Was Early America a Christian America?

So asks Claude S. Fischer in a recent article at Immanent Frame. The piece stems from Fischer's book, Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character.

Fischer concludes:

The furious debate in some quarters over whether America was born a “Christian nation” is ironic. The historical record shows that America was not born Christian, but grew to be very Christian centuries later....

Of course such an argument is not a new. Jon Butler made it in Awash in a Sea of Faith. Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and others have made it as well. The Founding was not a Christian event, but clearly America had become a "Christian nation" or "evangelical empire" or "a spiritual hothouse" by the early 19th century.

Read Fischer's entire piece here.