CURIOUS ADMISSION

After I learned that a charter school in Mesa, Arizona was using one of Willard Cleon Skousen's books in at least on history class, I decide to do a little more research on Skousen.  In 1985, he & his colleagues put together a textbook that primarily examines the US Constitution.

The curious part comes from his commentary on part of Article VI, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust in the United States" -

"Many of the early colonies were established by groups of people with strong religious convictions and those serving in public office were required to commit themselves to certain religious tenets.  This automatically excluded from public offices those who had contrary views.  For this reason the framers of the Constitution provided that "no religious test" could be required for an office in the national government (where a great variety of beliefs and religious tenets - even atheism - would be represented.) [p. 666]