It is quintessentially American to proclaim God’s dominion over the public square.
It is quintessentially American to proclaim God’s dominion over the public square.
D onald Trump’s selection of Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate has reignited debates about Christianity and nationalism. There is a vital question at the heart of these exchanges: What is the proper role of religion, and specifically Christianity, in American public life? Many casually assume the United States is a secular republic, and that those seeking positions of public authority must check their faith at the door.
Their concerns for the rights of religious and other minorities is laudable. We should be skeptical of some on the religious right whose professed “post-liberalism” sits uneasily with America’s historical commitment to ordered liberty. But the logical endpoint of their view — that religious value judgments have no place in public affairs — is wrong. America is indeed a Christian nation. What that means, and what that does not mean, matters greatly for our self-understanding.
Christianity is essential for understanding America’s Founding, as Professor Mark David Hall has shown. Most of the Founding Fathers were Trinitarian Christians. Certainly, there were high-profile exceptions: Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were deists; John Adams was a unitarian; James Madison and George Washington had complicated religious beliefs that scholars have difficulty deciphering to this day. Nevertheless, belief in God’s providence and the divinity of Jesus were widespread in our nation’s earliest days, including among the revolutionary elite. While sincerity is hard to prove, it is surely significant that important Founders such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Roger Sherman, and John Witherspoon “embraced and articulated orthodox Christian ideas.”
The Declaration of Independence both proclaims and rests upon a Christian worldview. Most Americans are familiar with the Declaration’s stirring affirmation of natural rights. But where do the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” come from? The document is clear: All men have these rights because they are so “endowed by their Creator.” America grounded her claim to independence in the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” These lofty pronouncements assume a Christian view of human nature. The Incarnation of Christ — God becoming man to heal and redeem man — is the source of personal dignity, and hence natural rights.
Furthermore, the language the Declaration uses to describe God (“Supreme Judge,” “Nature’s God,” etc.) was standard in Reformed Christian confessions of the time. Not even Jefferson’s outsized influence in drafting the document undermines its Christian provenance, since as he himself admitted, it “was intended to be an expression of the American mind,” which was unquestionably Christian. Protestants such as Samuel Chase and Roman Catholics such as Charles Carroll (who signed the Declaration) regularly proclaimed the Christian roots of republican self-government in America.
The Constitution does not contain any overt references to Christianity. But the Constitution’s checks on political predation have a rich history in Christian political thought. Going back to the High Middle Ages, Christendom’s best thinkers recognized that a balance of power was necessary to prevent some social groups from running roughshod over others. Likewise, separation of powers and reserved rights (including freedom of religion) have their roots in public Christianity. Of course, America’s constitutional protections are not solely for Christians. But those protections are undeniably Christian in their source.
Public Christianity is not the same as Christian nationalism. Many advocates of the latter want to use politics to promote a specifically Christian culture. We should instead welcome Christian culture’s influence on politics. We cannot sequester our beliefs about ultimate things. If God became man to save man, there are certain ways we must treat each other, both in private and public. Believers and non-believers alike bear an inviolable dignity. It’s wrongheaded to demand Christians put these beliefs aside when deliberating public policy or selecting their representatives.
Christianity belongs in public. In theory, that truth should cut across ideological lines. In practice, it matters most for conservatives, who must constantly face charges of wanting to impose their faith on others. For example, the ongoing vituperation over Project 2025 includes accusations that conservative advocacy promotes “a disdain for the excluded, exploited, and rejected that hurts the poor first and worst,” and seeks to create a world “where only white, Christian men have power.” This is, of course, absurd. Over-the-top rhetoric from those who tolerate only a politically inert and socially fashionable version of Christianity is predictable, and we do not need to take it very seriously. Yet the question remains: What should religious conservatives do?
While the American Right is currently divided on many important issues, in the case of faith in the public square, the differences are not as stark as they initially appear. Consider the statements of principles offered by the National Conservatives and Freedom Conservatives, respectively. The NatCons explicitly affirm that “public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision.” At the same time, they acknowledge the rights of non-believers to practice their faith and to be free from “religious or ideological coercion.” The FreeCons do not have a specifically religious plank. Yet they boldly defend a universal right to liberty, which “derives from the inseparability of free will from what it means to be human.” Those familiar with the Christian intellectual tradition will recognize the lineage of this idea. Or again, on freedom of conscience, they affirm the right “to say and think what one believes to be true.” These liberties, which we too often take for granted, flow from a moral imagination shaped by Christianity.
Reasonable people can disagree about the limits of public Christianity. What’s obvious is that America as we know it is unthinkable without Christianity’s historical and ongoing influence. Of course, Christians must acknowledge the equal dignity of citizens who affirm our nation’s creed but reject its religious source. Their rights, like ours, depend not on what they believe, but who they are. Human dignity entails moral boundaries. Yet we cannot accede to demands to act as if the truth of Christianity is unrelated to politics. Those who are aghast to learn we believe “freedom is defined by God, not by man” simply do not realize their skepticism extends to the moral foundations of the American experiment itself.
Perhaps in human history there has been a belief system that qualifies as a private religion. But there is not and never has been any such thing as private Christianity. As Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian and prime minister, wrote of Christ’s kingship, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” It is quintessentially American to proclaim God’s dominion over the public square.