I like.
Maybe they would include Masonic rituals as a way of giving ceremony to a Deist position? (This would really conjure up Masonic conspiracy theories...)
How would you then address the issues of Church and State?
I was thinking of beginning it in a relatively benign atmosphere where nobody thinks it matters much. The Founding Fathers for some reason (and that's the thing I can't quite see) decide that a proper state needs an established Church and, because they are enlightened people, decide it needs to be a big-tent affair that can cover everyone. thus, the Church of America is Enlightenment Deist, mild-mannered and definitely Masonic-flavoured. Initially, it's something almost all members of the upper classes can agree on (the dissenters are a handful of Catholics and hardcore atheists). The Catholic church eventually ends up established in which state was it, Maryland?
The Church of America offers college opportunites for young men of talents, it provides funds for churchbuilding in frontier areas and develops the ceremonial of civic religion, with a trademark Palladian architecture and the symbol of the tetragrammaton and the eye as its distinguishing features. It encourages a relatively heterodox, quietist, private form of religion. Nobody is compelled to attend services or tithe. But of course, if you hold office, you must be a member since their ceremonies are used to administer oaths, open legislative sessions and on occasions of state.
The crunch comes with the rise of charismatic religious movements and the arrival of upwardly mobile careerists in Washington. The upper classes begin to use church membership as a defense to exclude the uncouth and uneducated. CofA preachers are all college graduates with a solid grounding in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and classical history. Their flock is taught that this is how it should be - the educated leading the uneducated. When counties and states begin sending uneducated boors to the legislatures and Congress, well, at some point you have to draw the line. Someione who believes something as offensive as that Catholics go to Hell surely can not be properly considered a member of the Chiurch of America? Plus, his departure opens a Congress seat for a much more suitable candidate, Harvard graduate, did I mention?
In the first half of the 19th century, an America emerges where legislators, governors, judges, sheriffs and military and naval officers must be CofA. Colleges offer recognised degrees only if they are CofA. You can attend if you aren't, but you can't teach or graduate - you get a Certificate of Attendance. A noisy minority is unhappy with this, but these will be taught proper Enlightenment values, like it or not.