States & Territories
New Jersey
Northeast
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New Jersey's colonial religious geography split roughly along its Dutch Reformed east, settled from New Amsterdam, and its Quaker west, where William Penn and other Friends held proprietary interests before Pennsylvania's founding drew Quaker settlement further west. Newark and Jersey City later absorbed large Catholic and Jewish immigrant populations tied to the same waves that reshaped New York across the river, and the state today holds one of the country's most religiously diverse populations relative to its size, including significant Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities.
Facts
Identity
Jurisdiction Status Religion
Leading Religious AffiliationNew Jersey: Catholic is 33% of adults. Margin of error plus or minus 4.4 points. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/new-jersey/ Law and State
Establishment StatusNew Jersey's colonial charters and its first state constitution of 1776 guaranteed liberty of conscience without ever establishing a single church. Geography
Census Region Origins
Origin of the NameNamed for the Channel Island of Jersey by proprietors Sir George Carteret, a former governor of Jersey, and Lord John Berkeley, when they received the colony in 1664. 1 Learn More
West Jersey's Quaker Charter Came Before Pennsylvania's
Before William Penn had his own colony, he was already drafting the governing charter for someone else's. John Fenwick, a Quaker who had purchased western New Jersey in 1674, founded Salem in 1675 as the colony's first English settlement, but a financial dispute between Fenwick and his partner Edward Byllynge left the colony's legal footing unsettled until Penn, acting as a trustee for Byllynge's creditors, drafted the Concessions and Agreements in 1677. That charter guaranteed freedom of conscience and personal liberty to every settler, established an annually elected representative assembly chosen by secret ballot, and required commissioners to negotiate directly and honestly with local Native chiefs before any land survey, protections stronger than almost anywhere else in English America at the time. Penn would not found Pennsylvania for another five years, and historians of the colonial period treat West Jersey's 1677 charter as a direct rehearsal for the religious liberty framework he later built at a much larger scale next door.
New Jersey's colonial religious geography ended up split along that same west versus east line, Quaker settlement in the west and a Dutch Reformed east settled out of New Amsterdam, before Newark and Jersey City later absorbed large Catholic and Jewish immigrant populations. The state today holds one of the country's most religiously diverse populations relative to its size, including significant Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities, and Catholic identification leads at thirty three percent of adults, per Pew's 2023-24 study.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names New Jersey directly: "on 120 acres in rural northwestern New Jersey and calling itself the only Jain tirtha outside India."
This source names New Jersey directly: "on a rural site in Blairstown, New Jersey, sanctifying the land through spiritual practice and establishing it as a tirtha, a pilgrimage place."
This source names Amsterdam directly: "Dutch Reformed east, settled from New Amsterdam, and its Quaker west, where William Penn and other Friends held proprietary interests before Pennsylvania's founding drew Quaker settlement further..."
This source names New Jersey directly: "Yeshiva High School in Ocean Township, New Jersey."
This source names New Jersey directly: "served scattered congregations across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland."
This source names New Jersey directly: "Yeshiva High School in Ocean Township, New Jersey, on 27 June 2002."
This source names New Jersey directly: "County Superior Court in Freehold, New Jersey, to seven years in a New Jersey state prison against a possible maximum of 20 years; the defence had asked for four years."
This source names New York directly: "tied to the same waves that reshaped New York across the river, and the state today holds one of the country's most religiously diverse populations relative to its size, including significant Hindu..."
This source names New Jersey directly: "Kumarji on a rural site in Blairstown, New Jersey; for its description by American Jains as the first Jain tirtha, or pilgrimage site, located outside India; for its two temples representing both..."
This source names New Jersey directly: "a monthly periodical from Hackensack, New Jersey."
This source names New Jersey directly: "The Banner of Truth from Hackensack, New Jersey; that de Baun sold it in 1903 to businessmen who shortened the name to The Banner and increased frequency to bi-weekly; and that "the Christian..."
This source names New Jersey directly: "John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey and the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, convened the assembly as its senior minister present and served as its first..."
Principal Tradition Of
Plurality religious identification among the state's adults per the source's survey.
Sources
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