The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

This phrase invokes no religion, though it may evince a belief in the unorganized and heretical idea called deism. One of America’s unsung founders, Dr. Thomas Young, wrote, “That the religion of Nature, more properly stiled the Religion of Nature’s God, in latin call’d Deus, hence Deism, is truth, I now boldly defy thee to contest.”39 Jefferson and Adams agreed. Adams explicitly tells Jefferson that a belief in “Nature’s God” is deism, not Christianity: “We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfilment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature’s God, that two and two are equal to four.”40 Nature’s God is a law, like math. Adams continues, noting that organized religions, like Christianity, misunderstand the nature of god: