ABSTRACT
The Declaration of Independence begins by invoking “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” refers to our “Creator” and “the Supreme Judge of the world,” and ends with a “firm reliance of the protection of Divine Providence.” The Constitution, however, makes very little reference to God. Is this a distinct change from the religious worldview of the Declaration, or was that worldview simply assumed? What does it mean if we see the Constitution as having largely secular or meaning-fully religious foundations? The ramifications begin with the conflicts over the place of religion in public life. If it is a foundation of the sys-tem, this provides support for government recognition of religion. It justifies the Court’s position in Zorach v. Clauson in 1952 that “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” On the other hand, a system designed to reflect the increasingly secular nature of the American people leads in a very different direction. This justifies the Court’s position in Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971 that the government must not entangle itself with religion, disallowing any “intimate and continuing relationship between church and state.”
