Founders in the Headlines | November 6, 2026
Part One: Religion, Liberty, and the Survival of a Republic
In Russia, Christianity survived revolution, persecution, and more than seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church once again occupies a prominent place in the nation’s public identity. Across much of Western Europe, meanwhile, Christianity has gradually retreated from its former position at the center of national life.
The contrast is striking. Russia, governed through a highly centralized political system, has embraced its Christian heritage as an expression of national identity. Western European democracies, generally committed to religious liberty, have witnessed a substantial decline in religious affiliation and observance.
Yet appearances can be deceptive. The public prominence of Christianity does not necessarily indicate widespread Christian conviction. Nor does declining religious observance automatically establish moral decline. Nevertheless, the contrast raises a question that would have been familiar to America’s founders.
Can a free people preserve a common faith, or must a common faith be imposed upon them?
It is a question that reaches into the foundations of the American republic, where men committed to liberty nevertheless disagreed about the relationship between religion, morality, and government.
Washington’s Warning
In September 1796, George Washington prepared to retire from the presidency. Having led the Revolution and served as the nation’s first president, he offered his fellow citizens a final assessment of the principles upon which their republic depended.
His Farewell Address is remembered for its warnings against political factions and foreign entanglements. But Washington also expressed a profound concern about the moral character of the people who would inherit the republic.
He wrote:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
Washington understood that republican government requires more than laws and institutions. It depends upon citizens capable of exercising freedom responsibly.
Honesty in business, fidelity to promises, responsibility within families, respect for neighbors, and integrity in public office all depend upon convictions that legislation alone cannot manufacture. For Washington, religion provided an essential foundation for those convictions.
But what happens when a nation continues to enjoy freedoms inherited from earlier generations while gradually abandoning the religious beliefs that helped shape its understanding of right and wrong?
Does its moral character necessarily decline? Can other institutions sustain those convictions? Or does the weakening of a shared moral foundation eventually place greater demands upon government to regulate conduct that conscience once restrained?
Washington’s warning presents a dilemma. If religion contributes to the moral health of a republic, does government have a responsibility to preserve it?
Madison’s Uncomfortable Question
Eleven years earlier, James Madison confronted a proposal in Virginia that appeared, to its supporters, to serve a worthy purpose.
The proposal would have provided public financial support for teachers of the Christian religion. Its advocates believed religious instruction strengthened society’s moral character and therefore deserved public encouragement. Madison disagreed.
In his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, he argued that religious duty could be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force.
His concern reached beyond public expenditure. If government possessed the authority to support Christianity, what prevented it from determining which Christian beliefs deserved support, which denominations were acceptable, and which practices should be discouraged?
The power to protect religion could become the power to control it.
Madison also questioned whether Christianity benefited from political establishment. History, he argued, demonstrated that established churches could encourage complacency, corruption, and conflict rather than genuine religious devotion.
Perhaps Christianity was more secure when its followers were free to practice, teach, persuade, and worship without depending upon political authority. Yet Madison’s position left another question unresolved.
If religion depended upon voluntary conviction, what would happen if future generations simply chose not to believe?
John Adams Saw Another Responsibility
John Adams approached the relationship between religion and government differently.
As the principal architect of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, Adams helped establish a framework that protected religious conscience while permitting government support for Protestant religious instruction and worship. The constitution declared that the happiness of the people and the preservation of civil government depended upon piety, religion, and morality.
Massachusetts retained a form of religious establishment until 1833, long after the American Revolution. Here was a significant difference between two architects of American republicanism.
Madison feared that government support could compromise religious liberty and corrupt religion itself. Adams accepted a governmental role in supporting religious instruction as a means of encouraging civic virtue.
Neither position can be reduced to a simple choice between Christianity and secularism. Both men understood that a republic required citizens capable of exercising freedom responsibly. Their disagreement concerned how religion should relate to the institutions responsible for preserving that freedom. And the distinction mattered.
If religion contributed to the moral character necessary for liberty, government might reasonably wish to encourage it. But if encouragement became coercion, government could undermine freedom of conscience in the very act of attempting to preserve public virtue.
The Experiment of a Free People
The American founding did not produce a uniform understanding of the relationship between Christianity and government.
Some states retained religious establishments. Others moved toward disestablishment. The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, prohibited Congress from establishing religion or interfering with its free exercise, but it did not immediately end religious establishments maintained by individual states.
Behind those disagreements stood an extraordinary experiment. Could a people govern themselves without surrendering their consciences to government? Could religion contribute to the moral foundations of public life without becoming an instrument of political power?
And could the habits of faith, duty, restraint, and responsibility pass from one generation to the next through families, churches, and communities rather than by government decree?
The founders could establish institutions to protect liberty. They could not guarantee that future generations would retain the convictions necessary to sustain them. That responsibility would belong to the people themselves.
The Question Returns
More than two centuries later, the contrast between Russia and Western Europe returns us to the dilemma confronting Washington, Madison, and Adams.
One society may publicly embrace its Christian heritage while maintaining tight political control over religious institutions. Another may protect religious freedom while witnessing Christianity’s declining place in national life. Neither circumstance, by itself, tells us whether Christian faith or public morality is flourishing.
Washington warned that religion and morality were indispensable supports of republican government. Madison insisted that religious conviction must remain beyond the coercive authority of the state. Adams accepted public support for religion as one means of encouraging civic virtue.
Their disagreement remains remarkably relevant.
Perhaps the question is not simply whether Christianity can survive in a free society, but whether a free society can sustain the moral convictions upon which its freedom has historically depended.
Can a free people preserve a common faith, or must a common faith be imposed upon them?
Next week, we will examine the other side of this paradox. If government acquires the power to preserve a nation’s Christian identity, what exactly is being preserved?
Christianity itself—or merely its outward appearance?
