Faith and nationalism: Indivisible in America

When the Continental Army fought to defend the new nation's independence, it chose as its favorite marching song an adapted hymn, Chester, by the Boston church composer William Billings:

Let tyrants shake their iron rods

And slavery clank her galling chains,

We fear them not, we trust in God,

New England's God forever reigns.


It would be hard to suggest that patriots who marched to battle singing these words intended to risk death for the sake of “separation of church and state.”

Read Faith and nationalism: Indivisible in America by Michael Medved