The story we’re told about faith in public life is usually simple: religion belongs at home, and anything more is a modern political invention. The receipts say otherwise. We trace a straight line from the founding era through the 1800s and into the mid-1900s showing how biblical literacy and religious expression were woven into American civic culture, public education, and even the everyday tools students used to learn language. We talk about Benjamin Rush’s argument that virtue is essentia...