ABSTRACT
America has invented as many separate religions as it has major technological inventions, and the list of native American religions—that is, those that were invented on American soil in the context of American culture—is impressive. Religion in some fashion would seem to mean referencing human behavior and physical reality to something or someone outside themselves, and if so, many of these new movements do not qualify as religions. The early days of colonial America in the northeast were dominated by the heavy-handed puritanism of the Congregational church. The influence of the Episcopal Church in America is reflected in the fact that many prominent and influential Americans are and have been members—including, as the primary example, George Washington. The Church of England is the established church of England and is the compromise between two opposed religious traditions, Roman Catholicism and Reform Protestantism.
