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Deist founders?

Edwin Gaustad said George Washington "studiously avoided referring to the person and ministry of Jesus Christ." Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who has ever read Washington's field notebook will easily and readily see he was a committed Christian and understood God the Father and his only Son Jesus Christ.

Jim Frassett
Huntington Beach, California

For years I've heard people (including high school history teachers) say that the United States was founded on Christian principles by godly men. Your article, "Disciples of Reason," convinced me that what I was taught was incorrect. Thank you for setting the story straight!

John Hillyer

Our founding fathers had much stronger tendencies toward evangelical orthodoxy than toward deism. David Barton has published several books examining this question and has presented strong data to support a Christian backbone in our nation's beginnings.

Walt Grudzinski
Manassas, Virginia

David Barton demonstrates that 52 out of 55 of the founding fathers were Christians and not deists. However, Edwin Gaustad (page 28) states, "Franklin can be rightly classified-with all our other founders-only as a deist." Barton appears to have a lot of supporting data to contradict [this] statement.

Judge Bob Downing
Baton Rouge, LA

Clarifications: Gaustad uses the term "founding fathers" only for five men: Franklin, Washington, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson. Barton includes as founding fathers all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Though we agree with Barton's larger point—that the Christian faith of revolutionary leaders has been ignored by many historians—we have reservations about some of his arguments. —mg

Justifying revolution

Mark Noll (page 44) said, "The Americans were not sufficiently oppressed to justify taking up arms." I nearly fell out of my seat on that one!

1. Stamp Act. To purchase one stamp would surrender self-government, which would lead to a slow seduction of their freedoms.
   
   
2. The Quartering Act. Allowed British soldiers to live in the houses of Americans and spy on them.
   
   
3. How about the Declaratory Act, which claimed that the colonies were subordinate and that Parliament could pass any law it wished?
   
   
4. Then in 1770, the Boston Massacre, the Tea Tax, the Intolerable Acts, which exerted more control (oppression!). How about the king paying the Shawnee Indians to raid frontier settlements, murdering colonists?
   
   

Pastor Derrick Johnson
Carol Stream, Illinois

Mark Noll (page 44) stated, "We are under no moral or historical obligation to continue the American experiment based on the fathers' vision, whatever it might have been." This was alarming. The fathers' vision was created by them not just for that period but politically, judicially, legislatively, and morally for all ages to come, as long as God lets the nation exist.

Though I understand what he is trying to say, to call it an "experiment" is degrading to the fathers and to us-men do not die for an experiment. They obligated themselves to the vision and principles, as did others after them, from the grunt in the trenches to the president himself. Immigrants from all over the world have obligated themselves and their children to the founding fathers' vision.

I know and feel this as I live and minister in another country. We are comfortable, cushioned, and isolated from this when living only in our own environment in the United States.

Walter Swaim
Cordoba, Argentina

In general

The issue was superbly done. How much we need to be reminded of the costly price of the freedom we enjoy today-and of the great God who gave us our early leaders.

Ruth Nelson

Sometimes the tone of this issue was "We can stand above history and not take sides." On the contrary, patriotism is a Christian virtue. God could not have directed the start of this country without having a majority of the founders be believers.

William D. Miller

Thank you for the excellent issue on the church during the American Revolution. To amplify briefly on the role of Methodism during the conflict, let me add the great wrenching many felt in being forced to choose between crown and country. Many of the leaders of the Wesleyan movement were loyalists and thus forced to emigrate to Canada. Southern Ontario is rich with this heritage, including Hay Bay Church near Picton and the grave of Barbara Heck, whom many consider the founder of Methodism in North America.

Pastor John M. Germaine
North Madison, Ohio

Corrections

The following are corrections to issue 50:

1. It is stated (pages 3, 37, and 43) that God is not mentioned in the Constitution. Refutation: Article VII states " … in the year of our Lord 1787."
   
   
2. During the Constitutional Convention, numerous references to God were made. For example, take Ben Franklin's famous speech, "God governs the affairs of men."
   
   
3. A minor disagreement: On page 11, it states that in 1775, there were "young radical lawyers, like the Adams cousins, John and Samuel." John was 40, Samuel was 53. John was not a radical that year-he had represented British soldiers after the Boston Massacre (1770) and was still against independence. Samuel was never a lawyer but always a radical.
   
   

I cannot close without saying how much I have enjoyed Christian History over the years.

John A. Dolan, Jr.
Sierra Vista, Arizona

Your issue on the American Revolution was most interesting, enlightening, and refreshingly unbiased. However, there were two additional topics I wish you had addressed. One was the involvement of backcountry North Carolina Separate Baptists in pre-Revolutionary Regulator Movement. The other is the role of Freemasonary in shaping the deism of the founding fathers.

John Sparks
Offutt, Kentucky

It amazes me that there was no mention of Masonic teachings in the entire issue. Many of our Founding Fathers were practicing Masons, and the teachings of the Masonry affected their thoughts, religious and philosophical.

You cite George Washington as speaking of God as "The Grand Architect," "The Governor of the Universe," and "The Supreme Dispenser of All Good." This terminology can be found in Masonic teachings. Washington was a well-known Mason and belonged to the temple in Alexandria until his death.

Robin Austin
Atlanta, Georgia

We should have mentioned that not only Washington but many other American founders were Freemasons. In addition, some readers wondered if the symbols on the back of a dollar bill (page 2) were more Masonic than Christian. The symbols have been used in many contexts, religious and secular. -mg

I don't know which Latin dictionary you used, but mine says Annuit Coeptis (page 2) means "Announcing the birth." Thus the Latin phrase on the great seal of the United States would read, "Announcing the birth of the new world order." Also, on page 2, it states that we fought for religious liberty in 1776, but when I read the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence, I find not one reference to religious liberties.

The paragraph further implies that there was a connection between the First Amendment to the national Constitution and the dissolution of state churches. But the First Amendment was a restriction on Congress, not on the states. States were free to have state churches, and many did. If a state chose not to have its own church, it was by the choice of the state and its citizens, not because of the First Amendment.

Rex Bontrager
West Lafayette, Indiana

1. That'll teach me to depend on another source and not seek an original translation from one of our advisers!
   
   
2. Though religious liberty was not formally listed in the Declaration of Independence, it was a concern of many Christians, especially those of Calvinist leanings, who thought monarchy and religious oppression went hand in hand.
   
   
3. Good distinction about state churches. Still, it's interesting, given the nation's political mood, that state churches existed into the 1800s. —mg
   
   

Other corrections: In the timeline, the date for the Bill of Rights is listed as 1789; it should read 1791. In 1778, South Carolina did not "permit" but "incorporated" Anglican-like churches. No American state even considered proscribing dissenting churches; some simply wanted to allow them to incorporate legally. -mg

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