The document discusses the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers of the United States. It argues that contrary to claims, the US was not founded as a Christian nation, and that most of the Founding Fathers were not evangelical Christians, but rather deists, freethinkers, and rationalists who sought to establish a secular government with separation of church and state. Key figures like Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison are discussed, and it is shown through their writings that they did not adhere to orthodox Christianity and rejected concepts like the divinity of Jesus. The Constitution also has no mention of God or Christianity.

1. THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE FOUNDING
FATHERS OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
by IAN ELLIS-JONES
A REVISED PRECIS OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SYDNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH
SUNDAY, 7 AUGUST 2005
Introduction
Fundamentalist Christians tell us that the United States of America was
founded as a Christian nation. That is a lie. They would also have us believe
that the Founding Fathers of the United States of America were all good,
evangelical Christians. That is also a lie. The truth is that the United States
of America had, as Robert Green Ingersoll pointed out, “the first secular
government that was ever founded in this world”, with a distinctly non-
sectarian Constitution. Furthermore, the Founding Fathers of the country
were far from being fundamentalist evangelical Christians. For the most part,
they were Deists, freethinkers, rationalists and secularists. (A “Deist” believes
that an essentially unknowable and otherwise uncontactable god created
everything but denies supernatural revelation altogether.)
The distinctly religiously unorthodox origins of the United States of America is
confirmed in the first volume of The Rise of American Civilization (by Charles
A and Mary R Beard):
When the crisis came, Jefferson, Paine, John Adams, Washington,
Franklin, Madison, and many lesser lights were to be reckoned among
either the Unitarians or the Deists. It was not Cotton Mather's God to
whom the author of the Declaration of Independence appealed, it was to
“Nature's God.” From whatever source derived, the effect of both
Unitarianism and Deism was to hasten the retirement of historic theology
from its empire over the intellect of American leaders, and to clear the
atmosphere for secular interests.
The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, which aims at “protecting
religious liberty by keeping church and state separate”, and which represents
a number of Baptist organizations in the United States, has written:
There can be no doubt that we are a "religious people." … However, that is
not the same thing as declaring that Christianity has been legally privileged
or established to the exclusion of other religions or to the exclusion of
irreligion. Moreover, the Constitution, which is our civil compact, is
decidedly non-sectarian and … mentions religion only to disallow religious
tests for public office.

2. As a sidelight, it was a Baptist minister, one Francis Bellamy, who wrote the
United States Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. Consistent with the Baptist
principle of separation of church and state, Bellamy made no reference to
God or religion in his version of the pledge, but in 1954 the US Congress
added the words "under God" after pressure by the Knights of Columbus and
other religious groups.
The “Founding Fathers”
In the context of US history and constitutional law the phrase “Founding
Fathers” ordinarily refers to a specific group of men, namely, the 55 delegates
to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There were, however, many other
important players not in attendance at the Constitutional Convention, such as
Thomas Jefferson (who drafted the Declaration of Independence and who
later became the 3rd US President) and John Adams (who would become the
1st US Vice President and then the nation’s 2nd President), whose far-from-
orthodox religious thinking deeply influenced the shaping of the United States
of America. They, too, are sometimes, and not wrongly, seen to be part of the
“Founding Fathers” as well.
Despite their respective denominational affiliations, most of the Founding
Fathers rarely practised orthodox Christianity. Most of them believed in
Deism and many had also embraced Freemasonry, which to this day remains
an anathema to most conservative Christians and their churches by reason of
its religious naturalism and religious indifferentism. Professor Clinton
Rossiter, in his much celebrated work 1787: The Grand Convention (1966),
wrote, “The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in
spirit.” (Indeed, by the end of the 18th century Deism had become a dominant
religious attitude among upper class Americans. The first 3 US Presidents
were Deists; that is demonstrably clear from their writings.) Furthermore, there
is a total absence of any mention of Jesus, Christ, Christianity or indeed any
Christian church in all of the “founding documents” of the United States of
America, being the Declaration of Independence, the United States
Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.
The Declaration of Independence
Although the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 does mention God,
it is not the God of Christianity. The document, with its various references to
“the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”, the “Course of human events”, “the
Powers of the earth”, and “a decent respect to the opinion of mankind” (cf
notions of monarchical theocracy), smacks of Deism and religious naturalism.
The Declaration makes it perfectly clear that those in government derived
their “just powers” from “the consent of the governed”, not God.
The United States Constitution
There is not a single mention of God, Jesus or Christianity in the US
Constitution. The only two references to religion are negative and
exclusionary: firstly, Article VI, Section 3 provides that “no religious test shall

3. ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States; and, secondly, the First Amendment says, “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof”.
The Federalist Papers
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison (the “Father of the
Constitution” and 4th US President) produced a series of written arguments for
the Constitution entitled “The Federalist Papers”. These documents were
highly influential in the ratification debates on the Constitution. There is no
mention of God as such in any of these papers. There are only Deistic
references to “Providence”.
As a sidelight, at the Constitutional Convention held in 1787 a motion by
Benjamin Franklin to have prayer in the hall prior to the formal deliberations
was defeated.
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine, who was highly praised for his work The Rights of Man, and
who was otherwise strongly influential in forming the early republic, was a
freethinker and Deist. In The Age of Reason he wrote:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the
Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any
church that I know of. My own mind is my church.
Paine also wrote:
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more
derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to
reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was also highly influential in forming the early republic. He
was also a freethinker and Deist. In a letter he expressed “some Doubts as to
[Jesus’] divinity”. Unitarian minister and scientist Dr Joseph Priestly, a very
close friend of Franklin, wrote in his autobiography that Franklin was “an
unbeliever in Christianity”.
George Washington
Although a nominal member of an Episcopal church, there is no record of the
nation’s 1st President ever becoming a communicant in that or any other
Christian church. A firm believer in religious pluralism, Washington reportedly
attended Episcopalian, Quaker, German Reformed and Roman Catholic
services. In 1787 Washington wrote:

4. Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of
Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem
the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception.
There is also a credible amount of evidence that Washington was also a
Deist, and that was attested to by the Rev Dr James Abercrombie, rector of St
Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. After Washington’s death,
Abercrombie wrote to a Dr Wilson, who had enquired as to Washington’s
religion, stating, “Sir, Washington was a Deist”. The rector knew Washington
well, and it is widely written that Washington would regularly leave church
before communion, in common with the other non-communicants. Further,
when Abercrombie in one of his sermons expressed the view that persons in
high places who chose not to communicate set an “unhappy example” it is
written that Washington ceased attending church at all on communion
Sundays.
In fact, the first President rarely spoke about religion, never mentions Jesus in
any of his thousands of letters or in any of his other writings. He was a
Freemason, indeed, the only President to serve as master of his lodge during
his presidency. (The other Masonic Presidents are James Monroe, Andrew
Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield,
William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William H Taft, Warren Harding,
Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford, with
Ronald Reagan as an “honorary” Mason.) Washington was a religious
pluralist who said that every person “ought to be protected in worshipping the
Deity according to the dictates of [their] own conscience”. He also made it
clear that he would accept “Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or
they may be Atheists”.
It is written that Washington did not ask for a minister of religion on his
deathbed, although one was available. He died a “death of civility” and had a
Masonic funeral.
John Adams
The nation’s 1st Vice President and 2nd President was a Unitarian (the first of 4
- 5, if you count Thomas Jefferson - US Presidents who were Unitarians). He
rejected the orthodox Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Deity of Jesus.
He also denied the doctrine of eternal damnation. In a letter to Jefferson
Adams wrote:
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of
the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the
Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!
During his presidency, the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. In that document it is
officially stated that “the Government of the United States of America is not in
any sense founded on the Christian religion”. This is in direct and objective
contradiction to the attempts by the Religious Right to get the US federal
government to declare the country a Christian nation.

5. Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Adams, wrote a biography of his
grandfather and also edited his Works. He wrote this about his grandfather’s
religious beliefs:
Rejecting, with the independent spirit which in early life had driven him
from the ministry, the prominent doctrines of Calvinism, the trinity, the
atonement and election, he was content to settle down upon the Sermon
on the Mount as a perfect code presented to men by a more than mortal
teacher.
Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, became the 6th US President. He, too, was
a Unitarian.
Thomas Jefferson
The man who was responsible for the United States of America becoming a
first secular state, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence,
and who was the nation’s 2nd Vice President and 3rd President, was a non-
practising Episcopalian, but not a communicant member of that or any other
Christian church. His work, The Jefferson Bible, completed in 1819, was
Unitarian in theology, and he regularly attended Joseph Priestley’s
Pennsylvania church when he was nearby. (Jefferson read and admired
Priestley’s A History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782).) In 1822
Jefferson declared Unitarianism to be the future faith of the United States of
America, and in the last year of his life he did indeed declare himself to be a
Unitarian.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson had always denounced the superstitions of
Christianity and rejected the Trinity and Deity of Christ. He also rejected all
notions of supernaturalism, believing in materialism, reason and science.
Forrest Church, senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York
City, writes that Jefferson’s only interest in the Bible was the life and
teachings of Jesus. He wrote to the Universalist Dr Benjamin Rush:
I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely
attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself
every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.
However, in a letter to Peter Carr, dated 10 August 1787, Jefferson wrote,
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.”
Working in the White House in 1804 Thomas Jefferson embarked on the task
of putting the blue pencil through the Gospels in order to extract the authentic
message of Jesus. Out went the Annunciation, the Virgin Birth, and even the
Resurrection. In 1813 John Adams wrote approvingly to Jefferson:
I admire your employment in selecting the philosophy and divinity of
Jesus, and separating it from all mixtures. If I had eyes and nerves I
would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand.
James Madison

6. The nation’s 4th President, and the principal draftsperson of the Constitution,
as well as the author of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the
Constitution), believed in religious freedom and tolerance. Although an
Episcopalian, it is written that he had no conventional sense of Christianity. In
1785, in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,
Madison wrote:
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride
and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
superstition, bigotry and persecution.
Madison called into question the influence of ecclesiastical establishments on
society. “A just government … needs them not,” he wrote.
Conclusion
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were children of the
Enlightenment. They believed in the supremacy of reason over superstition
and notions of supernaturalism. They were very much aware of the dangers
of religious dogmatism and sought to avoid it. They sought to build, in
Jefferson’s oft-quoted words, ''a wall of separation between Church and
State''. In the words of famed American atheist, freethinker and secularist
Madalyn Murray O’Hair:
They were not really concerned with the opinion of god [sic] and his
agents. They respected first the opinion of “We the People” or of
“mankind”.
In conclusion, if it was the intention of the Founding Fathers of the United
States of America to make the nation a Christian one, they could not have
done a worse job of it. Indeed, the Founding Fathers’ views on religion stand
in marked contradiction to those of today’s highly politicized Religious Right
who seek to establish their own very narrow version of fundamentalist
Protestant Christianity as some sort of de facto established church of the
United States of America.
FOOTNOTE. On 27 June 2005 the United States Supreme Court, in McCreary County v
American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (SC No 03-1693), ruled 5-4 that the public display
of the “Ten Commandments” in court buildings or on other government property was
unconstitutional. On the same day, the Court ruled in Van Orden v Perry (SC No 03-1500)
that the public display of the Commandments on government land could be permissible if the
display is in a historical context with a distinctly secular purpose.