This post is a Op-Ed that appeared in the Meadville Tribune (May 11, 2026), the first of several that I hope to write addressing the current state of religion in our country. Reposting them here allows me to add some footnotes and links, and to share them with blog readers who do not subscribe to the Tribune.
Our current partisan divide includes conflicting views about the place of Christianity in this country. Some people believe Christianity is central to our national identity, while others welcome openness to religious difference. Like many current issues, this is nothing new. From its inception, our country has balanced a tension between seeing America as a Christian nation or a religiously plural society.1
Among our earliest settlers were Puritans seeking religious freedom. Before landing in New England in 1630, Puritan leader John Winthrop called those pilgrims to follow God so closely that they would become “a city on a hill” — an example to all the world of Christian faithfulness. Some people cite Puritans’ intention in claiming that we were founded as a Christian nation.
However, when the Puritans landed, this territory was already occupied by over 500 different indigenous societies with richly diverse spiritual practices. Other religions soon followed. Scholars estimate that as many as 30% of enslaved Africans practiced Islam, and European immigrants brought Judaism and various forms of Christianity. By the end of the seventeenth century, the colonies boasted a rich religious mix, although Protestant Christians remained dominant in both number and influence.
A century later, when leaders crafted our founding documents, they ensured religious diversity with two clauses in the Constitution’s First Amendment: that Congress would neither establish a state religion nor prohibit the free exercise of religion.
Over time, religious practice moved into the private sphere and became less overt in public, leading Rev. Richard John Neuhaus to write in 1984 about The Naked Public Square. Neuhaus and others who consider the U.S. a Christian nation fear that this de-centering of their religion signals our decline and ushers in an amoral secular culture.
However, most religions and many non-religious people share morals related to compassion, honesty, and fairness, and are opposed to murder and theft. In his book Good Without God, Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein notes that he agrees with most of the Ten Commandments out of respect for other people, not because he fears God’s punishment. We need not share the same beliefs to arrive at a common moral foundation on which to establish societal norms.
Despite the increased visibility of other religions, Christian dominance does not seem to be in jeopardy. The country has yet to elect a non-Christian president, and as recently as 2012, more people would vote for a gay or lesbian presidential candidate (68%) than for a Muslim (58%) or an atheist (54%). The U.S. Senate is 82% Christian and the House of Representatives is 84% Christian, far higher percentages than the current U.S. population, which a 2023 Pew Research study found to be 62%.
While Christianity remains dominant, efforts to mandate Bible classes and display the Ten Commandments in public schools are likely in response to the decline in religious affiliation. Lower courts have allowed many of these laws to take effect, and some are likely to end up at the Supreme Court, as have religious freedom cases over the years.
As we celebrate our 250th year as a nation, the place of religion remains contentious. But our founders chose that tension over imposing one interpretation of Christian beliefs on Americans that do not share them, Christians and non-Christians alike.
- Many ideas in this column are from William Hutchison’s book Religious Pluralism in America: The Contentious History of a Founding Ideal, which I used as the primary text when teaching Religion in American Life at Allegheny College.