What does the new diversity do to that idea?
Well, I think we’re not in any constitutional sense a Christian nation. There is a way in which Christian values actually shaped the constitutional structure of our country. And one of those was the value placed on freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. The First Amendment really looked at the importance of there not being an establishment of religion, as so many Christian immigrants had known in other parts of the world, and there being free exercise of religion, free exercise of conscience. Now, in some ways, these DID come out of the Christian values of our founders, but they really protect that same kind of free exercise for EVERYONE. As James Madison put it in his “Memorial and Remonstrance,” we can’t insist on that freedom of conscience for ourselves without recognizing that same freedom for people who haven’t seen fit to see the truth as we’ve seen it. So there IS a way in which this new diversity really tests us to make good on the foundational constitutional values of
