Within Governing Documents

Episode 10 considers the creation of our second set of governing documents, what we today call “The Constitution,” in 1787, ratified in 1788, provides us our last bit of evidence to the larger point of the podcast–what did the Founders want to do with Christianity?

We have been examining what was necessary to sustain our unique foundation for the USA civic society. We’ve been seeking what was lost, prior to this time we described in episode 1, where the data is overwhelming that something massive has shifted to where all metrics point in a downward trend, with multiple crises clearly evidence throughout society.

If the Founders wanted to create a “Christian Nation” as our Conservative Christian character proposes today, they could have.  If they wanted to create a nation with no religion, no Christianity even acknowledged, banished to private concerns or even fully banished from society, they could have. 

They did neither thing. 

The podcast seeks to find evidence in our history to help us regain safe harbor, the very structure that had allowed for our great national success, a success that was obvious until things began to unravel over the decades after WW2, especially in the last 30-40 years. The US Constitution is the last governing document produced in our national history, and so is the last thing to consider in seeking to grasp the mind of the Founders.

We also examine the state constitutions created in the years immediately after 1776. You can go read them yourself at the links below.  Note that Rhode Island did not write a new constitution until 1842.

• South Carolina in 1776 and in 1778
• Delaware in 1776
• Georgia in 1777
• Maryland in 1777
• New Hampshire in 1776
• New Jersey in 1776
• New York in 1777
• North Carolina in 1776
• Pennsylvania in 1776
• Vermont in 1777
• Massachusetts in 1780
• Virginia in 1776
• also the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom