While the founding fathers were firm about freedom of religion, and separation between church and state, it must be acknowledged that the United States was created by people for whom God and the Old and New Testaments givens. Belief in God and morality as set down in the Bible, were the guiding principles that supported the entire concept of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and much of the focus of the Constitution. Yes, really.
A wholly secular America cannot sustain itself, nor can an America where morality is considered to be originated by man, thereby becoming relative to time, place, and individual need; thus becoming expendable willy-nilly upon necessity. The foundation of this nation is based upon enlightened Judeo-Christian morality. "In God We Trust;" "Epluribus Unum (out of many, one)" are two ubiquitous mottoes which represent this land. Both reveal an absolute recognition of and necessary belief in God--with a clear reference to the Holy Trinity. Check your coins and paper money if you doubt this. Each time we make a cash payment, we validate an understood if not a given, belief in God.
One of the primary reasons that individuals immigrated to the New World was to escape religious persecution. By coming to a new land, people felt that for the first time, they would be out from under the autocratic demands of various monarchs with their reliance on this church or that, and they would be free to worship as they chose. Economics and exploration were also motivating factors that influenced the development of America; however, the notion of freedom of religion--by and large Christianity--was paramount. To lift a country out of its origins and the reasons for its creation, is not to understand how or why that particular country managed to exist in the first place. Without purpose or thorough knowledge of origin, nothing can continue to exist. Change is one thing; abandonment of original intent, definition, or essence of an entity, is about its demise.
Rhode Island with Roger Williams; Pennsylvania with William Penn: Two of the earliest Colonies/States that insisted upon religious tolerance for everyone. This was unheard of in Europe, where religious leaders of one kind or another, dictated what its inhabitants could follow. The Pilgrims and Puritans, the Jews, the Catholics, in light of the Protestant and Counter Reformations, all came to the United States seeking the right to worship as they chose. The notions of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as being "inalienable rights," were synonymous with "God given."
The American Constitution essentially was created by men who were Deists or believers in God without a particular church affiliation; Humanists, who were of a similar bent; and Protestants. All of these men, however, were infused from birth with the Bible, and with the religious values of Judeo-Christian morality. Atheism, agnosticism, denominations from the East, were not a measurable part of European society during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In one way or another, virtually everyone who emigrated from other countries to the United States, believed in God. Not to believe was the same as heresy and treason, all at once.
The Protestant Ethic, which is the idea that one should work for a living and gain by the sweat of his own brow, is not far from the basic tenets of Capitalism. The Bill of Rights--the first ten amendments to the Constitution--are about basic moral freedoms that allow individuals to become and to be: The Ten Commandments, in a similar vein, were taken from Christianity's Old Testament.
(You will find the original organization of the court system in the Old Testament/Holy Scriptures, Book of Exodus, Chapter: 18/Jethro. There are many such examples in both the Old and New Testaments.)
Manifest Destiny was another concept that dictated the intentions of a forward looking, and successful United States. Not without connection to a Higher Power and a heavenly afterlife, the realization of the American Dream was indeed allied with the religious focus of Kingdom Come here on earth--in America.
Particularly in the North, the value system was very Christian and quite definite about following Scripture to the letter of its laws. Interestingly, there was no slavery in the North, while at the same time, there were multitudes of cities, towns, and industry--men coming together in intensely populating regions, working for their families and themselves: Observing what the "Good Book" said. The South, which was less focused on Protestantism, and more on Humanism or Deism, allowed for less stringent rigor when it came to Biblical rules and regulations: It is not a coincidence that slavery flourished there--an essential difference in the commitment to Judeo-Christian morality.
These same values spread throughout the expanding country as people went West, building churches and schools along the way. While not everyone necessarily worshipped formally in a particular building, or with a definite sect or denomination, to assume that America was ever secular in its primary focus is to not understand the underlying strengths of American society and how/why it was created. While worship itself may or may not have been a weekly thing for all, the undertones of belief and faith in God, with God's word dictating an Absolute Morality, were understood as a given part of life, and the way things were. People followed God's laws; God didn't morph to follow man's convenience and comfort.
A secular United States cannot last; the essential base upon which the country was built, will erode and topple. To say that times have changed, we don't need God any more now that we have science, morality is relative and not absolute, is to misconstrue the essence of Americana, and the presence of God as an underlying cornerstone of this country. Such is counter to the original American values that made this nation possible. As Protestantism broke away from the Catholic Church, so did America break away from European monarchies and oligarchies--the belief in God and the dictates of Biblical Morality, however, were never questioned.
America was never conceived as a land of the inoperative, the helpless, or the incapable. Rather it was the notion that every man was created in the image of God, was given those certain inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and by golly, if he wanted such, within the moral and ethical boundaries that were handed down to our forefathers--both Biblical and national--then he needed to go after them. Nothing would be served to him for free. It is no different in the Bible: The original guide book and rules manual for the United States.
The bottom line is not whether one must support the fundamentals of the Scriptures, but rather that there is a necessary understanding that must take place: Without certain values and ethics such as community, education, family, economic well being, respect for nature and its creatures; without discipline, responsibility, integrity, and a unified commonality of moral outlook and beliefs; without a firm conviction that we as Americans, and our country America, are committed to a unified focus toward a unified Higher Morality, this nation will not be able to survive: Its very reason for existence, its essence as a viable nation, will have ceased to exist.
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