2026 Update: In this early episode of Spiritual Geography, I explore the complicated religious history behind the founding of the United States — and why the architects of the Constitution intentionally separated church and state.
The colonies were filled with Christians who deeply disagreed with one another: Puritans, Catholics, Quakers, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, and many more. Those disagreements often led to exclusion, discrimination, and conflict. The founders understood that if the government had the power to define “true Christianity,” it would inevitably favor some believers while excluding others.
But this episode goes beyond history and politics. It asks deeper spiritual questions:
Can any person fully know the Infinite?
What happens when certainty becomes coercion?
How do we live together with humility and grace when our beliefs differ?
At its heart, this conversation is about spiritual diversity, love, and the recognition that sincere faith can take many forms.
Because maybe the goal isn’t forcing uniformity. Maybe the goal is learning how to live together with integrity, freedom, and compassion.
The Europeans in the colonial era who landed on the shores of what is now the United States often came to find a place where they could practice their religion without interference from the government.
The Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and the Puritans who followed were separatists from their faith and were fleeing religious persecution.
I live in Maryland. The land that became Maryland was colonized in 1634 as a haven for Roman Catholics who were being persecuted in England.
Roger Williams got kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for not following the religious beliefs codified into their charter. He founded Rhode Island in 1636.
There were lots of European settlers who considered themselves “Christian.” They were Quakers, Church of England, Catholics, Puritans, and, later, when new offshoots popped up in the mid-1700s, Baptists and Methodists. And many more. They all existed under the umbrella of “Christian.” But the differences between their groups and their beliefs led to power struggles, discrimination, and sometimes bloody fighting between them.
James Madison, known as “The Father of the Constitution” wrote in 1785: “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?”
What he’s saying here is that if you want to say Christians are in and everybody else is out, that same kind of argument can be “this type of Christian is in and all other types of Christian are out.” Madison nailed it. By that point in our history there had already been a century and a half of religious quarrels, mostly between different types of Christians. So these brilliant thinkers who were the Founding Fathers concluded that a state-sponsored religion was a bad idea.
The Founding Fathers had an opportunity to create a new form of government. And the founding documents of our nation are quite clear about the separation of church and state. The first amendment says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
It’s not as if the men (and they were men) who were at the Constitutional Convention would have even agreed on what it meant to be a Christian. Many were Deists, following Enlightenment thinkers and believing that, although God may have created the world, God was no longer involved in it. Contrast that with the predestination theory of Calvinists who believed that God already picked those who would be saved and there was nothing we could do about it.
Many of the Founding Fathers may have considered themselves Christian, but what each meant by that was undoubtedly vastly different.
And it’s not as if Christianity has been on a smooth course of universal agreement ever since. New factions arise all the time. The Methodists split in 1845 over slavery, creating a Methodist Episcopal Church South distinction. And just this year (2024) the United Methodist Church has split over gay marriage and inclusion of LGBTQ+ people as Clery. So now there’s a Global Methodist Church.
My dad grew up in the 1930s and 1940s in a little town where the Catholics didn’t interact with the Presbyterians. My mother’s father, a very devout Finnish Lutheran, was opposed to their marriage because my dad was a hedonistic Presbyterian who played cards. My mom didn’t even know what the colors and the suits meant in a deck of playing cards when they got married.
So whose idea of Christianity would prevail were we to consider the U.S. a Christian nation? Which it isn’t, but if it was ….
Would there be some sort of litmus test to see if someone should be able to call themselves a Christian? Or would we start saying some people should be labeled CINOS - Christian in name only?
Would part of the litmus test be that you have to oppose gay marriage? What about the millions of Christians who support gay marriage? Are they not really Christians?
What about views about abortion? Or evolution? Or any number of scientific principles?
Whose idea of Christianity prevails?
And what do you do about the very real faith of the people who believe differently?
Here’s another quote from James Madison: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”
In my Spiritual Geography workshops, I often say that it doesn’t matter how long you have sat next to someone in the same pew on Sunday mornings. If you look beneath the surface, your beliefs will be different. And you often don’t have to look very far below.
Everyone’s belief systems are different, in one way or another, even if you label yourself the same thing.
That is what I find most fascinating about spirituality. We each see the world differently. We each see the Divine differently. We are each not capable of knowing all there is to know about the Infinite. No one can.
Therefore, no one is capable of knowing with absolute certainty that what we believe is right. So give yourself … and everyone around you … grace. Someone who believes differently than you do may have a deep and abiding spirituality, one that is life-giving to them and to those with whom they interact. More likely than not, their spirituality has as one of its tenets a variant of the Golden Rule, since every major world religion does. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
In this discussion we could paraphrase: If you don’t want religious beliefs that differ from your own forced on you, then don’t force your beliefs on others. Treat others as you wish to be treated.
The European settlers to this country brought countless understandings of the Transcendent. And there are still countless understandings of the Transcendent.
I want to see a country — and a world — where this ideal is supported. All spiritual beliefs are welcome. Everyone has the opportunity to explore and expand in their understanding of the Divine.
This would be a world that magnifies love and acceptance.
A more perfect union indeed.
Joni Miller is a writer, researcher, spiritual coach, and speaker who uses her knowledge, education, and love of all things spiritual to help spiritual wanderers find a place they can call home, navigating by the light of Love. www.SpiritualGeography.net
