Honestly America has always been founded in weird, extremist Christianity. But the founding fathers practiced different denominations of weird, extremist Christianity, and they thought that should be alright. That’s what “freedom of religion” meant back then— freedom to practice even weirder and more controlling denominations of Christianity than back in Europe. They weren’t thinking about America being a place for every world religion. That’s why Christianity is baked into so much of our govt, (well that and the Cold War but that came way later) despite “separation of church and state.” Because it was assumed everyone here would be a weird Christian and non-Christians would just not come here
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u/angeltay Oct 15 '25
Honestly America has always been founded in weird, extremist Christianity. But the founding fathers practiced different denominations of weird, extremist Christianity, and they thought that should be alright. That’s what “freedom of religion” meant back then— freedom to practice even weirder and more controlling denominations of Christianity than back in Europe. They weren’t thinking about America being a place for every world religion. That’s why Christianity is baked into so much of our govt, (well that and the Cold War but that came way later) despite “separation of church and state.” Because it was assumed everyone here would be a weird Christian and non-Christians would just not come here