But many such countries had strong Christian traditions woven into their national life which could be brought on board in support of the new national agenda. It was not only some of the American founding fathers who thought of themselves as the ‘new Israel’ discovering the ‘promised land’. Some French Canadians saw the province of Quebec in the same way. It became fatally easy to suppose, as many in Europe, not least Britain, had done before, that this or that country was automatically ‘Christian’, and that whatever it needed to do in pursuit of its national identity and destiny would somehow
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