An interesting footnote in the debates over ratification of the United States Constitution of 1787 concerns a collection of radical Presbyterian sects, known as Covenanters, that strenuously objected to the proposed Constitution because it failed to acknowledge civil government's dependence upon God as the source of all authority. The Covenanters, who had their origins in 17th-century Scotland, were earnest Calvinists. They believed the true church and civil state were siblings under divine authority, each with distinct assignments in a divinely-ordered polity, and they espoused a national covenant to be governed according to the word of God and the Reformed religion. Moreover, true followers of Jesus Christ, they contended, must not join with any political power in rebellion against biblical authority and God's kingship over both church and state. This tradition found a following not only in Scotland but also among the Scots in Ireland and the Scotch-Irish settlers in North America.

Founding Sins by Joseph S. Moore is a clearly written, well documented, and informative account of the assorted fringe Covenanter sects in America that shared the “conviction that all nations must be in an explicit covenant with God” (2). This study gives special attention to their political campaigns in the new nation to redress America's twin “founding sins”: the Constitution's failure to acknowledge divine authority and slavery. The book begins with an examination of the Covenanters’ roots in the British Isles. This is followed by chapters describing their migration to the American colonies and their emergence in the founding era and early republic “as a distinctly American political movement” deeply committed to an essential role for religion in civil government (5). The next two chapters focus, respectively, on the Covenanters’ anti-slavery politics and their unsuccessful campaign to amend the Constitution to specifically acknowledge God. The book explores differences within the Covenanter community on key political concerns. Despite their shared opposition to slavery, various communities and congregations within the tradition, for example, pursued differing approaches, emphases, and strategies in combatting slavery. There were clear distinctions between northern and southern approaches to this vexing issue, as well as differences among southern groups whose opposition to slavery came at a cost. The book concludes by reflecting on the lingering influences of the Covenanters and their particular brand of political theology in late-19th-century and 20th-century America.

The Covenanters are perhaps best known for their view that the Constitution suffered from a fundamental defect in failing to acknowledge God. Can it be said that America is a Christian nation, the Covenanters asked, when its founding charter does not clearly affirm the existence of a superintendent, transcendent being who rules over all nations? Furthermore, can a nation that does not acknowledge its dependence on God expect divine favor? The Covenanters were so incensed by this constitutional omission that for decades many adherents refrained from voting in national elections and participating in other civic activities. In addition, by the mid-19th century they had embarked on what was ultimately an unsuccessful campaign to amend the preamble to the Constitution to acknowledge God as the source of all authority and Jesus Christ as the governor of nations.

At its core, the Covenanters’ opposition to the Constitution, and an underlying theme of this book, concerns whether America is a “Christian nation.” This issue has been a source of controversy throughout American history. Even before the ink was dry on the Constitution crafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, Americans were debating whether America is or ever was a Christian nation. Some of “the most conservative Christians” in the founding generation — namely, the Covenanters — repudiated the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation and, equally surprising given the contours of the contemporary debate, some proponents of church-state separation conceded that it was (1).

The term “Christian nation” is susceptible to multiple interpretations, and an illuminating discussion of this complex topic requires a clear definition of the term as used in a given context. Although the book notes that the commitment to a Christian commonwealth resulted in diverse political arrangements in various Covenanter communities, it offers little focused analysis of the range of meanings and uses of the “Christian nation” concept. There is similarly little discussion of the diverse meanings and uses of the term “separation of church and state” (or variations thereof), another phrase featured prominently in this conversation. The value of understanding these terms in all their complexity is illustrated by the Covenanters who are simultaneously described as espousing a form of church-state separation and threatening to undermine it.

Were the Covenanters and their political campaigns more than a footnote in American history? Did they have a significant and enduring impact on political culture? Moore contends that they did. The Covenanters and their political endeavors, he writes, “planted the seeds of modern American conservatism and its efforts to keep religious discourse and rituals in political life” (144). Indeed, the Christian political right that emerged in the late-20th century, he says, shared the Covenanters’ vision. (The evidence linking the Covenanter tradition with contemporary figures and movements is, at times, tenuous.) This was and is a vision contrary to the main currents of American political thought, Moore argues. The United States, he asserts, was not founded as a Christian nation. The Covenanters and those who share their belief that America is a Christian nation, Moore warns, undermine the Jeffersonian “wall of separation” between church and state and promote a role for the civil state to dictate personal morality. Reasonable people can disagree whether the Covenanters contributed significantly to political thought in the new nation (and whether their political theology informs the culture wars of our day) or whether they were a sideshow of the founding project. In either case, Founding Sins usefully reminds us that there were Americans in the founding era and early republic who offered a perspective very different from Enlightenment, liberal political theory.