1786–The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson, was signed January 16, 1786, and is commemorated each year on National Religious Freedom Day. Thomas Jefferson’s landmark statute became the basis for Congressman Fisher Ames’ establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
All of the world’s current major religions have been founded by men, and there has been a definite bias against women reaching positions of authority within their hierarchies. Since the United States of America from its founding has proclaimed religious freedom for all, it is not surprising that America has been home to a number of women who founded their own religious groups, with varying degrees of success:
- Mary Baker Eddy – Christian Scientist
- Ellen G. White – Seventh Day Adventist
- Aimee Semple McPherson – Foursquare Church
- Ida B. Robinson – Mount Sinai Holy Church of America
- Ruth Norman – Unariius
- Elizabeth Clare – Co-Founder of the Church Universal and Triumphant
- Chris Korda – Church of Euthanasia
- Tamara Siuda – Kemetic Orthodoxy
Mother Ann Lee and the Shakers in America
One of the earliest and most notable of these women founders was Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784), an Englishwoman who started the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (more commonly known as the ‘Shakers’) while she was still in England. She went to America, attempting to escape religious persecution.
She was born in Manchester, England, into a poor family who were members of the Society of Friends, the second of eight children. She worked from a young age in a cotton factory, then as a cutter of hatter’s fur, and as a cook in an infirmary. At age 22, she joined the Wardley Society, an English Quaker offshoot founded by Jane and James Wardley, who taught that shaking and trembling were the result of sins being purged from the body by the Holy Spirit, purifying the worshiper.