“Thus I don’t think, they intended America to be a “Christian Nation” in the same vein that many here would wish it to be..... and for that I am profoundly thankfull.”
Why do you think that for the first 200 or so years of this nation, there was prayer in schools, the Bible used to teach reading in earlier days, Christmas plays, Nativity scenes all over, and the commandment to keep the sabbath holy recognized in law in most every state?
All those things were practiced until the 1970s or so, until atheists and others found judges who’d rule them unconstitutional. What do you think the practices on such matters were while the founders still lived, your being so certain of what the intended? Maybe the practices of their day is the best reflection of what they intended.
most founders were active in their churches, some like Washington (Fall Church Episcopal Church), were active lay leaders. They quoted the Bible freely in their deliberations, even Franklin.
Jefferson gets a lot of bad press, but he never denied the divinity of Christ. He publically said he did not believe the miracles. His “Jefferson Bible,” as I have read, was the Bible with the parts with which he disagreed clipped out.