Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent

By Derek H. Davis

How did the constitutional framers envision the role of religion in American public life? Did they think that the government had the right to advance or support religion and religious activities? Or did they believe that the two realms should remain forever separate? Throughout American history, scholars, Supreme Court justices, and members of the American public have debated these questions. The debate continues to have significance in the present day, especially in regard to public schools, government aid to sectarian education, and the use of public property for religious symbols.
In this book, Derek Hamilton Davis offers the first comprehensive examination of the role of religion in the proceedings, theories, ideas, and goals of the Continental Congress. Those who argue that the United States was founded as a "Christian Nation" have made much of the religiosity of the founders, particularly as it was manifested in the ritual invocations of a clearly Christian God as well as in the adoption of practices such as government-sanctioned days of fasting and thanksgiving, prayers and preaching before legislative bodies, and the appointments of chaplains to the Army. Davis looks at the fifteen-year experience of the Continental Congress (1774-1789) and arrives at a contrary conclusion: namely, that the revolutionaries did not seek to entrench religion in the federal state. Congress's religious activities, he shows, expressed a genuine but often unreflective popular piety. Indeed, the whole point of the revolution was to distinguish society, the people in its sovereign majesty, from its government. A religious people would jealously guard its own sovereignty and the sovereignty of God by preventing republican rulers from pretending to any authority over religion. The idea that a modern nation could be premised on expressly theological foundations, Davis argues, was utterly antithetical to the thinking of most revolutionaries.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195133552
• ISBN13: 9780195133554
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Religion and the Continental Congress... Original Intent

Clearly explained and exhaustively researched, Original Intent reconstructs our country's beginnings: the who's, the how's and the why's. This is no Progressive's view; rather the colorful and complicated truth.

A Time of Transition

Religion and The Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent ((Religion in America Series). By Derek H. Davis. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2000. 309 pp. HardbackProfessor Davis, Director of the Dawson Institute at Baylor University, makes a significant contribution to the historical literature of the Revolutionary - Confederation Period in the area of church-state relations, a subject largely overlooked but nevertheless frequently abused. Much of the writings in this area is shrill: either militantly clamoring for the government to return the nation to its "Christian" roots or ardently asserting the principle of church-state separation. Neither side will be completely happy with this volume; however, its even-handed, objective presentation can be a bridge builder between the warring accomodationists and separationists.Superbly organized, Davis clearly and comprehensively presents how the Continental Congress related itself to religion within the larger secular historical context. He then objectively discusses accomodationist's interpretations of how the Congress interacted with religion in numerous ways before providing an alternative but rational separationist construction. In a few instances the author readily admits the separationist alternative is weak.Davis readily concedes that if the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses was to be based on the record of the Continental Congress it would dramatically favor an accomodationist interpretation. In fact, he states the congressional record "does not readily allow for any other interpretation." However, Davis believes the historical evidence must undergo closer scrutiny. An overarching theme in Davis' study is that the Revolutionary-Confederation era was a transitory period - a period in which not only were revolutionary changes made in government, but also a period in which American attitudes towards church-state relations underwent dramatic change. It was during this era that Americans of different faiths, working together in a common cause, gained respect and acceptance of each other's divergent fundamental religious beliefs .Another aspect of this theme is that this was an era in which the concepts of separation of church and state were being formulated. For instance the Congress, early in the war, endorsed the printing and distribution of Bibles at government expense; however by the end the Confederation period it refused to set aside sections of land in the Northwest Territory for the support of religion.This reflects a changing outlook of the American people, who at the beginning of the conflict with Britain believed, along with the rest of the western world, that a church-state union was essential for the survival of both. However by 1791, contrary to the rest of the western world, that position had radically changed to where it was believed a church-state union was not only detrimental but impossible in a federation of states. The new natio