Were our Founders Really Christian?

…to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.  I’ve been asked to say a few words about the religious faith of America’s founders  and why it matters.  Hi, I’m Mark David Hall, a professor in the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.  Let me begin by observing that a lot of nonsense has been written about the faith of America’s  founders.

 Scholars and popular authors alike routinely assert  that they were Enlightenment deists who desired  to strictly separate church and state.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  On September 24, 1789, the House of Representatives  approved what would become the First Amendment,  an amendment that includes these important words.

 Congress shall make no law respecting  an establishment of religion  or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  Those who oppose religion in public life  often point to this amendment as evidence  that the founders wanted to build a wall of separation  between church and state.  But consider this,  the day after the House approved the First Amendment,  Elias Boudinot, who later became  president of the American Bible Society, proposed that Congress ask President Washington to  recommend a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer.

 In response to objections by Adonais Burke and Thomas Tucker that such a practice mimicked  European customs or should be done by the states, Connecticut’s Roger Sherman justified the practice  of thanksgiving on any single event,  not only as laudable in itself,  but as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ.

 For instance, the solemn thanksgivings and rejoicings  which took place in the time of Solomon.  The House agreed with Boudinot and Sherman,  as did the Senate. took place in the time of Solomon. The House agreed with Boudinot and Sherman,  as did the Senate.  Congress requested that President Washington issue  a Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

 He didn’t have to, but he did.  On October 3, 1789, Washington issued a proclamation  designating Thursday, November 26,  as a national day of prayer and thanksgiving.  Whereas it is a duty of all nations  to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,  to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits,  and to humbly implore His protection and favor,  I do recommend the people of these states  to the service of the great and glorious being who  is a beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, I do recommend the people of these states to the service of the great and glorious being

 who is a beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be,  that we may then unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks,  and also that we may then unite in our most humble offerings and prayers and supplications  to the great Lord and ruler of nations,  and beseech him to pardon our national and other  transgressions, to enable us all,  whether in our public or private stations,  to perform our several and relative duties properly  and punctually, to render our national government a blessing

 to all people.”  President Washington encouraged prayer,  but he did not attempt to compel it.  America’s founders saw nothing wrong with civic leaders endorsing religious practices like prayer,  but they had also come to a consensus that there must be no compulsion in matters of faith.  In the late 18th century, 98% of Americans of European descent were Protestant, 2% were Roman Catholic,  and there were about 2,000 Jews in four American cities.

 Although it is often claimed that many of the founders  were deists, that label may be applied  to only a handful of individuals.  Now, Protestants are people of the book, that is the Bible,  so if faith was important to founders,  one would expect them to make significant use  of the scriptures in their political writings.

 And they did.  Donald Lutz conducted an impressive study  of the pamphlets, articles, and books  on political subjects in late 18th century America.  The study found that the Bible was cited far more often  than any other book, article, or pamphlet at the time.  Indeed, the founders referenced the Bible more than all European authors combined, 34% to 22%.

 Think  about that. 34% of all citations are to the Bible alone, only 22% to Enlightenment thinkers,  such as John Locke, Montesquieu, or Adam Smith? Did the founders’ religious convictions  make a difference in the creation of America’s  constitutional order?  Absolutely they did.  The Declaration of Independence, its central paragraph  relies on a theological claim.

 We hold these truths to be self-evident,  that all men are created equal, that they are endowed  by the Creator with certain unalienable rights,  that among these are life, liberty,  and the pursuit of happiness.  For almost all the founders,  God is the source of natural rights,  and it is a primary duty of government  to protect these rights.

 Many Enlightenment thinkers in the erasupported a strong centralized government run by experts,  but America’s founders  would have nothing to do with this because they believed that humans are sinful. In Federalist  51, James Madison observed that if men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would  be necessary.

 This led them to design a constitutional order characterized by the separation of powers,  checks and balances, and federalism.  Critically, the founders believed that humans were created  in the imago dei, the image of God.  In his 1793 Supreme Court opinion in Chisholm v versus Georgia, Justice James Wilson, paraphrasing Psalm 139,  observed that, man, fearfully and wonderfully made,  is a workmanship of his all-perfect creator.

 He echoed this conviction in his law lectures,  noting that innocent life must always be protected.  He wrote with evident approval that,  with consistency approval that,  “…with consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life from its commencements to its closed  is protected by the common law.”  Many founders were also coming to recognize that slavery fundamentally undermines the  idea that all humans are created in God’s image. And so they were coming to oppose it.

 This is why the Confederation Congress passed and the first federal Congress reauthorized  the Northwest Ordinance, a law that prohibits slavery in the territories, which became the  states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.  As well, eight states north of Maryland  abolished or put slavery on the path to extinction  between 1777 and 1804.

 Finally, the founders understood the Christian faith  to require the robust protection of religious liberty for all.  This is illustrated well by George Mason’s draft  of Article 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which reads,  That as religion, or the duty which we owe to our divine and omnipotent creator,  in the manner of discharging it can be governed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence,  and therefore that all mention and joy the fullest toleration and the exercise of religion,

 according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate.”  Note how Mason’s provision is grounded in the duty which we owe to our divine and omnipotent creator.  Now this is not a bad provision, but James Madison, in his first significant public act,  objected to the use of the word toleration in the article, believing that it implied that religious liberty was a grant from the  state that could be revoked at will.

 The Virginia Convention agreed, and Article 16, which had a profound influence on subsequent  state constitutions and the National Bill of Rights, was amended to remove the language  of toleration to make it clear that the free exercise of religion is a right,  not a privilege granted by the state.  By the end of the Revolutionary Era,  every state constitution offered significant protection to religious liberty.

 The Federal Constitution of 1787 did not have a religious liberty provision per se,  but Article VI prohibits religious tests for federal office.  Now, some objected that this would allow non-Christians to be elected to federal office.  Federalists conceded that this was the case, and many undoubtedly thought this outcome unlikely.

 But fortunately, they insisted on a Constitution that did not favor one religious tradition over another.  Anti-Federalists thought the Constitution did not sufficiently protect religious liberty,  and they insisted that a Bill of Rights be added to it.  In the face of popular outcry, the first Congress proposed,  and the states ratified a constitutional amendment prohibiting Congress from making a law respecting an establishment of religion  or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

 This provision clearly bans Congress  from creating a national church,  and it goes well beyond protecting the freedom of worship.  It insists that citizens have the right  to the free exercise of religion.  Not only did the founders understand  that religious liberty must be robustly protected,  they recognized that religious convictions of all Americans must be robustly protected, they’ve recognized that religious convictions  of all Americans must be carefully guarded.

 I already mentioned Article VI’s prohibition on religious tests,  but let me close by returning to President Washington.  In 1790, he wrote a letter to the Hebrew congregation  in Newport, Rhode Island.  Keep in mind, there were only about 2,000 Jewish citizens  in America, and they had little  political or economic power.

 As a matter of principle, not politics, President Washington  insisted that all citizens possess alike liberty and conscience and the immunities of citizenship.  It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of oneclass of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.  For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction,  to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should  demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

 Like James Madison, Washington emphasized  that Americans have moved beyond toleration  to respecting the inherent natural right of all people  to the free exercise of religion.  Washington closed this letter with the following paragraph.  May the children of the stock of Abraham  who dwell on this land,  continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants,  while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree,  and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all mercy

 scatter light and not darkness in our paths,  and make us all, in our several vocations, useful here,  and in his own vocations useful here,  and in his own due time and way, everlastingly happy.  There are nine scriptural references  in this last paragraph.  One of them is to Micah 4.4, which reads,  while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine  and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

 This was George Washington’s favorite Bible verse.  He quoted or paraphrased  more than 50 times in his writings. Today, we give thanks for our founders’ religious faith  and for their wisdom and foresight in protecting the sacred right of conscience in the First  Amendment.

 Now, it is up to every generation to protect these rights, to ensure that every American can sit under his own vine and fig tree  and never be afraid.  Thank you for joining me. Succes!