what was the most prominent religion in the victorian era
Victorian morality Religious morality changed drastically during the Victorian Era. When Victoria took the throne the Anglican Church was very powerfulâ€”running schools and universities, and with high ranking churchmen holding offices in the House of Lords.[6] The Church's power continued to rule in rural areas throughout the Victorian Era; however that was not the case in industrialised cities.[6] In the cities those against the Church were many and dissent was rampant.[6] However, dissent has been running its pressure since the onset of Puritanism in politics even before the Oliver Cromwell days. The dissenting sects were against what the Anglican church was using its power for.[7] The Church demanded obedience to God, submissiveness and resignation with the goal of making people more malleable to the will of the Church.[7] The Church was accused of appeasing the will of the elite, and of caring little if at all about the needs and wants of the lower, peasant class,[7] from which dissent emerged Methodism, Congregationalism, The Society of Friends (Quakers) and Presbyterianism.[7] The Methodists and Presbyterians in particular stressed personal salvation through direct individual faith in Jesus Christ's sacrificial death and resurrection on the behalf of sinners, citing the New Testament Gospels and the writings of the Apostles Peter, James and Paul.[7] This stress on individualism is seen throughout the Victorian Era and becomes even more developed in middle class life.
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony) The core of the group that came to be known as the Pilgrims were brought together between 1586 and 1605 by shared theological beliefs, as expressed by Richard Clyfton, a Brownist parson at All Saints' Parish Church in Babworth, near East Retford, Nottinghamshire. This congregation held Puritan beliefs comparable to other non-conforming movements (i.e., groups not in communion with the Church of England) led by Robert Browne, John Greenwood, and Henry Barrowe. As Separatists, they also held that their differences with the Church of England were irreconcilable and that their worship should be independent of the trappings, traditions, and organization of a central church—unlike those Puritans who maintained their membership in and allegiance to the Church of England.[2] William Brewster, a former diplomatic assistant to the Netherlands, was living in the Scrooby manor house, serving as postmaster for the village and bailiff to the Archbishop of York. He had been impressed by Clyfton's services and had begun participating in services led by John Smyth in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.[3]