FOUNDING PRESIDENTS
NOT CHRISTIAN
by William Edelen
February 24, 2002
One of my favorite times of the year is the Presidents
month of February. Why? Because it gives me an annual
opportunity to make a dent in the historical and religious
ignorance of the political and Christian knee jerk right
wingers. They spend almost full time in perverting American
history claiming that the bible and Christianity were at the
foundation of this nation. What total hogwash. Once a year I
get to bring a few undisputed facts to their attention. |
FOUNDING PRESIDENTS ALL
CHRISTIAN
A Response to William Edelen
February 25, 2002
Do we still celebrate the birthday of Presidents? I
remember in school making drawings or craft projects that
had to do with Lincoln and Washington. It's probably only in
the private schools of "knee-jerk right wingers"
where American history is taught any more. The foundation of
America was the Bible and Christianity, as JOSEPH STORY,
U S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
and FATHER OF AMERICAN
JURISPRUDENCE reminded us:
One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal
jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of
the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in
which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as
lying at its foundations. . . . I verily believe
Christianity necessary to the support of civil
society.[1]
It is not an easy thing to refute the claim of Edelen,
echoed in the Encyclopedia Britannica, that the
Founding Fathers were a bunch of Deists. It's hard because
it takes time and effort to read a judicious amount of
American history, while it's much easier to accept a few
slogans.
|
THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA,
1968, vol.2, p.420, quote:
"One of the embarrassing problems for the
nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was the
fact that NOT ONE of the first six
presidents of the United States was a Christian. They were
Deists." |
This claim is
either a lie, or it is misleading, or it is true only in a
technical and completely irrelevant sense. Every single one
of these first Presidents claimed to be a
Christian. Why should I accept the opinion of the writer of
this article rather than the claims of these very men? None
of them believed in "the separation of God and
State."
Consider each of them: |
| |
- George
Washington (1789-97)
- John Adams
(1797-1801)
- Thomas Jefferson
(1801-09)
- James Madison
(1809-17)
- James
Monroe (1817-25)
- "I enter on the trust to which I have been
called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens with
my fervent prayers to the Almighty that He will be
graciously pleased to continue to us that protection
which He has already so conspicuously displayed in
our favor."
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817.
- Deists don't believe that God
"conspicuously" intervenes in human
history
- John
Quincy Adams (1825-29)
- "The attention of Congress is particularly
invited to that part of the report of the Secretary
of War which concerns the existing system of our
relations with the Indian tribes. At the
establishment of the Federal Government under the
present Constitution of the United States the
principle was adopted of considering them as foreign
and independent powers and also as proprietors of
lands. They were, moreover, considered as savages,
whom it was our policy and our duty to use our
influence in converting to Christianity and in
bringing within the pale of civilization."
"[I]n appropriating to ourselves their hunting
grounds we have brought upon ourselves the
obligation of providing them with subsistence; [but]
we have had [only] the rare good fortune of teaching
them the arts of civilization and the doctrines of
Christianity. . . ."
Fourth Annual Message, December 2, 1828,
- Every member of the "religious right"
would love to vote for a
"deist" president like this, who promised
"to teach the doctrines of Christianity"
to the savages in south central L.A. -- and those in
Harvard University.
|
| In Deism there
is no personal God, only an impersonal "force" or
"energy" or "natures God" or
"providence". In Deism, the bible is nothing but
literature, and bad literature at that. Jefferson and Paine
both called it "a dunghill" Others of our founders
used the same language. In Deism, Jesus was nothing more
than a nomadic teacher. I will now let these men speak for
themselves: |
Every single
one of these presidents believed in a personal God, not an
impersonal "energy." Every one of them believed
that God personally and supernaturally intervened in
American history to protect and preserve us.
Deism
link #1 || Deism
link #2 |
| GEORGE
WASHINGTON: "Being no bigot, I am disposed to humor
Christian ministers and the church" |
Probably most
members of the "religious right" would agree that
the stuffed-shirts of the Church of England were hypocrites
in search of power and lacked a genuine evangelical spirit.
To be critical of hypocritical clergy is not the same thing
as being critical of true Christianity. This distinction is
lost on most secularists. |
| Looking for
servants, he said: "I will be happy to have atheists,
Jews, Christians or Mohammedans." |
What does this
prove? Washington surely would have tried in a gentle way to
bring them under the influence of Christianity. As he told
the Delaware Indian Chiefs:
You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life,
and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. . . .
Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this
wise intention.
The Writings of GeoWashington, Jared
Sparks, ed., (Boston: Ferdinand Andrews, 1838) XV:55, from
his speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs, May 12, 1779.
Abraham had the
same attitude.
Benjamin Rush was one of Jefferson's closest friends.
Speaking of public schools, he said,
- Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals
the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of
rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the
opinions of Confucius or Mohammed inculcated upon our
youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of
religious principles. But the religion I mean to
recommend in this place, is that of the New Testament.
-
Benjamin Rush, Essays,
Literary, Moral and Philosophical, (Philadelphia:
Thomas and William Bradford, 1806), p. 8.
|
| In 1831,
Episcopalian minister Bird Wilson said in a sermon:
"Washington is no more than a Unitarian, if
anything." |
Unitarians
in Washington's day were far closer to Jerry Falwell and
Pat Robertson than they were to today's ACLU. The
Theological Dictionary of 1823 described Unitarians
thusly:
In common with other Christians, they confess that He
[Jesus] is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; and in
one word, they believe all that the writers of the New
Testament, particularly the four Evangelists, have stated
concerning him.
|
| Washington
refused to take communion, looking upon it as superstition.
He refused to ever kneel in church according to his wife and
minister, James Abercrombie. |
Many
evangelicals believe that the sacraments of some Christians
border on superstition. There is conflicting historical
testimony about how Washington prayed, but none over the
fact that he did pray, believing that God could and would
personally and supernaturally answer those prayers.
George
Washington, a Christian?
|
| The Treaty of
Tripoli, under Washington, Article 11 begins: "As the
government of the United States is NOT IN ANY SENSE founded
on the Christian religion." This Treaty was ratified by
the senate in 1797under Adams, without a SINGLE OBJECTION.. |
Washington had
nothing to do with the Treaty with Tripoli. The "not in
any sense founded" was inconsistent with the facts of
history and was removed from the Treaty in subsequent
re-negotiations, never to be seen again.
The Facts Behind
the Treaty with Tripoli
|
| THOMAS
JEFFERSON: Author of the Declaration of Independence.
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the
world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of
Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike
founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men,
women and children since the introduction of Christianity
have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has
been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world
fools, and the other half hypocrites. And to support roguery
and error all over the earth." |
Jefferson was
not the only author of the Declaration of Independence. His
draft was edited by a
congressional committee, which made it more theistic.
Jefferson compiled what we today call "the Jefferson
Bible" as a textbook to teach Christianity to the
Indians.
A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have
never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real
Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of
Jesus—very different from the Platonists, who call me
infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the
gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas
from what its Author never said nor saw.
TJ to Charles Thomson (9 Jan. 1816), Bergh 14:385-86.
On another occasion he wrote, "I hold the precepts
of Jesus, as delivered by himself, to be the most pure,
benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to
man." [TJ to Jared Sparks (4 Nov. 1820), Bergh 15:288.
"Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as
pure as they came from his lips," Jefferson believed,
"the whole civilized world would now have been
Christian." TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (26 June
1822), Bergh 15:385.]
Get the facts on
Jefferson. |
| JAMES
MADISON: Author of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
"A just government instituted to perpetuate liberty,
does not need the church or the clergy. During almost 15
centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been
on trial. What have been been its fruits? These are the
fruits in all places: pride and indolence in the
clergy...ignorance and servility in the laity...and in both
clergy and laity superstition, bigotry and
persecution." Madison passionately objected to state
supported chaplains in Congress and the military, as well as
the exemption of churches from taxation. And rightly so.
They should be taxed. |
I oppose the
"legal establishment" of any church or
denomination. Every member of the Religious Right opposes
this as well.
Madison voted FOR the chaplains. He later changed his
mind, and for good reason: he disapproved of members of one
denomination being taxed to support the clergy of another
denomination.
"The power to tax
is the power to destroy." Churches should be exempt
from taxation. So should corporations. And Families.
Madison consistently
used the Presidency to advance
Christianity. |
| JOHN ADAMS:
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus has made a
convenient cover for absurdity" |
Many absurd
things have been done in the name of Jesus. Adams believed
America should be dedicated to advancing, becoming more
consistent with the teachings of the Savior. He proclaimed a
national day of prayer, suggesting that the nation:
- call to mind our numerous offenses against the
Most High God, confess them before Him with the
sincerest penitence,
- implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great
Mediator and Redeemer, for our past
transgressions,
- and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit
we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable
obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come;
This is an explicitly Trinitarian request. Secularists
would fall into apoplexy if a modern President followed
Adams' example. |
| Adams signed
the Treaty of Tripoli, which states that the United States
is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. |
An awkward and
misleading statement of the idea that America would not
declare "holy war" on the Muslims. The unfortunate
phrase was removed in all subsequent versions of the treaty,
which agreed:
As the Government of the United States
of America, is
not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion
has in itself no character of enmity against
the Laws, Religion or Tranquility of Musselmen, and as the
said States never have entered into any voluntary war or
act of hostility against any Mahometan Nation, except in
the defence of their just rights to freely navigate the
High Seas: It is declared by the contracting parties that
no pretext arising from Religious Opinions, shall ever
produce an interruption of the Harmony existing between
the two Nations;
|
| Episcopalian
minister Bird Wilson, in a sermon of October 1831, summed up
the religion of our founding presidents in these words:
"Among all of our Presidents, from Washington downward,
not one was a professor of Christianity." |
We should
expect this from an Episcopalian, with an ecclesiocentric
view of Christianity. For every clergyman who said none of
the Presidents were Christians, a dozen or more clergy could
be cited who claimed they were. Many clergy were elisted by
the Federalists to oppose Jefferson's bid for President in
1800, saying he was not a Christian. Jefferson won largely
because these charges were negated by supporters who assured
the electorate that Jefferson was a Christian. Tunis Wortman
wrote a pamphlet called A Solemn Address to the
Christians and Patriots upon the Approaching Election of a
President of the United States, in which he declared,
That the charge of deism . . . is false, scandalous and
malicious -- That there is not a single passage in the
Notes on Virginia, or any of Mr. Jefferson's
writings, repugnant to Christianity; but on the contrary,
in every respect, favourable to it.
Did Jefferson believe that the Constitution gave the
federal judiciary the power to order municipal schools to remove
all copies of the Ten Commandments? Not a chance. |
| ABRAHAM
LINCOLN: Not a founding president but a giant who shared
exactly the same religious views: quote: "Christianity
is not my religion and the bible is not my book. I have
never united myself in any church because I could never give
assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian
doctrine and dogma." Lincoln never joined any church
and was never baptized, looking upon it as superstition. His
wife said: "my husband is not a Christian, but is a
spiritual man I think." The most magnificent
Pulitzer-Prize biography of this giant is Carl Sandburg's
"Abraham Lincoln." And as Sandburg put it:
"His views were such as would place him entirely
outside of Christianity." |
History is too
complex for bumper-sticker historians like Edelen.
On the one hand, Lincoln's official rhetoric was
pro-Christian. Some conservative Christians have concluded
that Lincoln was a Christian. Here
is one.
Other conservatives have gone behind the rhetoric to look
at actions. They claim that The
Real Lincoln was a two-faced dictator and overthrew the
Constitution. This would lend credence to the claim that he
was not a Christian.
More links on
Lincoln the tyrant. |
| Thomas
Jefferson put in one succinct sentence what they all
believed. "The day will come when the mystical
generation of Jesus, by a supreme being as his father in the
womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the
generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." (letter
to John Adams, April 11, 1823) |
What did
Jefferson mean by "mystical generation of Jesus?"
The fact that Jefferson spoke so forcefully about any
theological doctrines -- conversations never heard among
politicians in our day -- indicates that religion was taken
much more seriously in Jefferson's day than in ours.
In spite of his disagreements with the established
churches, Jefferson still believed America had a more pure
Christian future than Edelen or anyone at the ACLU could
stomach:
Sharing a hope nurtured by many Americans in the early
nineteenth century, Jefferson anticipated a
re-establishment of the Christian religion in its
"original purity" in the United States. Although
he believed it would not take place until after his death,
he had no doubt that it would eventually be accomplished.
"Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive
Christianity," he said, "I must leave to younger
athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which
have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the
middle and modern ages."[note 15: TJ to Dr. Benjamin
Waterhouse (19 July 1822), Bergh 15:391.] His own Statute
of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and later the First
Amendment to the Constitution, had already prepared the
way. The rest was simply a matter of time.
"If the freedom of religion guaranteed to us by
law in theory can ever rise in practice under the
overbearing inquisition of public opinion, truth will
prevail over fanaticism, and the genuine doctrines of
Jesus, so long perverted by his pseudo-priests, will again
be restored to their original purity. This reformation
will advance with the other improvements of the human
mind, but too late for me to witness it."
TJ to Jared Sparks (4 Nov. 1820), Bergh 15:288.]
Andrew M. Allison, in Thomas Jefferson: Champion of
History (pp.299ff.)
Once primitive Christianity was fully restored
. . . Christianity would escape all danger of being
eclipsed or superseded. "I confidently expect,"
Jefferson wrote in 1822, "that the present generation
will see Unitarianism become the general religion of
the United States."
And to the Harvard professor and Unitarian
Benjamin Waterhouse, Jefferson that same year observed:
"I trust that there is not a young man now living in
the U.S. who will not die an Unitarian.
Gaustad, Faith of our Fathers, p. 105
Unitarians in Jefferson's day were Pat Robertson
right-wingers compared to the atheistical ACLU of today.
http://members.aol.com/TestOath/deism.htm#unitarianism |
Why are these
facts of American history not being taught in our High
Schools? What forces are at work in our society to keep
historical truth from our young people? We get all hot and
sweaty about censoring movies and television. A far, far
more lethal virus that is at work is the censorship of the
religious views of our first six presidents, our Founding
Fathers. Why is this not being taught? Why is your minister
not telling you about it, assuming he is historically
literate?
The genius Goethe said it best: "Nothing is more
terrifying than...ignorance in action." |
Nothing
indeed. |
1. Joseph Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story,
William W. Story, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James
Brown, 1851), Vol. II, pp. 8, 92.
next: The Myth of "Separation of
Church and State"
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