On the eve of its 226th birthday, America is still trying to get a handle on the Founding Fathers' religious beliefs.
For some, the question is more than just an academic footnote. Americans of varying religious and political persuasions often cite the religion — or lack of religion — of the country's founders as proof of the validity and pedigree of their own beliefs.
The general gist of this line of reasoning is: if Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and their compatriots were Christians (or atheists or deists or secularists), then the nation should honor those roots. We've strayed, the Christian Right argues. Not true, counter America's atheist communities, who insist that the country never set out to be a Christian nation.
That issue made news earlier this week with a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruling declaring the "under God" phrasing of the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional. That ruling has since been stayed pending a review by the full 15-member court.
Pinning down the Founding Fathers' beliefs, though, isn't that easy. In the first place, says Brett Lattimer, professor of American Heritage and political science at Brigham Young University, there was a spectrum of belief. "If you said 'the founders believed,' " Lattimer argues, "you'd be inaccurate."
On one end of that spectrum, Lattimer says, are men like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, who were orthodox Christians. On the other is Thomas Paine, author of "The Age of Reason." In between were leaders like Jefferson, Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
It is in this in-between area where historians disagree. "Both sides, the right and the left, distort" the facts and the conclusions, says Lattimer.
"There is enough complexity and ambiguity in the reality of the founding of the United States that different scholars, each earnestly pursuing a faithful description of the intentions of the founders, can come to different conclusions," write Michael Corbett and Julia Mitchell Corbett in their textbook "Politics and Religion in the United States."
Some of the most famous founders — Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and John Adams — are often labeled deists, followers of a religion of sufficient ambiguity that writers differ even about whether or not to capitalize the "d."
Deism's basic tenet is that a deity created the universe, governs through natural laws and can be understood by reason alone. In 18th-century America, this deity was called God, Creator, Nature's God, the Supreme Judge (these terms can be found in the Declaration of Independence, written by Jefferson).
This Creator, according to strict deists, does not intervene in human affairs and thus does not favor certain people or nations, does not perform miracles and cannot be appealed to in prayer (God should be thanked in prayers, however). God does not operate through revelation, they reasoned. The Bible, they argued, was instructive but not inspired.
This was the standard deist belief system — but the details varied among its adherents. In England, where deism originated in the early 17th century, and in Europe, where its followers included Voltaire and Rousseau, there tended to be a more anti-religion bent, says Lattimer. In America, beliefs tended to be more flexible. And, too, sometimes people's beliefs changed as they aged.
What did Washington, Jefferson and Franklin believe?
The problem, notes James H. Hutson, author of "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic," is that religious orthodoxy was so powerful in 18th-century America that the founders "obsessively concealed their religious opinions, if tinctured ever so slightly by the unconventional."
Washington, writes Hutson, left no paper trail about his private religious convictions. He apparently attended church, but scholars differ on the meaning and sincerity of that attendance. Some scholars argue that he never received communion. On the other hand, he issued a proclamation in 1789 recommending that the American people thank God for his mercies "and the favorable interpositions of his providence," notes Hutson. And he required his soldiers to attend church on Sundays unless they were on active duty. Like Jefferson and Franklin, he believed that religion helped people live a moral life.
But Washington "rarely cited the Bible and never spoke of Jesus Christ," according to historians quoted by the Corbetts in "Politics and Religion in the United States."
As for Jefferson, he referred to himself, at various times, as a deist, theist, Unitarian and "rational Christian," according to the Corbetts. He believed that Christ was a great moral teacher but did not believe in miracles or in Christ's divinity. He fashioned his own "Jefferson Bible" by literally cutting out all references to miracles, immaculate conception and resurrection, leaving only the moral teachings.
Franklin called himself a deist at 15. He doubted the divinity of Jesus, according to the Corbetts, but "also indicated that he would not busy himself with the question now since he would soon know the truth with less trouble."
At the Constitutional Convention, on the other hand, he chastised his fellow delegates for forgetting God, arguing that God guided America to victory over the British.
"I have lived a long time," he said, "and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth — that God governs in the Affairs of Men." We need to pray, he urged his colleagues, for divine protection.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com