Sorry, I beg to differ.
It required NOT a religious peoples, it merely requires one to read, follow and ENFORCE the plain English of the Constitution.
Unfortunately, the Republic fell during the War of the North (aka ‘Civil’ War), and driven under by Teddy on forward (INHO, the ‘time of apathy’. We are currently entering the ‘time to re-servitude’).
Hopefully, our progeny can re-work the Constitution and give it some TEETH to ensure Life, Liberty and Freedom will once again reign true.
How and why do you think the Declaration and the Constitution even came into being???? It DID and DOES require a religious and moral people to maintain the liberty as intended for us.
Take God and religion out of the equation and leave the culture to secular passions that are imposed on the meaning of the Constitution - and what you get is what you currently see around us: debauchery and tyranny.
A people who will not be governed by God and biblical religion will be ruled by the tyrants and tyranny of men.
Here we are.
A Constitution, no matter what Amendments are placed in it, has no affect or power to ensure the liberty it is intended to safeguard if the people in the nation are not a moral and religious people, because the liberty as intended for us is a BIBLICAL construct, not a SECULAR one.
John Adams made this point perfectly clear:
"[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams, 1798