ABSTRACT
The First Amendment granted religious freedom on the national level. In doing so, it meant that American religion would have to function as an aspect of the market economy, that is, win converts. The political situation, indeed, lent itself to the rise of the free or believer's church. The market economy and the Industrial Revolution began in America well before the Civil War. In colonial America, the British imposed a number of commercial restrictions, which were a hangover of the old mercantilist policies that prevailed in Europe. The lack of government restraints did the same for the economy. Mark Noll notes that prior to the Civil War, 'evangelicals came to assume the God-given character of liberal political economy'. After the Civil War, Protestantism and capitalism continued to complement each other. A number of prominent Protestant ministers gave the Gospel of Wealth a Christian twist and effectively propagated it.
