Thanks so much for a refreshingly reasonable question.
It's not complicated and you already put your finger on it at least once.
When I was a boy, my grandfather told me: "people say Christianity was tried and it failed.
Well, it was never really tried."
Today I'd say that both were right.
"Tried and failed" refers to state religions, beginning with the Roman Empire around 326 AD all the way into early modern times, where people were persecuted & murdered for "crimes" of heresy, apostasy, infidelity, etc.
"Never tried" refers to what my grandfather considered the "true principles" of Christianity, which have less to do with types of government than with our individual virtues or vices.
Our Founders explicitly rejected state religions because, in their eyes and in ours, such had already "been tried and failed."
But our Founders clearly understood that their own Constitution would only work for good people motivated by high ideals such as are taught in churches.
Does that clarify?
Dear BroJoeK, I think your grandfather must have been a very wise, perceptive man.
I think marron spoke truly in saying —
You have the religion of the written doctrines, and the religion as it is lived out. So you’ll find people whose theology is sketchy but in whom God is alive, who know God and walk with him; and you’ll find people whose theology is right on the money but are deader than a hammer. And every variation in between.It seems that Thomas Jefferson did not regard Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God. But he did regard him as a very great moral teacher. And Jefferson knew, as did Adams, Franklin, Washington, et al., that our Constitutional republic could not work for an immoral people.
Which is likely why Franklin, when asked what the Framers had wrought in Philadelphia, replied: "A republic — if you can keep it."
Yet in the modern period, there are many people who evidently believe that the ability to act immorally is the very proof of their "liberty."
You wrote: "Our Founders explicitly rejected state religions because, in their eyes and in ours, such had already 'been tried and failed.'" Oh, so true, dear BroJoeK.
On the other hand, evidently it's okay with lots of people nowadays to have a state-established "secular religion," which turns out to be the progressive State itself....
Dear friend, you poke lots of fun at spirited irish. Her research into gnosticism and its history is impressive; it is clear she is deeply alarmed by her findings, because she can clearly see how gnostic thinking has entered into the very climate of opinion of the intellectual elites of our society and their enablers in the media and academe.
I, too, am profoundly disturbed by this: They are engaged in the systematic falsification of Reality. And absolutely no good can come from that sort of thing.
Have a blessed Merry Christmas, dear BroJoeK — you and all your dear ones!