Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ into the Constitution

by Joseph S. Moore

Overview

The Covenanters, now mostly forgotten, were America's first Christian nationalists. For two centuries they decried the fact that, in their view, the United States was not a Christian nation because slavery was in the Constitution but Jesus was not. Having once ruled Scotland as a part of a Presbyterian coalition, they longed to convert America to a holy Calvinist vision in which church and state united to form a godly body politic. Their unique story has largely been submerged beneath the histories of the events in which they participated and the famous figures with whom they interacted, making them the most important religious movement in American history that no one remembers. Despite being one of North America's smallest religious sects, the Covenanters found their way into every major revolt. They were God's rebels--just as likely to be Patriots against Britain as they were to be Whiskey Rebels against the federal government. As the nation's earliest and most avowed abolitionists, they had a significant influence on the fight for emancipation. In Founding Sins, Joseph S. Moore examines this forgotten history, and explores how Covenanters profoundly shaped American's understandings of the separation of church and state. While modern arguments about America's Christian founding usually come from the right, the Covenanters have a more complicated legacy. They fought for an explicitly Christian America in the midst of what they saw as a secular state that failed the test of Christian nationhood. But they did so on behalf of a cause--abolition--that is traditionally associated with the left. Though their attempts to insert God into the Constitution ultimately failed, Covenanters set the acceptable limits for religion in politics for generations to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190269265
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	571 KB

About the Author

Joseph S. Moore is Assistant Professor of History at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. His work has appeared in The New York Times and various scholarly journals.

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter One: Presbyterian Empire Chapter Two: The Failure to Found a Christian Nation Chapter Three: Confronting the Godless Government Chapter Four: Slavery and the Sin of Secular America Chapter Five: Rejecting a Christian Nation Afterward: Holy Scotland in the Contemporary Christian America Debate

Editorial Reviews

"Moore's book is a welcome contribution to the growing literature assessing historic attitudes to slavery, showing that at least some Presbyterians, namely, the Covenanters, stood firmly opposed to slavery from the beginning, though never able to convince wider Presbyterianism, and certainly not the nation, to embrace the idea of "covenanting." — Alan D. Strange, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

"Filling a gap in scholarship, Moore shows that the Scottish Covenanters in North America, despite their small size and wide dispersal, significantly shaped the outcomes of key moments in American history ... Moore provides a helpful and at times fascinating study." — Stephen Wolfe, Religious Studies Review

"Founding Sins is impressive in its concise presentation of the Covenanters' history and their interaction with American politics. It succeeds in its goal of telling the story of "the most important religious sect in American history that no one remembers today". Moore also convincingly demonstrates how the legacy of Samuel Rutherford, as embodied by the Covenanters, is opposed to that of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, thus falsifying at least one key claim made about the Christian character of the American founding...Founding Sins is a helpful and important addition to a conversation that continues apace." — Steven Wedgeworth, Christ Church Lakeland, Florida, The Journal of Religion

"Joseph S. Moore contributes to this scholarly moment with a fresh study of an overlooked group within the Scottish Presbyterian Atlantic world: the Covenanters."—The Journal of Southern History

"An engaging, well-researched, and ambitious book." —Journal of Religion

"Slim but punches well above its weight a product of Moore s prodigious research. One comes away nodding in agreement when Moore calls his subjects 'the most important religious sect in American history that no one remembers today.'"—The North Carolina Historical Review

"An exemplary history book. Thoroughly researched and skillfully crafted."—Journal of Southern Religion

"[An] engaging book, one of value at all levels for persons interested in church-state relations and US religious history. Highly recommended."—CHOICE

"Joseph Moore's comprehensive treatment of the Covenanting tradition explains why it arose in seventeenth-century Scotland, how it survived internal schisms and perilous migrations, and what large influence (as a small group) it exerted on American history in the era of the Civil War. The book offers particularly cogent explanations for how southern Covenanters could oppose slavery and why their understanding of 'Christian America' differed so dramatically from modern notions of that ideal. It is a fine book." —Mark Noll, author of In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible and American Public Life, 1492-1783(2015)

"The Covenanters are the most important forgotten religious sect in United States history. Long before political conservatives complained that the nation was not a Christian one, Covenanters did so. Long before many white Christians denounced slavery and racism, Covenanters did so. Founding Sins is a story that needs to be remembered: how these Scotch-Irish Presbyterians challenged every facet of the nation's religion and politics, its system of slavery, and its failures of freedom. This is an extraordinary book." —Edward J. Blum, co-author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America

"How can the United States have been founded as a 'Christian nation' when Jesus was not mentioned in the Constitution and the Founding Fathers owned slaves? Joseph Moore's readers will be surprised to learn that this argument did not come from twenty-first century secularists, but from the Covenanters, a group of conservative Calvinists in early America. Moore tells their story with erudition and insight." —John Fea, author of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction

"[A] deftly focused, often-witty account of the Scottish Covenanters Pithy and stylish."—Journal of American History

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