We are entering in full the campaign season, where quackery and hyperbolic fear-mongering fills our ears and screens. Communists, fascists, atheists, Nazis, terrorists abound. Apparently they have crawled forth to seize our poor nation and kill it off at last unless we elect old Joe, who at 96 years old is the last hope if we’ll just give him that twelfth term in a row. Sure, he’s barely breathing, but otherwise it’s the Fall of the Roman Empire and the Alamo rolled into one. At the same time, there are profoundly serious questions rumbling the foundations that should indeed rouse the indifferent.

The easiest people in the world to frighten, unfortunately, are a large number of sincere people of faith, who are supposed to be strong enough to persevere no matter what political winds blow. How, then, are we so easily beguiled by the mongers of fearfulness to ignore our own founding words? The latest of this tried and true shibboleths is the Fear of Losing Our Country if We Christians Don’t Take It Over. But there’s a simple solution. Read the Constitution.

President George Washington and the founders, in Article VI of the Constitution, adopted this:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

No religious test. None. It’s as clear as a bell. We are bound together by one simple loyalty: to support the Constitution of the United States and its system of governance. The culture war question of our religious identity obscures a deeper and more important one: do we still hold, together, loyalty to this common vision of a way to seek to live and prosper together as stewards of that vision, this land and its resources, and the next generation? That vision neither prevents nor guarantees that we may live a faithful life. It delivers us from the Trojan horse of government support for one religion above others. The prevailing power of faith in the republic is finally left to its followers as influencers in society. And they hoped that would be sufficient for the nation.

Christian nationalists, therefore, are absolutely wrong on this count. A nation run only by religious identity politics is no better than the medieval corruptions from which Protestantism sprang. It can only inevitably corrupt both government and religion as it tries to prop up the latter by means of the former.

Whatever else comes next, if it is Christian nationalism as conceived by the farthest right extremes in this moment, it would repudiate Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and the brilliant document they gave us. That would be a tragedy of the worst sort. Separation of church and state is a clumsy phrase for a brilliant idea: let ideas, including religious ones, stand on the basis of truth that persuades, not by coercion and dominance. Faith spoke clearly and lived visibly needs no help at all. By its fruit we will know it, for good or for evil.

In this moment this is directed particularly at Americans who are Muslim. But the principle is clear: if a political candidate cannot swear allegiance to the Constitution, meaning religious freedom, the Bill of Rights, loyalty to this nation, they cannot serve. That was the founders idea—Christian, Jew, Muslim, or none of the above. The same with anyone who steps up to public office.

Despite the bullhorns on the extreme religious Right, it may surprise some that many of us practicing Christians already believe this. We judge our neighbors by their actions and their patriotism, not their religion. The truth of faith is finally between God and them. Religious freedom is a squirmy reality for those who want a Muslim only nation in the Middle East. But it’s just as uncomfortable to Christian culture warriors who are to the right of Louis XIV. Their vision cannot abide the Constitution, who’s authors suggested, “Trust the people to figure it out. All of them, not just your team.”

That sort of freedom is terrifying indeed. And unimaginably good. No persecution, no bloodshed, no imprisonments or beatings or taxes or restrictions for matters of spirit and conscience. Voting, debating, arguing, but people bound in a quest to live in this imperfect experiment. Yes, it’s clumsy, messy, and we have muddled it. But amid a world where few cultures have trust enough to let this faith or that stand without the threats and entanglements of state power, it has been a brilliant light.

I hope it endures this moment that is so uncomfortable, so full of anger and so vulnerable to a great deal of irrational fear and distrust. Because it was a great set of ideas that imperfect group of men set loose. If we can live up to it.

This excerpt is from a forthcoming book on the First Amendment and religion.