The Movement Away from God in American Education

The Americas were colonized by European nations the cultures of which had been deeply informed by Classical Christian education. Colonists from Spain, France, Portugal, and England brought with them an intellectual tradition founded upon the liberal arts of the Greco‐Roman world and completed by a Christian theological perspective. The moral and religious convictions of the Greeks and Romans, who understood that religious piety was an essential virtue, had been redefined within Judeo‐Christian monotheism which also understood that honoring the Divine played an important role in the success or failure of a society (Potter, 2013). For European Christians of all stripes religious piety was considered an essential component in the maintenance of individual morality in a healthy, unified society or was even considered essential to the maintenance of a good relationship between an entire polity and the Divine (Gregory, 2013; Gummere, 1963; Haefeli, 2013; Hudson, 1981). Among the philosophers of the The Movement Away from God in American Education