Sundays Excepted: The Christian nation thesis goes to the heart of how we understand the relationship between church and state.
Sundays Excepted
Jaynie Randall, 59 Ala. L. Rev. 507 (2008)
In the recent debates over the permissibility of religious displays in public courthouses, proponents of these displays have revived historical arguments that America is a Christian nation and that the Constitution is a Christian text. Throughout the nineteenth century, courts considered Christianity part of the common law. The long debate over the Christian origins of the Constitution led to the National Reform Association’s campaign in the latter half of the nineteenth century for a constitutional amendment to declare the United States a Christian nation. In 1892, Justice Brewer, writing for a unanimous court, declared that “this is a Christian nation.” The Christian nation thesis goes to the heart of how we understand the relationship between church and state. Originalist claims about the Constitution’s Framers on this issue feature largely in contemporary debates about church-state relations.