationalists came when that church underwent a schism over the Trinity. By the late 18th century, many Congregationalists were already questioning the doctrine of the Trinity. This was apparently something that was going on through much of the Calvinist world, since Jean-Jacques Rousseau maintained that many of the clergy in his native Geneva were quietly skeptical of that doctrine too. By the early 19th century, the Congregationalists in Massachusetts went through a full-blown schism with those members who were skeptical of the Trinity, breaking away to form the Unitarian Church. Since these people included most of the economic and political elite in Massachusetts, they took most of the oldest and wealthiest Congregationalist churches with them. Then, to add insult to injury, an alliance of Unitarians and Catholics campaigned successfully to disestablish the Congregationalists, so that was the end of an established church in Massachusetts.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Texas school board drops Jefferson, adds Calvin Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:51:18 -0500
On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 10:08 AM, farmelantj at juno.com <farmelantj at juno.com>wrote:
> It should be kept in mind that the
> anti-establishment clause only applied
> to the Federal government. Back then,
> the states could, and many did, have
> their own established churches. For
> example, in Virginia, the Episcopal
> church was the official state church.
> That remained the case, until Jefferson
> and Madison successfully led a campaign,
> strongly supported by the Baptists, to
> disestablish it.
>
Yes. Baptists used to get beat up by Episcopalians, as I hear it told. It's also the Baptists fighting with the Congregationalists in Mass.
> Massachusetts, at that
> time (and on to the 1820s) had the
> Congregationalists as its official state
> church. Other states also had established
> churches too.
>
As I understand it, Massachusetts was the last holdout, abandoning the setup in 1833, but I admit I don't know dets, and looking at teh wikipediaz didn't help. It sounds like others here might know more.
> I believe that it was
> only in the twentieth century, that
> the SCOTUS began to apply the anti-establishment
> clause to the states, although by
> then, almost every state constitution had
> some sort of anti-establishment clause
> in it.
>
I gather from teh wikipediaz<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion#United_States_of_America>that you're thinking of a 1947 case in which the SCOTUS understands the fourteenth amendment as embodying/extending the first amendment. But by this time I don't believe there are any more established churches anywhere. The case Emerson v BoE was about tax funding for private religious schools.
j ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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