Protestants v. Catholics in America's Founding Era: When Certainty Becomes the Threat

The American Founders are often remembered as champions of reason, restraint, and religious liberty. But beneath that story lies a less examined assumption: a deep certainty about which forms of belief were acceptable—and which were dangerous.

In this episode, we revisit some of the important documents of that era, namely Federalist Nos. 10 and 51 and explore how fear of factions, combined with cultural and religious certainty, may have planted seeds of the very instability the Founders hoped to prevent.

Rather than treating certainty as a virtue, this conversation asks whether it can quietly become a liability, not just politically, but spiritually and culturally as well.

Resources & References

• The Federalist Papers
  – Federalist No. 10 (James Madison on factions)
  – Federalist No. 51 (Checks, balances, and human nature)

• Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic

• Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State

• John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths

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