No Establishment

In his book, A Christian America , Robert Handy describes some of the debate concerning the First Amendment: “The religious question was given considerable attention during the debate over the First Amendment. Madison apparently would have liked to have the remaining establishments in the states eliminated, but the Senate refused to allow this, for those which remained in three New England states had their defenders. Some attempts were made in the course of the Senate debate to have the amendment worded in such a way that the establishment or at least public assistance for more than one church might be possible. One proposal suggested that the amendment read: ‘Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to any other,’ but the attempted failed.” Handy recognizes that the final form was more radical, demonstrating that “the new nation was breaking with the older forms.”

In the minds of many, it was, surely, not an anti-religious Amendment, but one for the protection of religion against the defilements of establishment, and in the minds of others it was an effort to protect politics from the energies of religious passion. It was also, importantly, a restriction on Congress , not on the States.

Yet, it was not merely a prohibition of establishing a single denomination. The First Amendment’s prohibition was more complete – prohibiting not only the establishment of one Christian group but the establishment of “religion.” The First Amendment is more secular and secularizing than some conservative Christians are willing to acknowledge.