Christian nationalists see this prayer as evidence of a deeply religious body doing god’s work, but it was strategic piety. John Adams recorded that Joseph Reed said, “We never were guilty of a more Masterly Stroke of Policy, than in moving that Mr. Duché might read Prayers.”12 Policy, not piety. The Continental Congress was a political body debating politics, not religion. And just like the strategic piety in the Declaration, this pious move has no bearing or influence on our founding principles. When writing the US Constitution, the founding document, strategic piety was not necessary to
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