Although Protestantism—including its beliefs in original sin and divine providence—shaped the character of the American nation, no church could be established at the federal level, of course, because of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. But the Protestant influence has persisted to a remarkable degree, not only through bodies of believers—by way of their experiences of redemption and their commitment to reform—but also through American institutions. 

Indeed, there have been at least three major phases of Protestant religious “establishment” in U.S. history, establishments that can be designated as formal, semi-formal, and informal. In Religion & Republic, the historian Miles Smith is concerned with the second phase. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Protestant Establishment in America still existed, but it had stepped down another rung to the informal level. Today this establishment is no more, and Protestant Christianity in its multiple expressions competes on even ground, without any discernible advantages, in a religiously—and non-religiously—variegated culture.

Smith’s treatment in this volume is objective and historical, not polemical or sectarian, although he makes it clear at the outset that he is an Anglican. His thesis is that the United States in many ways remained a Christian republic between 1789 and 1861—and beyond. He rejects the phrase “Christian nationalism” as confusing and unhelpful: best to put it aside. What he affirms as historical fact is the perduring vitality of Protestant institutions and their influence on American culture. 

For many evangelicals, American institutions have been of secondary importance: the individual and the nation have seemed more significant. But evangelical revivals, although life-changing for individuals and transformative for American religious history, did not efface the influential role that institutionalized Protestantism has played within American life. This activity did not require theocracy or national establishment to have a substantial effect on society. “What this volume proposes,” Smith writes, “is that the United States Constitution’s disestablishment did not secularize society, nor did it remove institutional Christianity” from the realms of education, law, and politics. That displacement “occurred nearly a century later.”