Episode 10 considers the creation of our second set of governing documents, what we today call “The Constitution,” in 1787, ratified in 1788, provides us our last bit of evidence to the larger point of the podcast–what did the Founders want to do with Christianity?

We have been examining what was necessary to sustain our unique foundation for the USA civic society. We’ve been seeking what was lost, prior to this time we described in episode 1, where the data is overwhelming that something massive has shifted to where all metrics point in a downward trend, with multiple crises clearly evidence throughout society.

If the Founders wanted to create a “Christian Nation” as our Conservative Christian character proposes today, they could have. If they wanted to create a nation with no religion, no Christianity even acknowledged, banished to private concerns or even fully banished from society, they could have.

They did neither thing.

The podcast seeks to find evidence in our history to help us regain safe harbor, the very structure that had allowed for our great national success, a success that was obvious until things began to unravel over the decades after WW2, especially in the last 30-40 years. The US Constitution is the last governing document produced in our national history, and so is the last thing to consider in seeking to grasp the mind of the Founders.

We also examine the state constitutions created in the years immediately after 1776. You can go read them yourself at the links below. Note that Rhode Island did not write a new constitution until 1842.

• South Carolina in 1776 and in 1778
• Delaware in 1776
• Georgia in 1777
• Maryland in 1777
• New Hampshire in 1776
• New Jersey in 1776
• New York in 1777
• North Carolina in 1776
• Pennsylvania in 1776
• Vermont in 1777
• Massachusetts in 1780
• Virginia in 1776
• also the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom

In trying to understand the unique concepts of the USA, we need to start with two key documents written in the heady days of the Second Continental Congress: The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.

We saw in the last episode, Christianity was one of the four core themes we can glean from the colonization efforts that formed the USA. In case you missed it, the other three are Capitalism, Risk, and Rebellion. There's a larger point here about that hypothesis regarding understanding the USA, but that's not this podcast. Perhaps I will add a bonus episode going into depth about this to help people better understand the nation called "the USA."

Does that fact that the colonists were intentionally bringing Christianity with them, asserting its importance to their future success, mean that decades later, at the founding of the nation, that they were expecting a “Christian Nation” to follow? What about decades later, as national leaders gathered in Philadelphia in the crucial days leading to the American Revolution…did they perceived themselves creating a “Christian Nation”?

You can read the Declaration of Independence and also the Articles of Confederation for yourself. In the Declaration we focus on the opening explanation, noting editorial changes that were made by Franklin and Adams ("hold these truths to be self-evident") and a few other parts there. Then, we shift focus to the concluding paragraph to two key editorial changes made that inserted the general consensus of the group about the involvement of the Christian God in their effort. With the Articles, we specifically noted Article III and the conclusion that starts, at the end, with "And, whereas...."

We’ve seen that Christianity is vital to the type of society that everyone seems to want—individual rights, protections in liberty, etc… This vital need is both in acknowledging how Christianity brought these concepts to the West (and then others through “the West”) and how Christianity as guiding structure provided US culture the means for its success (that others strive to move here for).

So, we NEED Christianity…but WE ALSO HAVE SEEN that the “Christendom” concept (“Christian Nationalism”) is ruinous to the faith and also how the faith is expressed, especially in a civic structure. So, what did our first colonists believe?

Were the first colonists trying to establish a “Christendom,” a “Christian nation”…a nation only for Christians where there would be religious faith requirements before holding office or opening a business, as was true in the nations from which these colonists came? Or, were they somehow trying to escape religion altogether, eager to create a nation on some broad concept of “Natural Law” in which formal religions would be either absent, or at worst, only something for the individual, something kept quiet and private? To find these answers, we must examine the first English-speaking colonies to see what lessons they can provide.

We will read The Mayflower Compact and also excerpts from the Sermon of John Winthrop. Both documents are crucial to understanding the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. We will also examine Jamestown and St. Mary's. For St. Mary's we will read excerpts from their revolutionary Maryland Toleration Act of 1649.