This question keeps arising from the audiences we see across the country. Our reply has been that America was founded on the principle of religious freedom for all faiths by Deists, who were men of faith but not faithful to any particular religious institutions.  American Historian Gary Wills’ new book, Head and Heart: American Christianities, underscores that idea.

Interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air, Wills says that our founders were rational believers, also known as deists. They believed that God created the world and supervises it. They didn’t believe that God necessarily responds to prayer, but they did believe in providence and an after-life. Many of the founding fathers believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah from Jewish scripture, but not that he was incarnate. They saw him as an important moral leader singled out by God. Jefferson believed Jesus was the perfect moral teacher, though human, not God. 

Rather than instilling Christianity in the Constitution, these founding fathers instilled separation of church and state into the Constitution so that Christianity and other religions could thrive without being encumbered by state influence and control.

That separation, says Wills, is what enabled religion to flourish in America. It was also a unique element in the establishment of our government. Bicameral legislatures, confederations of states and independent judicial systems existed in other countries, but, says Wills, “No other country before ours dared to launch itself without formal protection by God through some religious institution.” 

Another myth Wills dispels is that our country has become less religious since its founding. In fact, the opposite is true. ”In the 1770s only 17% of Americans were regular churchgoers,” Wills reports.  Today it is about two-thirds.

While the constitutition did allow states to establish religions, they all eventually gave it up.  Virginia was the first, thanks to Jefferson and Madison.  Jefferson didn’t believe churches should receive tax breaks, nor that Congress should have chaplains or that clergy should even be able to report themselves as clergy in the census.  He believed the government should have no knowledge about the religious activity in the country.  His ideal: No one should be able to take away anyone’s right to worship God in whichever way he wants.  

Are we achieving that in America today?

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