the jigawatt blog reader poll 1
Which one of these three words do you think best describes the founding fathers of America?
1. Athiests
2. Deists
3. Christians
Note: This is not a scientific poll.
1. Athiests
2. Deists
3. Christians
Note: This is not a scientific poll.
posted by jigawatt at 12:28:00 PM
8 Comments:
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[I corrected a grammatical mistake. There are probably others.]
2. Deists
I'll start defending myself now.
“Founding fathers” describes a potentially long list of people, each with his own religious view. You've covered this by saying "best describes" and "not a scientific poll," but I want to emphasize it before going further.
I'll start with Jefferson, with whom I am most familiar. At least privately, Jefferson identified himself as a Unitarian, rejecting the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus but accepting His moral teachings. He commissioned work on a "bible" that would extract the words of Jesus from the Bible (viewing the remainder as “corruptions”) and compile them into a condensed volume. Here are some links:
• http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html
• http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj110122))
But the thing about Jefferson is that he was capable of holding many versions of the “truth” in his head at the same time. He could simultaneously believe that he was both running and not running for the office of President of the United States—his letters state both—and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover documents where he proclaims other religious views. Lastly, in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson refers to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,” which is consistent with a Unitarian view of God.
Benjamin Franklin was at one point a Deist. Then he seems to have evolved into something else but not a Christian. He did desire to imitate “Jesus and Socrates,” but in listing both he would seem to take a mortal view of Jesus. Here are the links:
• http://print.google.com/print?id=_rf8iPO6LS0C&lpg=43&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DRevelation%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3D_rf8iPO6LS0C&pg=43&sig=H3btDtnMk-MBNrUrCdoPJ11qdng
• http://print.google.com/print?id=_rf8iPO6LS0C&pg=65&lpg=65&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Djesus%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3D_rf8iPO6LS0C&sig=mXg3fuxIDZn-ZMWFDRNqcXQBmcs
As for Washington, Madison, Monroe and Adams, I really don’t know as much about them. Washington seemed heavily in favor of converting the American Indians to Christianity in the hopes of “civilizing” them, but it could be argued whether that had anything to do with his own beliefs in Christianity. All of these men make numerous references to God but hardly any to Jesus or Christ. That makes me think that they were not Christian, but it isn’t exactly proof.
Now I’ll mention a couple of off-Broadway founding fathers.
I think that Patrick Henry was a Christian, or at least he tried to levy a tax that would support Christian teachers.
Thomas Paine was definitely not a Christian. Here’s the link: http://print.google.com/print?id=rH4zzSF9wZoC&pg=26&lpg=26&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3Djesus%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3DrH4zzSF9wZoC&sig=aS8BSk4N81wwLhcpN3Il9q_0B54
I’m interested to see where you’re going with this, James.
Ray,
Thanks for the response and the info. I didn't really have much of a plan with this poll; I was just interested to see what people thought. Well, I am kind of interested in this right now. It seems that there are basically two competing views concerning the founders, which, as you stated, is an elastic term in itself. But, I'm talking about generalizations here. Certainly Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton etc would be considered. Without doing much research myself, I'm guessing that they were somewhere between Deists and Christians. I'm not going to anachroistically say that they were all fundamental evangelical protestants, but they seemed to mention Jesus Christ a little too much to classify them as pure Deists. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I agreee with everything that Barton / Wallbuilders says, but he does have some interesting information.
I know that you put a disclaimer on the Wallbuilders site, but here are my comments anyway.
1. The Washington quote is taken from a letter to the Delaware Indian Chiefs. (See my earlier comment.) There are no other quotes from Washington.
2. The Jefferson quote is also taken a bit out of context. Here's the full text: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj110164))
3. The quote from Adams only states that he believed religion was necessary for civil order. It does not necessarily reflect on Adams's own religious views, and it certainly does not indicate that he was Christian.
4. There's nothing quoted from Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, or Monroe.
5. If the key founding fathers were in fact practicing Christians, it seems like there would be more evidence than the occasional quote from a letter to prove such.
I'm going to say Diests.
I have no proof!
I'm ready for a new poll!
yes
Caucasions!
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