OP-ED: Can we remain the nation our founders created?
As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its birth, the nation finds itself debating questions that would have seemed unnecessary only a generation ago. Was America founded as a Christian nation? Is religion essential to preserving liberty? Is the Constitution simply a document whose meaning changes with each passing generation?
The answers matter because they determine not only how we view our past, but where we are headed.
The United States was never intended to have a national church. Many of those who crossed the Atlantic came here precisely because they sought to escape government-controlled churches and the religious coercion that characterized much of Europe. The founders rejected the idea that government should establish or control a church. They sought religious liberty, not government-directed religion.
Rejecting a national church, however, did not mean rejecting Christianity’s influence on public life.
The earliest colonies were settled by people from many Christian traditions, each seeking the freedom to worship according to conscience. While they differed in doctrine and practice, most shared a common conviction that human rights originated with God rather than government. The Mayflower Compact began, “In the name of God, Amen.” Colonial law, education and public life reflected biblical principles, and the First Great Awakening (1730-1740) helped forge a common American identity long before there was a United States.
By the time the Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, the intellectual and moral foundation for a new nation had already been laid. The founders did not invent those ideas; they gave them political expression. Their genius was not in creating a new philosophy of government, but in translating long-established principles of faith, natural law and individual liberty into the framework of a constitutional republic.
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the principles of the American experiment. The Constitution provided the machinery to preserve them.
The Declaration boldly asserted that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Those words were revolutionary. For perhaps the first time in history, a nation declared that government does not grant human rights. Government exists to protect rights that already belong to the people because those rights come from a source higher than government itself.
Eleven years later, the Constitution transformed those principles into a practical system of government. Separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism and limited government were not accidental features. They reflected the Founders’ understanding that power must always be restrained because human beings are imperfect.
The Constitution did not invent the American idea. It reflected and protected principles that had been developing in America for nearly two centuries.
That distinction remains vital today.
Increasingly, many Americans view rights as creations of government — rights that may be expanded, restricted or redefined by legislatures, courts or administrative agencies. That is a profoundly different philosophy from the one embraced by the founders.
The debate is no longer simply about public policy. It is about the source of authority itself.
Some now argue that the Constitution is a “living document” whose meaning evolves with changing social values. The framers certainly anticipated that future generations would face circumstances they could not foresee. That is why they provided an orderly amendment process. They expected Americans to change the Constitution when necessary, but only through the consent of the people, not by reinterpreting enduring principles to fit the spirit of the moment.
The Constitution endures because the principles that gave it life endure.
Today we are witnessing increasingly vocal hostility toward Christianity in many corners of American life. At the same time, ideologies — religious and secular alike — that reject freedom of conscience, equality under law, or government by the consent of the governed continue to challenge the very assumptions upon which our republic was built. America’s constitutional order cannot long survive if it abandons the moral foundation that gave it birth.
One need not be a Christian to acknowledge Christianity’s profound influence on the birth of the American republic. That is not theology; it is history.
As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, perhaps the most important question is no longer whether Christianity influenced America’s founding. The historical record answers that question convincingly.
The real question is whether we intend to preserve the principles that made the American experiment possible.
Can a constitutional republic continue to flourish after abandoning the very ideas that gave it birth?
The answer to that question will determine far more than how future generations interpret our history. It will help determine whether America remains the nation our founders created.
Dave Ball is former chairman of the Washington County Republican Party.