Deck 18: Christianity in the United States to the Civil War

Question 1

What does American exceptionalism mean?

A) Belief that America is the best country in the world
B) Belief that America is particularly important to God
C) Belief that America is exempt from the moral standards of the rest of the world
D) Belief that American foreign policy is supposed to be different from that of other countries

Answer 1

B

Question 2

How did American colonists justify taking the land that American Indians lived on?

A) Because they did not have a Christian faith
B) Because God wanted the colonists to have the land
C) Because they were unwilling to cooperate or negotiate with the colonists
D) Because they had not cultivated the land

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following religious tradition did the early Virginia colonists belong to?

A) Anglican Church
B) Presbyterian Church
C) Baptist Church
D) Puritan Church

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following describes a theocracy?

A) Civic law controlled by church commitments
B) Church controlled by the state
C) State led by the highest religious authority
D) Church controlled by the highest political authority

Question 5

Were the Puritans interested in converting American Indians?

A) They were not interested immediately, but after they settled they began a robust missionary agenda
B) They were disinterested until John Cotton challenged them to preach to all the nations
C) They were initially interested and set up praying towns, which eventually became abandoned
D) They were never interested; it wasn't part of the reason they came

Question 6

Which of the following was one of the great problems the Puritan churches had after the first generation in the colonies?

A) They discovered that they had many theological disputes
B) The second generation had fewer dramatic religious experiences to prove they were elected by God
C) Puritanism in England had collapsed and they experienced themselves unanchored
D) Puritanism in the colonies became disheartened after the Salem Witch Trials

Question 7

Puritan Roger Williams established Rhode Island. What was unique about it?

A) It was the first colony to attempt a theocracy
B) It allowed for religious liberty
C) It was the last straw in an attempt to create a theocracy
D) It yearly convened a pan-Christian debate and dialogue

Question 8

George Fox is famous for

A) Establishing Pennsylvania as a colony of religious toleration
B) Bringing Roman Catholicism to the colonies
C) Buying all the cheese rights in Maine, ultimately owning a quarter of the land;
D) Forming the Society of Friends (Quakers)

Question 9

What was Pietism initially?

A) A Lutheran reform movement focused on the interior life
B) A Puritan movement designed to reanimate the faith
C) A Congregationalist reform movement that intended to get lay-people more devoted to their faith
D) An English political movement intended to infuse civic laws with religious moral values

Question 10

Why are Methodists called by that name?

A) It was given to the Wesley brothers and their companions for their methodical means for spiritual growth
B) Because John Wesley and his followers developed a strict program for reform in the Anglican Church
C) Because their critics coined the phrase: There must be a method in their madness
D) Because of the methodical way they went about preaching their message.

Question 11

Methodism grew out of:

A) Puritanism
B) Congregationalism
C) Calvinism
D) Church of England

Question 12

Was John Wesley concerned about the "enthusiasm" or "emotionalism" in his Methodist movement?

A) Yes, he taught that his very method was rational and spiritual, not emotional
B) Yes, he wanted a middle ground between excessive emotions and rigid orthodoxy
C) No, he argued that where the spirit is, there is life-real life
D) No, he believed that faintings and swoonings represented the live of Christ within

Question 13

What is a revival?

A) This is a technical term for church reform in the eighteenth century
B) This refers to churches reviving their true calling rather than merely going to church
C) This is a several-day gathering designed to infuse Christians with a deeper faith
D) The author said that it is a historical misnomer, not referencing anything historically specific

Question 14

Who was Jonathan Edwards?

A) One of the leaders in the First Great Awakening
B) One of the bishops of the Anglican Church who helped Methodism become a denomination
C) One of the first heralds for the separation of church and state in the Americas
D) An Anglican bishop who embraced Puritanism and transformed it into the Congregationalist faith

Question 15

According to the author, what was particularly fascinating about George Whitefield?

A) He had a stammer, but was still the most popular preacher both in England and the colonies
B) He never delivered any of the hundreds of sermons he wrote, but had them preached by others
C) He exemplified the spirit of the Great Awakening by crossing denominational boundaries
D) He travelled with his dog Charley, who attended his services in the church building

Question 16

What distinguishes the First Great Awakening from the Second Great Awakening?

A) The first was controlled by the Calvinists and the second was controlled by the Anglicans
B) The first was led by highly educated pastors and the second was far more egalitarian and theologically unsophisticated
C) The first was practiced in barns and open fields and the second in churches and town squares
D) The first ultimately failed, while the second was wildly successful

Question 17

Which of the following was one of the innovations of preacher Charles Grandison Finney?

A) His sermons were a combination of preaching and singing, back and forth
B) In his sermons, he would not say the Bible says, but rather God says
C) He paid for singers and/or a choir to accompany his sermons
D) He invented the altar call

Question 18

Did the American founding fathers believe religion was crucial to society?

A) Yes, the majority did
B) No, most of them were Deists
C) Yes, with the caveat that religion was a private affair
D) No, it is because most were convinced that religion was a private affair

Question 19

At the time of the American Revolution, were religious leaders in support of the separation of church and state?

A) Yes, many thought that they could influence politics best when the state had no official religion
B) Yes, many thought that this freed them from the tyranny of a religious state
C) No, many thought this would undermine American exceptionalism
D) No, many believed in a social whole, where civic life could ought never be secular

Question 20

What was the gift Thomas Jefferson received from a Baptist church in Western Massachusetts?

A) A 1,200-pound cake of cheese
B) A flag that was used in the revolutionary war
C) A hand-written Bible underlined in verses they thought he should use to rule the country
D) A keg of whiskey

Question 21

How many times does the Constitution of the United States mention God?

A) Not once
B) 6 times
C) 12 times
D) 57 times

Question 22

Why did Catholics enjoy religious toleration in Maryland?

A) It was founded by the first bishop of the United States
B) It was part of Jefferson's fair experiment
C) It was founded by a Catholic family
D) Catholics were actually persecuted in Maryland

Question 23

Where were the initial Catholic colonial efforts?

A) Massachusetts and Maryland
B) Maine and Louisiana
C) Virginia and West Virginia
D) Maryland and Georgia

Question 24

According to the author:

A) Catholics never intended to come to America
B) Catholics were initially welcomed into the country, as the population needed industrial immigrants
C) Catholicism changed radically when it became American Catholicism
D) Catholics became more religious on arriving in the United States than they were in their home countries

Question 25

Why did Catholics develop their own parochial school system?

A) They were not allowed in the public schools
B) They were inundated with nuns for whom education would be their primary ministry
C) Public schools often overtly taught Protestant theology
D) Catholic bishops demanded this, insisting that Catholic education provided the primus scholariorum

Question 26

Which of the following was a great concern among many Americans when the Catholic John F. Kennedy was running for president?

A) Whether he would try to undermine the separation of church and state
B) Whether his primary loyalty as president would be the interests of his church and not his country
C) Whether he would pursue laws that would favor Catholics
D) Whether he would make the government pay for parochial schools

Question 27

What was the Catholic charge of Americanism about?

A) Pope Leo XII challenging American bishops' support of the separation of church and state
B) Pope Leo XII claiming that the American Catholic church wanted to become a democracy
C) Pope Leo XII condemning the movement that sought to Americanize the European Church
D) Pope Leo XII accusing the American Catholic Church of theological secularization

Question 28

What is a millenialist?

A) One who believes that Christ will return, raise up the bodies of saints and reign for a thousand years before judgment
B) An American Christian who believes that Christ will come back a thousand years after the Reformation
C) One who accepts Jesus body and soul into one's heart
D) One who believes in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.

Question 29

Who started the Mormon Church?

A) Brigham Young
B) Ives Fotterdam
C) Joseph Smith
D) No one, according to Mormons, as the church existed from eternity

Question 30

When did the African Methodist Episcopal Church begin?

A) Late eighteenth century
B) After the civil war
C) 1932
D) 1967

Question 31

The earliest pilgrim settlers in Virginia intended the colony to be a place of American exceptionalism.

Question 32

One reason Puritans came to America was because they rejected the divine right of kings.

Question 33

Puritan pilgrims were particularly opposed to a theocracy.

Question 34

Virginia began as an Anglican colony that was religiously very strict.

Question 35

Within a generation, Puritan Christians increased their full membership in the Puritan Church in the colonies from 40% to 80%.

Question 36

One of the great achievements of the early colonists is that they were religiously tolerant of each other, in contrast to England and Europe.

Question 37

Methodism was started by Jonathan Edwards and his companions.

Question 38

Often revivalist preachers focused on threats of damnation to encourage conversions.

Question 39

According to the author, America became the first country to legislate the separation of church and state in the known history of the world.

Question 40

The founding fathers saw separation of church and state to mean that the government cannot acknowledge religion and that it must be kept out of the public square.

Question 41

The Second Great Awakening created what is known as the Bible Belt.

Question 42

Few of the founding fathers of the United States actually wanted a separation of church and state.

Question 43

After the War of Independence, Anglicans in the United States became the Episcopal Church.

Question 44

The history of Catholicism in the United States is really the history of waves of immigrants.

Question 45

Black churches in the United States began shortly after the American Civil War.

Question 46

Given that many of the founding fathers of the United States were more sympathetic to Deism than they were to Christianity, do you think the assumption that the United States was grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition is warranted? Why or why not?

Question 47

Considering the events discussed in the chapters, in what ways may the United States be historically unique? What challenges does any claim of exceptionalism face?

Question 48

Think about the differing positions expressed in the chapter and your own views regarding the relationship between religion and government or public life. What do you see as a proper role (if any) of religion in the public sphere? Provide reasoning for your answer.

Question 49

Pietism worked to re-center the faith to the individual soul and its relationship to Christ. Does such a refocus provide assets? Describe what you think they are and why. Does such a refocus provide any liabilities? Describe what you think they are and why.

Question 50

Preaching during the First Great Awakening often relied on threats of damnation. Do you think this is an authentic focus in revival preaching? Explain.