How were government and religion or church and state related in New England and the middle colonies?

Answer 1

Until the founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams, every colony had an established religion. That means everyone paid a tax to support the church. In New England it was the Puritan Church. In New York, it would either be Episcopalian or Dutch Reformed. In New Jersey, it was Episcopalian. In Maryland, you could pay the Catholic tax or the Protestant tax. You paid one or the other, even if you were a Jew. (That did not really bother the Jews. Most people who paid the tax never darkened the inside of a church.) The churches would differ. The tax was certain. The government collected the tax. The government also paid the pastors. Thus, religion served the government. Both the Episcopalians and Catholics had to follow the standard ritual. Very little room existed to challenge the government. The established churches in the middle colonies behaved themselves. In New England, a reaction against the Salem Witch trials changed both the church and the state. The theologian John Owen wrote on how a Bible Church would operate. Then church went from being Presbyterian, with its representative government and secret trials to congregational government and public trials. It took the civil government with it. New England adopted the town meeting form of government.