The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders

Reason, Revelation, and Revolution

Gregg L. Frazer

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780700620623
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Frühe amerikanische Geschichte

Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them—showing that today's political right and left are both wrong.Going beyond church attendance or public pronouncements made for political ends, Frazer scrutinizes the Founders' candid declarations regarding religion found in their private writings. Distilling decades of research, he contends that these men were neither Christian nor deist but rather adherents of a system he labels "theistic rationalism, " a hybrid belief system that combined elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason—with reason the decisive element. Frazer explains how this theological middle ground developed, what its core beliefs were, and how they were reflected in the thought of eight Founders: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. He argues convincingly that Congregationalist Adams is the clearest example of theistic rationalism; that presumed deists Jefferson and Franklin are less secular than supposed; and that even the famously taciturn Washington adheres to this theology. He also shows that the Founders held genuinely religious beliefs that aligned with morality, republican government, natural rights, science, and progress.Frazer's careful explication helps readers better understand the case for revolutionary recruitment, the religious references in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious elements-and lack thereof-in the Constitution. He also reveals how influential clergymen, backing their theology of theistic rationalism with reinterpreted Scripture, preached and published liberal democratic theory to justify rebellion. Deftly blending history, religion, and political thought, Frazer succeeds in showing that the American experiment was neither a wholly secular venture nor an attempt to create a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. By showcasing the actual approach taken by these key Founders, he suggests a viable solution to the twenty-first-century standoff over the relationship between church and state—and challenges partisans on both sides to articulate their visions for America on their own merits without holding the Founders hostage to positions they never held.

1

Theistic Rationalism Introduced

A Creed which should be acceptable to all good and reasonable men.

Basil Willey

THE FOUNDERS OF THE UNITED STATES believed that ideas have consequences. Some of the most important and powerful ideas held by men and women concern religion or religious belief. Because they are so important and powerful, religious ideas inevitably influence political thought and practice. That was certainly true with respect to the American Founding. The Founders were religious men who believed that religion was a crucial support for free societies. Yet even though religious ideas played a significant role in the Founding era, a profound misapprehension of those ideas pervades twenty-first-century America. Thomas Pangle, distinguished scholar of American political thought, wrote what serves as a virtual commission for this book when he observed: “What is needed is a more sustained attempt at interpreting the few greatest Founders in their own terms and spirit.”¹ This book aims to meet precisely that need.

It is tempting for some to go beyond what the Founders actually said about their religious beliefs by speculating more generally about those beliefs and about their spiritual lives—if only because we want to “know them” and because there is so much we would like to know that they did not speak to. And so—from sympathy or affection or curiosity—we fill in their silences and speak for them when they refuse to speak for themselves. But this is a mistake, one that is more likely to distort our understanding of the Founders than deepen it. That the mistake is all the more tempting when some wish to recruit the Founders to their side in contemporary disputes is all the more reason to avoid it. This book resists the temptation to speak for the Founders: it does not suppose that we can know more than they revealed. The problem today is that we are so invested in the Founders that, in an effort to agree with them, we too often make them agree with us. In the process, we lose sight of what they actually said and wrote. This is particularly the case with their religion. One side wants to see the Founders as forerunners of today’s secularists who prize a “wall of separation” between church and state. Another side wants to show that the Founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation built upon Christian and, specifically, biblical principles. Amid this, the danger is that we will not see past our own attachments to entertain the Founders accurately, on their own terms. This book seeks to allow the key Founders to speak for themselves so that we can understand their religious beliefs on their own terms. Although “cherry-picking” or a convenient perusal of the evidence could supply material in support of either view, a comprehensive study reveals that neither of the prevailing views is correct. The political theology of the American Founding era was neither Christianity nor deism. The prevailing political theology of the American Founding era was theistic rationalism.

The “secular” camp is represented in the academic community by the majority of historians and political scientists. Many prominent names are closely associated with this view, including Charles Beard, Vernon Parrington, Louis Hartz, Adrienne and Gustav Koch, Gordon Wood, Walter Berns, Wilson Carey McWilliams, and Robert Goldwin. Their arguments range from economic determinism to the march of secularism to Lockean consensus to entrenchment in the Enlightenment to outright opposition to religion to stark cynicism on the part of the Founders. The secular school of thought has been extremely influential on university campuses because it accords well with the secularism taught in other disciplines and because members of its intended audience want to believe that it is true, as it coincides with the type of society and culture they prefer.

A number of interest groups and organizations in the public eye are also members of the secular camp. They raise money and support by declaring the irreligion of those who founded the country, by extolling the virtues of a wholly secular republic, and by warning of danger in the growing power of those who contend for religious influence in politics. Included in this group are the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Their influence depends on the extent to which they can raise the specter of fundamentalist theocracy in America. Their sensitivity on this issue was exemplified by their near hysteria over the nomination of John Ashcroft as attorney general. Ashcroft was grilled by members of the Judiciary Committee over his (accurate) quotation of a religious slogan from the Revolutionary period: “No King but King Jesus.”² It was difficult to tell whether the secularists were more upset about the quote itself or about the fact that Ashcroft made the remark at a fundamentalist Christian college.

The “Christian America” camp is not well represented in the academic community. For the most part, historians or political scientists who hold this view teach at sectarian colleges or at colleges specifically created to promulgate the view, such as Patrick Henry College. The academic arenas in which the Christian America view holds a dominant position are the Christian school and home school movements. Most of those who are published and influential in this group, however, are either lawyers or pastors, not historians. Thus, there are no prominent historians or political scientists to mention in connection with the Christian America camp, but one book and one individual deserve mention. On the heels of the American Bicentennial celebration, Peter Marshall and David Manuel’s The Light and the Glory was published and inspired a revival of the Christian America view. It became the classic text of that camp. Its historiography is abominable; it is a collection of speculations, suppositions, personal musings, and “insights” with little or no proof or documentation for extraordinary claims. Nonetheless, it remains very influential. The most prolific of the Christian America proponents is David Barton. Barton has created an entire organization, called Wallbuilders, to promote his views and to market his voluminous material.

The Christian America camp has its main influence in the evangelical Christian subculture. Prominent pastors, particularly those with television programs, effectively propagate the message to willing listeners. D. James Kennedy even established the Center for Reclaiming America as an “outreach” of his church. In addition to books and school curricula, videotapes and DVDs have been a most effective means of disseminating this view. Interest groups, publishing companies, legal services, tour group companies, lecture circuits, and colleges have all been established to promote the Christianization of the American Founding.

The Christian America camp is very active politically, and adherents have organized in order to “take back America” from the secularists and return the nation to its “biblical foundations.” The Christian Coalition and numerous grassroots organizations work to elect Christians to political office across the country. They will not be satisfied until professing Christians occupy the strategic offices of the land and promote biblical policies, as they believe the Founding Fathers did. In other words, their utopian goal is to create exactly the kind of society warned against by the secularists. The Christian America view has found a huge and trusting audience among those who feel alienated by the cultural and political changes in America and who want to believe that the view is accurate.

Both the secular and Christian America schools of thought, then, are warmly received by their intended audiences. Consequently, there is little motivation to investigate the evidence and to make an independent analysis. This book presents the results of such an independent analysis and finds both views wanting. In addition to receptive audiences, the political and cultural groups organized around these two views have one other thing in common: they both base much of what they claim on what they believe to be the political theology of the American Founders. This book demonstrates that both of these camps err in their view of the Founders’ political theology.

It is worth noting that a third school of thought exists concerning the political theology of the American Founding. This perspective is not nearly as popular as the Christian America view or as widely accepted in the academic community as the secular view, but it is much closer to being correct than either of the others. This third view might be called the “balanced” view. It recognizes a significant degree of impact on the Founders from both secular and Christian influences. Alan Heimert’s Religion and the American Mind and Alice Baldwin’s The New England Clergy and the American Revolution are the definitive works of this camp. Historians Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden and political scientists Thomas Pangle and Michael Zuckert have done fine work in this area. Yet none has done a comprehensive study of the religious beliefs of the key Founders or made the theoretical connection between the religious and political leadership of the Founding era.

Pangle’s remarks in The Spirit of Modern Republicanism about the political theology of the Founders are essentially correct, but he ends the discussion just as he whets the appetite of the reader. His analysis culminates in a series of probing questions:

But the question remains whether the moral and political understanding of men like Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Wilson, and Hamilton can be adequately interpreted as a continuation of the Christian tradition. … Was Christianity the dominant or defining element in their thinking? Or were they not rather engaged in an attempt to exploit and transform Christianity in the direction of a liberal rationalism? Does their “Christianity” not look more plausible to us only because they succeeded so well in their project of changing the heart and soul of Christianity?³

Pangle’s incisive questions go to the core of the dispute over the political theology of the American Founding and serve as a call for a study such as this.

Why would the key Founders be interested in trying to change or shape religious opinion? Sidney Mead suggests that “societies create their concepts of the attributes and character of the god they worship in the likeness of the pressing practical problems of their time and place.”⁴ For the key Founders and a number of ministers, the Christian God—the God of the Bible— was inadequate for their political needs. That God did not grant religious freedom, He claimed to be the sole source of governmental authority, He neither granted nor recognized natural rights, and He preferred faith and obedience to moralism.⁵ To meet their needs, they constructed a god and a belief system more to their liking. In particular, liberal democratic and republican theory significantly shaped religious belief in eighteenth-century America and contributed to the construction of a new belief system— theistic rationalism. That belief system, in turn, provided fertile soil in which to plant the American experiment. It furnished the basis for the toleration, diversity, and emphasis on rights and morality that lie at the heart of the American political culture. As one embarks upon a study of the political theology of the American Founding era, it is critical to recognize that the god of the theistic rationalists was not the God of the Puritans in the previous century. Although, as Stephen Marini notes, a form of religious liberalism informed by the Enlightenment “supplied a powerful theological and philosophical foundation for the cosmopolitan republican culture of the 1780s,”⁶ it was not deism, either.

POLITICAL THEOLOGY AT THE FOUNDING: THEISTIC RATIONALISM

Many scholars who stud...