This research examines the role of ethnicity and race in the development of religious patterns in the United States. Particularly with respect to early religious development in this country, it is necessary to view the United States as an extension of Europe, because the traditions, values, and pre judices of early Americans were those brought along on the migration from Europe.1 To a considerable extent, imported traditions, values, and prejudices continue to influence reli gious development in latter day America.2
The influence of England and Scotland tended to domi nate in early America; however, significant influences on Amer ican religious development also derived from other Northwest European and Central European countries.3 Later on, immigra tion from Southern European and Eastern European countries exerted profound influences on American religious development,4
1C. J. H. Hayes, "The American Frontier Frontier of What?" American Historical Review, 2 (1946): 214.
2W. S. Hudson, "How American Is Religion in America?" in J. C. Brauer, (Ed.), Reinterpretation of American Church His tory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 165.
3W. S. Hudson, "Religion in America," 3rd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981), 4.
1 2and, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, Latin Ameri can and Asian immigration is helping to reshape American reli gious development.5
"With only a few exceptions, the varied religious groups of America have their rootage abroad; and throughout the years their relationship to the lands from which their fathers came has been intimate and continuous."6 European society "has never been a monolithic whole . . . and this is as true in Amer ica as it is in England and France and Germany."7
The 13 colonies which formed the original United States were English colonies. Thus, the predominant background of the residents was Protestant.8 "Even the non English minorities the...