Christianity in Early American History

In the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution decrees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This has come to be known as the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or church, but allows citizens to freely choose how they want to worship. Over the course of our nation’s history, however, the First Amendment has evolved to mean something almost entirely different; that the state should never tolerate religion in government. However, even before the official ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the idea that our government was founded on deeply Christian values has been supported by a close examination of our legal history and traditions.  Noted theologians and jurists in early American history, as well as modern historians, have validated the idea that Christianity has, and always will be, the moral center of our government because its values have been imbued in our common law, legal traditions, and civil institutions.

Reverend Jasper Adams, a member of the well-known Adams family, delivered in 1833 a sermon before the South Carolina Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which was subsequently published as “The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States.”[1] In his address, he argued that American history proved Christian values and morality was a central pillar of American social order and legal traditions.  He first noted in his address that during colonial times, some colonies established the Church of England as their official church, but quickly “such a union of the ecclesiastical with the civil authority, has given rise to flagrant abuses and gross corruptions.” These experiences by colonies eventually led the passage of the First Amendment that clearly prohibited the establishment of a state-sanctioned church by the federal government while at the same time safeguarding the right of private citizens to worship as they pleased.[2] Thus, the First Amendment was a repudiation of the European tradition of a state-sanctioned church, but not a repudiation of Christianity, as some have come to interpret the First Amendment.

In his address, he noted that each of the state constitutions recognized Christianity to varying degrees. Some merely recognized Sunday as a day of worship, while others exhorted its citizenry to worship “the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the Universe,” and yet others required public officials to declare a belief in the Christian faith.[3] And in looking at all the state constitutions together, he determined the overriding principle was that “the people of the United States have retained the Christian religion as the foundation of the civil, legal and political institutions; while they have refused to continue a legal preference to any one of its forms over the other.”  He went on to say that in this spirit of pragmatism, the states consented to tolerate all other religions, again validating a reading of the First Amendment that allows for the free exercise of religion within the Union.[4] Adams further noted Christian traditions and worship are also embedded in Conventions and Legislative Assemblies as well as in the Army and Navy of the United States. Constitutional law historian Stephen Botein confirm this reading of state constitutions and, in fact, noted that in this time period, “[Christian] practices were so much a part of the fabric of American social life as to be above (or beneath) controversy.”[5]

Jasper Adams was not alone in his defense of the idea that our civil institutions and legal system are imbued with Christian values. First, America’s legal system is based upon common law, which has been derived from centuries of custom and legal precedent both in the United States and in Great Britain. In 1852, Justice Joseph Story of the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that Christianity was part of the common law of the United States and could not be separated from our legal code and traditions. As a respected jurist, he noted “for many ages,” the common law was administered by those with ecclesiastical dignities.  He also noted that common law repudiated acts that were in violation of Christian morals and ethics and that lawyers also exemplified Christian values in carrying out their “duties of good faith, incorruptible virtue, and chivalric honor.” As such, “never has been a period in which the common law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundations.”[6]

American minister and author Ebenezer Platt Rogers also confirmed Joseph Story’s theory on Christianity’s stamp on common law, also writing in 1852 that based on his review of its history, law was “under peculiar obligations to the Bible and the Christian religion; that it is indebted to Divine Revelation for the very principles and genius of its institutions.”[7] Constitutional law historian Daniel Dreisbach confirms both Story and Roger’s views in his book, Great Christian Jurists in American History, in which he states authoritative jurists on common law confirm that “Christianity is and always has been the foundation of common law.”[8]

In sum, as noted by famed jurist Joseph Story and theologians Jasper Adams and Ebenezer Rogers, it is undeniable that the basis of the American legal system and civil institutions were founded by beliefs in Christian values and traditions. In turn, the Constitution created an environment in which Christianity could flourish and inform public values. Therefore, the idea of separation of church and state should not be a barrier to those who wish to promote Christian values and ideas as part of our civic and legal traditions because they are already embodied within such traditions.

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[1] Daniel Dreisbach, Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the Church-State Debate (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 1, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt130jpcx.

[2] Jasper Adams, The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States: A Sermon Preached in St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, February 13th, 1833, before the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of South-Carolina, (Charleston, S.C.: Printed by A.E. Miller, 1833), 6 https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0102787302/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=SABN&xid=6419c7b2.

[3] Adams, The Relation of Christianity, 12.

[4]  Adams, The Relation of Christianity, 17-18.

[5] Stephen Botein, “Religious Dimensions of the Early American State,” in Beyond Confederation : Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 320, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807839324_beeman.

[6] Joseph Story, The Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph Story (Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1852), 42–45, http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?af=RN&ae=CY101411772&srchtp=a&ste=14&locID=prin77918.

[7] Ebenezer Platt Rogers, The Relations of Christianity to Law and the Legal Profession: A Discourse (Charleston: Walker & James, 1852), 14,  https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0100987114/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=SABN&xid=285dab64.

[8] Daniel L. Dreisbach, “Introduction: Christianity and American Law,” in Great Christian Jurists in American History, ed. Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 1, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108609937.002.