ABSTRACT
The founding of the United States was a unique event in human history and the result of the felicitous confluence of several factors that are unlikely to ever again be repeated. These "founding" factors and the manner in which they coalesced precipitated the American Revolution and the founding of the country. The two potential deal breakers for the founding of the country — slavery and religious freedom — were not completely separate issues in the colonies. Currently, there is perhaps no more hotly debated question about the place of religion in the United States than the question of whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation. What is commonly described as the Great Awakening was an evangelical Protestant movement that swept most of colonial America in the 1730s and 1740s. Although the First Amendment did not eliminate religious discrimination or guarantee liberty of conscience on the state level, it did on the federal level.
