It is well established law that the common law remains the basis of US law. Judges have to allow continuity in cases and procedure because it is simply not possible to legislate every piece of minutae - as a result, they refer to existing practice where the written law is silent, and that practice runs back through the colonies to England.
Nobody abolished the state of Massachusetts when the US formed. If you go to its founding documents, of course they were written by puritans. They didn't have much positive law yet. So they referred to the common law - and the old testament. Which wasn't an innovation really, the same existed under the common law in England itself. Naturally there are unjust practices in past history and in past law, and we are right to chance them by positive law etc.
Nations existing through a depth of time that gives the lie to all radical modern ideologies. In very recent times, modern ideologues hostile to religion are attempting to excise religious influences from our history - but this has nothing to do with constitutions or the law.
You never see the ideologues in question putting things to a vote, as those who framed our laws always did, because to them the entire point of alleging something is a matter of law, is to persecute for their own brand of religious belief without even stating it, let alone convincing the people of any of it.
The very text you site puts a limit on actions by congress, and congress is not the universe. It also refers to an entirely clear legal concept at the time it was written, when most of the world and half of the states had established, single, official, religious doctrines. Which were in no way affected by that amendment.
What is happening in the actions described in the article is a Stalinist attempt to erase known friendly attitudes of all our legal traditions toward the basic judeo-christian heritage of the nation, by directly lying about the actual history of the country and its institutions. Which is indefensible in any cause, let alone in one that is indefensible to start with.
chance = change, site = cite - typos, sorry.