Older views of church and state do not fit modern American binaries regarding their missions.
Miles Smith
Musings on history, politics, religion, and all the other things we take too seriously in the 21st Century.
Confusion and Ambiguity: Constitution and Religion in The Early Republic
The constitutional settlement was never universally celebrated or even understood.
John Girardeau and the Oneness of the Race
“We fully recognize now, the unity and brotherhood of all believers in Christ Jesus—a unity and brotherhood which is not affected by distinctions of race, nationality, sex, culture, or civil status.”
Disestablished But Not Disconnected: Church, Society, and State in the Early Republic
Disestablishment in the newly-independent United States severed the institutional interdependence between the state and the visible church. Virginia’s disestablishment in the 1780s triggered a set of similar laws passed throughout the Early National Period....
Political Economy of the Bible v. Christian Nationalism
On Thanksgiving Day, 1837, Robert Hamilton Bishop--Presbyterian minister and president of Miami University—addressed the gathered townspeople of Oxford, Ohio in the First Presbyterian Church. He took as his theme natural gifts in the form of bountiful harvests, the...
The Origins of the Black Protestant Tradition in America
The Black Protestant tradition’s prevalence in 19th century America deserves rediscovery
The Quintessential Protestantism of “God Save the King”
On the origins of the British national anthem.
Protestant Social Teaching and the American Republic
In a 2009 article for Journal of Markets and Morality Stephen Grabill posited that although Protestant social thought was “a vibrant field” that was “ever expanding and alert to emerging issues,” it nonetheless lacked fundamental definition, systematic rigor, and...
The Disestablished Establishment: morality and nation in 1849
The First Amendment and the push for disestablishment from the 1780s to the Jacksonian Era redefined the history of the religion and more particularly Christianity in Protestant North America. Disestablishment seemingly separated American Christianity from its...
Latter Day Saints, Religious Liberty, and the Problem of Christian America in the Early Republic
Since the promulgation of the United States’ Constitution in 1788, Protestants across denominational lines largely supported disestablishment and the Constitution’s provision for religious liberty in Article I. Last week I noted that there was in the Early Republic...