Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth

by Mark David Hall

America’s founders were influenced in significant ways by Christian ideas when they declared independence from Great Britain, drafted constitutions, and passed laws to protect religious liberty.

The founders believed that reflecting on the basic ideas from which the authors of a constitutional order drew was crucial to determining how best to proceed in the present.

Most judicial conservatives, of course, insist that the Constitution must be interpreted according to the original intent or original understanding of the founders.9

The problem is not the principle that we should look to the founders for guidance, but the profoundly distorted picture of their views promoted by many scholars, popular authors, and judges. This book sets the record straight.

there is no evidence to support the popular claim that many or most of the founders rejected orthodox Christianity or were deists.19

A final possibility for the meaning of a “Christian founding” is that the founders were influenced by Christian ideas. I believe this is the most reasonable way to approach the question, Did America have a Christian founding?22

I contend that an excellent case can be made that Christianity had a profound influence on the founding generation.23

America’s founders drew from their Christian convictions to create a constitutional order that benefits all Americans, not just Christians.

Micah 4:4, which reads “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” This was one of George Washington’s favorite verses; we have records of him quoting or paraphrasing it at least forty times.38 Like other founders, Washington’s faith influenced his political beliefs and actions, and all Americans—from Jewish citizens in the eighteenth century to Sikh citizens today—have benefited from this fact.

In the eighteenth century, deism referred to an intellectual movement that emphasized the role of reason in discerning religious truth. Deists rejected traditional Christian doctrine such as the incarnation, virgin birth, atonement, resurrection, Trinity, divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and miracles. For present purposes, this last point is critical; unlike most Christians, deists did not think God intervenes in the affairs of men and nations. In Alan Wolfe’s words, they believed that “God set the world in motion and then abstained from human affairs.”3

By the 1760s and 1770s, American patriots cited Locke with some regularity to support American resistance to Great Britain. Yet, as Donald S. Lutz has shown, the Bible was referenced far more often than his works. In his extraordinary study of American political literature published between 1760 and 1805, Lutz found that 22 percent of the citations referenced Enlightenment thinkers (a list that includes Montesquieu, Locke, Pufendorf, Hume, Hobbes, and Beccaria, among others). By contrast, 34 percent of all citations were to the Bible. Only 2.9 percent of the citations to individual authors were to Locke. For our purposes, it is important to note that Lutz undercounted references to the Bible because he excluded from his sample political sermons that do not cite secular authors. If he had included these sermons, references to the Bible would have absolutely dwarfed any other grouping of texts.32

The Holy Scriptures were the most important source of authority for America’s founders, but they are not a handbook for politics. So when the founders debated the War of Independence, the creation of a new state and national constitutions, and the proper scope of liberty to be protected by governments, they turned to thinkers such as Locke and Montesquieu for guidance. They saw these authors as articulating ideas that were compatible with their Christian convictions.

it is necessary to consider the ideas that influenced the civic leaders who drafted and ratified the document. When one does so, it becomes clear that Christian commitments played an influential—even dominant—role in the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

With few, if any, exceptions, every founding-era statesman was committed to the proposition that republican government required a moral citizenry, and that religion was necessary for morality. James Hutson of the Library of Congress suggests that this argument was so widespread that it should be called the “Founding generation’s syllogism.”36 When America’s founders spoke about “religion,” virtually all of them—even those most influenced by the Enlightenment—meant Christianity.

Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth, than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place, is that of the New Testament.38

Shortly before America declared independence, John Adams wrote that “Religion and morality alone . . . can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.”39 He regularly reiterated this conviction, noting in 1811, for instance, that “religion and virtue are the only Foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all combinations of human society.”40

Referring specifically to the US Constitution, he wrote in 1798 that “our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”41

Few founders were more insistent on the importance of religion and morality than George Washington. For instance, in his 1783 “Circular Letter to the States,” written upon his resignation as commander-in-chief of the Continental army, he concluded with an “earnest prayer” that God would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.46

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indisputable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duty of men and citizens. . . . A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.53 (emphasis original)