Frameshift

New England today has one of the least religiously-inclined populations in the United States. But Connecticut and Massachusetts started out with establishment churches enshrined in law. How did these colonial theocracies rise, thrive and eventually dissolve? In a two-part series, we explore the church-state dynamic in early Connecticut. Part two explores the inner tensions of the church establishment, from conservative attempts to maintain order in the early 1700s, through the schisms created by the First Great Awakening, and finally to the formal separation of church and state in 1818.