What the Founding Fathers Actually Believed: Faith in Their Own Words

The faith of the founding fathers is one of the most contested topics in American history. Depending on who is telling the story, the founders were either devout Christians who built a Christian nation or secular rationalists who deliberately kept religion out of public life. The actual record is more interesting than either version.

The founders were not a monolith. They disagreed with each other about theology the same way they disagreed about tariffs and executive power. What emerges from their letters, speeches, and journals is a picture of men who took religion seriously -- who read scripture, attended church, wrestled with doubt, and understood faith as essential to the republic they were building -- even when their specific beliefs diverged sharply from orthodox Christianity.

George Washington: Public Piety, Private Reticence

Washington is the easiest case and, in some ways, the hardest. He attended Anglican (later Episcopal) services regularly throughout his life and served as a vestryman at Pohick Church and Christ Church in Alexandria. He spoke about Providence constantly. His military orders, presidential proclamations, and personal correspondence are saturated with references to "the Author of all good," "the Supreme Ruler of Nations," and "the Great Arbiter of events."

What Washington almost never did was mention Jesus Christ specifically. His biographer Ron Chernow notes this carefully: Washington's God was a providential deity who watched over nations and guided history, but Washington avoided the specifically Christian vocabulary of salvation, atonement, or the divinity of Christ.

His own words from the 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation: "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor."

And from a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport in 1790: "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants -- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Washington was clearly a man of faith. He was also a man who kept the specifics of that faith largely to himself.

John Adams: The Skeptic Who Took Scripture Seriously

Adams is the most intellectually candid of the founders on religion. He read widely, argued with himself in his diary, and held views that shifted over his long life. He was raised Puritan but moved toward Unitarianism, rejecting the Trinity and the divinity of Christ while maintaining a deep belief in God, morality, and the Bible as a moral guide.

He wrote to Jefferson in 1813: "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity." And in the same letter: "I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means and my busy life would allow, and the result is, that the Bible is the best book in the world."

Adams was equally capable of skepticism. He disliked institutional religion and wrote critically of clergy who used religion for political power. But his skepticism was the skepticism of someone who took the questions seriously, not someone who dismissed them.

His famous line on the republic: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." This was not a casual remark. Adams believed it.

Thomas Jefferson: The Rationalist Who Loved Jesus

Jefferson is the most famous skeptic among the major founders. He did not believe in the Trinity, miracles, or the resurrection. He literally cut and pasted the Gospels -- removing the supernatural elements -- to produce what became known as the "Jefferson Bible," a document he titled "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth."

But Jefferson's project reveals something important: he had enormous respect for Jesus as a moral teacher. He wrote to William Short in 1820: "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."

To Benjamin Rush in 1803: "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others."

Jefferson did not believe in the institutional church. He did not believe in miracles. But he believed the moral teachings of Jesus were the finest guide to human conduct ever produced. That is not orthodox Christianity -- but it is not dismissal either.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which Jefferson wrote and considered one of his three greatest achievements, guaranteed that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever." This was not hostility to religion. It was protection of it.

Benjamin Franklin: The Deist Who Prayed When It Counted

Franklin is often painted as the pure rationalist among the founders, and in many respects he was. He described himself as a Deist -- someone who believed in a Creator God who set the universe in motion but did not intervene in daily affairs. He doubted the divinity of Jesus and was skeptical of organized religion.

And yet. At the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, with the delegates deadlocked and the entire project threatening to collapse, Franklin rose and delivered one of the most remarkable speeches in American history. He proposed that the Convention open each day with prayer:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this."

The motion did not pass -- the Convention had no funds to pay a chaplain, and some delegates worried the public would think the Convention was in crisis. But Franklin's speech stands as evidence that even the most rationalist of the founders understood the republic as accountable to something larger than itself.

What This Actually Means

The founders built a republic that was neither a theocracy nor a secular state in the modern sense. They were shaped by Christianity -- its moral vocabulary, its view of human nature, its insistence that rulers are accountable to something higher than themselves -- even when they departed from orthodox Christian belief.

The First Amendment they wrote prohibited the establishment of a national religion and protected the free exercise of religion. This was not anti-Christian. It was, in part, an attempt to protect the many varieties of Christian practice from each other and from government interference.

The faith of the founding fathers is a complicated inheritance. It does not support the claim that they intended to build a specifically Christian nation in any sectarian sense. It also does not support the claim that they were simply secular rationalists who happened to use religious language for rhetorical effect. They were something more interesting: men who lived inside a Christian moral universe, questioned parts of it, and built institutions meant to survive the questions.

---

Recommended reading: *The Faiths of the Founding Fathers* by David L. Holmes is the most balanced scholarly treatment available. Find it on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=faiths+of+the+founding+fathers+david+holmes&tag=redwhitejesus-20).