In Honor of President's Day: On Washington's Religion
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
–George Washington, 1790
To review: Most of the Framers were Deists, not “Christians” in the modern sense. They were skeptical of many Judaic and Christian concepts, including the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity in general, Hell, Biblical accounts of miracles and other religious conundrums that perplex rational people with functioning minds. They certainly were not what today we would call “Evangelicals.”
The one Framer who has probably been the most slandered in this respect is George Washington.
First we have the flat-out lie that Washington added “So help me God…” to the presidential oath of office. Never happened! Not a mistake or a legend — a willful lie propagated by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a Baptist clergyman, in 1856.
Second we have the flat-out lie that Washington was an extremely devout Anglican. He was nominally an Anglican, indeed (probably to accommodate Martha’s piety), but he was hardly “devout” —
He was a casual observer of the Sabbath and a semi-regular attendee of church — a little more than once a month, according to [Paul] Boller’s review of Washington’s diaries. For instance, Washington attended church four times in the first five months of 1760 and 15 times in the year 1768. Sometimes bad weather prevented him from making the lengthy trip but there’s also evidence that Washington visited friends, traveled or went foxhunting instead of to church. One has the sense that were he alive today, he’d absolutely head to church, unless friends were gathering to watch an important football game.
…
While at church, Washington was “always serious and attentive,” reported William White, the minister at Christ Church in Philadelphia during and after the revolution — but he never kneeled. More significant, Washington did not generally take communion, perhaps the most deeply spiritual act in the Anglican Church. In fact, he would generally leave services before his wife Martha, who often did take the sacrament.
…
Washington rarely referred to Jesus Christ or Christianity in his writings. He often spoke of God, Providence, the Great Architect and other formulations for the deity but only referred to Christ in a handful of instances[.]
The piece emphasizes that Washington was not a Deist — he apparently believed in the power of prayer and that God actively intervenes in human affairs.
But the Eighteenth Century equivalent of a radical Evangelical?
But for those who define being a Christian as requiring the acceptance of Christ as personal savior and the Bible as God’s revelation, Washington, based on what we know, probably was not “Christian.”
A good talking point to file away the next time you clash with an Evangelical: Since he was never “saved,” is George Washington therefore burning in Hell?
H. Weishaupt after Samuel Moore
Apotheosis of George Washington, ca. 1860
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Filed under: First Amendment - Religion
How is it that "rational" people are "perplexed" by "religious conundrums"? If by "rational" you mean non-religious, then they would be the last people I would expect to be perplexed by religious conundrums. Rather they would be perplexed by people who profess the importance of such conundrums.
As for the question of Washington burning in hell: if there is a hell he most assuredly would be there. As would all other slaveowners. Let's not glorify him.
Finally, Washington's Farewell Address is rather religious in tone. See, especially, paragraph 31: "Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?"
"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Dave, the thing about your idea that slaveowners are all burning in hell is that slavery is actually supported in the Bible. Nothing sinful about it, actually, it's just a sickening thing to do.
Isn't that Baptist minister the same one who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance? With the whole "One nation under God" thing? I swear, he did more to turn our country into a theocracy than even Dubya has.