When we think about early American history, religion plays a significant role. Pilgrims settled in America as refugees from persecution in England and elsewhere. As sentiments flip flopped from Protestant to Catholic waves from both sides of the furor fled to the New World. In their small colony enclaves they could inflict the same intolerance upon each other as they had experienced in their homelands. As the colonies matured, areas became known for their religious sympathies, Maryland is Catholic, Pennsylvania known as Quaker, while New England is considered more Episcopalian, etc… In the early 18th century there was a new religious fervor and the Baptists were writing broadsides about breaking from the Church of England. When the founders were working to unite 13 disparate communities into a fledgling confederacy of colonies to face down England they had to address the religion issue. Indeed after the revolution and in early nation building the issue of the disparate sects of Christianity had to be addressed. Separation of Church and State seems an obvious choice in retrospect. The religious climate and the different attitudes of the founders would have made any other choice quite problematic.
It is thought that people were better Christians in the good old days, we hear it often from the pulpit and podium. But early America was just as rife with individualists then as now, and America’s Christian underpinnings were constantly tested and stretching to accommodate. The inherent separation of church and state was necessary to unite the various colonies and communities of religious refugees under one federal flag. It was Noah Webster who worked in the early years after the revolution to unify the culture of the country through education and language, via the American Dictionary and the Blue Back Spellers. These efforts did have a protestant Christian underpinning they were not a dictum of religion.
George Washington was a statesman and he often invoked Providence as his reason for belief. Whether his Providence was a convicted belief in God and Jesus is known to him but its context usually points only to the inevitable success of this present endeavor because (obviously) Providence is on our side. Thomas Jefferson, as an intellectual, had great respect for Jesus as a revolutionary. In his letters to Dr. Joseph Priestley (1803) and Dr. Benjamin Rush (1803) he spells out his opinions of Jesus’ doctrines and finds Him wanting as a builder of a nation and therefore rejects Christ’s divinity. James Madison in his writings in defense of the Constitution and concerning the First Amendment, very practically addresses the idea of church and state; by the denial of a state religion, the state is not held to the fiscal support of a religious class, like the old testament Levites, or the leaders of some type of Church of America. As in Jefferson’s example, America has embraced the spirit of Protestantism (or maybe just protestation) and like the time of the Judges each man does what is right in his own eyes.
I think George Washington’s Providence is like Manifest Destiny and the inherent American zeitgeist of landing on top. It is a manifestation of the promise to Abraham. America is certainly a land of milk and honey. We enjoy a disproportionate amount of the worlds blessings. People do not generally seek God when times are good, and now while our country is experiencing prosperity, people are going their own ways and not looking to God or living by His laws.
Tasker, John. Sufficient Reasons for a Religious, Conscientious, and Peaceable Separation From the Communion of the Church of England: Or, a Reply to a Tract, Intitled, the Protestant Dissenter Guided to the Church of England; Or, No Sufficient Reasons to Renounce the Communion of That Church, But Weighty Reasons, and Indispensible Obligations to Embrace It. In Two Parts. In the First Part the Dissenters In General Are Vindicated From the Charge of Schism. And In the Second Part (to Which Is Added an Appendix, Containing an Answer to the Evidence of Infant-Baptism, &C.) the Baptists In Particular Are Vindicated From the Said Charge. By John Tasker. London: printed for J. Noon, at the White Hart, near Mercers Chapel in Cheapside, 1751.
Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the state of Virginia. [Paris]: [printed], [1784-85]. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (accessed September 19, 2022). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0103740756/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=bookmark-SABN&xid=887f6c82&pg=293.
Madison, James. James Madison: Writings (LOA #109) (Library of America Founders Collection). Library of America, 1999. 381-382
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