The first continental congress, which put the American colonies on the path to independence from Great Britain, convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Fifty-five delegates, representing twelve colonies, attended. On the morning of September 6, Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts moved that proceedings begin with a prayer. Objections were immediately raised that “We were so divided in religious Sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians and some Congregationalists … that we could not join in the same Act of Worship.” Declaring that he was “no Bigot,” Samuel Adams, an old-fashioned Puritan, made an ecumenical recommendation that a local Anglican priest, Jacob Duche, be asked to officiate in Congress the next morning. Duche, who defected to the British in 1777, led Congress in a moving prayer service on September 7. This episode reveals that by 1774 pluralism had become a distinguishing feature of American religion and that Congress would embrace religion at its earliest opportunity.

The Continental and Confederation Congresses (1774–89) were full of deeply religious men in positions of leadership. Charles Thomson, the soul of Congress and the source of its institutional continuity as its permanent secretary from 1774 to 1789, retired from public life to translate the Scriptures from Greek into English; the four-volume Bible that Thomson published in 1808 is admired by modern scholars for its accuracy and learning.