The Dogmatic Divide Between Modern Evangelical Christianity And The Founding Fathers
Posted on 11. Dec, 2011 by Alex Sharp in Analysis, Current Events
In a recent attack ad, presidential hopeful Rick Perry used the following voiceover:
As president, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.
The politics of the Obama attack aside, one must wonder if Rick Perry’s historical education was as poor as his scientific one. As even a cursory study of American history will show, the founding fathers of our democracy had some ideas about religion that Rick Perry and his fundamentalist elk would find extremely distasteful and potentially blasphemous. Yet it is their versions of faith, which share little or nothing in common with Perry’s brand, that shaped early America and served as the bedrock for the foundation of the United States.
George Washington was raised Episcopalian, a mainline Anglican Church, though there is some serious question as to what, if any, flavor of Christianity he followed as an adult. He was particularly quiet about his own religious beliefs during his public years, even going so far as to not directly confirm he even believed in Christianity. When religion did make it into his public speaking, often limited it to mention of God, typically refraining from using the term Jesus Christ.
Even if Washington retained the faith system of his childhood, it has much more in common with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy than it does with Rick Perry’s modern Christian Evangelicalism. Episcopalians believe in Apostolic succession and have a strong an emphasis on sacramental theology. While they do not believe in transubstantiation in the strict sense, the teaching of Real Presence does allow for such an interpretation.
James Madison, primary author of the Bill of Rights, co-author of the Federalist Papers and forth President of the United States, and James Monroe, A Revolutionary War hero that studied law under Thomas Jefferson and was the fifth President of the United States, were also Episcopalians by birth. James Monroe was perhaps even more secretive than Washington about his religious beliefs. Since practically none of his personal papers have survived to this day, there are many questions about what Monroe really believed.
There have been more Episcopalian Presidents of the United States than any other Christian denomination. Other Episcopalian presidents include William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Chester A. Arthur, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Theodore Roosevelt counted himself as a member of the Dutch-Reformed Church, but would attend Episcopalian services if it was more convenient. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury (who wielded tremendous influence on the formation of early federal economic systems) and co-author of the Federalist Papers along with Monroe and John Jay, an extremely powerful early American statesman, diplomat and Governor of New York, were also Episcopalians.
John Adams, one of the primary authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts state Constitution (not to mention the second President of the United States), was a Unitarian. One of the most important beliefs in this Protestant doctrine is the unity of God and the rejection of the Holy Trinity. This teaching alone fundamentally separates the faith of John Adams from evangelical Protestantism. John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams and the Sixth President of the United States, was also a Unitarian.
The two most interesting founding fathers I have saved for last.
Benjamin Franklin, father of the American revolution, perhaps the most politically influential American alive during the birth of this nation, as well as a world renowned scientist, philosopher, diplomat, inventor, etc. (the list is nearly endless), was born to Puritan parents, but would later come to classify himself as a Deist (albeit a “Christian” one). The heart of Deism is the declaration that God can be found to exist through a scientific study of the natural order of the world and the exercising of human reason, not strict adherence to religious dogma.
He would endorse Puritan virtues, like industry, temperance and thrift, but refrained from invoking classical Christian dogma like the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. Towards the end of his life he was pressed for an answer on his beliefs concerning mainstream (or Trinitarian) Christianity by Ezra Stiles. He responded by writing “as to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it…”
Above all else, Franklin believed that the plurality of religious belief in the United States was a great virtue. He was called the Prophet of Tolerance and frequently expressed his wish to remain on good terms with every religion that did not preach intolerance. In another section of the letter cited above, Franklin went on to yet again espouse this belief, writing that, “I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for building their new places of worship; and, as I never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all.”
Thomas Jefferson, however, may be the most fascinating founding father when it comes to his religious beliefs. Many books have been written on this subject, as Jefferson made no bones about his rejection of most of mainstream Christian teaching. His writing and moral philosophy reflected a mix of Episcopalian, Unitarian and Deist thought – all of which contain profound disagreements with the majority of dogmatic teaching found in modern fundamentalist Christianity.
He denied the divinity of Jesus, believed that Jesus’ followers (particularly Paul) altered his teachings in the New Testament so much as to render most of it useless, and dismissed the Book of Revelations as “merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.”
The opening page of one of the first copies of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, also known as the Jefferson Bible.
Jefferson’s dislike of the state of the New Testament prompted him to go and fix it. By removing the parts he thought were the product of later tampering, he produced the Jefferson Bible. It contained the four gospels, from which Jefferson excised references to Jesus’ divinity, virign birth and resurrection, as well as all instances of his miracles. What was left was Jesus’ teachings on morality, which Jefferson argued was the only important part.
He also rejected the concept of an eternal hell and the doctrine of Predestination. He, along with John Adams (once friends who later became bitter political rivals), shared a powerful hatred of the Calvinist branch of Protestantism.
Jefferson’s views were considered extreme, even in his time, and he often had to contend with critics who said he should not hold public office because he had no orthodox Christian beliefs, even going so far as to claim he did not believe in a God. Nevertheless, it was Jefferson’s work to assure religious freedom from state sponsorship and control and his eloquent writing to that effect that most like cemented the quintessential American tenet of “separation of church and state” that we enjoy even today.
He wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, a document which would insure the separation of church and state. At the time the state of Virginia was financially supporting the Anglican Church and office holders in the state were required to take an oath that they rejected Roman Catholicism and its teaching of Transubstantiation. This statue reflected Jefferson’s later work on the Declaration of Independence and Madison’s (a fellow Virginian and proponent of Jefferson’s Statue for Religious Freedom) work on the Bill of Rights.
Jefferson considered his authorship of the Virginia Statute so important it is one of only three accomplishments noted on his tombstone.
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