Josh Hammer:
Since the origins of the republic, the United States has always had a legal identity and a cultural one. The legal identity is broader, permitting more inclusivity. New arrivals on our shores can relinquish foreign allegiances, acquire American citizenship, and become part of "We the People," much as the biblical figure Ruth left the nation of Moab thousands of years ago to join the children of Israel. As Ruth said: "Your people shall be my people and your God my God."
But the cultural identity of the United States -- the religiously imbued habits, values and expectations that enable our national creed, "E Pluribus Unum" -- has never been infinitely malleable. America has always had a dominant public ethos shaped by a historical Protestant-majority culture. This culture emphasizes individual responsibility, industriousness, respect for the rule of law, the dignity of conscience, and the limits of liberty rightly understood.
The two identities are connected. As President John Adams famously said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Conscience and freedom of religion must be wholly protected and secured in one's private life, but the very nature of American citizenship and American community are shaped and guided by the inherited tradition of the Protestant majority.
# posted by Ranger @ 1:04 PM
