WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Secular historians ignore George Washington’s ward Nelly Custis, who wrote that doubting his Christian faith was as absurd as doubting his patriotism. But they cannot ignore this mountain of evidence suggesting Washington’s religion was not Deism, but just the sort of low-church Anglicanism one would expect in an eighteenth century Virginia gentleman. His “sacred fire” lit America’s path toward civil and religious liberty.
George Washington’s actions as a soldier and statesman made republican government a reality and shaped the American understanding of liberty as a divine blessing and a sacred trust. Washington’s actions were, in no small measure, the products of his character. Washington’s character, as Peter Lillback shows in George Washington’s Sacred Fire, was deeply informed by his Christian faith. Dr. Lillback buries the myth that Washington was an unbeliever—at most a “Deist’—under an avalanche of facts. He demonstrates that our founding father’s commitment to kindling and nurturing “the sacred fire of liberty,” far from reflecting a rejection of Christian beliefs, flowed directly from them.
An enlightening, engaging, and long overdue correction of the falsehood that Washington lacked faith.
For several decades, there has been a consensus among academics that George Washington was not really a Christian, but instead was a Deist. Peter Lillback’s work demolishes this conventional wisdom. He provides comprehensive evidence and penetrating arguments which demonstrate that Washington was indeed a consistent Christian and in particular that his religious beliefs were those typical of a devout low-church Episcopalian in eighteenth-century Virginia. This volume will enable today’s Christians to refute the current falsehoods being propagated about the faith of this greatest of America’s founding fathers and to speak a truth that has great meaning in the historical and cultural debates of our own time.
History is a powerful tool. Used to press an agenda in the guise of recording facts it can yield dangerous results. These results are the more nefarious because the means of handling the facts appear so neutral. Hence the confusion about America’s founding fathers. For generations George Washington has been portrayed as an Enlightenment Deist. This view helps reduce the likelihood of a strong Christian influence in early America, which in turn helps promote the cause of secularism today. Peter A. Lillback has given us a nearly exhaustive reckoning with the true Washington, who turns out to be no Deist at all, but a professing Christian, a humble yet zealous follower of Christ. This volume will move the reader as well as persuade him that America’s first president was also a premier man of God, whose religion was quite contrary to that of Thomas Paine or Lord Shaftesbury. Neither his life nor his leadership make any sense apart from his commitment to the church and to biblical faith. We praise Dr. Lillback for the enormous labor, a labor of love to be sure, but a giant effort dedicated to the truth. We owe it to his thorough research and engaging polemics to give a hearing to George Washington’s Sacred Fire. When we do, we will discover, in the bargain, that we have here history as it ought to be.
The reconstruction of the private religious convictions of a public leader is always a most tricky and complicated historical task. In English history, the figure of Oliver Cromwell has proved enigmatic, as historians have sought to co-ordinate his private statements and actions with his public deeds as army general and then Lord Protector. In George Washington, American history has its own Cromwell: a leader of such enormous stature, and who arouses such passionate emotions, that it is difficult to separate the facts from the fiction. For a long time it has been assumed that this founding father was a man of the Enlightenment, a Deist; yet, with this book, Dr Lillback seeks to challenge that, and marshals awesomely detailed evidence that another category, that of a broadly orthodox Anglicanism, provides a more accurate way of setting Washington’s religious convictions in context. Whether one agrees or disagrees, it is clear this book is a significant and serious challenge to the typical historiography which can clearly no longer be taken for granted.
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S SACRED FIRE
Copyright © 2006 by Peter Lillback. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-9786052-5-X (hardback)
ISBN: 0-9786052-6-8 (paperback)
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are from the King James version of the Bible (KJV).
Cover and Interior Design by Roark Creative: www.roarkcreative.com
Cover Photo: Corbis Images
All illustrations included are used by permission. Detailed credit list is included in the Endnotes.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006904008
Printed in the United States of America by Dickinson Press
2006—First Edition
Providence Forum Press
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
PART I: THE CONTROVERSY
1. Introduction: The Controversy
2. Deism Defined: Shades of Meaning, Shading the Truth
3. Did Washington Avoid the Name of Jesus Christ?: Addressing a Fundamental Argument
PART II: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
4. Washington’s Virginia and The Anglican Mission to the Indians
5. George Washington’s Virginian Ancestors
PART III: THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
6. The Childhood of George Washington
7. The Christian Education of George Washington
8. The Personality of George Washington
9. George Washington the Soldier
10. George Washington on Character and Honor
11. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: Was George Washington a Godly Leader?
12. George Washington’s Family Life
PART IV: GEORGE WASHINGTON THE CHURCHMAN
13. George Washington: The Parishioner
14. George Washington: The Vestryman
15. George Washington: The Low Churchman
16. George Washington and the Bible
17. The Spirituality of George Washington
18. George Washington and Prayer
19. Valley Forge: The Crucible of Washington’s “Sacred Cause”
PART V: THE DEBATE OVER GEORGE WASHINGTON AND COMMUNION
20. George Washington and Communion: Did Washington Take Communion?
21. Shadow or Substance?: Putting Professor Boller’s Evidence for Washington’s Deism on Trial
22. The Struggle for the Episcopal Church: Washington’s Non-Communication and Non-Communion in Philadelphia
PART VI: GEORGE WASHINGTON THE DEIST?
23. George Washington and The Enlightenment
24. George Washington and Religious Liberty: A Christian or Deist Idea?
25. George Washington, Member of the Masonic Order
26. More Objections to Washington the Christian: Slaves, Slander, Passion, and Tripoli
27. “Minds of Peculiar Structure:” George Washington Vs. Deism
PART VII: GEORGE WASHINGTON THE CHRISTIAN
28. George Washington’s God: Religion, Reason, and Philosophy
29. Washington and the Doctrine of Providence
30. George Washington’s Christian Worldview
31. The Gospel According to George Washington
32. George Washington and Forgiveness: A Consideration of the Historicity of Two Classic Washington Anecdotes on Forgiveness
33. George Washington’s Clergy and Their Sermons
34. George Washington on Heaven and Eternal Life
35. The Revenge of Parson Weems: Washington’s Unparalleled Praise for an Unexpected Person
CONCLUSION
36. Conclusion: George Washington’s Sacred Fire
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversion
Appendix 2: Representative Biblical Quotations and Allusions Used by George Washington
Appendix 3: George Washington’s Written Prayers
Appendix 4: George Washington’s “Daily Sacrifice Prayers” or “The Spurious Prayers”
Appendix 5: A Summary of Washington’s Most Important Sermons
Appendix 6: Abiel Leonard’s Prayer
Appendix 7: Sermon by the Reverend Bryan Lord Fairfax
Appendix 8: The Wisdom of George Washington
Appendix 9: George Washington and the Anglican Theology of Latitudinarianism
Appendix 10: Tributes to Washington by his Contemporaries: His Christian Faith, Striking Appearance, and Moral Character
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
George Washington’s Sacred Fire was a spark of an idea that first glimmered in my heart over twenty years ago. Somehow, it never was extinguished even though it flickered in the winds of pressing duties and weightier concerns. But over the last ten years, and then especially so in the last two, the spark became a flame and finally George Washington’s Sacred Fire was ablaze and ready to shed its light on the debate over Washington’s religious faith.
The fuel for a fire is the sine qua non of its existence. And so the many friends, institutions, and libraries that have assisted in this work have been the very fuel for George Washington’s Sacred Fire. Although I’m sure I cannot fully remember nor recount each one who has contributed their valued support, I wish to do the best I can to thank those who have made this book a reality.
The kindling for George Washington’s Sacred Fire is the people who have shared the vision for its creation and have invested their wisdom, skills, time, energy, and resources to make it happen. To each of the following I express my deepest and sincere gratitude:
My family—To my wife, Debbie, for her love, encouragement, and long and gracious patience throughout the almost never ending process of completing this book. To my daughters, Cara and Priscilla, for their interest, thoughtful comments, contributions, typing, and help.
My Team Mates on the Project—To Jerry Newcombe who signed on to make sure that my scholarly smoke didn’t eclipse the clarity of the flame by writing, coaching, editing, enabling, and motivating. To the Board of Trustees of The Providence Forum, whose inspiration and support have fueled the vision from its first serious start. To Jack and Pina Templeton whose generosity and encouragement are extraordinary and legendary. To my brother in ministry, the Reverend Paul Karlberg, who recruited Jerry and shouldered the extra burden of ministry created by this project during those many days when all I could do was keep on writing. To the entire Pastoral Staff at Proclamation Presbyterian Church who joined Paul in bearing the extra stresses created by the creation of this book. To all of the support staff at Proclamation Presbyterian Church who have been typing tidbits (and much more) for George Washington’s Sacred Fire for at least a decade! Especially to these gracious ladies who have helped through the years: B.J. Dunn, Genie Herrell, Felicia Horton, Lisa Moneymaker, Kathy Olson, Marian Rebuck, Bonney Scott, Marion Sacks, April McKenzie. To Jim Browne who has shared his busy office staff in keeping this project moving forward. To Liz Fabiani who has been doing long, forced marches of service to get everything typed by our deadlines. Especially to Alex Thompson who has read every word at least three times, corrected thousands of mistakes, organized everchanging and growing chapters and titles, and tracked down more stray endnotes than Washington had soldiers in his entire Army. To the support team at The Providence Forum: Carolyn Jewett, Jody Vanmeter, and Carolyn Giosa, each of whom has provided unique contributions to make this book possible, to Silvia Augstroze for final proofreading, and to Aaron Bradford and Matthew McGowen for their excellent service as interns. To Judy Mitchell for her creative energy in the lovely graphic design of the maps of Washington’s Virginia. To our publicists, Larry Ross and Steve Yount and the ALRC team, for their excellent efforts to spread the word about this project. To Peter Roark and Roark Creative for capturing the essence of this work in the cover and interior design. To our printer, Dickinson Press, for their excellent efforts in bringing this book to completion. To our extraordinary marketing and business savvy executive director of The Providence Forum, Ralf Augstroze, who made sure that every picture, every deadline, every budget, and every communication was met according to plan. To all of our friends at Coral Ridge Ministries who gave this project new life, and Nancy Britt for editing assistance. To the entire production team at Coral Ridge who has shared the news of this book with America, and to Dr. D. James Kennedy for his passionate scholarship in regard to the faith of our founding father. To every friend who has asked for updates, prayed, and shared articles and ideas to help with the effort.
My special ministry team—the elders, deacons, members, pastoral staff, and office staff, past and present, of Proclamation Presbyterian Church, to the Board and staff of The Providence Forum, to the faculty, staff, and Board of Westminster Theological Seminary, to the Board and staff of Proclaiming the Word radio broadcast.
To special scholars who have granted interviews and provided invaluable information, wisdom, and guidance on this project, including Mary Thompson, historian of Mount Vernon; Reverend Donald Binder Ph.D., rector at Pohick Church in Lorton, VA; Dr. James Hutson, Chairman of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; Karen Hedelt of the Visitors’ Center of Fredericksburg, VA.
The Historical Organizations—I also wish to express my sincere thanks to the many organizations that provided invaluable access and information to further my research. Without their commitment to the history of our nation, and our founding father, this project could never have been completed. Pohick Church in Lorton, VA.; Christ Church in Alexandria, VA.; Falls Church in Falls Church, VA.; St. Peters Church, Philadelphia; Christ Church, Philadelphia; Trinity Church, New York City; Visitor Center, Fredericksburg, VA; Mother Bethel AME Church, Philadelphia; George Washington Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, VA; The Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ; and to Swain’s of Morristown and Thomas B. Vokes Galleries for their technical support.
Along with the people and the organizations, I must remember to thank the libraries, archives, and those who have granted permission to use their photographs and images in this work. I wish to thank each of the following institutions and their libraries and staffs for their exemplary commitment to scholarship which has provided the foundational materials that have made this research possible: Westminster Theological Seminary, and each of its extraordinary library personnel, Villanova University, University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore College, Harvard University, Eastern University, Cabrini College, the Library of Congress, Massachusetts Historical Society, The Boston Athenaeum, Library Company of Philadelphia, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, George Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Connecticut Historical Society, and Mount Vernon’s research library.
Finally, I wish to thank Divine Providence for the privilege and blessing of having had the inestimable honor of studying the life and faith of our founding father, George Washington. Indeed, I can do no better than to quote Washington himself, “I feel the most lively sentiments of gratitude to that divine Providence which has graciously interposed for the protection of our Civil and Religious Liberties.” (WGW, vol. 27, 11-10-1783. To the United Dutch Reformed Churches.) And a hearty thank-you to you, dear reader, for seeking to do your part, as well to protect our civil and religious liberties that were so dear to Washington.
In many of America’s secondary schools and schools of higher education, history is considered irrelevant to the post-modern and multi-cultural world. Entire curricula on American history have been written with only passing reference to our founding fathers, including George Washington.
But this is not a sudden event. The roots of this historical revisionism go back to the early ninteen hundreds as many elite leaders and educators in America began, intentionally, to move in a direction away from America’s Christian heritage.
George Washington, the preeminent figure at the beginning of America as a new, independent nation, has been subjected to the reinterpretation of American history by numerous, secular scholars. Motivated by a world view that rejects the foundational doctrine of George Washington’s world view—Divine Providence—these scholars have filtered out and misrepresented the extensive evidence of George Washington’s faith. As a result, they have created a secular George Washington as a truncated figure from the heroic figure known by his contemporaries.
One cannot begin to understand the totality of George Washington and the faith which animated him unless one first explores the strong orthodox Christian upbringing which he experienced as a youngster. From his early years, he embraced a lifelong dedication to his Anglican faith. How he lived his faith was very much influenced by his passion for self-discipline, self-control, and rectitude. His personality caused him to avoid laying his heart on his sleeve.
Nevertheless, Washington’s contemporaries clearly saw in him his strong Christian faith and his appeal to, and trust in, “Providence,” to which “he regularly gave thanks, publicly and privately.”1
It was only many decades after his death that some historians began to interpret Washington’s values and beliefs, more from their own frame of reference, rather than by the extensive writings and utterances of Washington during his lifetime. Because some early American patriots, like Thomas Paine, were Deists, that is those who believed in a distant and remote Deity, many more recent historians have tried to label a number of the luminaries of the founding fathers of America as also being Deists. For example, it is often said today that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists. Yet, each man in a variety of contexts spoke earnestly of their conviction as Theists—that God was both approachable by man and that God played an ever-active role in the affairs of man. Consider Thomas Jefferson’s declaration: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed our only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” It is not surprising, therefore, that Thomas Jefferson and his fellow founders would have referred four times in the Declaration of Independence to a Creator God of Providence. Likewise, consider the statement of Benjamin Franklin delivered at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787: “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 man.”
In the case of George Washington, this book George Washington’s Sacred Fire documents with exhaustive detail and analysis that Washington was not only a Theist, as seen in his very frequent references to Providence, but that Washington was also an orthodox Trinitarian Christian. First, in regard to the impact of a Providential God, Washington later in his public life said: “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 implore his protection and favor.” (Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789)
From his deep Christian faith, Washington also found occasion to advocate Christianity. In a speech to the Delaware chiefs on May 12, 1779, he said: “This is a great mark of your confidence and of your desire to preserve friendship between the Two Nations to the end of time, and to become One People with your Brethren of the United States. My ears hear with pleasure the other matters you mention. Congress will be glad to hear them too. You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”
Later, during the Revolutionary War, amidst a continuing series of disappointments and setbacks, Washington said: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
But for Washington, the true mark of conviction was how one behaved and what one did. From his lifelong commitment to rectitude and Christian moral principle, Washington stressed in his orders and directives and exhibited in his personal life, that a Christian faith is not just how one speaks but how one acts. As commander in chief, he set high standards for Christian worship and Christian behavior: “We can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Let vice and immorality of every kind be discouraged, as much as possible in your brigade; and as a chaplain is allowed to each regiment, see that the men regularly attend divine Worship.” This precedent was established earlier in his life as the widely recognized leader of Virginia’s Militia. He emphasized that his troops should “pray, fast, attend worship and observe days of thanksgiving.”2
Finally, it is helpful to reflect on those many, many times in his life when Washington was not sure that he was up to the task of the heavy burden of responsibilities he was called upon to fulfill. When he was selected, unanimously, by the Continental Congress to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army, he said: “I beg it may be remembered, by every gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with my utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Many times during the eight long years of the Revolutionary War, Washington experienced more failures than successes. Because the conflict was so protracted, he faced continuing high rates of desertion of various state militias during the War. While Washington maintained great conviction in the merits of the American cause, he nevertheless clearly turned again, and again, to prayer that the Lord God would give him strength and sustain him.
For a man of such probity and such self-restraint, the truest reflection of George Washington’s conviction and practice as an orthodox Christian requires exhaustive and thorough scholarship to bring together the totality of George Washington’s devotion as a Christian. This book, by the Reverend Dr. Peter Lillback in conjunction with Jerry Newcombe, gives us all a much truer understanding of the man who as “Father of Our Country” was indispensable to the success of securing, not only American independence, but, more importantly, the survival of America’s bold experiment in republican representative government. George Washington’s Sacred Fire is an attempt to let Washington speak for himself, and to address, in a definitive manner, the evidence of his Christian faith and conviction. This book makes a unique and authoritative case for the underlying faith of George Washington which sustained him and guided him throughout his remarkable life.
John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D.
In the popular culture of late twentieth and early twenty-first century America, two schools of thought about George Washington are doing battle. As evidenced by sermons and books by conservative religious leaders and numerous websites launched by people with an axe to grind, at least in regard to his religious beliefs, the Washington one finds on the internet appears to be a candidate for diagnosis as a multiple personality. He is either a rabid evangelical Christian or else is described as a Deist, a term which seems to be equivalent in the modern parlance of these polemicists to agnostic—someone who feels that there is no way to know if there is or is not a God, so they refuse to take a stand either way, and, if there is a God, he/she/it is unknowable. Perhaps Washington’s seeming personality disorder can be traced to the fact that, depending on which site one reads, he was either raised by pietistic parents or was the son of a man who spurned the Christian faith.
These differing views of Washington in the contemporary United States reflect the historical scholarship of the last two centuries. For over one hundred years following Washington’s death, his biographers tended to view their subject as a deeply religious man. Popular writers reflected that same opinion, but often elaborated on the religious theme; stories came into the popular imagination of Washington the perfect man, who broke up fights between children at school as a boy, was always in church each Sunday, had religious visions, and certainly never lied.
All that changed about seventy years ago. At that point, historians began trying to strip away the myths that had grown up around Washington, in order to make him more human and understandable to a twentieth century audience. While this was a laudable goal—and one that contemporary historians and museums are still striving to do in the face of some particularly imbedded beliefs, such as the wooden teeth legend—they began to cast doubt on the view of Washington as a devout Christian. The most influential of those works was historian Paul Boller’s Washington and Religion, which essentially described Washington as a person who, though raised in the Anglican Church, was at best only nominally Christian, who found that religion useful for keeping the lower classes in order, but did not seriously believe the tenets of the faith. Religion, moreover, was a subject in which he had very little interest. Boller’s position has been the standard interpretation of this facet of Washington’s life since its publication more than forty years ago. Most recently, scholarly examinations of the subject have suggested that Washington’s spiritual life was more greatly influenced by Stoic philosophy than Judeo-Christian theology.
There is evidence that the historical tide may again be turning. While not directly dealing with Washington, Edward L. Bond and John K. Nelson have written convincing explorations of the Anglican Church in Virginia, which take seriously the depth of faith of the American colonists and challenge the notion that the state church was solely a means by which the upper classes controlled the rest of society. Other scholars—Daniel L. Dreisbach, James H. Hutson, and Garrett Ward Sheldon, to name just a few—have reexamined the place of religion in the lives of Washington’s contemporaries and show their readers a group of men and women with a strong belief in God and an intense interest in matters of religion. Quite recently, still others have turned their attention to Washington himself. Vincent Phillip Munoz produced a fine article on Washington’s ideas on church and state, while Michael and Jana Novak have just (2006) published a book-length investigation into the identity of the God mentioned in Washington’s writings, as well as what the country’s most famous founding father meant when he wrote, so very often, about “Providence.”
Peter Lillback, with Jerry Newcombe, has written George Washington’s Sacred Fire as a means of redressing some of the past wrongs in interpreting the place of God and religion in Washington’s life. Striving for balance, the man to whom Dr. Lillback introduces his readers is decidedly Christian, but hardly an evangelical in the modern sense. He was an active churchman, whose relationship with the Anglican Church underwent change throughout his life, but never altered his relationship with God. Unlike many of the popular writers who have tried to resurrect belief in a very devout Washington, Dr. Lillback has taken great care to document his sources. His fifteen years of research are clearly evident, with very complete notes and appendices, so that readers wishing to explore further can follow the trail to additional sources. The author also brings an understanding of the eighteenth century church in America, which is invaluable in putting Washington into the context of his time and place.
So, if the historical tide is beginning to turn—a slow process at best—then scholars are in the first stages of reappraising Washington’s faith. As part of that reassessment, I would like to invite you to read George Washington’s Sacred Fire. It is now your turn to weigh the evidence and decide how you would answer the question of whether George Washington, America’s founding father, was a Christian or not.
Mary V. Thompson
Research Specialist
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate
George Washington has been described by recent authors as “a lukewarm Episcopalian,”3 a “warm Deist,”4 “not a deeply religious man,”5 “not particularly ardent in his faith,”6 “one who avoided as was the Deist custom, the word ‘God.’”7 No wonder Professor Paul Boller wrote, “Broadly speaking, of course, Washington can be classified as a Deist.” Yet paradoxically, this was the man who stood trembling before his new nation to give his First Inaugural Address8 and spoke of “the sacred fire of liberty.”9 This was not a secular fire. It was a flame fueled by the holy.
Surprising perhaps, but as we will see, Washington’s description of himself repeatedly used the words “ardent,” “fervent,” “pious,” and “devout.” There are over one hundred different prayers composed and written by Washington in his own hand, with his own words, in his writings. His passions flared in a letter, when his church vestry considered not honoring his purchase of a family pew in his local church. He described himself as one of the deepest men of faith of his day when he confessed to a clergyman, “No Man has a more perfect Reliance on the alwise, and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have nor thinks his aid more necessary.”10
Rather than avoid the word “God,” on the very first national Thanksgiving under the U.S. Constitution, he said, “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.”11 Although he never once used the word “Deist” in his voluminous writings, he often mentioned religion, Christianity, and the Gospel. He spoke of Christ as “the divine Author of our blessed religion.” He encouraged missionaries who were seeking to “Christianize” the “aboriginals.” He took an oath in a private letter, “on my honor and the faith of a Christian.” He wrote of “the blessed religion revealed in the Word of God.” He encouraged seekers to learn “the religion of Jesus Christ.” He even said to his soldiers, “To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian.” Not bad for a “lukewarm” Episcopalian!
George Washington is known by Americans as the founding father of our nation. However, there has been great confusion and debate about his faith. The historic view was that he was a Christian. The consensus of scholars that has developed since the bicentennial of Washington’s birth in 1932 is that he was a Deist, that is, one who believes in a very remote and impersonal God. (We will define this term more fully in the following chapter.)
Who is correct in their assessment of Washington—the recent historians of Washington or Washington himself? We believe this is a fair question. Our purpose is to address the question of Washington’s religion and to answer it in a definitive way, using Washington’s own words. Was he a Christian or a Deist?12 We believe that when all the evidence is considered, it is clear that George Washington was a Christian and not a Deist, as most scholars since the latter half of the twentieth century have claimed.
One of the interesting proofs of the significance of George Washington in American history is that we read into him what we want to see. To a secularist, Washington was a secularist. To a Christian, Washington was a church-going believer. It is natural that people want to make Washington in their own image. This is even true to a humorous degree. For example, George Washington wearing a baseball cap recently graced the front page of the USA Today in reference to Washington, D.C., getting its own baseball team.
Everybody wants to claim Washington for their own. The Christians want to make him a devout evangelical. The skeptics want to make him a skeptic. We believe the truth, however, is that he was an 18th century Anglican. He was an orthodox, Trinity-affirming believer in Jesus Christ, who also affirmed the historic Christian Gospel of a Savior who died for sinners and was raised to life. But then again, we also believe it would not be accurate to call him an “evangelical” (by modern standards of the word).
What are the facts of history? And do they matter? The importance of this study is more than historical. Establishing that George Washington was a Christian helps to substantiate the critical role that Christians and Christian principles played in the founding of our nation. This, in turn, encourages a careful reappraisal of our history and founding documents. A nation that forgets its past does not know where it is or where it is headed. We believe such a study would also empower, enable, and defend the presence of a strong Judeo-Christian worldview in the ongoing development of our state and national governments and courts. We set out to provide the necessary foundation for an honest assessment of the faith and values of our founders and the government they instituted.
NO LONGER A HERO?
Can a historic national hero become irrelevant? This seems to have happened to George Washington and many other “politically incorrect” founding fathers, at least in the minds of some leading educators. In fact, many of our founders—despite all their sacrifices to establish our great country with unparalleled freedoms—have been denigrated to the category of the irrelevant history of “dead white guys.” In fact, the Washington Times reported: “George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin are not included in the revised version of the New Jersey Department of Education history standards, a move some critics view as political correctness at its worst.”13
The impact of this approach to history can perhaps be seen in a recent Washington College Poll. It found that more Americans had a higher respect for Bill Clinton’s job performance as the nation’s forty second president than they did George Washington’s.14 Thus, George Washington is no longer considered to be the hero he once was.
NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN?
Pick up most books and articles on Washington from 1932 or earlier, and generally, with a few exceptions, you will read about George Washington the Christian. That began to change with the iconoclastic scholarship of the mid-twentieth century that sought to tear down the traditional understanding of our nation and its origins.
In particular, the leading modern study of George Washington the Deist, George Washington & Religion, was authored by historian Paul F. Boller, Jr.15 Boller’s conclusion can be summarized in a single sentence: To the “unbiased observer” George Washington appears as a Deist, not a devout Christian.16
While there have been studies before Boller’s that argued that Washington was a Deist and not a Christian, Boller’s book is clearly now considered the definitive standard book on the subject.17 After his book, very few scholars asserted that George Washington was a Christian. Consequently, it has become the accepted “fact” of history that Washington was a Deist. The interesting thing about Boller’s book is that, to our knowledge, it has never been fully rebutted. Using historical scholarship, we want to address and answer Boller’s arguments and go beyond them in a way that is accessible to all serious readers.
Even Boller admits that religion was important to Washington as a leader. For instance, Boller writes, “…he saw to it that divine services were performed by the chaplains as regularly as possible on the Sabbath for the soldiers under his command.”18 But shouldn’t this lead us to ask why chaplains would be important to a Deist? Boller even admits there are testimonials of Washington’s consistency in attending church: “John C. Fitzpatrick’s summation of Washington’s church-going habits (which he examined carefully) seems fair enough: ‘Washington…was a consistent, if not always regular churchgoer.”’19
This is an important admission on Boller’s part because later writers have gone far beyond Boller’s argument and asserted that Washington did not even attend church as a mature adult.20
The erosion of accurate historicity is disconcerting: One scholar casts Washington in a Deistic mold. The next goes further and states—without citing evidence—that he didn’t even go to church. What will the next generation of scholars claim? This ignorance of the facts is what requires us to pursue our question concerning Washington’s religion by constant interaction with his own written words and the unquestionable records of his actions.
As we have said, many recent writers don’t see Washington as a Christian. A “tongue-in-cheek” book on him claims to be based on nothing but the facts, but listen to the unsubstantiated extent it goes concerning Washington and religion. Marvin Kitman in his, The Making of the President 1789 (Harper & Row, New York, 1989) describes a busy few days where Washington attended various churches. Without the least regard to Washington’s vast writings, Kitman inaccurately and falsely states:
And here was a man who didn’t even believe in God, some of his political enemies said, paraphrasing his own minister, who had been complaining about the way Washington never mentioned the word God—he did use Providence regularly—didn’t come to take sacrament, or do this or that. He was big with the Deist vote, however.21
Kitman is incorrect on many fronts, as we will see throughout the book. For starters, Washington believed in God; referred to God (by many names intended to honor Him) hundreds of times; did, indeed, speak of Providence some 270 times; and, in fact, there are written records that Washington partook of Christian communion both before and after the War. Furthermore, the alleged “Deist vote” would have been quite marginal at best. Benjamin Hart notes that at the beginning of the American Revolution, 98.4% of the Americans claimed to be Protestant; 1.4% claimed to be Roman Catholic——thus, 99.8% were professing Christians. This certainly corroborates Benjamin Franklin’s telling observation published in 1794 on the faith of his contemporary fellow Americans in the midst of Washington’s presidency:
The almost general mediocrity of fortune that prevails in America obliging its people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices that arise usually from idleness are in great measure prevented. Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America; which must be a comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there, infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been pleased to favour the whole country.22
A DEVOUT EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ANGLICAN
We believe that an honest look at the facts of history show that George Washington was a devout eighteenth century Anglican. This means he believed the basics of that orthodox Trinitarian faith that proclaimed the substitutionary saving death of Jesus Christ for sinners. Some have declared that Washington stopped attending Communion during the War. Should this be correct—and let’s assume so for the sake of argument—does this prove he was not a believing Christian?
Could other reasons better explain the question? Could it have been because he had broken Communion with the head of the Anglican Church (King George III)? Perhaps during the stresses of the War, he got out of the habit of receiving the Lord’s Table on a regular basis. And what should we make of the historical testimonies that he did attend Communion after the War from time to time?
As we analyze the written evidence from Washington himself, we will find that he had an exemplary private prayer life. His biblical literacy suggests the he read the Scriptures regularly, and we can also show that he used the 1662 Book of Common Prayer from the Church of England, which was a very orthodox guide for Christian worship of the Trinity. In fact, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is more theologically sound than the average book available in a Christian bookstore today.
In this present book, we are taking what Christian philosopher Gary Habermas, in another context, calls “the minimalist facts approach.” We are only going to say what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. We are not going to present a hagiography of George Washington, i.e., we will not make him into an ecclesiastical saint. But we do believe that his own words and actions show that he was a Christian and not an unbelieving Deist.
George Washington was not a perfect man. He occasionally lost his temper; he drank wine—maybe even too much when he was a young man.23 He was involved with activities that some would find fault with: he had a revenue producing distillery on his Mount Vernon Estate;24 he loved to fox hunt; he went to the theatre, and occasionally to the horse races. And, sadly, he owned slaves, something all Americans today would find immoral, but which was not uncommon for a Southern gentleman of his day.
Like other human beings, he struggled with personal challenges such as illness, fatigue, pain, deaths of loved ones, loneliness, financial pressures, and step-parenting challenges, to name but a few. Yet, as we can see from his writings, he attempted to walk according to the duties of the Christian faith. We find this in a letter that he wrote to his life-long friend, Reverend Bryan Fairfax (Lord Fairfax), who had been the pastor of Washington’s church in Alexandria, Virginia. Writing from Mount Vernon on January 20, 1799, only months before he died, Washington looked back over his very full life and described his spiritual walk:
The favourable sentiments which others, you say, have been pleased to express respecting me, cannot but be pleasing to a mind who always walked on a straight line, and endeavoured as far as human frailties, and perhaps strong passions, would enable him, to discharge the relative duties to his Maker and fellowmen, without seeking any indirect or left handed attempts to acquire popularity.25
Remember that Washington was a land surveyor by training who specialized in setting long straight boundary lines. He speaks of such “straight lines” in his letters. But here he tells us, as he surveys his remarkable life, that he also had sought to walk a “straight line” in discharging his duties to his “Maker and fellow-men.” Accordingly, he openly spoke of his own “fervent prayer” to his soldiers. Consider this concluding line of a December 5, 1775, private letter that Washington wrote to his then faithful officer, Benedict Arnold:
…give him all the Assistance in your Power, to finish the glorious Work you have begun. That the Almighty may preserve and prosper you in it, is the sincere and fervent Prayer of, Dear Sir, Your Humble & Obedient Servant, George Washington.26
Similarly, he often expresses his own deep faith in God’s Providence with such heartfelt language as the following from his May 13, 1776, letter to his close friend in Boston, Reverend William Gordon. Referring to God’s “…many other signal Interpositions of Providence,” he declares that they “must serve to inspire every reflecting Mind with Confidence.” And then he describes himself with these striking words of spiritual commitment:
No Man has a more perfect Reliance on the all-wise, and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have nor thinks his aid more necessary.27
DISESTABLISHMENT IN VIRGINIA
It is true that as a young man and for much of Washington’s adult life, Virginia had an established church—the Anglican Church. By law one was required to attend services and pay tithes. That was part of the responsibility of a colonist in Virginia. However, that changed in 1786 with the Act for Establishing Religious Liberty. This great step forward in terms of religious liberty was especially the work of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
One of the key arguments Jefferson made in this statute was that Almighty God has made the mind free and that any punishments that men mete out against religious opinion deemed to be false are a departure from “the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose [sic] not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone…”28
In other words, Jefferson argues, because Jesus Christ could have forced men to believe in Him, but did not, and instead gave us the personal responsibility to believe, then who are we as mere men to punish others for their religious opinions, no matter how wrong these opinions may be? Secularists sometimes interpret Jefferson’s argument here as a plea for unbelief. Not so. He uses the example of Christ to argue for religious freedom. In fact, religious liberty in America especially stems from two great Christian clergymen who prepared the way for America’s religious liberty. They were also two of our nation’s settlers—Roger Williams and William Penn.
After Virginia disestablished the Anglican Church, men and women were no longer required by state law to worship there. But Washington did not stop attending church after disestablishment. He kept attending his church long after that—until he died.
GOD IN THE SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF WASHINGTON
George Washington’s mention of God in his private letters as well as his public speeches and writings is frequent, especially when we understand the vast variety of terms he employed for the Almighty including, “the great disposer of events,” “the invisible hand,” “Jehovah,” or his favorite term—“Providence.” We cannot escape the alternatives—Washington either truly cared about God or he employed God-talk for mere political or manipulative ends, while he himself didn’t believe the words he was speaking. The latter appears difficult to accept from a man who insisted, “Honesty is the best policy.”
We are all familiar with politicians talking about God in their public speeches—even if their private behavior belies that God-talk. Was George Washington this type of public figure? We don’t think so, nor does the historical evidence support it.
Here is a sampling of what Bird Wilson could have perused. Washington said that America will only be happy if we imitate “the divine author of our blessed religion.”30