Is the U.S. a Christian Nation?

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My intention is simply to provoke some discussion and reflection by quoting some of our early heroes and attempt to discern from where they received their inspiration. Although we could probably trade excerpts from writings all day, I believe it useful to view what some of the most significant individuals from the founding era believed. Let’s now look at what some of these Founders wrote.

George Washington:  Although some consider him to be a deist, many of his writings demonstrate otherwise.  In his General Orders from Valley Forge he wrote:  “To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to laud the more distinguished character of Christian.”

In a letter to his friend Thomas Nelson, he wrote in 1778:  “The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this (the course of the war) that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked that has not more gratitude to acknowledge his obligations; but it will be time enough for me to turn Preacher when my present appointment ceases.”

Obviously in was not in Washington’s fate to be a preacher.  In these and other writings, however, his Christianity is clear and articulate.  Many believe him to be particularly blessed by God. After having several horses shot out from under him, four bullet holes in his jacket, and every other officer, including Gen Edward Braddock, either killed or wounded in the 1755 battle near Fort Duquesne, Washington was unscathed.  Years later, a Native American Chief stated he had tried to kill Washington on numerous occasions in that battle but was unsuccessful.  He then ordered his warriors to leave Washington alone as he was such a great soldier and blessed by God.

John Adams:  On July 2, 1776, the date the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, Adams gave a speech to the Congress:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America, to be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival, commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty from one end of the continent to the other from this time forward forevermore…..

I’m certain he did not mean for these celebrations to be only in churches or private places.  Adams was also the first President to inhabit the President’s mansion.  In November 1800, he wrote a letter to his wife Abigail incorporating a prayer:  “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it, may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this house. “   To my understanding this is still in the White House state dining room.

Thomas Jefferson:  When Jefferson wrote the Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786, it was in reaction to a proposed bill in 1785, that had it passed, would have required all citizens of Virginia to pay a tax to support the clergy.  In his autobiography, Jefferson wrote that some had tried for years to levy a tax on the people to support the Anglican clergy, but finally he got this law passed. It does not argue against the Christian faith, merely that one should have no supremacy over the other.  In fact in a letter to Miles King, September 26, 1814, Jefferson wrote:

Nay, we have heard it said there is not a Quaker or a Baptist, a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian, a Catholic or a Protestant in heaven; that on entering that gate, we leave these badges of schism behind and find ourselves united in those principles only in which God has united us all… 

Was it by accident that Jefferson only mentioned Christian faiths in this letter?  Do we think he meant to include agnostics, deists, or humanists?

Perhaps a quote from his second inaugural address gives us a clue as to his own faith:  “I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved…I shall need too the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as of Israel of old, from their native and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life, who has covered our infancy with His Providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants….

Finally in a letter, dated April 21, 1803, to Dr. Benjamin Rush, he wrote: “To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense he wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others…”

James Madison has been called the father of the Constitution and a staunch supporter of religious liberties.  This is true.  He supported Jefferson in the opposition to favoring one Christian faith over another, or by allowing tax money to be used to support churches or clergy.  In his Memorial and Remonstrance, presented to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, 1785, and written in response to a bill that would have established a specific religion by law, Madison does indeed write about how governmental support of Christianity will weaken both.  In fact he wrote that  “…Because the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity.”  His view was that should those who need to hear the message of Christianity see how badly government had subverted it, they would never come to that place and hear the message. 

In the interest of time and space I shall refrain from quotes by John Jay, the first Chief Justice, or John Quincy Adams, who, among his other accomplishments, at age 14 was the secretary to the U.S, Ambassador to Russia, or the author of the Virginia Declaration of rights, George Mason.  Each of these individuals wrote and believed our foundation of liberty and justice was a gift of God and had no compunction about affirming this.