Some Notes on Christianity, the Founders, and the US Constitution

Frenchman Hector St. John de Crevecoeur made the following note about Americans in 1782 “religious indifference is imperceptibly disseminated from one end of the continent to the other. (See Note 1)” Historians find that one in 20 Americans regularly attended church in 1790.  According to Church Historian, Robert T. Handy, "No more than 10 percent of Americans in 1800 were members of congregations (see note 2).”  It was not until after the Second Great Revival (1790 – 1840) that regular church attendance by Americans increased dramatically (see note 3).  While many Americans practiced Christianity at the time of the writing of the US Constitution, many did not.  Many focused on the writings of the Enlightenment and were Deists, Freemasons, or Unitarians. This was especially true for many of our influential Founding Fathers including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.

George Washington

The myth of Washington's Christianity came from Mason Weems influential book Life of Washington.  The book is full of myths and legends such as the story of the cherry tree.  Weems, a Minister, portrayed Washington as a devout Christian.  Today there are many who continue to rewrite history so as to make the claim about the Christianity of George Washington.  Some cite his last will and testament that supposedly states, “Being heartily sorry from the bottom of my heart for my sins past, most humbly desiring forgiveness of the same from Almighty God, my Savior and Redeemer in Whom and bye the merits of Jesus Christ, I trust and believe assuredly to be saved and to have full remission and forgiveness of all my sins."  Those who have been to Mount Vernon will often state that George Washington's Christian faith is made clear in the inscription he had put over his tomb from John 11:25-26.  "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.  He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."  Conservative author, Tim LaHaye, writes, "That President George Washington was a devout believer in Jesus Christ and had accepted Him as His Lord and Savior is easily demonstrated by a reading of his personal prayer book, written in his own handwriting."  The Reverend Dr. James Kennedy, the famous television evangelist, devoted a sermon that "George Washington came to a living faith in the Divine Savior.  He came to trust in the shed blood of Christ, the perfect life of Jesus Christ, in which he was robed and in which he stood before God….He prayed that the blood of Christ would cleanse him from all of his sins; that he might be accepted because of the merits, the perfect character of Jesus Christ, and not himself."  Such examples proclaiming the Christianity of Washington are common.

It is important to note that repetition of something does not make something factual.  While the nature of George Washington's religion is a difficult subject, the assertions quoted above that Washington was a born again evangelical Christian have absolutely no foundation based on the historical record.  The quotation from his will is completely made up.  Washington's will simply begins, "In the name of God, amen, I George Washington, citizen of the United States….”  The quote from John is in fact over Washington's tomb but it was added over 30 years after he died and is not connected with his wishes or instructions in any way whatsoever.  The assertions of LaHaye and Kennedy are based on the so-called Washington Prayer book which was "discovered" nearly a century after Washington’s death and claimed to be in his handwriting as young man.  They are not and while they might be connected to some family member, they are almost certainly not related in any way to George Washington.  Claiming the validity of the prayers as those of Washington and then making the leap that these prayers copied when he was a young man expressed Washington's mature faith is not supported by evidence.  One cannot find anything along this line of expression in his mature correspondence.

Washington's own diaries show that he rarely attended church prior to the Revolutionary War and reveal almost nothing to indicate his spiritual frame of mind.  The name of Jesus Christ never appears in his thousands of letters and he rarely spoke about his religion.  While Washington attended church fairly regularly during his presidency, he rarely attended once he left office.  Little is known about his specific religious beliefs because he wrote little on the subject.  Quite a bit is known about his actions in church.  He was never confirmed and he avoided communion – two actions synonymous with Deists who attended Anglican churches.  Both confirmation and communion would have been expected from an orthodox Anglican believer.  William White, Washington’s bishop and pastor, stated, “Truth requires me to say that General Washington never received communion…and was known to even avoid church on those Sundays when communion was given.”  Bishop White also stated "I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation."  In Washington's final hours, as recounted by his secretary, Tobias Lear, there is no reference to any religious words or prayers, no request for forgiveness, no fear of divine judgment, no call for a minister although ample time existed to call one if desired, no deathbed farewell, no promise or hope of meeting again in Heaven.  The Christian images of judgment, redemption through the sacrifice of Christ, and eternal life for the faithful are not found in any of Washington's known writings.

Washington’s Freemasonry experience points to a belief in Deism.  Washington's initiation as a Freemason occurred at the Fredericksburg Lodge on 4 November 1752.  He later became a Master Mason in 1799 and remained a Freemason until he died.  To the United Baptist Churches in Virginia in May, 1789, Washington said that every man "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."  Washington also used a lot of Deist vocabulary in his speeches, and when his speech-writer would write the word “God,” Washington was known to substitute “Great Spirit,” or some other Deist-like words.  After Washington's death, Reverend James Abercrombie, a friend and rector of the church Washington occasionally attended with his wife, replied to the Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal Minister in Albany, New York, who had asked him about Washington's religion replied, "Sir, Washington was a Deist."  Reverend Wilson later stated "I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity.  I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more."

John Adams

Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but ultimately rejected the fundamental doctrines of conventional Christianity such as the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, becoming a Unitarian. Unitarianism is a religion built on tolerance and reason.  Human reason and experience are the final authority in determining spiritual truth, not the Bible.  John Adams's biographer and the editor of his Works, his grandson Charles Francis Adams, wrote that "with the independent spirit which in early life had driven him from the ministry, [Adams rejected] the prominent doctrines of Calvinism, the trinity, the atonement…”  In his youth, Adams' father urged him to become a minister, but Adams refused, considering the practice of law to be a more noble calling.  Although he once referred to himself as a "church going animal," Adams' view of religion overall was rather ambivalent.  He recognized the abuses, large and small, that religious belief lends itself to, but he also believed that religion could be a force for good in individual lives and in society at large.  His extensive reading (especially in the classics), led him to believe that this view applied not only to Christianity, but to all religions.  Adams denied the doctrine of eternal damnation.  In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, he wrote: "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"  In his letter to Samuel Miller, 8 July 1820, Adams admitted his unbelief of Protestant Calvinism: "I must acknowledge that I cannot class myself under that denomination."

In his, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788], he wrote: "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history.  Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity.  It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. . . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind."

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson denounced the “superstitions” of Christianity in many of his letters.  He did not believe in spiritual souls, angels, or godly miracles.  Although Jefferson did admire the morality of Jesus, he did not think that Jesus was divine.  He did not believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection, or the miracles of Jesus.  In a letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787, he wrote, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god."  Jefferson believed in materialism, reason, and science.  He never admitted to any religion but his own.  In a letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, 25 June 1819, he wrote, "You say you are a Calvinist.  I am not.  I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."

James Madison

Referred to as the father of the Constitution, Madison had no conventional sense of Christianity.  He was known to use a Deistic vocabulary in his writings and speeches, and his references about the Holy Trinity mirror Jefferson’s almost identically – “mindless jargon” as he referred to it.  Madison, perhaps more than any other president, believed strongly in the separation of church and state and was influential in his writings on the subject.  In 1785, Madison wrote in his “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” that, "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial.  What have been its fruits?  More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution…What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society?  In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people.  Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries.  A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

Benjamin Franklin

Although Franklin received religious training, he rebelled against the “irrational tenets” of his parents’ belief in Christianity.  He states in his Autobiography, "My parents had given me religions impressions, and I received from my infancy a pious education in the principles of Calvinism.  But scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that they wrought an effect on my quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a through Deist."  In an essay on "Toleration," Franklin wrote: "If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution.  The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another.  The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans.  These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England."  Dr. Joseph Priestley, an intimate friend of Franklin, wrote of him in his autobiography: "It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers.”

Thomas Paine

It can be argued that Paine influenced more early Americans than any other writer.  Although he held Deist beliefs, he wrote in his famous The Age of Reason: "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.  My own mind is my church…Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity."

Other Sources

 Virtually all the evidence that attempts to argue that the US Constitution was based upon Christian principles and beliefs comes largely from quotes and opinions from a few of the colonial statesmen who had professed a belief in Christianity.  Sometimes the quotes come from their youth before their introduction to Enlightenment ideas or simply from personal beliefs.  But statements of beliefs, by themselves, say nothing about Christianity as the source of the Constitution and government.  Some wanted a connection between Church and State.  Patrick Henry, for example, proposed a tax to help sustain "some form of Christian worship" for the state of Virginia.  But Jefferson and other statesmen did not agree.  In 1779, Jefferson introduced a bill for the Statute for Religious Freedom which became Virginia law.  Jefferson designed this law to completely separate religion from government.  None of Patrick Henry's Christian views were introduced into the Virginia State Constitution or the US Constitution.

The original Pledge of Allegiance, authored by Francis Bellamy in 1892, did not contain the words "under God." “Under God” was added in 1954 at the insistence of President Eisenhower. The United States currency never had "In God We Trust" printed on it until after the Civil War.  Many Christians who visit historical monuments and see the word "God" inscribed in stone, automatically impart their own personal God of Christianity, without understanding the Deist context of the Framers.  In Holy Trinity Church vs. United States 1892, Supreme Court Justice David Brewer wrote that "this is a Christian nation."  Many use this as evidence.  However, Brewer wrote this in obiter dictum, as a personal opinion which does not serve as a legal precedent.  Later Brewer felt obliged to explain himself: "But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation?  Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it.  On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'  Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians.  On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders.  Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all."

The U.S. Constitution

The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers.  The Constitution forms a secular document and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being.  The US government derives from the people, not God, as it clearly states in the preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union...."  The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion.  The Constitution does not include the phrases "separation of church and state" and "freedom of religion."  However, the Constitution implies both in the 1st Amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”  Jefferson made an interpretation of the 1st Amendment in his January 1st, 1802 letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association calling it a "wall of separation between church and State."  Madison had also written that "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States."  There existed little controversy about this interpretation from our Founding Fathers.  The end of the Constitution records the year of its ratification, "the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven."  Although, indeed, it uses the word "Lord", it does not refer to Jesus but rather to the dating method.  The term simply conveys a written English form of the Latin, Anno Domini (AD), which means the year of our Lord (no, it does not mean After Death). This scripted form served as a common way of dating in the 1700s.  The Constitution also uses many pagan words such as January (from the two-headed Roman god, Janus), and Sunday (from the word Sunne, which refers to the Saxon Sun god).

The Declaration of Independence

Many who think of America as founded upon Christianity cite the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration does refer to God.  However, the Declaration of Independence does not represent any law of the United States.  It came prior to the establishment of the US Constitution. The Declaration listed the various grievances against Great Britain and declared our independence.  Although the Declaration may have influential power, it may inspire the lofty thoughts of poets and believers, and judges may mention it in their summations, it holds no legal power.  It represents a historical document about rebellious intentions against Great Britain at a time before the formation of our government.  The Declaration stands as a great political document.  Its author, Thomas Jefferson, aimed at a future government designed and upheld by people and not based on a superstitious god or religious monarchy.

 It observed that all men "are created equal" meaning that we all have the natural ability of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."  Please note that the Declaration says nothing about our rights secured by Christianity.  It bears repeating: "Governments are instituted among men."  Moreover, the mentioning of God in the Declaration does not describe the personal God of Christianity.  Thomas Jefferson, who believed in Deism, is considered to be the primary author of the Declaration. The Declaration describes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."  This nature's view of God agrees with Deist philosophy rather than Christianity.

The Treaty of Tripoli

Unlike most governments of the past, the American Founding Fathers set up a government divorced from any religion.  As the United States delved into international affairs, few foreign nations knew about the intentions of the US.  For this reason, an insight from at a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the US government to a foreign nation.  The Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”  The preliminary treaty began with a signing on 4 November, 1796 (the end of George Washington's last term as president).  Joel Barlow, the American diplomat served as counsel to Algiers and negotiated the treaty.  Barlow had once served under Washington as a Chaplain in the Continental Army.  He became good friends with Paine and Jefferson and read the literature of the Enlightenment.  Later he abandoned Christian orthodoxy for rationalism and became an advocate of secular government.  Joel Barlow wrote the original English version of the treaty, including Article 11.  Barlow forwarded the treaty for approval in 1797.  Timothy Pickering, the Secretary of State, endorsed it and John Adams concurred (now during his presidency). The US Senate approved the treaty on June 7, 1797.  During the Senate review and approval process, the wording of Article 11 never raised the slightest concern.  The treaty even became public through its publication in The Philadelphia Gazette on 17 June 1797.  All treaties are considered to be US law according to the Constitution, Article 6, Section 2: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."  Although the Treaty of Tripoli only lasted a few years and no longer has legal status, it is a clear statement of the intentions of our Founding Fathers.

Common Law

According to the Constitution's 7th Amendment: "In suits of common law. . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact, tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law."  Many believe that common law came from Christian foundations and therefore the Constitution derives from it.  They use various quotes from Supreme Court Justices proclaiming that Christianity came as part of the laws of England, and therefore from its common law heritage.  But Thomas Jefferson, elaborated about the history of common law in his letter to Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814: "For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Carta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century.  But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian King of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686.  Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. . . if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents.  These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it.  But none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law.  If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians, and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are all able to find among them no such act of adoption, we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."  In the same letter, Jefferson examined how the error spread about Christianity and common law.  Jefferson realized that a misinterpretation had occurred with a Latin term by Prisot, "ancien scripture" in reference to common law history.  The term meant "ancient scripture" but people had incorrectly interpreted it to mean "Holy Scripture," thus spreading the myth that common law came from the Bible.  Jefferson writes: "And Blackstone repeats, in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, that 'Christianity is part of the laws of England,' citing Ventris and Strange ubi surpa. 4. Blackst. 59.  Lord Mansfield qualifies it a little by saying that 'The essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law" in the case of the Chamberlain of London v. Evans, 1767.  But he cites no authority, and leaves us at our peril to find out what, in the opinion of the judge, and according to the measure of his foot or his faith, are those essential principles of revealed religion obligatory on us as a part of the common law."  Thus we find this string of authorities, when examined to the beginning, all hanging on the same hook, a perverted expression of Priscot's, or on one another, or nobody."  The Encyclopedia Britannica, also describes the Saxon origin and adds: "The nature of the new common law was at first much influenced by the principles of Roman law, but later it developed more and more along independent lines."  Also prominent among the characteristics that derived out of common law include the institution of the jury, and the right to speedy trial. The historical evidence does not support the idea that our Founding Fathers established a Christian nation.

(1) Frenchman Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, Letter 3, Avalon Project, Yale University.

(2) Robert T. Handy was the Henry Sloane Coffin Professor of Church History at Union Theological Seminary. He is the author of dozens of books and articles. His best known is A Christian Nation: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities published by Oxford University Press.

(3) Glenn Crothers is Professor of early American History at the University of Louisville. He is the author of several books and many articles.

Sources:

General Sources

Bevans, Charles I. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949, Volume 2. [ICCN 70600742 // x763].

Boller, Paul, Jr. George Washington & Religion. Southern Methodist University Press: 1963, 87-88

Borden, Morten. Jews, Turks and Infidels. University of North Carolina Press: 1984.

Boston, Robert. Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Separation of Church & State. Prometheus Books: 1993, 78-79.

Miller, Hunter, ed. Treaties and other International Acts of the United States of America, Vol. 2, Documents 1-40: 1776-1818, United States Government Printing Office, Washington: 1931.

Peterson, Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson Writings. The Library of America: 1984

Remsburg, John.  Six Historic Americans.  1906/2001.

Seldes, George. The Great Quotations. Pocket Books: 1967, 145

Woodress, James. A Yankee's Odyssey: the Life of Joel Barlow. J.P. Lippincott Company: 1958.

Encyclopedia sources

Common law: Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 6, "William Benton, Publisher, 1969

Other Sources

National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource NY

The Constitution of the US, the Declaration of Independence, and the Tr