HARRISON, N.J. (AP) — Goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan stopped the first two attempts she faced and Canada went on to defeat Argentina 3-2 on penalties after a scoreless draw in the SheBelieves Cup on Saturday.
Jordyn Huitema had Canada’s best chance of the first half but Argentina goalkeeper Solana Pereyra got a hand on the hard shot to send it into the crossbar and out of the net. The match remained scoreless the rest of the way.
Under new rules for SheBelieves Cup, the match went straight to penalties. Sheridan blocked the first two attempts she faced and the Canadians sealed the victory when Vanina Preininger’s attempt for Argentina went over the bar.
Argentina was held scoreless across the four-team, round-robin tournament and finished last. Canada's finish would be determined in Saturday's late game between the United States and Colombia.
Canada saw the return of captain Jessie Fleming, who missed the match against the United States because of illness. Olivia Smith, who plays for Arsenal, was ruled out of the tournament because of a concussion.
Argentina's women play next month as the CONMEBOL Women’s Nations League continues. The tournament serves as the region's qualification tournament for the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil.
Canada will play for a place in the World Cup in the CONCACAF W Championship starting in November.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Argentina midfielder Maricel Pereyra (10) battle for a header with Canada defender Marie Levasseur (28) during the first half of a SheBelieves Cup women's soccer match, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Harrison, N.J. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Argentina midfielder Daiana Falfán (8) fights for control of the ball with Canada forward Kaylee Hunter (30) during the first half of a SheBelieves Cup women's soccer match, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Harrison, N.J. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Argentina goalkeeper Solana Pereyra (1) catches the ball during the first half of a SheBelieves Cup women's soccer match against the Canada, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Harrison, N.J. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
When he talks about the role of religion in the founding of the United States, historian Gregg Frazer does not attract eager audiences.
“Neither side really wants to hear what I say,” says Frazer, a professor of history and political studies at The Master’s University, a Christian school in Santa Clarita, California.
The founders, Frazer says, did not create a Christian republic. Several key founders either rejected core Christian doctrines or were vague enough to keep historians debating. For Frazer, that often disappoints audiences of his fellow Christians.
But, he says, nor were the founders a cluster of rationalist deists — believers in a God who set the universe in motion like a clockmaker and then left it alone — and anti-religious skeptics, as they are sometimes portrayed. That disappoints audiences who favor a high firewall between church and state. Most of the founders were religious in one form or another.
The long-running debate over the founders’ intentions about religion has been turbocharged with the approaching 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. Amid the America 250 celebrations, some Christian activists and authors are redoubling claims that the U.S. had a Christian founding.
They have an ally in the White House. President Donald Trump is promoting “America Prays,” culminating in a May 17 gathering on the National Mall in Washington. Cabinet officials are issuing Christian messages in their official capacity. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proclaimed that “America was founded as a Christian nation … in our DNA.”
Critics and advocacy groups are pushing back.
“Most — nearly all — serious historians agree that America was not founded as a Christian nation in any meaningful legal, philosophical, or constitutional sense,” says the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Six in 10 U.S. adults surveyed said they believed the founders originally intended America to be a Christian nation, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center report.
Why do the founders’ beliefs and intentions matter?
“Everyone’s looking for what we historians call a usable past,” says John Fea, author of “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?”
“We go into the past looking for what we want in order to advance a particular political or cultural agenda,” says Fea, a fellow at the Lumen Center, a Christian research institute and study center in Madison, Wisconsin.
Public officials and others did indeed offer prayers on behalf of the new republic at important historical moments. But he said other issues — such as taxation and representation — were more central to the Revolution.
Historian Mark David Hall argues that Christianity did strongly impact the founding. While core founders did not hold traditional Christian beliefs, he contends that many other founders did, and this shaped their thinking about how to form the new republic.
“There’s plenty of evidence Christianity had an influence,” says Hall, author of “Did America Have a Christian Founding?”
He says founders’ attention to human dignity harmonizes with the Bible’s teaching of humanity created in God’s image. The system of checks and balances — to prevent the concentration of power — reflects teachings about human sin that would have permeated a largely Protestant culture, he says.
He also notes that some early presidents and Congresses issued proclamations for prayer and thanksgiving, though some drew opposition and controversy. Some states sponsored churches for decades after the Constitution was ratified, indicating that the founders didn’t believe religion should be absent from public life.
The believed that faith was important in forming moral, responsible citizens of the new republic. They promoted “toleration without eliminating the importance of real religious commitment on the part of differing adherents,” Frazer wrote in his book, “The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders.”
There’s no reference to any specific religion in the Constitution beyond the date — “in the year of our Lord” 1787. It forbids religious tests for officeholders. The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and forbids “establishment” of a national religion.
Twentieth-century Supreme Court rulings applied the First Amendment to the states on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying citizens’ rights.
Frazer argues that the Bible is not cited as a source for any governing principles in the documented proceedings of the Constitutional Convention or in the influential Federalist Papers. He says the founders drew on influences such as Enlightenment thinking for such concepts as human equality, accountable government and freedom of religion. Early critics faulted the Constitution's lack of religious content.
The Declaration of Independence does have religious language, declaring that rights come from the “Creator.” It appeals to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
Thomas Jefferson and other founders — adroitly, Frazer says — used terms acceptable to Christians as well as followers of other religious and philosophical movements.
At the time of the Revolution, most colonists were Protestant, though church participation had been in decline.
Rationalistic approaches to religion strongly influenced many college-educated and propertied elite men, such as those who produced the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Frazer wrote. So did Freemasonry, a fraternal order based on beliefs in a universal God and morals.
Some founders were devout Christians such as John Jay, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry. Others believed in God but not in Jesus’ divinity, including key founders like Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The enigmatic Washington kept active in his Episcopal church but avoided sacraments and also was an active Freemason.
But contrary to popular belief, most founders were not deists.
Frazer instead describes many founders as “theistic rationalists.” George Washington believed that divine “Providence” saved his life in battle and intervened on America’s behalf. He was far from alone.
“They did believe in an active God,” Frazer says.
Even the skeptics thought religion was important in forming virtuous citizens. Many scholars believe the First Amendment created a sort of religious free market in which Christianity and other faiths have flourished to this day.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
FILE - The Constitution of the United States is printed in Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump's "God Bless the USA" Bible in Washington, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he stands outside St. John's Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House, on June 1, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - Life-size bronze sculptures of the signers of the U.S. Constitution stand in the Signers' Hall on July 7, 2016, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
FILE - President Ronald Reagan prays with National Association of Evangelicals President Arthur Gay, left, following his address to the organization's convention asking for help in winning approval of a constitutional amendment permitting prayer in school in Columbus, Ohio, March 7, 1984. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)
