Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War

by Miles Smith, Kevin DeYoung (foreword)

“Much of the conversation about a Christian America has been marked by either ideological nonsense or historical superficiality—or worse. In this book Miles Smith offers a corrective that is both timely and deeply thoughtful. In Religion & Republic, Smith argues for a distinctively Protestant understanding that corrects much of the confusion that surrounds so many of the historical assertions made by evangelicals. This is a really important book that arrives at a critical moment in the American experience and will greatly illuminate many contemporary debates.”

– R. ALBERT MOHLERThe Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


In recent years, America’s status as a “Christian nation” has become an incredibly vexed question. This is not simply a debate about America’s present, or even its future–it has become a debate about its past. Some want to rewrite America’s history as having always been highly secular in order to ensure a similar future; others seek to reframe the American founding as a continuation of medieval Christendom in the hopes of reviving America’s religious identity today.

In this book, Miles Smith offers a fresh historical reading of America’s status as a Christian nation in the Early Republic era. Defined neither by secularism nor Christendom, America was instead marked by “Christian institutionalism.” Christianity–and Protestantism specifically–was always baked into the American republic’s diplomatic, educational, judicial, and legislative regimes and institutional Christianity in state apparatuses coexisted comfortably with disestablishment from the American Revolution until the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Any productive discussion about America’s religious present or future must first reckon accurately with its past. With close attention to a wide range of sermons, letters, laws, court cases and more, Religion & Republic offers just such a reckoning.

Genres: History, Religion, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Cultural, Church History

344 pages, Paperback

Published May 20, 2024

Reviews

[Miles Smith]

I mean, I wrote it, so…

[Drew Norwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Religion & Republic presents a timely and forceful thesis: that "the United States Constition's disestablishment did not secularize society, nor did it remove institutional Christianity from the civic, state, educational, or political spheres." I hope this book gains a wide readership as it would certainly aid current debates about the relation between religion and politics in American life. Religion and Republic, at least in my reading, contributes to the discussion in two main ways: (1) as a constructive/affirmative argument for Christian institutions and (2) as a rejection/correction to a common error in the church and state discussions.

First, as to case for Christian institutions: the Early Republic (defined as 1790 to 1860) was committed to what Miles Smith terms to be "Christian instutitonalism." This means that early Americans favored a formal "disestablishment while simultaneously protecting and even perpetuating institutional . . . Christianity through federal and state courts, state colleges and institutions, state legislatures, and executive proclamations from governors and presidents, and through state cooperation with religious institutions and Protestant divines." To prove this argument, the book has chapters covering legislation (state-established churches, religious qualifications for office, laws protecting and favoring Christianity, Sabbath laws, etc.), jurisprudence and court proceedings (Christianity as part of the common law, blasphemy prosecutions, appeals to natural law and higher law, sermonizing in opinions, etc.), discussion over Sabbaths laws, the internatinoal relations and foreign policy (America's self-conception and mission), policy towards and relations with Native Americans (cooperative efforts between Christian missions and Fedreal government), and Education (state colleges and their acceptance of Chstiainity as fundamentals to public education in the Earyl Republic).

Second, as to the polemical aspect of the book: Smith dispels the myth of secularism as a goal or outcome of the Early Republic. The "notion that disestablishment created a secular order is a distinctly mid-twentieth century creation." The "secular America" narrative, Smith shows, stems from a partial truth, which is that Jefferson championed an minority position which sought to drive a wedge between institutional religion and politics. Whereas most politicians of his day, (including but not limited to the Fedrealists), explicitly and repeatedly affirmed disestablishment while simulatenotusly endorsing "religious seriousness in general," Jefferson's views were more extreme. The Jeffersonian vision (his "extreme disestablishmentarianism"), which was given a prominent voice after 1800 with Jefferson's ascent to the Presidency, is often taken as the norm. But this is a serious mistake and Smith demonstrates, from a historical perspective, just why that's so.

Debates in this area require careful use of words and a historical perspective, and that is exactly what Smith brings to the table. For example, what does it mean to promote disestablishment but also to favor protection and preservation of Protestant Christianity in our society? What does it mean to affirm everyone’s right to be irreligious but not necessarily the right to be anti-religious? What does it looks like to affirm a separation of church and state while demanding that both work to mainten the moral order? These types of questions may seem contradictory to many nowadays, but our history shows how these concepts fit smoothly into place, and that between them, as Smith argues, there isn’t even a need for “reconciliation.”

Two minor quibbles. First, in speaking of “institutions,”broadly, there is a danger that the particularity of each institution can be overlooked, and I feel that this was especially true here for the role of the law. This comes out in the Sabbath and Courts chapters and in discussing sectarian debates. These issues go beyond the scope of the book, but in skimming over the connection between a nation and its law, there were a few loose ends and unresolved questions.

Second, a few of the chapters feel a bit too episodic. For example the Sabbath chapter focuses almost exclusively on the fight over the Postal Service and delivery of mail on Sundays, even though there were numerous other areas in which Sabbath discussions/litigation arose. This chapter, as well as others such as the "World" and "Indian" chapters, didn't have a strong overarching argument that connected the specific examples back to a larger picture.

[Jeremy]

Read DeYoung's foreword here.

Review by Brad Birzer. Tommy Kidd interviews Miles here. Reviews in Providence Magazine and WORLD . Dan Williams interview at Current. Video of Miles on the ISI podcast. Check out Miles's conversation on the Mortification of Spin.

[Jake Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am glad to finally finish this after the semester completed. I found this an interesting and informative read. I was introduced to some figures in American history that I was unfamiliar with. Miles provides a lot of helpful context and primary sources. I would pushback at times the way baptist and other groups can be portrayed in light of the Episcopalians. But all of us have a little bias!

[Michael Wilson]

This is one of those wrecking ball kind of books. It's a miracle what happens when you don't rely on Thomas Jefferson and secondary sources but on a wide array of primary sources.

Smith is an impressive historian whose knowledge is not limited to one niche area.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A helpful contribution to the Christian Nationalist discourse. The book makes the case that America did not have an established church yet maintained an explicitly Protestant Christian identity in the founding years through the civil war. This was done not by having an established state church but through institutions.

"Christian institutionalism" as Smith terms it, is a way to describe how Americans maintained Christian precepts in various social and political institutions without subordinating the people to an established church. Using this definition, I can see how America self-identified as a "Christian nation" while not being a theocracy with an established church.

While it seems like we are a long way from that reality, this book was helped me see the value of investing in explicitly Christian institutions in the local and state levels. The primary institution being the church, but also focusing on the great need for Christians to invest in explicitly Christian institutions for the purposes of education, arts and sciences, and even politics. Christians in the early Republic did this and saw no need to advocate for a theocracy nor give in to the secularizing forces in the culture. Without losing sight of our primary mission as a church, Christian institutionalism is one way Christians can strive to preserve the elements of Christianity that promote human flourishing in our culture.

[Scott Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a page-turner. I don’t typically leave reviews, but I found this book particularly helpful in our current climate. In a day when America’s founding is not only a point of contention but one of revision, this book helpfully adds needed balance to the discussion.

Smith argues that America’s founding was one of disestablishment, yet it is still profoundly Christian. However, the desire for and implementation of disestablishment does not mean secularism. America was still profoundly Protestant and Christian.

If it stands under future scrutiny, this thesis will aid the discussion of Christian nationalism versus secularism. If Smith is correct, maybe there can be a helpful avoidance of both extremes. Perhaps we can learn from our history, which is very close to home.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendously helpful. A convincing overview/history of the relation between church/state in America from the founding to the Civil War. Smith defines this relationship as a “Christian Institutionalism,” claiming that while there was indeed no established national religion, America was founded with a Protestant Christian devotion underpinning all of its institutions.

[Anthony Peebler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t typically offer reviews on here, but since I appear to be the first to rate the book, I’ll offer a few thoughts:

Religion & Republic offers a historically grounded view of the relationship between religion and public institutions in the early republic. Dr. Smith avoids both the erroneous claims of Christian nationalism in its various forms and the myth of a secular founding. Though the constitution guaranteed a separation of church and state, and states shedded their official religious establishments during this time, Smith demonstrates that Americans broadly supported a Protestant moral framework as the basis for good governance.

Though largely avoiding any sectarian distinctives in government, Americans governed as Protestants and saw themselves as a Christian nation without adopting a state religion. American legislators and judges fulfilled their duties within a decidedly Protestant worldview, which held restrictions on sabbath breaking and blasphemy in no contradiction with the constitution. Americans viewed their secular yet Protestant republic as an example of Christian liberty to the world, while missionaries working among Native Americans enjoyed a close relationship with the US government and educators championed public universities as institutions well suited for the education of a Christian society.

While deists and freethinkers (most notably Thomas Jefferson) tried to chip away at the American Protestant order, “Christian institutionalism” remained strong in the United States for a century after the end of this period. This book is well researched and offers a rigorous engagement with previous historiography for academic readers while remaining accessible to Protestants seeking a deeper understanding of church and US history. Religion & Republic is a timely contribution to the debate over church and state, and I hope Davenant Press will publish similar works in the future.

[Stephen Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful and meticulously documented corrective to the pervasively Jeffersonian narrative regarding church and state in the early years of the republic, while also providing a account of this era that is far more nuanced and historically honest than what passes for *gestures broadly* “Christian nationalism” in today’s conversations. Protestantism is indeed, sometimes for the worst but very often for the better (and such is the work of the Church throughout history), housed deep in the marrow of the American experiment. We become impoverished when we try to over-distance ourselves from this fact in order to avoid the discomfort of its more extreme (and historically deleterious) proponents.

[Jack Schutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Modern Protestants would do well to understand that, while they can’t dial back the clock to the early republic, they can engage their neighbors by being healthy and responsible stewards of healthy and responsible Christian institutions at the local, municipal, and state levels—and in the arts and sciences, as well as in politics—because this is what America’s character as a Christian nation has always meant. Too often, evangelicals in the 20th century prioritized the individual or an idealized nation with no thought whatsoever for the life of intermediate institutions—civil, political, and religious—that sustain human civilization. In order to protect Christianity, evangelical Protestants in the 21st century can start by taking institutions seriously, and they don’t have to start with a historical tabula rasa. Protestants in the early republic believed in the importance of maintaining Christianity in civil and social institutions. For that reason alone, they deserve our attention, if not our respect.”

[Brady Graves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Formal review in process of publication

[Eddie Kaiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening read about the overwhelming influence of Protestantism in the early republic. Smith argues that while favoring disestablishment, early America was nevertheless self-consciously Protestant, practicing what he calls a kind of “Christian institutionalism.” While I disagree with some of his takes on CN, the history contained here is essential to that conversation. The chapters on Sabbath laws and education were especially insightful.

[Elijah Echols · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent discussion of America's early republic commitment to so-called "Christian institutionalism." The primary source work here is especially clear-sighted and expansive. There's a call here to think more carefully about institutions, as opposed to individuals or nations, and their role in providing the atmosphere in which we breath.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter of this book is a case study of various ways in which Americans in the Early Republic displayed a Christian (and largely Protestant) consensus through various civic institutions including universities, missionaries to the tribes, and Post offices, despite official disestablishment, and explores the different arguments surrounding each. These in sum illustrate what Dr. Smith calls institutionalism at work, cutting across modern conceptions of church-state relationships.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trust. Trust is in short supply these days. Sources that many of us used to trust like the media, public health officials, educators – have left us wanting. How many times over the last few years have I said, “I don’t know who to believe any more”? Too many. Academia (especially) has not been immune to this mistrust as articles and books written by “intellectuals” are more likely to be politically-motivated missives than sincere attempts to pursue and communicate the truth. It seems that everything I read is through a filter of skepticism and caution. Of course, this includes writings on cultural and historical issues like the true nature of our nation’s founding, the influence of Christianity on that founding, and, more recently, the hubbub over Christian nationalism. Over the years, I’ve read many books and articles about Christianity and America. Authors have contended on one side that except for a sprinkling of Deistic influence, this nation rests on the tenants of the Christian faith, while the other side contends that the Enlightenment allowed the new nation to shed the shackles of Christian superstition. Which one is it?

Enter Miles Smith and his new book, Religion & Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War. I knew Miles when he worked at Regent University. I found him to be a brilliant scholar, deliberate and thoughtful in his approach to history, extremely well-read (check his Goodreads for proof!), and not inclined to polemics, but committed to conveying an accurate historical narrative. These traits are rare these days, so when I found his book, I was confident that I would finally find some unvarnished clarity on the topic. What a relief!

In this new books, Miles argues that at the American Founding and in the years leading up to the Civil War, the Early Republic was indeed Christian in character: “The American Revolution wasn’t deistic or even Lockean, and it certainly wasn’t secular. It was a conservative revolution led by generally Protestant Anglophone North Americans….Christianity was baked into the American republic’s diplomatic, educational, judicial, and legislative regimes, and institutional Christianity in states’ apparatuses coexisted comfortably with a disestablishment order” (p. xxiii). Miles points out that disestablishment for the vast majority of Americans did not mean that the church or the Christian faith should be banned from public life; Miles writes: “Disestablishment disconnected church and state, but it did not separate them from their mutual purpose of creating and upholding a moral order committed to historically Christian conceptions of virtue” (p. 2). I learned that there were two fundamental views on church and state relations in the Early Republic. The one led by Jefferson and Madison and implemented in Virginia sought to remove institutional religion’s influence. The other view was that disestablishment was good – not because it barred Christian influence in the public square – but because it allowed Christianity to thrive: “Disestablishment did not assign the church to a merely spiritual role in society but elevated it above political meddling. Disestablishment was the apotheosis of a Christian society, not its termination” (p. 4). In my understanding of history, I thought that the former Jeffersonian position was dominant, but Miles provides ample evidence that it was in the minority. Jeffersonian disestablishment (“separation of church and state”) was not an organic outgrowth of the Early Republic as popular history would have us believe, but an anomaly that sought to change a nation to something that was not in its DNA. Miles dedicates an entire chapter to Jefferson; a fascinating read.

Miles has chapters on the Christian influence on legislation, the courts, the Early Republic’s relations with other countries, and education. The chapter on Indian relations was most enlightening and a welcome addition to this work. The book’s extensive footnotes are a testament to Miles’ commitment to the historical record along with over 375 cited works. As an historian, Miles trusts the historical record and uses it to support his positions. I have no doubt that if the historical record did not support his positions, he would state as much. I do not doubt his intellectual integrity and his commitment to his craft.

If there is one point of slight disagreement I have with Miles is his surrender to the Left’s pressure to discredit the term “Christian nationalism.” While I understand the controversy and passionate debate over the topic, that doesn’t mean that Christians have to give up on it so quickly. Miles rightly notes that the term begs for a clear definition: “Because of this confusion, I fear the term has become essentially meaningless, even for those who wish to own it in good faith, and so I feel it should be set aside by both historians and ministers alike.” While he concedes the point, he remains respectful: “I do not say this dismissively – I have been reluctant to dismiss the term entirely….” (p. xvii). I appreciate this sentiment, but too often an idea or concept is abandoned because the Left demonizes it, forbids debate, and those who remain surrender because “it’s just not worth it.” Maybe Christian nationalism is not a hill to die on; as a matter of fact, Miles advocates for perhaps a more appropriate term, “Christian institutionalism.” But Christians should abandon debate when the idea has run its course, not because MSNBC is using it to create a false narrative about Christians scheming to rule the country with an iron cross.

I strongly urge my fellow believers (and even those who are not, but have an open-mind) to read this book. “Religion & Republic” is a trustworthy work that offers an honest look at our nation’s founding. Thank you, Miles, for writing it.

[Jake Wilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and incredibly sourced. The author incorporates quotes smoothly and undeniably shows the influence of Christianity in the Early Republic Era. I would have liked to have more research on how disestablishment worked itself out in federal/ state governments in the later republic, but otherwise a fantastic book so needed right now.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes a basic point that really ought to be noncontroversial. The United States of America was never officially a Christian nation. And yet, from the founding through to the Civil War, it was a thoroughly Christian nation, both in its government and in its populace.

Its courts enforced natural law. Its public universities hired clerics and pastors to inculcate Christian values. Its laws provided for free exercise of religion--which is not to say they favored or even countenanced atheism. The two couldn't be more polar. Its leaders recognized the need for a religious and moral people in order for the republican experiment to succeed.

These are just a few of the ways Smith's thesis is obviously correct. Some do not like the implications for today, but that doesn't change the history.

I gave the book three stars because Smith isn't a great writer, and also the book could desperately use some editing and proofreading. Yet it is a helpful, even important, book, one that will increase your appreciation for our nation's founders and forefathers and also your appreciation for the ways in which we as a people have sought to be that shining city on a hill.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith makes the case that America in the early Republic era was a Christian nation, not because it explicitly declared itself to be, but because Christian belief and practice were so intertwined in American institutions that it could not help but be a Christian nation.

I gained a lot of insight from this book about the nature of American institutions during the early Republic era (1790-1860). As Smith deacribes the relationship between Christianity and the new nation, it seems like Protestant Christianity was like the water that everyone swam in - virtually everyone knew it and accepted it. This made America Christian, not de jure, but de facto.

Minor quibble: this book needs section headings within each chapter.

[JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid work that effectively shows Christianity’s (& especially Christian institution’s) influence on the early republic. Smith’s shortcoming is the failure to convincingly articulate why his definition of Christian institutionalism isn’t just a variant of secularism. In some ways I think Smith was too concerned with contemporary (& often times painfully thin) debates which might date this work.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good study of a very-specific topic within one period of American history. Smith marshals strong evidence from primary sources for his case, though I would have preferred a more narrative approach. Worth reading a wrestling with.

Video review here: https://youtu.be/4j_X9FdBGZ0

[Melissa]

WSJ

[Charles Sager · Rating 5 out of 5]

alot to chew on here. Getting a physical copy