WI America was constitutionally a "Christian Nation"

Narnia

Banned
What do you think America would be like if instead of the separation of church and state the founding fathers specifically stated that the United States of America was a Christian nation in the Constitution?

This could be interpreted very differently by people over the ages, either with a highly strict interpretation or with a very relaxed one depending on how things go in the courts. It does not be any means automatically make America into a theocracy or anything like that either although it could perhaps go that way.
 

NothingNow

Banned
What do you think America would be like if instead of the separation of church and state the founding fathers specifically stated that the United States of America was a Christian nation in the Constitution?

Considering that a good portion of the writers were Deists (and the English language text of the Treaty of Tripoli, written in their time would directly contest that view of the US,) I'd love to see how you managed to make that happen.
Then we can talk about the implications of it.
 
Native Americans, mostly being non-Christian at the nation's inception, would be treated even worse. The boarding schools would probably be worse and last until everyone was assimilated. Sacred sites would be desecrated like happened often in OTL but they wouldn't be restored.

A state church might eventually be adopted after some alternate Great Awakening with crackdowns on nonconformists.

In the 20th century, a giant backlash against the Church would occur and the US might become very leftist.
 
Could the U.S afford to do that at the time, wouldn't Pennslyvannia and possibly other states object, as it would be highly divisive and go against their laws. How do we have a "christian nation" where Protestants and Catholics are given presumably equal status, given that you would and did have tensions at the time.
 

Narnia

Banned
Considering that a good portion of the writers were Deists (and the English language text of the Treaty of Tripoli, written in their time would directly contest that view of the US,) I'd love to see how you managed to make that happen.
Then we can talk about the implications of it.

Let's just say that they had some random positive experiences with organized religion throughout their lives causing them to value organized religion more, so they decided to write it into the constitution, or if that doesn't work let's say that they got drunk before writing the constitution.
 
Impossible. Besides the aforementioned fact that the majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were not strictly "Christian," what kind of Christian nation could the delegates have possibly agreed upon that would have satisfied all thirteen states? You're forgetting that many of the original colinies were founded as homes to followers of a particular sect of Christianity, and the whole point of a federal separation of Church and State was to protect the various sects from persecution.
 
Instead of the first admendment prohibiting the establishment of religion it would prevent the establishment of a denomination.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Oddly enough, I think the United States eould turn out to be much less religious yhan it is IOTL. Separation of church and state is the best thing that ever happened to religion.
 
What do you think America would be like if instead of the separation of church and state the founding fathers specifically stated that the United States of America was a Christian nation in the Constitution?

This could be interpreted very differently by people over the ages, either with a highly strict interpretation or with a very relaxed one depending on how things go in the courts. It does not be any means automatically make America into a theocracy or anything like that either although it could perhaps go that way.

Not terribly likely, TBH: Even some of the Southerners, especially Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and Monroe included(if you count Virginia being part of the South) even in those days)weren't terribly religious, let alone many of the Northerners.

It COULD happen, but it would require a different Revolution, I think. But after that, I believe it could go in one of two directions: you'd either have a Northern-dominated nation focused on building a better society for everyone under the benevolent guidance of the churches, or a Southern-dominated one that emphasizes spreading the Gospel, at all costs, to everyone they conquer, whether the conquered like it or not.
 
The Constitutional Convention seems like a non-starter; lots of members were Deists. But you could have one of the several proposed Christian Amendments pass in the second-half of the 19th century. Lincoln was supposedly cordial to the idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Amendment

"We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves and our posterity, and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
 
With the OTL framers of the contitution no way in hell this would ever happen. They knew how many wars had been fought in Europe over which Christian Church people believed in and they didn't want that in America. This would be ASB as best, or one hell of POD that I cant think of that would be pre-1000AD.
 
With the OTL framers of the contitution no way in hell this would ever happen. They knew how many wars had been fought in Europe over which Christian Church people believed in and they didn't want that in America. This would be ASB as best, or one hell of POD that I cant think of that would be pre-1000AD.

Pre-1000 seems a bit extreme. I shouldn't think it'd be too hard, even with a PoD after Columbus' misadventures, to have some Christian nation over there, even if it doesn't bear much semblance to the USA.
 
To have the US or an analog officially a Christian nation from the beginning is plausible, but requires changing the culture of the colonies. I suppose if you replace the Age of Enlightenment with a similar but religious cultural movement, you can make it happen. I think a POD around 1650 would do the trick, or maybe as late as 1700, after the Age of Enlightenment has already been going on for a while, but earlier is better. It would have to be one that doesn't obviously favor one denomination over the others, though. As far as a late 1800s shift, that seems plausible, though I hadn't thought of the possibility before.
One consequence that hasn't been mentioned yet is the immigration policy. I think our Christian nation might be even less reluctant to allow Jewish immigrants, and would be uneasy with Chinese immigrant labor, unless they promise they're temporary or have papers that show they're members of churches, and of course the validity of those papers would be called into question. Don't get me wrong, many people can and will argue that the Christian thing to do would be to let people into the country, no matter who they are, but if that argument isn't assisted by the argument that it's also the American thing to do, I don't think it will get far.
 
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