The clip
Kirk is answering a question on a panel with Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle. Tap a time to jump the clip to that claim.
Kirk’s four moves
- Read the first state constitutions, not only the federal one.
- Look at who signed the Declaration.
- Trace common-law ideas and biblical cousins.
- Read what founders said about a moral people.
How this site works. Gold cards are Kirk’s claim. The “Look closer” line is the document, wording, or caveat.
Two documents, two jobs
The guest was partly right about word counts. Word counts are not the whole story.
Declaration of Independence (1776)
A statement of why the colonies left Britain. It names God four usual ways:
- Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God
- endowed by their Creator
- Supreme Judge of the world
- protection of divine Providence
Look closer. The text does not say “Jesus Christ.” Kirk reads “Supreme Judge” as Christ from Revelation. That is his theology, not the wording Congress printed.
U.S. Constitution (1787)
A machine for running a federal government. No “God,” “Creator,” or “Jesus.” It does include “Year of our Lord” in the dating line.
“…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Article VI
Look closer. That clause is the opposite of many state oaths below. States could still have tests; the new national government could not.
Tap a state. Read the oath.
Kirk said 13 of 13 required a declaration of faith, 9 of 13 required Protestants, and almost every constitution said “I profess the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” Open the cards. Some are that close. Some are not.
Tap a colony. Same colors as the list underneath. Maine was then part of Massachusetts, so it is not a fourteenth piece.
Who signed the Declaration?
Kirk’s line: 55 of 56 were Bible-believing, church-attending Christians. Affiliation is the easy part. Identical theology is not.
55 + 1
Protestant churchmen, plus Charles Carroll of Maryland, the Catholic signer.
1 minister
John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active clergyman among the signers. He was president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).
Most of them
Anglican / Episcopal, Congregational, or Presbyterian. That was the American church world of 1776.
Fits Kirk closelyCharles Carroll
The one Catholic. Maryland’s 1776 test asked for Christian belief, not “be Catholic.”
Christian, not Protestant-onlyJefferson & Franklin
Lived in Christian culture and used Christian language. Not orthodox evangelicals. “Bible-believing” is a stretch for them.
Look closerThree principles, older than 1776
Kirk: common law comes through Blackstone, who was Christian, and the big trial rights are biblical. True that Blackstone was Anglican and that Scripture talks about fair courts. Also true that English law has Roman, medieval, and custom roots.
Presumption of innocence
The accuser must prove the charge. English practice + older law. Bible cousin: need reliable witnesses.
Due process
Known rules, a hearing, limits on sudden punishment. Magna Carta to common law to the Fifth Amendment.
Jury of peers
Neighbors decide facts. English inheritance the founders refused to give up.
“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”
Leviticus 19:15 — the verse just before “love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18)
Also on Kirk’s card. Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free… for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He paraphrased it as human equality. The verse is about unity in Christ; later readers also used it when arguing for equal dignity.
Why Deuteronomy keeps showing up
Donald Lutz’s 1984 study of public political writings from 1760–1805 found the Bible was the most-cited source category, and Deuteronomy the most-cited book — more than Locke by himself.
What Deuteronomy is
Moses’ farewell: how a people should live under law. Judges who won’t take bribes. A king who copies the law and doesn’t pile up horses, wives, or gold. No partiality. Blessing and warning for a nation.
Colonists who thought of themselves as a covenant people heard their own story in it.
Look closer at the study
Lutz counted pamphlets and reprinted sermons. Sermons pull the Bible percentage up. In the 1787–88 Constitution fight, Bible citations drop, especially among Federalists who wrote in favor of the new frame.
Kid version. Americans quoted the Bible constantly. The Constitution’s wiring diagram still owes a lot to English practice and Montesquieu’s separation of powers.
John Adams, 11 October 1798
Letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Massachusetts militia. This is the cleanest primary source in the talk.
Quincy · 11 October 1798 · To the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance… this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Read the letter on Founders Online
What he meant. A free constitution needs virtuous citizens. What he did not write here. That the federal government should run a church or require a Christian oath for Congress.
Read the Declaration’s own lines
In Congress, July 4, 1776 · National Archives transcription
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States… And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Kirk’s reading. Last paragraph as a prayer to Christ the Judge (Revelation). The parchment. Shared theistic language most Protestants — and some deists — could sign. The four names are Nature’s God, Creator, Supreme Judge, divine Providence.
Two conclusions that can sit together
The people and the states
The public culture of the founding was broadly Protestant and churchgoing. Many first state constitutions required a Christian or Protestant profession for office. The Bible was everyday political speech.
The national charter
The federal Constitution refused a national church and banned religious tests for national office. That was a real choice, made while the states still looked more like Christian commonwealths.
Kirk’s last sentence — that liberty cannot last without a Christian people — is his thesis. Keep it on a different card from the documents.
Open the documents
Short official excerpts. Links go to Avalon, Founders Online, and the National Archives so you can read past the highlight.
U.S. Constitution · Article VI and the dating line
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Article VI, clause 3
…done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven…
Closing attestation · 17 September 1787 · National Archives
Delaware Constitution 1776 · Article 22
Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath… “I, A B, will bear true allegiance to the Delaware State, submit to its constitution and laws, and do no act wittingly whereby the freedom thereof may be prejudiced.” And also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: “I, A B, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”
Pennsylvania Constitution 1776 · Section 10
And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: “I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.” And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State.
Maryland Declaration of Rights 1776 · Arts. 33 and 35
XXXIII. That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to him; all persons, professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty… XXXV. That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention, or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion.
Maryland 1776 Declaration of Rights
New Jersey 1776 · Articles XVIII–XIX
XVIII. That no person shall ever, within this Colony, be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience… XIX. That there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect… shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust.
North Carolina 1776 · Article XXXII
That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.
Georgia 1777 · Article VI
The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county… and they shall be of the Protestent religion, and of the age of twenty-one years…
Spelling is original. Avalon · Georgia 1777
South Carolina 1778 · Article XXXVIII
That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated. The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. That all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State, demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully, shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges. …1st. That there is one eternal God, and a future state of rewards and punishments. 2d. That God is publicly to be worshipped. 3d. That the Christian religion is the true religion. 4th. That the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are of divine inspiration, and are the rule of faith and practice.
Massachusetts Constitution 1780 · Christian declaration
Any person chosen governor, lieutenant governor, counsellor, senator, or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration, viz. “I, A. B., do declare, that I believe the Christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth…”
Part the Second, Chapter VI, Article I. John Adams was the principal draftsman. Later amendments dropped the religious test.
New Hampshire Constitution 1784
Every member of the house of representatives… shall be of the protestant religion… Senators were under the same rule. The governor likewise “shall be of the protestant religion.”
New Hampshire Constitution of 1784. Those tests were later removed.
Virginia Declaration of Rights 1776 · Article 16
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.
George Mason, with later Madison pressure toward still broader liberty. Avalon · Virginia Declaration of Rights
New York Constitution 1777 · Article XXXVIII
And whereas we are required, by the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to expel civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition of weak and wicked priests and princes have scourged mankind… the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed, within this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.
Rhode Island Charter 1663
…a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained… with a full liberty in religious concernments.
Charles II charter to Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Still the state’s frame in 1776. Avalon · Charter of 1663
Leviticus 19:15 and 19:18 · Galatians 3:28
You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. (Leviticus 19:15) You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)
English Standard Version wording, close to the sense Kirk paraphrased.
Donald S. Lutz, 1984 citation study
Lutz counted citations in public political writings from 1760 to 1805. The Bible was the most-cited source category. Deuteronomy was the most-cited book. Enlightenment writers (Montesquieu, Blackstone, Locke) were also heavy. Sermons inflate the Bible share. In the 1787–88 Constitution debate, Bible citations drop, especially among Federalists.
Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 78 (1984).
Questions that work with kids
Read the pages themselves: National Archives (Declaration), Avalon Project / state constitutions, Founders Online (Adams letter).