ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the influence, often unanticipated and unintended, of religious beliefs upon social action. It addresses the unintended consequences of Puritan beliefs on the pattern of leadership and authority in colonial Connecticut, and of Quaker and Baptist beliefs on the pattern of leadership and authority in colonial Rhode Island. The colonial American Baptists, like the Quakers, practiced tolerance toward other religions. The cultural consequences of the Puritan and Quaker ethics are most interesting for their differing emphases on authority and citizenship. The Puritans practiced hierarchical communalism, and idealized the church dominating the community. The Quakers valued equality and plutocratic money-making. Both the Quakers and the Baptists, the two dominant religious sects in the colony, devalued the authority of the ministry while extolling the individual's authority over himself in religious matters. Rhode Island's intellectual and artistic representation in the elite reflects its anti-intellectual Quaker and Baptist heritage, which emphasized the sensual world more than did the Puritan ethos.
