I would like to suggest a good book:
"The Second American Revolution", by John W. Whitehead.
See especially, chapter Eight, "What Ever Happened to the First Amendment".
From Chapter 8, page 96:
The First Amendment
Various factions were not satisfied with the Constitution as it was originally drafted. There was fear that too powerful a government had been created. In particular, the clergy demanded a specific limitation or amendment concerning religion. Thus the First Amendment came into being.
A central concern of those who drafted the First Amendment was to prevent the federal government from establishing a national denominational church. This protected the state-established or state-preferred Christian denominations that existed in many of the colonies of that era. In the words of James Madison, the First Amendment was prompted because the “people feared one sect might obtain a preeminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform”.6
Thus the philosophical base of the First Amendment was that of denominational pluralism – a healthy coexistence between the various Christian denominations. Such practical denominational pluralism is not to be confused with the new concept of pluralism, which commands complete acceptance of all views, even secular humanism.
6. Jonathan Elliot, The Debates of the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 5 vols., 3:45.
Become the kind of person that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan groans and says, "OH NO, HE'S AWAKE".
