Evangelical Anglicans in the First American Century

Introduction

The 19th century was a time of great action and change in the religious scene in America. Republican ideals and the new sense of freedom offered by America’s vast frontier led to great revivals of religion. Americans questioned the established churches and forged their own religious paths with nothing except personal conscience and the Bible as their guide. Within this context the post Revolutionary War remnants of the established English church remained in America. Many of the parishes left behind stood apart from the evangelical Protestant mainstream that would come to define the 19th century. Others had been touched by the revivals of Edwards, Whitefield, and Wesley’s Methodists and intended to take part in the religious conversation of the first American century.