Religion in the Founding and Shaping of America

Not only did religion play a vital role in the founding of the United States of America, but it has also guided many decisions, public opinions on current events, and legislative acts since then that have molded and shaped this nation and its people. In assessing what role religion has played in the national identity, it is necessary to understand that this beautiful nation was not founded as a theocracy, or as a secular democracy. This nation was founded upon the notion of what several Founding Fathers called a civil society. To maintain that society, they believed, its citizens needed to hold themselves to a standard of decency, acknowledgement of Nature’s Law, and to honor each other’s decisions when it came to theology, religious practice,

Without an understanding that natural law took moral precedence, governments could deprive a person of his most basic natural God-given rights. There had to be a moral standard, a measuring stick by which man’s laws could be judged. In his Second Treatise of Government, John Locke asserts that,
“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other

Several others understood and espoused that a solid Christian doctrine, as well as unshakeable apologetics would secure liberty and freedom for coming generations. There were, however, a few Founding Fathers that did not subscribe to Judeo-Christian doctrine and beliefs; but held the notion that there was a higher power to which we were beholden to acknowledge in the administration of the premises covered in the Declaration of Independence, and the newly formed Constitution of the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson, being one of these few, believed that “Nature’s God” as he referred to him in the Declaration of Independence, is undeniably visible in the manifestations of the heavens and the earth, and gave man the freedom to choose his beliefs. In Jefferson’s 1786 “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” he explicitly states, “Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil