10.25.2005 | Were the Founders Christian?

This is the CliffsNotes version only. In response to a comment, two citations as to why I think the American founders were Christian. Note: not evangelical as this term is used today, certainly not snake-handlers or talking-in-tongues Pentecostals. Christians, nevertheless.

First source is a review of Michael Novak's "On Two Wings." This, as the Friends (Quakers) say, "speaks my mind":

The U.S. isn't officially Christian, but Novak demonstrates that the men who created it rooted the country conceptually in the Bible. The characterizations of God in the Declaration of Independence derive from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), probably deliberately, because all Christian denominations accepted them. Faith in God was ubiquitous among the founders, who regarded religion as necessary to maintain a just and equitable society. Only a moral (because religious) society would foster responsible citizens; pursuing freedom without religion, individuals would create a chaos of competing self-interests. Finally, the founders' conception of rights derived more from Acquinas than from Enlightenment philosophers. Quoting so often from the founders and their influences that this is practically a documentary history, Novak is compelling on those major propositions and others. He concludes by answering 10 common questions about religion and the founders, and he appends comments on some lesser-known important founders and the Revolution's great fellow traveler, Thomas Paine, who believed in God despite disapproving all the religions he knew. Hard but invaluably informative reading.

The best background to this is to remember that at the time of our Revolution, memories of inter-sectarian Christian persecution were still raw. The founders, with very, very few exceptions, were at least nominal Christians, but clearly did not agree on which sect, if any, should be paramount. Hence the great need to allow all Christian sects but not establish any of them as the official American church. At the time, this was a radical break with precedent. A few years later, Jews and non-believers were also granted official tolerance in the various states.

Second is the thought that there is a bond between an allegedly atheistic (or, at the least, agnostic) Enlightenment philosophy and the "philosophy" of the Christian religion. From an article earlier this year in National Review by Christopher Levenick and Michael Novak:

Every single one of the Founders believed that, at the level of both individual morality and public policy, the demands of reason and of revelation powerfully reinforce one another. They understood that with respect to the ultimate questions — the creation of the universe, the purpose of human existence, and the hope of life after death — faith and philosophy might differ. In the practical world they inhabited, however, the Founders believed that both Socrates and Jesus enjoined their followers to accord all persons truth, justice, and charity.

Indeed, the Founders saw the cultivation of religious sentiment as the ultimate safeguard of American liberty. They knew that liberty could only prosper among moral citizens, whose practice of self-government in their private lives was a necessary prerequisite for its exercise in public. They believed that even if it were possible for certain individuals to behave morally without believing in God, on the whole an entire citizenry could not long keep its moral bearings without the guidance of religious faith.

This conviction permeates their public and private writings. George Washington placed it at the heart of his Farewell Address, in which he advised the nation that of "all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men & citizens." Indeed, he continued, "reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

There is no doubt as to what "Religion" Mr. Washington spoke of -- a Christian faith.

It is certainly possible to cherry-pick quotations from the various founders, and thereby use them to dispute things. George Washington was a nominal Episcopalian. John Adams became a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson so disliked the idea of miracles that he personally edited them out of the Gospels. And so it goes, proving nothing. The proof is in stepping back from the dots that make up the pointillist canvas so one may see it whole.

The founders adhered to what I'd call a Christian worldview. One that did not allow for any single church to be established. One that tolerated all viewpoints. But one that bound our Constitution, our laws, and our national sense of what is honorable and right, as against what is vile and wrong, to the Scriptures.

Last point, just got to demonstrate our innate Baptist contrariness. Just because we were founded by Christians with a Christian worldview certainly does not mean we adhere to that. As an early Baptist, Roger Williams said, "If this were a Christian nation, then why are so few Americans Christians?"

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