Religion In North American Towns Essay Research

Religion In North American Towns Essay, Research Paper

Religion has played a vital role in the settling of many pre-industrial North

American towns and cities. In fact, religion proved to be one of the main

reasons Europeans broke their affiliation with the dictatorial and the

monarchial rule in Europe and came to settle the Americas. Generally, these

particular religious settlers incorporated town-planning ideas developed in

Europe and translated them into their particular beliefs. However, some specific

and influential settlers broke away from the norm in a progressive attempt to

invent new societies in a new land based on accumulated knowledge. John Reps,

the pre-eminent American historian on town planning has this to say about those

who strayed from the common ideals. .Almost from the beginning of settlement,

America attracted a variety of reformers, utopians, and pariah religious sects.

These dedicated. groups shunned existing cities with their temptations and

distractions, preferring to create settlements in harmony with their religious,

economic, or social convictions.. In this paper, I will analyze and compare

the influence of two different religions in the settling of their respective

towns. The first will be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also

known as the Mormons, and the second is the Church of the United Brethren, also

known as the Moravians. ¨ THE MORMON MISSION The Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints is a Christian religion that came into existence during the

early 19th-century American movement of religious revivalism called the Second

Great Awakening. Officially, Joseph Smith, who is recognized as a prophet in

modern Mormon teachings, founded the church in 1830 after he said that God had

spoken to him. In that same year, he organized his first followers in New York.

From that point on, as they marched westward, he experimented in building towns

that revolved around ..order, unity, and community.. These values were

viewed as supreme in the prophet.s ideal society, and these same values were

at odds with values that were characteristic of many cities and towns already

existing in America at that time. It is said that his aim was to realize the

Christian commonwealth that had been the ideal of John Winthrop in Puritan New

England. According to one account, Winthrop at one time had said to the

colonists, .Wee must be knit together in this work as one man.. This one

statement seems to provide the basis of Smith.s convictions when he set out to

form new towns in hopes of turning people on to his religion. The Law of

Consecration and Stewardship was outlined by Joseph Smith in 1831, and marked

the beginning of Mormon .communitarianism.. This law ..was a

prescription for transforming the highly individualistic economic order of

Jacksonian America into a system characterized by economic equality,

socialization of surplus incomes, freedom of enterprise, and group economic

self-sufficiency.. Basically, what this meant was that all members of the

church and hereafter, the community, would deed all of his/her property to the

bishop of the church. On top of this, the community was to farm and cultivate

the land together and share equally the crops. In turn, the bishop would

appropriate these assets out based on the need of an individual or family

residing within the community. Doctrines of the church such as these held a

paralleled relationship to the planning of the towns. By early 1831, Joseph

Smith and his following had moved west to Kirtland, Ohio. Kirtland was an ideal

spot for Americans seeking prosperity given its ripe location for trade as well

as agriculture. The land in Ohio had richer soil than that found along the

Atlantic coast, and the climate was much milder. A good reason for this can be

attributed to Ohio.s gentle topography. This was beneficial to the Mormon

people who relied on farming and trade. The location was in close proximity to

both Lake Erie, which provided the transportation to the East, and the Ohio

Canal, which connected to the Ohio River and hence the entire Mississippi River

system. The Mormons however did not take full advantage of this beneficial

location for settlement, as they left after only a short period of time.

Kirtland was a settlement where many firsts occurred in the Mormon religion, and

it was a settlement that would aid Mormons in molding future settlements. The

House of the Lord, also referred to as the Kirtland Temple, was the first major

permanent structure for worship built by the Mormons, and it served as a pattern

that was to be followed by future designs of churches in Mormon settlements. The

temple served dual functions as a temple of education and as a temple of

worship. Since it served two main functions within the community, and since it

was seen as the most vital aspect of the religion,

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