The United States was not founded as a Christian nation, since slavery was in the Constitution but Jesus was not. The Covenanters, America's first Christian nationalists, berated the Founding Fathers and challenged generations of
Americans with this message. 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 sect in American history that no one remembers.
For more than two hundred years Covenanters tried to create a Christian America by amending the Constitution to
acknowledge God. Despite being one of North America's smallest religious sects, they 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. Along the way, they helped American secularists create their own identity as liberals, and demonstrated to Protestant fundamentalists the acceptable outer limits of moral reform. As the nation's earliest and most avowed abolitionists, they also had a significant influence on the fight for emancipation.
In Founding Sins, Joseph Moore examines this forgotten history, and explores how Covenanters profoundly shaped
American's understandings of the separation of church and state. He shows that while modern arguments about
America's Christian founding often make their case from the right, the Covenanter legacy flies in the face of that claim. 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. Though their attempts to insert God into the Constitution ultimately failed, Covenanters set the acceptable limits for religion in politics for generations to come.
Industry 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
