Religious patterns and social organization

Religious Patterns

The Middle Colonies evolved differently from other colonies, as people there had a greater degree of tolerance with regard to religious behaviors and this thus influenced people to develop open-minded thinking styles. Many families that had controversial religious preferences at the time relocated to the Middle Colonies in an attempt to improve their condition. Individuals from large and small sects directed their attention toward the Middle Colonies, as numerous Quakers, German Lutherans, and Amish came to move there.

Many Europeans who came to the New Continent were from England, France, and Spain. This meant that religious ideas in areas dominated by each of these communities were generally supportive toward particular religious ideologies. The prospect of becoming an explorer and seeing rapid gain influenced a great deal of other Europeans to come to America. As a consequence, these people brought their religious preferences with them and established communities in areas that expressed lesser disproval with regard to these respective religious preferences.

The Dutch Reformed Church was among the first religiously different communities coming into the Middle Colonies in the early seventeenth century. "Because the Netherlands already offered more religious liberty than many other European countries, few Dutch folk came to New Netherland for religious reasons when permanent settlers arrived beginning in 1623." (Lippy 46) The fact that the Dutch previously held authority in the area thus played an important role in making it possible for future religious communities that would have been discriminated in other areas to thrive there. The colonies represented an alternative to influential churches on the American Continent and this enabled individuals who favored less common religious ideologies like the Reformed or the Calvinists to look at the Middle Colonies as the place to be in order for them to actually be able to exercise their ideas without being reprimanded for it.

Not only did the colonies provide a safe haven for less appreciated religious ideologies, as they also encouraged people supporting these religions to accept each-other. "In Massachusetts, we have seen, Puritans regarded Quakers as dangerous enemies; in New Jersey, they managed to live side by side in relative harmony, perhaps because of the necessity of trying to survive as a colonial enterprise." (Lippy 46) These people practically acknowledged that they could work together with the purpose of improving their condition, regardless of the fact that they had religious preferences that sometimes were in disagreement with each-other.