The Merger of Church and State: How Evangelical History Shapes Today

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Every Fourth of July, we celebrate freedom. We wave flags, gather with family, watch fireworks, and remember the ideals this country was founded upon. This year, though, I've found myself thinking less about fireworks and more about sixteen words tucked into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Those sixteen words contain two remarkable ideas. First, the government cannot establish a state religion. Second, it cannot prevent people from practicing the religion of their choice, or choosing no religion at all.

Together, these principles have created something extraordinary: a society where faith is free because it isn't controlled by the government.

Lately, however, those principles have come under increasing pressure.

Why This Matters Right Now

In recent months, several developments have signaled a growing movement to increase Christianity's influence in government and public life. 

Proposals have been made to repeal the Johnson Amendment, allowing churches to openly endorse political candidates. Advisory commissions have recommended expanding government support for Christian organizations while increasing religious exemptions from certain public policies. At the same time, states like Texas have approved curriculum changes that incorporate mandatory Bible instruction into public schools. 

None of these developments, taken individually, create a theocracy. 

I also don't believe that most evangelicals are trying to create something resembling The Handmaid's Tale. 

America is far too diverse, independent, and pluralistic for that kind of outcome. 

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention. 

Many Christians sincerely believe they're simply trying to restore America's Christian heritage. On the surface, that may sound harmless. Yet when "restoring Christian values" begins to mean using government power to privilege one religious tradition over others, or to restrict the rights of those who believe differently, we've crossed into something very different. 

To understand why this movement has become so influential, we need to understand a bit of American history.

The Story We Tell Ourselves 

Many of us grew up hearing that America was founded as a Christian nation by deeply devout believers who came seeking religious freedom. 

Like most historical myths, there's a grain of truth there, but it's far more complicated than that. 

Some of the Founding Fathers were Christians. Others, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were better described as Deists. They believed in a Creator but not necessarily in a God who intervenes miraculously in human affairs. While they generally valued religion's role in shaping a moral society, they were equally committed to preventing any one religion from controlling the government. 

That's precisely why the First Amendment exists. The founders weren't trying to eliminate religion from public life. They were trying to protect both religion and government from corrupting one another.

The Pilgrims Weren't Who We Imagine

Then there are the Pilgrims. 

We've inherited a romantic version of their story: faithful Christians fleeing persecution so they could build a land of religious liberty. 

The historical reality is more complicated. 

The Puritans came to America largely because they wanted the freedom to establish a much stricter form of Christianity than existed in England. Once here, they didn't create a society where everyone could worship as they pleased. In many colonies, church attendance was mandatory. Religious dissenters, including Quakers, were fined, imprisoned, whipped, and even executed. 

This wasn't religious pluralism. 

It was religious control. 

That history matters because many modern Christians look back at early America as an ideal without fully understanding what that ideal actually looked like.

The Legacy of Puritanism

I believe there's something deeply American about Christian fundamentalism. 

The Puritans saw themselves as God's chosen people, tasked with building a "city upon a hill" that would shine as an example to the world. They believed America had a divine mission. 

That language never really disappeared. 

Many strands of modern evangelicalism have inherited that same sense of divine chosenness: that America has a unique covenant with God and that Christians are responsible for reclaiming the nation. 

Puritanism was deeply concerned with purity: religious purity, moral purity, sexual purity, and social purity. 

If you grew up in evangelical churches, especially during the purity culture movement, you probably recognize some of those themes. 

In many ways, modern evangelicalism is less a new movement than a continuation of this much older American tradition.

Understanding Christian Nationalism

This brings us to what many scholars call Christian nationalism. 

Christian nationalism isn't simply loving your country or being a Christian. 

It's the belief that Christianity and national identity should be merged and that government should actively promote Christianity and shape public policy according to one particular interpretation of the Christian faith. 

The movement gained significant political momentum during the late 1970s and early 1980s through organizations like the Moral Majority and the Religious Right. Their goal was to mobilize evangelical Christians into a powerful political voting bloc that could influence elections and public policy. 

Over time, this evolved into today's broader culture wars, where political identity and religious identity have become deeply intertwined. 

The result is a growing temptation to view political victory as a spiritual mandate.

When Faith Seeks Power

History offers a consistent warning. Whenever Christianity has sought political power rather than faithful witness, it has almost always compromised the teachings of Jesus. 

Jesus never instructed his followers to seize governments. 

He never called us to legislate the Kingdom of God into existence. 

Instead, he invited people into lives marked by love, humility, justice, mercy, compassion, and radical hospitality. 

The earliest Christians transformed the Roman Empire not because they controlled Caesar's throne, but because they embodied a radically different way of living together. 

That's still our calling today.

A Better Way Forward

I don't believe the future of Christianity depends on winning elections or dominating public institutions. 

I believe it depends on whether we actually live like Jesus. 

That means defending religious freedom for everyone, not only for Christians. 

It means protecting the separation of church and state, not because faith is unimportant, but because genuine faith cannot be coerced. 

And it means resisting every temptation to confuse the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of this world. 

Our calling isn't to create a Christian nation. 

Our calling is to become Christlike people. 

Those are not the same thing. 

As followers of Jesus, we should never fear a society where everyone has the freedom to believe differently. In fact, that's precisely the kind of freedom that allows authentic faith to flourish. 

Perhaps that's one of the greatest gifts the First Amendment has ever given us.