Happy July 4th!!

[Jehanne]

It took me a couple of glances to "get" the meaning of the photo above (recently, I went to the optometrist and am now, at age 54, nearsighted.)  It is ironic, though, in United States history, that America did not turn into a "Christian nation" until the 1820s, or, at least according to the historians that I have read.  After the Second Great Awakening is when Christian evangelicals started infusing more and more into the political sphere, but, it was not until the late 1800s when high schools became more common that the clash over the Theory of Evolution came to the forefront.  The whole "State's rights" (at least when such suited their interests -- see Dred Scott) mantra was probably sufficient to placate most Evangelicals, and the direct election of United States Senators helped to insure against populist candidates.  Likewise, the deists of the Enlightenment were mostly in academia and understood that a direct threat to the Evangelicals could have dire consequences.  As the Supreme Court was allowing greater independence for state colleges, most academics probably had little interest in trying to infuse society with secular ideas and risk a populist backlash in the process.