By Andy Hauter

Early America was overwhelmingly shaped by Anglo-Protestant culture. The legal assumptions behind the Constitution — property rights, common law, Christian morality — were deeply rooted in English tradition. However, the Constitution itself does not limit its protections to “descendants of the English.” It speaks of “We the People” — without an ethnic qualifier — because what unified early America wasn’t bloodlines, but a shared Christian moral framework and covenantal legal heritage.

It’s true that early America culturally favored Anglo Saxon Europeans, but it gradually absorbed a broader European population — Germans, Irish, Italians — while still attempting (often imperfectly) to preserve a Christian moral foundation.

But here’s the critical point: The solution is not a return to ethnic Anglo-Protestantism.

If we are to be a truly Christian civilization, we must return to biblical covenant commitment — submission to Christ’s kingship and God’s law — and that covenantal vision is open to people of every ethnicity: Chinese, Iranian, Pakistani, African, and beyond.

It is only biblical covenant that builds just and lasting civilizations. Bloodlines never last. Fixation on ethnicity is the inevitable fruit of ethno-nationalism: If you are not a direct descendant of the “founding stock,” you are seen as having no true right to be here. At the very least, it sends a message to hundreds of millions of American citizens — including millions of people of mixed backgrounds — that “this is not your country.” This is exactly why any ethnic version of “Christian nationalism” is a perversion and tragedy.

We must rebuild Christian civilization on the principles found on God’s Law Word. Without rooting national life directly in God’s law and covenant, we can easily fall back into human categories like race, ethnicity, or political nationalism — which will always divide and ultimately fail. It will not be determined by skin color or ancestral origin, but by repentance, faith, and covenantal obedience.

Covenant, not ethnicity, is the foundation of Christian nations!