How Early Jewish Thought Shaped America’s First Amendment on Religious Freedom
The article argues that the U.S. guarantee of religious liberty stems from a religious, not secular, tradition rooted in the Hebrew Republic movement and early modern European thinkers.
According to the essay, the First Amendment was born of a religious imperative championed by the Hebrew Republic movement, a view revived by Harvard historian Eric Nelson. Nelson shows that Dutch and British thinkers of the 1600s, including Petrus Cunaeus, Hugo Grotius, John Selden and Thomas Hobbes, drew on rabbinic literature and the Noahide Covenant to argue that God’s law provides a minimal statutory framework yet a maximal moral order for all nations.
The author claims that the American founders would have rejected the Constitution without such a clause guaranteeing religious freedom. Historical parallels are drawn to 17th-century England, where King Charles and Archbishop William Laud combined political and religious authority, sparking civil war. Modern political divisions, the author says, echo these religious roots, with liberal Democrats abandoning the religious basis of liberty and the DSA seeking allies in radical Islamism to enforce uniform belief. The piece concludes that defending religious freedom remains an existential, faith-driven duty for all Americans.
Why it matters
Understanding the religious origins of the First Amendment clarifies today’s culture-war debates.
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