7 Faiths of the Founding Fathers - Perimeter Church

Part VIIFaiths of the Founding FathersMen of Their TimeA Complex and Diverse Mix.• The problem of historical objectivity.• Two orientations:(1)The Founding Fathers were orthodox Christians;(2)The Founding Fathers were Deists and Enlightenment rationalists.• The reality.Some General Characteristics.• The aristocratic elite.• Civil religionists.• A belief in Providence.• John Adams: “The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable [day] in thehistory of America... It ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance, bysolemn acts of devotion to God.”• George Washington in the midst of the Revolution: “The hand of Providence hasbeen so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacksfaith....”• Benjamin Franklin’s appeal at the Constitutional Convention.• Washington’s First Inaugural Address: “[M]y fervent supplication to that AlmightyBeing who rules over the universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations...”A “Providential agency” has guided every step which the United States has takentoward becoming an independent nation.• Characteristics of the Founding Fathers.• Mark Noll, et al.: “They were not, in any traditional sense, Christian.”• Four religious orientations.Deists Rationalistic Theists Liberal Christians Orthodox Christians(1)Orthodox Christians.• EX: Samuel Adams; John Jay; Elias Boudinot; Patrick Henry; John Witherspoon;Roger Sherman; John Dickensen; Olvier Ellsworth; Elbridge Gerry; CharlesPinckney; Abraham Baldwin; William Few.(2)Liberal Christians.• A syncretistic belief system.• A Unitarian orientation.• EX: George Washington; John Adams; James Madison.1

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 2(3)Rationalistic Theists (or Providential Deists).• A commitment to rationalism.• Unitarianism..• EX: Benjamin Franklin; Thomas Jefferson.(4)Deists.• David L. Holmes: “[Thomas] Paine and other left-wing Deists found the Bible apastiche of magic, superstition, irrationality, pre-scientific thinking, and bloodthirstyethics.”• EX: Thomas Paine; Ethan Allen; James Monroe.The Founding Fathers:Four Religious OrientationsIssue Orthodox Liberal Rationalistic DeistsChristians Christians Theists1. The Bible is divinely-inspired Yes Yes / No No No2. God is an eternal, transcendent, and personal Being Yes Yes Yes Yes / No3. Belief in the Trinity Yes No No No4. Belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ Yes No No No5. Belief in the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection Yes No No No6. Jesus Christ is the spiritual Savior of humanity Yes Yes / No No No7. Belief in miracles Yes Yes / No No No8. Belief that God answers prayer Yes Yes Yes / No No9. Belief that God intervenes in human affairs Yes Yes Yes No10. Belief in divine judgement and the reality of hell Yes Yes Yes / No No11. Active involvement in a Christian church Yes Yes Yes / No No12. Participation in the Lord’s Supper / Holy Communion Yes No No No13. Supported the ideals of civil religion Yes Yes Yes YesA General Assessment.• The deistic influence.• Mark Noll: “The God of the founding fathers was a kindly deity, more like the Godof 18 th century deism or 19 th century Unitarianism than of the early Puritans or laterrevivalists. This God had made the world an orderly and understandable place. Hewas ‘nature’s God,’ as the Declaration of Independence put it, who had createdhumankind with nearly infinite potential. The men who put the nation together weresincere moralists and great humanitarians. They were entirely convinced that humanexertion and goodwill could make America into a nearly ideal place.... What DanielBoorstin, a former librarian of Congress, once wrote about Jefferson and his friendsapplies more generally to most of the founders: they had found in God what theymost admired in humanity.”

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 3Orthodox ChristiansJohn Witherspoon (1723-94).• Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).• The only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.• Major influences:• John Knox.• John Locke.• Clerical statesman.• “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men” (1776).• Service in the Continental Congress.Samuel Adams (1722-1803).• Political radical and a theological conservative.• “Father of the American Revolution” and “the last ofthe Puritans.”• Religious heritage.• Major influences:• Jonathan Edwards.• John Locke.• Political activist.• Christian moralist.• Governor of Massachusetts.• Congregational sacralist.• Defender of the Christian faith.Samuel AdamsJohn Jay (1745-1829).• A reluctant revolutionary.• Christian statesman.• Evangelical Episcopalian.• Social reformer.• Christian sacralist.Elias Boudinot (1740-1821).• A product of the Great Awakening.• Christian statesman.• A Christian apologist.John JayPatrick Henry (1736-99).• Evangelical Anglican.• A man of contradictions.• Promotion of Christian sacralism.• The Age of Revelation (1801).Elias BoudinotPatrick Henry

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 4Liberal ChristiansGeorge Washington (1732-99).• The orthodox Washington:• A life-long Episcopalian.• Martha’s devotion.• Washington’s theology.• Promotion of Christianity among his troops.• A devout civil religionist.• Belief in Providence.• Nelly Custis: “His life, his writings, prove that he was aChristian. He was not one of those who act or pray ‘thatthey may be seen of men.’ He communed with his God insecret.”• John Marshall: “Without making ostentatious professionsof religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith,and a truly devout man.”• The non-orthodox Washington:• A most private faith.• Public pronouncements.• Casual church attendance.• An ecumenist.• The communion controversy.• Rev. William White: “Truth requires me to say that General Washington neverreceived the communion in the churches of which I am parochial minister.”• Rev. James Abercrombie’s assessment.• An active Mason.• Thomas Jefferson’s assessment.• James Thomas Flexner: “Washington subscribed to the religious faith of theEnlightenment: like Franklin and Jefferson, he was a deist. Although not believing in[orthodox Christian doctrines], he was convinced that a divine force, impossible todefine, ruled the universe, and that this ‘Providence’ was good.”• Joseph Ellis: Washington was “a lukewarm Episcopalian.”• David L. Holmes: “Like Deists, Washington was more concerned with morality andethics than with adhering to the doctrines of a particular church. He seemed to haveno interest in theology.”• Marcus Cunliff: “It is true that [Washington] was a sound Episcopalian, but hisreligion, though no doubt perfectly sincere, was a social performance.... He was aChristian as a Virginia planter understood the term.”• Mark Noll: Washington’s faith “was mostly a social convention.”• John Fea: Washington was a “latitudinarian” who valued civil religion more thanorthodox Christianity.• Civil religionist.• Washington: “Religion and morality are indispensable” to political stability.• Washington: “National morality cannot prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”• Washington: “It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible.”• Post-script: Washington revisioned and venerated.• Parson Weems’ The Life of George Washington (1800).• Bishop William Meade’s revisionist biography.

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 5John Adams (1735-1826).• Liberal Congregationalism.• The Harvard influence.• Theology wars.• Adams: “The [further] Study of Theology and the pursuit ofit as a Profession would involve me in endless Altercationsand make my Life miserable, without any prospect of doingany good to my fellow Men.”• Opposition to dogmatic theology and “Protestant Popes.”• Abigail Adams.• Character and personality.• The Puritan influence.• Conventional Christian beliefs:• Adams, c. 1794: “The Christian religion is, above all the Religions that everprevailed or existed in ancient or modern Times, the Religion of Wisdom, Virtue,Equity and Humanity.... It is resignation to God – it is Goodness itself to Man.”• Adams in 1810: “The Christian religion, as I understand it, is the brightness of theglory and the express portrait of the eternal, self-existent independent, benevolent,all-powerful and all merciful Creator, Preserver, and Father of the Universe....Neither savage nor civilized man without a revelation could ever have discovered orinvented it.”• Adams, c. 1820: “The Bible is the best book in the World. It contains more of mylittle Phylosophy than all the Libraries I have seen; and such parts of it as I cannotreconcile to my little Phylosophy I postpone for future Investigation.”• The teachings of Jesus were “the most benevolent and sublime, probably that hasbeen ever taught and more perfect than those of any of the ancient Philosophers.”• Deistic humanitarianism:• Adams: My religious beliefs are “not exactly conformable to that of the greater Partof the Christian World.”• John Fea: “Adams passes the ‘orthopraxy’ test, but fails... the ‘orthodoxy’ test.”• Anti-Trinitarian.• Adams: The incarnation and the deity of Christ are “an awful blasphemy.”• Adams on the doctrine of the atonement: “An incarnate God!!! An eternal, selfexistentomnipresent Author of this stupendous Universe suffering on a Cross!!!My Soul starts with horror at the Idea.”• A benign Deism: “Benevolence and beneficence, Industry, Equity and Humanity,Resignation and Submission, Repentance and Reformation are the Essence of myReligion.”• Adams to Jefferson (1816): “The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on theMount contain my Religion.”• Adams, c. 1820: “The love of God and his creation, delight, joy, triumph, exultationin my own existence... are my religion.”• Adams on civil religion:• Adams: The purpose of religion is to make “good men, good majestrates, goodSubjects, good Husbands and good Wives, good Parents and good Children, goodmasters and good servants.• Adams to Jefferson (c. 1820): “Without Religion this World would be Something notfit to be mentioned in polite Company. I mean Hell.”

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 6• Adams as president: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religiouspeople. It is wholly inadequate to govern any other.”• Adams: Morality and civic virtue cannot exist “without a supposition of a God.There is no right or wrong in the universe without the supposition of a moralgovernment and an intellectual and moral Governor.”• As president, Adams issued annual thanksgiving proclamations in addition to callsfor national days of fasting and prayer.• Anti-Catholic views.• Adams despised Catholics even more than Calvinists!• Adams: Catholicism is based on superstition, and it has been a source of oppressionfor centuries.• Catholicism is innately hierarchical and anti-republican.• “Liberty and Popery cannot live together.”• Reflections on the Catholic mass.James Madison (1751-1836).• An Anglican heritage.• A theology student at the College of New Jersey (Princeton).• Major influence: John Witherspoon.• Fading devotion and creeping skepticism.• The Revolutionary-era influences.• A proponent of religious liberty.• Madison’s role in disestablishing the Episcopal Church inVirginia.• Principle author of the Bill of Rights.• A “liberal Christian.”• Bishop William Meade: “Whatever may have been theprivate sentiments of Mr. Madison on the subject of religion,he was never known to declare any hostility to it. He always treated it with respect....“His creed was not strictly regulated by the Bible.”• An ambivalent civil religionist.• Madison: “Religion is the basis and foundation of all government.”• Madison: “The belief in a God All Powerful wise & good is... essential to the moralorder of the World & to the happiness of man.”• NOTE: Like many of his contemporaries, Madison’s public pronouncements neverreferred to Jesus Christ, the Bible, or specific Christian doctrines.• As president, Madison actively promoted American civil religion.• By 1816, Madison advocated strict separation of church and state.• Madison: Just as governments function best “without Kings and Nobles,” religion“flourishes in greater purity” without “the aid of Government.”• An enigma.• David L. Holmes: “Like so many other founding fathers, James Madison seems tohave ended up in the camp affirming the existence of a Deistic God.”

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 7Rationalistic TheistsBenjamin Franklin (1706-90).• A pragmatist, an independent thinker, an ambitious overachiever,and an American success story.• A Calvinistic background.• A young Deist.• A religious seeker.• Franklin’s “first principle.”• Some reasonable assumptions.• Some theological modifications.• Natural Law religion.• An emphasis on Providence.• Orthopraxy, not orthodoxy.• Franklin: “A good Christian is a good Parent, a good Child,a Good Husband or Wife, a good Neighbour or Friend, agood Subject or citizen.”• David L. Holmes: “Insatiably curious, ambivalent about religion... offended bydogmatism and intolerance, opposed to the highly emotional conversion experiencesof the Great Awakening, Franklin made morality primary in his interpretation ofreligion. Like other Deists, he believed that humans served God best when theyperformed good works on behalf of humanity and society.”• Divine judgment and the afterlife:• Franklin: “Without a Belief of a Providence that takes Cognizance of, guards,and guides, and may favour particular Persons, there is no Motive to Worship aDeity, to fear its Displeasure, or to pray for its Protection.”• Franklin, 1738: “I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy ismore regarded than virtue; and the scriptures assure me that at the last day weshall be examined not on what we thought but on what we did; and ourrecommendation will be that we did good to our fellow man.”• Guidelines for “moral perfection.”• A religious pluralist.• The Franklin Creed.• Non-orthodox beliefs.• Franklin to Ezra Stiles (1790): “Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, Creator ofthe Universe. That he governs the World by his Providence. That he ought to beworshiped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing good tohis other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated withJustice, in another life, respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be thefundamental Principles of all sound Religion. As to Jesus of Nazareth... I have...some doubts as to his Divinity, though it is a Question that I do not dogmatize upon,having never studied it, & think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expectsoon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.”• A man of contrasts.• Friend to George Whitefield.• A prolific philanderer.• A problematical husband and father.• A slave-owning abolitionist.

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 8• Franklin on civil religion:• Franklin in 1775: “Whoever will introduce into public affairs the principles ofChristianity will change the face of the world.”• Franklin: Most people are “weak and ignorant” and need religion “to restrain themfrom vice, and to retain them in the practice of [virtue] till it becomes habitual.”• Franklin to Thomas Paine: “If men are wicked with religion, what would they bewithout it?”Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).• A Unitarian icon.• A life-long fascination with religion.• Major religious influence:• Joseph Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of Christianity.• The formative years.• Virginia aristocratic culture.• Education at William and Mary College.• Major influence: William Small.• A nominal Anglican/Episcopalian.• The humanistic Jesus.• David Holmes: “For Jefferson, true worship consisted oflove and tolerance for human beings according to the ethicalteachings of Jesus. He viewed these as “the most pure,benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached toman.”• Jefferson in 1804: “I am a Christian in the only sense inwhich I believe Jesus wished anyone to be: sincerelyattached to his doctrines, in preference to all others.”• Jefferson in 1816: “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines ofJesus.”• Jefferson: If the ethics of Christ had been preached in their pure form, “the wholecivilized world would now have been Christian.”• The orthodox Jefferson.• Divine Providence.• Jefferson: The “evidences o fan intelligent and power Agent” are obvious and“irresistible.”• A passionate defender of religious liberty.• The radical Jefferson.• A radical free-thinker.• Jefferson: “I am a sect by myself, as far as I know.”• A committed humanist.• Jefferson: “I have an unshakable conviction that the world is steadilyadvancing, not only in the material but also in the moral sphere.”• An anti-supernatural rationalist.• Jefferson: The doctrine of the Trinity is “metaphysical insanity.”• Jefferson: The deity of Christ, the incarnation, the virgin birth, the atonement, andthe resurrection are “the deliria of crazy imaginations.”• Jefferson: The Book of Revelation is “the ravings of a Maniac.”• Anti-clerical convictions.

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 9• A radical separatist.• A radical restorationist view of church history.• Separating the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith.”• Jefferson: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since theintroduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, [and]imprisoned.”• Hostility toward Calvinists.• “The Presbyterian clergy is the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannicaland ambitious,” and they would burn heretics if the law still allowed it.• Author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786).• A secular presidency.• No presidential proclamations calling for national days of prayer andthanksgiving.• Jefferson’s promotion of secular education.• Jefferson’s religious vision for America:• “I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which hassurrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuinedoctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust there is not a young man nowliving who will not die an Unitarian.”• Historical criticism and the “Jefferson Bible.”• Jefferson: The New Testament writers were “dupes and imposters,” and the apostlePaul was “the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”• “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth” (1804).• The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (the “Jefferson Bible,” 1820).• A “demythologized” New Testament.• Jefferson on civil religion.• Jefferson: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removedtheir only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties arethe gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?”Radical DeistThomas Paine (1737-1809).• Opposition to organized Christianity.• A radical anti-supernaturalist.• The Age of Reason:• “The first article of every man’s creed” should be, “I believein God.”• “I believe in one God, and no more [i.e., “and nothingelse”]; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe inthe equality of man, and I believe that religious dutiesconsist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring tomake our fell-creatures happy.”• “My country is the world and my religion is to do good.”• On the superiority of Deism:• “The religion of Deism is superior to the Christian religion. It is free from all thoseinvented and torturing articles [of faith] that shock our reason... with which theChristian religion abounds. Its creed is pure and sublimely simple. It believes in

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 10God, and there it resets. It honours Reason as the choicest gift of God to man and thefaculty by which [man] is enabled to contemplate the power, wisdom, and goodnessof the Creator, displayed in the creation. ... It avoids all presumptuous beliefs andrejects, as the [preposterous] inventions of men, all books pretending to berevelation.”Faiths of the Founding MothersThe Orthodox Impulse.• The conservative gender.• Martha Custis Washington.• Why were women (generally) more conservative?(1)Deism and Freemasonry.(2)The college connection.(3)The Revolutionary orientation.Abigail Adams.• An apostle of Unitarianism.• A religious pluralist:• Abigail to her sister (1786): “The Universal Parent hasdispensed his blessing throughout all creation... [including]Christian, Jew, or Turk [i.e., Muslim].... To the glory of thepresent age they are shaking off that narrow contracted spirit ofpriestcraft and usurpation which has for so many agestyrannized over the minds of mankind, and deluged the worldin blood.... Religion [should be] a wise and benevolent system,calculated... to harmonize mankind to the temper of its greatAuthor, who came to make peace, and not to destroy.”• A theological Unitarian:• “There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my Senses, thatThree is one, and one is three.... The first commandment forbids the worship of butone God.”Dolley Payne Madison.• A Quaker heritage.• A “liberal Christian.”

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 11Post-Script: Religious Skepticism, the Founding Fathers, andChristian ApologeticsMen of Their Times.• Good (but unorthodox) men.• The spirit of the times.The Legacy of the Scientific Revolution.• A naturalistic orientation.The Spirit of the Enlightenment.• Enlightenment humanism.• The Catholic legacy.• Superstition, irrationality, and imperialism.• Protestant dogmas.• Sola scriptura.• The battle for the Bible.• The “problem” of Calvinism.The State of Christian Apologetics.• In an age in which skepticism was growing, Christian apologetics was lagging far behindthe times.• The front-line issues in the late 1700s:• The divine inspiration of the Bible and its accurate preservation and transmissionthrough the centuries.• The historicity of Jesus.• The controversy over slavery.• The traditional class system and the socio/political status quo.• In the mid-to-late 1800s, Christians were unprepared for the challenges of Darwiniannaturalistic evolutionary theory.• The Christian defense against modernism.• Twentieth century Christian apologetics.• G.K. Chesterton.• C.S. Lewis.• Josh McDowell, Francis Schaeffer, Norman Geisler, et al.• Intelligent Design theory.