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u/best_of_badgers ยท 2 pointsr/HistoricalWhatIf

Religious war and fragmentation. Quickly.

In fact, this almost happened. You could even say that it kinda did.

First, what you're describing is what was true of most European (and many other) nations of the time. This was the tentative settlement after centuries of religious wars and the associated political strife.

The HRE version was cuius regio, eius religio. Since the empire comprised hundreds of very small principalities, rather than a top-down mandate that would lead to yet another religious war, each prince got to decide the religion of his area. You don't want to practice the prince's religion? Well, then you pack up and move. It's not like you'd have to go very far.

Within this peace, there was a lot of quiet spy vs. spy type activity as Catholic countries plotted to retake Protestant countries and vice versa.

Even with cuius regio, eius religio, rulers generally only got to pick between a couple of options. Lutheranism or Catholicism, in the German case. Anabaptists not welcome. Anabaptists murdered and driven out of town, in fact.

Many people who came to the English colonies were members of religious groups that weren't in the favored few. Catholics generally weren't welcome in England, so they founded Maryland. Puritans weren't welcome pretty much anywhere - even the Dutch Reformed iconoclasts found them too radical - so they founded Massachusetts. Roger Williams didn't like the sort of Calvinism they practiced in Massachusetts, so he founded Rhode Island. Anabaptists like the Amish and Mennonites settled in German-speaking areas of eastern Pennsylvania.

When each colony declared independence and then later agreed to form the United States, some of them did abide by the "ruler chooses the religion" type of model. Several had elements in their state constitutions mandating that political figures profess Christian beliefs. The First Amendment only applied (initially) to Federal actions. When they referred to religious freedom, they largely meant that you could be any kind of Christian you wanted.

> And every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law. (Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780)

Even still, only about 1 in 7 people at the time were regular church-goers. Going to weekly Mass was an Anglican thing and Anglicans were English, and we don't want to associate with those people.

Then Methodism exploded onto the scene. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, sent his buddy Asbury to the United States to preach the Methodist gospel. People converted to Methodism and related groups by the millions, and this whole process was the Second Great Awakening.

For the most part, as long as everyone more or less agreed with the Methodist principles derived from Scripture, reason, and experience, America was a Christian nation. Specifically, it was a Methodist nation, especially outside the big coastal cities. It wasn't officially founded that way, but it became that way shortly after founding. Disputes, even legal disputes, could be settled among Americans by appealing to common religious ground. While preachers had no official government role, to be a preacher, you had to be educated and an orator, so many ended up in office anyway.

Then we had a problem. We couldn't agree on how to use the Bible to solve a huge social problem. Slavery. The US civil war was, to some extent, a theological debate. We fragmented on largely theological grounds and those still exist in our society today.

So we can say with some truth that your scenario is actually accurate, and that the answer is "we'd have a civil war".