Is the U.S. a Christian Nation?

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With the tide running against religious establishment when the Framers of the Constitution gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, they set out to prove that a nation could exist and flourish without an established religion or religious tests. In keeping with their determination to separate religion and government, they wrote a constitution that was entirely secular. It begins by identifying the source of its legitimacy: “We the people of the United States...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Unlike the Declaration of Independence, it does not mention God or a Supreme Being or Divine Providence, though it implicitly acknowledges Christian culture by identifying its date as “the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven” and by noting that Sundays are not to be counted among the 10 days during which the President can veto legislation (Article I, Section 7).

The lone reference to religion in the “Original Constitution,” before the Bill of Rights, is in Article VI: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." At the time, the constitutions of nearly all the thirteen states included religious tests, generally requiring that public officials be Protestant Christians, and sometimes that they acknowledge the divine inspiration of Scripture and profess belief in the Trinity. Article VI was a significant departure from existing practice, but it was adopted easily and apparently without much debate.