CHAPTER 1
THE MYTH OF THE FOUNDERSâ DEISM1
The Founding Fathers were at most deistsâthey believed God created the world, then left it alone to run.
GORDON WOOD, AMERICAN HERITAGE MAGAZINE
The founding fathers themselves, largely deists in their orientation and sympathy.
EDWIN GAUSTAD, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF RELIGION IN AMERICA
The Founding Fathers were . . . skeptical men of the Enlightenment who questioned each and every received idea they had been taught.
BROOKE ALLEN, MORAL MINORITY
The God of the founding fathers was a benevolent deity, not far removed from the God of eighteenth-century Deists or nineteenth-century Unitarians. . . . They were not, in any traditional sense, Christian.
MARK A. NOLL, NATHAN O. HATCH, AND GEORGE M. MARSDEN, THE SEARCH FOR CHRISTIAN AMERICA
Americaâs Founders were philosophical radicals.
MATTHEW STEWART, NATUREâS GOD: THE HERETICAL ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC2
Scholars and popular authors regularly assert that Americaâs founders were deists. They support these claims by describing the religious views of the following men: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Ethan Allen. On rare occasion, they reach beyond this select fraternity to include another founder, and they almost inevitably concede that not all founders were as enlightened as the ones they profile. However, they leave the distinct impression that most founders, and certainly the important ones, were deists.
In the eighteenth century, deism referred to an intellectual movement that emphasized the role of reason in discerning religious truth. Deists rejected traditional Christian doctrine such as the incarnation, virgin birth, atonement, resurrection, Trinity, divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and miracles. For present purposes, this last point is critical; unlike most Christians, deists did not think God intervenes in the affairs of men and nations. In Alan Wolfeâs words, they believed that âGod set the world in motion and then abstained from human affairs.â3 In this chapter, I demonstrate that there is virtually no evidence that Americaâs founders embraced such views.
CIVIC LEADERS WHO PUBLICLY EMBRACED DEISM
Given the numerous powerful and clear claims that the founders were deists, it is striking that there are few instances of civic leaders in the era openly embracing deism or rejecting orthodox Christian doctrines.4 In 1725, during his first English sojourn, Benjamin Franklin published an essay entitled âA Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,â in which he concluded that âVice and Virtue were empty Distinctions.â5 Deists emphasized the importance of morality, so the essay is not evidence of deism. But assuming Franklin was serious (often a dangerous assumption), the work is an example of a founder publicly rejecting a basic tenet of orthodox Christianity. Yet it is noteworthy that even as a young man, Franklin rapidly concluded that the essay âmight have an ill Tendency,â and he destroyed most copies of it before they could be distributed.6
In his autobiography, begun in 1771 and not published until after his death, Franklin acknowledged that he fell under the influence of deism as a young man. He noted his regret that his religious arguments âpervertedâ some of his friends. In his later years, Franklin may have moved toward more traditional religious views.7 In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he reflected that âthe longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truthâthat God governs the affairs of menâ8 (emphasis original). Three years later, he wrote a letter to Yale president Ezra Stiles in which he affirmed many traditional Christian doctrines, but admitted he had âsome doubtsâ about the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.9 As with many founders, Franklinâs religious beliefs changed throughout his life. It seems reasonable, however, to classify him as a founder who both publicly and privately rejected or questioned some tenets of orthodox Christianity.
Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys, hero of Fort Ticonderoga, and advocate of statehood for Vermont, published the first American book advocating deism in 1784, Reason: The Only Oracle of Man. It sold fewer than two hundred copies, and after its publication, Allen played no role in American politics. Even modern authors sympathetic to Allenâs views recognize that he was a âdisorganized and stylistically clumsy writer,â and that the book never achieved great influence.10
A decade later, Thomas Paine published his famous defense of deism, The Age of Reason. Paine was born and raised in England, and lived only twenty of his seventy-two years in America, so one can reasonably ask if he should be counted as an American founder. The book was written and first published in Europe. Although it sold reasonably well in the United States, Americaâs civic leadersâ reactions to it were almost uniformly negative.11 Samuel Adams wrote his old ally a personal letter denouncing it, and John Adams, John Witherspoon, William Paterson, and John Jay each criticized the book.12 Benjamin Rush called it âabsurd and impious,â Charles Carroll condemned Paineâs âblasphemous writings against the Christian religion,â and Connecticut jurist Zephaniah Swift wrote that we âcannot sufficiently reprobate the beliefs of Thomas Paine in his attack on Christianity.â13 Elias Boudinot and Patrick Henry went so far as to write book-length rebuttals of it.14 When Paine returned to America, he was vilified because of the book. Indeed, with the exception of Jefferson and a few others, he was abandoned by all of his old friends. When he passed away in 1809, he had to be buried on a farm because even the tolerant Quakers refused to let him be interred in their church cemetery; only six mourners came to his funeral.15
Some founders may have secretly approved of The Age of Reason but criticized it for political reasons. Yet the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the work says a great deal about American religious and political culture in the late eighteenth century. Whatever attraction deism may have had for a select few, clearly the American public was not ready to embrace such teachings or political leaders who advocated heterodox ideas. With the exception of Franklin, Allen, and Paine, I am unaware of any civic leaders in the era who clearly and publicly rejected orthodox Christianity or embraced deism. There may be others, but those who claim the founders were deists give little or no evidence that they exist.
CIVIC LEADERS WHO PRIVATELY EMBRACED DEISM
Thomas Jefferson definitely rejected orthodox Christianity, but he went to great lengths to keep his religious views far from the public. Virtually all the texts that reveal his true beliefs were letters written to family members or close friends, and he often asked that they be kept private; in some cases, they were never sent, presumably because he was not sure the recipients could be trusted. An excellent example is an 1819 missive from Jefferson to William Short, where he rejected doctrines âinvented by ultra-Christian sectsâ such as âthe immaculate conception of Jesus, His deification, the creation of the world by Him, His miraculous powers, His resurrection and visible ascension, His corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, etc.â16
Jefferson was a skeptic, but he realized that publicly advocating his religious views would be political suicide. Indeed, relatively minor lapses from his rule of secrecy, such as when he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia (1784) that âit does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg,â came close to costing him the election of 1800.17
John Adams was a lifelong Congregationalist who believed it appropriate for the state to support and encourage Christianity. He respected the Bibleâs moral teachings, as indicated by an 1816 letter where he wrote, âThe Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my Religion.â18 Yet, in an 1813 letter to his son, he made it clear that he rejected the divinity of Christ: âAn incarnate God!!! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe suffering on a Cross!!! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea.â19 Like Jefferson, Adams kept his religious views extremely private. Indeed, the publicâs perception that he was a Calvinist who would impose a national church on the American people contributed to his losing the election of 1800.20 But he nevertheless must be numbered among those founders who privately rejected Christian orthodoxy.
THE OTHER USUAL SUSPECTS
Three other founders are regularly referred to as deists: Washington, Madison, and Hamilton. Yet, to my knowledge, no writer has ever produced a public or private journal entry, letter, or essay showing that these men rejected Christianity or embraced deism. The argument that they did so is based almost entirely on negative evidence, resting on some combination of observations that they seldom used familiar biblical appellations for God or Jesus Christ, did not regularly attend church, chose not to become communicants, and/or did not always act in a moral manner.
In the case of George Washington, for instance, authors such as David Holmes argue that Washington referred to God with âDeistic terms [such] as âProvidence,â âHeaven,â âthe Deity,â âthe Supreme Being,â âthe Grand Architect,â âthe Author of all Good,â and âthe Great Ruler of Events.ââ21 Yet, as I show below, indisputably orthodox Christians regularly used such appellations. On the surface, Washingtonâs refusal to take communion suggests that he was not a serious Christian; however, as John Fea points out, this âwas not uncommon among eighteenth-century Anglicans,â and Washington may have done so because he âdid not believe he was worthy to participate in the sacrament.â22
Writing about Washingtonâs religious beliefs is a virtual cottage industry, so I cannot assess and engage every argument about his faith here. Yet it is worth reemphasizing that none of the authors who claim Washington was a deist has cited a text where he rejected a basic tenet of orthodox Christianity. I have scoured Washingtonâs works and have found one possibility, but I believe it should be treated with care. On March 31, 1791, Jefferson drafted and Washington signed a condolence letter to the emperor of Morocco that includes the sentence: âMay that God, whom we both adore, bless your Imperial Majesty with long life, Health and Success, and have you always, great and magnanimous Friend, under his holy keeping.â23 Conflating the God of Christianity and the God of Islam is problematic from a traditional Christian perspective, yet given the diplomatic context, it seems imprudent to read too much into this missive.
Washington is sometimes accused of having an extramarital affair, and there is no doubt that Alexander Hamilton did so.24 Some writers cite such actions as evidence that particular founders were not seri...