Religions Born in the USA
Philadelphia is called the Quaker City due to William Penn's membership in the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Although born in 1647 in England, the Friends are strongly identified with our city, even though today only one percent of Philadelphians claim that faith. That sect plays an oversized role historically, including Penn's policy of religious toleration, Anthony Benezet's education reforms and abolition stance, and noted Quaker philanthropists. There have been some examples of intolerance since the founding in 1682. When the protestant Huguenots fled France after the 1685 withdrawal of the Edict of Nantes, the British colonists were less than welcoming in Philadelphia due to longstanding enmity against the French. When the Catholics opened their first church, Saint Joseph's, in 1733, the worried parishioners secluded the church within a courtyard. The protestant British felt that Catholics had mixed loyalties, to both King and Pope. When the 454 Catholic and French Acadians (guilty on both counts), arrived in 1755 in Philadelphia, after being expelled from what they called Acadia and the dominant British called Nova Scotia, the Acadians were basically imprisoned in Philadelphia for two decades. Tolerance could only be tolerated so much.
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Today any law-abiding religion is tolerated in Philadelphia. This article will look at some with roots in the United States, and some with recent vintage roots in Philadelphia.
Photo of Quaker William Penn's statue atop City Hall (from every tourist's favorite angle) and the Angel Moroni atop the LDS Temple. The Quakers advocated religious tolerance and the Latter-Day Saints endured intolerance until they made it into what was then Mexico in 1847. The Utah Territory became part of the United States in 1850.
Photo credit Jim Fennell
Baldwin Park neighborhood Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple hangs the welcome sign at 1737 Vine Street in Philadelphia.
Birth: 1830, western New York state
Worldwide membership: 15 million
The LDS Church is one of many religions that were begun in the United States. A quick survey of other religious buildings within a walk of Baldwin Park will show that religious movements pop up all the time. The next series of photos will show some institutions that Philadelphians have walked past that, like the LDS, have relatively recent origins. The religion itself is in bold font. The birth is the year generally accepted as the start of the religion. The worldwide estimate of membership is the generally accepted number.
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First, however, a word about the word "religion." The difference between a cult and a religion is nebulous, with the word "cult" usually being pejorative. Jim Jones founded the People's Temple in 1954 and the religion exterminated itself by mass suicide in Guyana in 1978. The General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, founded in 1955 in southern California, was taken over by David Koresh in 1981 and likewise self-extinguished in a fire in Waco, Texas, in 1993. Marshall Applewhite founded Heaven's Gate in 1974 and annihilated the membership by a mass suicide in 1997 as Comet Hale-Bopp approached to pick them up. Many commentators will regard these three as cults. Pairs of young LDS members on their two-year missions are not allowed to search the internet, and they must always be in one another's presence. Social and information isolation are tools of cults, as is group shunning of apostates. Some organizations, although having achieved tax-exempt status as a religion, are still considered business ventures, cults, or outright scams. The reader is left to research and assess which of the following fit into which categories.
African Methodist Episcopal Church at 419 South 6th Street.
Birth: 1816, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Worldwide membership: about 3 million
Seventh Day Adventist Church at the northeast corner of 15th and Christian Streets.
Birth: branch of Millerites, 1840s, upstate New York
Worldwide membership: 22 million
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Jehovah's Witnesses two-building complex at 2901 West Glenwood Avenue.
Birth: 1870, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Worldwide membership: 9 million​
The United Lodge of Theosophists at 1917 Walnut Street.
Birth: 1875, New York City
Worldwide membership: 26,000
Christian Scientist reading room and church at 225 Chestnut Street. The inset shows the first purpose-built Christian Scientist Church in 1911 at 4014 Walnut Street. It is now an arts center called the Rotunda and owned by Penn.
Birth: 1879, Boston, Massachusetts
Worldwide membership: about 200,000
Nation of Islam School seen on the far side of Clara Muhammad Square at 4700 Lancaster Avenue. Clara Muhammad was the wife of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.
Birth: 1930, Detroit, Michigan
Worldwide membership: about 50,000
Father Divine's International Peace Mission, former hotel at 699 North Broad Street.
Birth: 1914, Brooklyn, New York
Worldwide membership: a handful living at Woodmont in Gladwyne, Pa. which is a ten mile drive from Baldwin Park and has a Father Divine museum worth visiting (inset). And, yes, his few remaining followers truly believe that Father Divine is God.
Church of Scientology at 1315 Race Street. In an interesting blending, current Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan embraced Dianetics in 2010.
Birth: 1954, Los Angeles, California
Worldwide membership: 30,000
The Hare Krishnas, founded in New York City in 1966, claim one million members worldwide today. The group is formally known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness or ISKCON. This is their compound in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia at 41 Allens Lane.
Photo of the MOVE headquarters at 309 North 33rd Street circa 1978 from here.
MOVE was a wholly Philadelphia religious group that started in 1972 in the Powelton neighborhood of West Philadelphia as the Christian Movement for Life. It effectively ended in a massive fire at 6221 Osage Avenue in 1985. The membership numbered a few dozen.
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Anyone can start a religion. This one was started at 19th and Girard in 2024. This sign was attached to a tree at 4th and Market Street in December 2024.
Some folks would argue that there is no religion that "makes sense."
published January 2025