Debunking the "most of the Founders were deist" untruth.

[Nineveh]

I thought this might be useful in combatting the "most of the Founders were deist" untruth. If anyone has different info or further info, please let me know Those that have more than one religious affiliation are those that switched religions later in life. Names marked with "*" are parties to more than one document and are only counted once.

From the Mayflower Compact:

1. John Alden Puritan
2. Isaac Allerton Puritan
3. John Allerton
4. John Billington
5. Richard Bitteridge
6. William Bradford Puritan
7. William Brewster Puritan
8. Peter Brown
9. John Carver Puritan
10. James Chilton Puritan
11. Richard Clark
12. Francis Cooke
13. John Craxton
14. Edward Doty
15. Francis Eaton
16. Thomas English
17. Moses Fletcher Puritan
18. Edward Fuller
19. Samuel Fuller Puritan
20. Richard Gardiner
21. John Goodman
22. Stephen Hopkins Puritan
23. John Howland Puritan
24. Edward Liester
25. Edmond Margesson
26. Christopher Martin Puritan
27. William Mullins Puritan
28. Digery Priest Puritan
29. John Rigdale
30. Thomas Rogers
31. George Soule Puritan
32. Myles Standish
33. Edward Tilly
34. John Tilly
35. Thomas Tinker
36. John Turner
37. Richard Warren
38. William White
39. Thomas Williams
40. Edward Winslow Puritan
41. Gilbert Winslow

From the Articles of Confederation:

1. Andrew Adams Congregationalist
*2. Samual Adams (DI) Congregationalist
3. Thomas Adams
4. John Banister
*5. Josiah Bartlett (DI) Congregationalist
*6. Daniel Carroll (CC) Catholic
7. William Clingan
8. John Collins
9. Francis Dana
*10.John Dickinson (CC) Episcopalian/Quaker
11. William Henry Drayton
12. James Duane Episcopalian
13. William Duer
*14.William Ellery (DI) Congregationalist
*15.Elbridge Gerry (DI,CC**) Episcopalian
*16. John Hancock (DI) Congregationalist
17. John Hanson
18. Cornelius Harnett Deist/Episcopalian
19. John Harvie
*20. Thomas Heyward, Jr. (DI)
21. Samuel Holten
22. Titus Hosmer
*23.Samuel Huntington (DI) Congregationalist
24. Richard Hutson Presbyterian
25. Edward Langworthy Episcopalian
26. Henry Laurens Huguenot
*27.Francis Lightfoot Lee (DI) (Christian)
*28. Richard Henry Lee (DI)
*29. Francis Lewis (DI)
30. James Lovell
31. Henry Marchant
32. John Mathews
*33.Thomas McKean (DI) Presbyterian
*34. Gouveneur Morris (CC) Episcopalian
*35. Robert Morris (CC) Episcopalian
*36. John Penn (DI)
37. Joseph Reed
38. Daniel Roberdeau
39. Nathaniel Scudder
*40. Roger Sherman (DI, CC) Congregationalist
41. Jonathan Bayard Smith
42. Edward Telfair
43. Nicholas VanDyke Episcopalian
44. John Walton
45. John Wentworth, Jr.
46. John Williams
*47. John Witherspoon (DI) Presbyterian
*48. Oliver Wolcott (DI) Congregationalist

From the Declaration of Independence

1. John Adams Congregationalist/Unitarian
*2. Samual Adams (AoC) Congregationalist
*3. Josiah Bartlett (AoC) Congregationalist
4. Carter Braxton
5. Charles Carroll Catholic
6. Samuel Chase Episcopalian
7. Abraham Clark Presbyterian
*8. George Clymer (CC) Episcopalian/Quaker
*9. William Ellery (AoC) Congregationalist
10. William Floyd Presbyterian
*11.Benjamin Franklin (CC) Deist
*12.Elbridge Gerry (AoC, CC**) Episcopalian
13. Button Gwinnett Episcopalian
14. Lyman Hall Congregationalist
*15.John Hancock (AoC) Congregationalist
16. Benjamin Harrison
17. John Hart Presbyterian
18. Joseph Hewes Episcopalian
*19.Thomas Heyward, Jr. (AoC)
20. William Hooper Episcopalian
21. Stephen Hopkins
22. Francis Hopkinson Episcopalian
*23. Samuel Huntington (AoC) Congregationalist
24. Thomas Jefferson Deist
*25.Francis Lightfoot Lee (AoC) (Christian)
*26.Richard Henry Lee (AoC)
*27.Francis Lewis (AoC)
28. Philip Livingston Presbyterian
29. Thomas Lynch, Jr.
*30.Thomas McKean (AoC) Presbyterian
31. Arthur Middleton
32. Lewis Morris
*33. Robert Morris (AoC, CC) Episcopalian
34. John Morton
35. Thomas Nelson, Jr.
36. William Paca Anglican
37. Robert Treat Paine Congregationalist
*38.John Penn (AoC)
*39.George Read (CC) Episcopalian
40. Caesar Rodney Episcopalian
41. George Ross
42. Benjamin Rush Presbyterian/Unitarian
43. Edward Rutledge Church of England
*44.Roger Sherman (AoC, CC) Congregationalist
45. James Smith Presbyterian
46. Richard Stockton Presbyterian
47. Thomas Stone Episcopalian
48. George Taylor Presbyterian
49. Matthew Thornton Presbyterian
50. George Walton Anglican
51. William Whipple Congregationalist
52. William Williams Congregationalist
*53. James Wilson (CC) Deist/Episcopalian
*54.John Witherspoon (AoC) Presbyterian
*55.Oliver Wolcott (AoC) Congregationalist
*56.George Wythe (CC**) Episcopalian

From the Constitutional Convention

1. Abraham Baldwin Congregationalist/Presbyterian
2. Richard Bassett Methodist
3. Gunning Bedford, Jr.Presbyterian
4. John (James) Blair Episcopalian/Presbyterian
5. William Blount Episcopalian/Presbyterian
6. David Brearley Episcopalian
7. Jacob Broom Lutheran
8. Pierce Butler Episcopalian
*9. Danie Carroll (AoC) Catholic
*10.George Clymer (DI) Episcopalian/Quaker
11. William R. Davie** Presbyterian
12. Jonathon Dayton Episcopalian/Presbyterian
*13.John Dickinson (AoC) Episcopalian/Quaker
14. Oliver Ellsworth** Congregationalist
15. William Few Methodist
16. Thomas Fitzsimmons Catholic
*17.Benjamin Franklin (DI) Deist
18. Nicholas Gilman Congregationalist
19. Nathaniel Gorham Congregationalist
20. Alexander Hamilton Episcopalian
21. William Houston** Episcopalian
22. William C. Houston** Episcopalian
23. Jared Ingersoll Presbyterian
24. Daniel Jenifer Episcopalian
25. William Samuel Johnson Anglican
26. Rufus King Episcopalian
27. John Langdon Congregationalist
28. John Lansing, Jr.** Dutch Reformed
29. William Livingston Presbyterian
30. James Madison Episcopalian
31. Alexander Martin** Episcopalian/Presbyterian
32. Luther Martin** Episcopalian
33. George Mason** Episcopalian
34. James McClurg**
35. James McHenry Presbyterian
36. John F. Mercer** Episcopalian
37. Thomas Mifflin Lutheran/Quaker
*38.Gouveneur Morris (AoC) Episcopalian
*39.Robert Morris (DI, AoC) Episcopalian
40. William Patterson Presbyterian
41. William L. Pierce** Episcopalian
42. Charles Pinckney Episcopalian
43. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Episcopalian
44. Edmund J. Randolph** Episcopalian
*45. George Read (DI) Episcopalian
46. John Rutledge Episcopalian
*47. Roger Sherman (DI, AoC) Congregationalist
48. Richard Dobbs Spaight Episcopalian
49. Caleb Strong** Congregationalist
50. George Washington Deist/Episcopalian
51. Hugh Williamson Deist/Presbyterian
*52.James Wilson (DI) Deist/Episcopalian
53. Robert Yates** Dutch Reformed
54. Elbridge Gerry Episcopalian
55. George Wythe Episcopalian

The Score:

Christians: 102
Catholics: 3
Deists: 6
Unknown: 62

Of the 6 known deists, 4 changed their religion later in life. Those 4 being:
Cornelius Harnett Deist/Episcopalian
George Washington Deist/Episcopalian
James Wilson Deist/Episcopalian
Hugh Williamson Deist/Presbyterian

Of the 102 Christians, 2 became Unitarian:
John Adams Congregationalist/Unitarian
Benjamin Rush Presbyterian/Unitarian

So in the end, leaving all the deists as deists and adding in all the unknowns just to give them a fair shot, 68 is still not "most" of 173.

Definition of Religions:
Anglican: Of or characteristic of the Church of England or any of the churches related to it in origin and communion, such as the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Catholic: Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.

Congregationalist: A type of church government in which each local congregation is self-governing.

Church of England: The episcopal and liturgical national church of England, which has its see in Canterbury.

Deist: The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

Dutch Reformed: From trying to track this one down, I gather they are Christian although the denom has split many many times.

Episcopalian: Of or advocating church government by bishops.

Huguenot: A French Protestant of the 16th and 17th centuries. A French Calvinist of the 16th or 17th centuries

Lutheran: Of or relating to Luther or his religious teachings and especially to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Of or relating to the branch of the Protestant Church adhering to the views of Luther.

Methodist: A member of an evangelical Protestant church founded on the principles of John and Charles Wesley in England in the early 18th century and characterized by active concern with social welfare and public morals.

Presbyterian: Of or relating to ecclesiastical government by presbyters. Presbyter: A priest in various hierarchical churches. A teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church. A ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church.

Puritan: A member of a group of English Protestants who in the 16th and 17th centuries advocated strict religious discipline along with simplification of the ceremonies and creeds of the Church of England.

Quaker: A Christian denomination, founded in the mid-17th century in England, that rejects formal sacraments, a formal creed, a priesthood, and violence; the Quakers.

Unitarian: An adherent of Unitarian Universalism. A monotheist who is not a Christian. A Christian who is not a Trinitarian.


INFO:
AoC: Articles of Confederation
DI: Declaration of Independence
CC: Constitutional Convention
** did not sign at CC

 

[AvedYahweh]

right, but even Obama calls himself a Christian, yeah right.

 

[MacGyver]

Can you say where you got this information? You said something about not everyone being able to have access, but I'd still like a link or something.

 

[WandererInFog]

Can you say where you got this information? You said something about not everyone being able to have access, but I'd still like a link or something.

Well, I'm not the original poster and can't give that link, but as even as late as the 1790's church membership in the United States was over 90%, I'm inclined to believe that the list is basically accurate.


However, it has to be acknowledged that affiliation does not equate to belief. Despite the fact we have a pretty clear idea from his writings that Washington was a Unitarian, he never left the Episcopal church. The biggest problems you'll find when you start looking into this is first that for many of these individuals their surviving personal writings are quite scant so that knowing with any kind of certainty what their personal beliefs were is basically impossible, the second problem is that oftentimes historians see what they want to see based on their pre-existing biases, as for many of the founders for whom we do have an extensive amount of written material, they often make contradictory statements on different occasions where judging what they really believed becomes an exercise in interpretation rather than clear evidence. I mean some cases we can speak pretty definitively about: Patrick Henry was definitely an orthodox Christian, and Thomas Jefferson was definitely, at most, a deist. Once you get out past those handful of clear cases things becomes much murkier.

This isn't actually all that surprising given the major changes in religious sentiment and devotion during the time period. During the time period of the drafting the of Declaration of Independence those running were country deeply religious, whereas by the turn of the 19th century religious affiliation and attendance had dropped off radically and the nation turned sharply towards Unitarianism and Deism. The time in between those two periods is one of fairly serious transition and no shortage of contradictions and it was right in the middle of this period that the Constitution was drafted and ratified which put within it a certain degree of ambiguity regarding religion.

This of course isn't an answer that either those who wish to view the US as having been founded as specifically secular or specifically Christian nation find terribly satisfying, but it is one that goes a long way towards explaining why this argument is basically unresolvable.

 

[Granite]

The claim that most of the founders were deists is not correct. To say that most of the founders were Christians is true, if not accurate.

 

[chrysostom]

you have to give those three Catholics credit for what they accomplished

 

[Nineveh]

Can you say where you got this information? You said something about not everyone being able to have access, but I'd still like a link or something.

I copied it into this thread for you. As I told you earlier, I got most of this info from the net. One link off the top of my head is Political Graveyard. I have most of the links if you want, they are listed in the database (which I'm trying to convert to Access), or you could use Google, too The only book I referenced was Christianity and the Constitution by John Eidsmoe.

A bit of info:

I know we seem to be fond of calling T. Jefferson a deist, but he seems to have had a problem not with Christ, but with the "platonists" (calvies). I get this info from his own writings. In a letter to Charles Thomson written 1-9-1816 titled "A Real Christian". You can find this in Jefferson Writings pg 1373 published by Library of America. But for the purposes of my investigation, I left him a deist.

Something else we seem to be fond of is trying to equate "deist" to modern day atheists or agnostics. Which is not the case.

 

[Nineveh]

To address the issue of affiliation:

If we want to be honest with American History, let's let these men claim to be what they thought themselves to be. It is not honest, at this late date, to ascribe beliefs to these men which they themselves did not claim to hold, even if it may make us feel a little better in today's political/social climate.

 

[Granite]

I copied it into this thread for you. As I told you earlier, I got most of this info from the net. One link off the top of my head is Political Graveyard. I have most of the links if you want, they are listed in the database (which I'm trying to convert to Access), or you could use Google, too The only book I referenced was Christianity and the Constitution by John Eidsmoe.

A bit of info:

I know we seem to be fond of calling T. Jefferson a deist, but he seems to have had a problem not with Christ, but with the "platonists" (calvies). I get this info from his own writings. In a letter to Charles Thomson written 1-9-1816 titled "A Real Christian". You can find this in Jefferson Writings pg 1373 published by Library of America. But for the purposes of my investigation, I left him a deist.

Something else we seem to be fond of is trying to equate "deist" to modern day atheists or agnostics. Which is not the case.

Calling him a deist is probably not far off the mark: Jefferson had a significant problem with the trinity, virgin birth, and deity of Christ (denying them all). And you are correct in that a deist from those days would have very little in common with contemporary skeptics. About the closest outright infidel from that period was Tom Paine, and he was often shunned or considered radical by the likes of Franklin and Jefferson.

 

[MacGyver]

I'm getting tons of information on both sides through Google. That's why Google isn't very reliable for statistical information, or for information regarding religious belief, or controversial civil issues.

Why is Google so great anyway? Times like these make me forget.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Nineveh, very cool thread. I hope you don't mind that I changed the title.

 

[DocJohnson]

Next topic: Debunking the "most of the Founders were Free Masons" untruth.

 

[allsmiles]

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've witnessed a Christian telling another Christian that they aren't a Christian.

It might not be justifiable to ascribe beliefs/non-beliefs to the founders so late after the fact, but that goes for the claim that they were mostly Christian as well. Anyone with any interest in having any influence over matters of state back in those days had better have been a Christian, to proclaim otherwise was to promise oneself a failed career and/or a tarnished reputation. It's difficult to know with any certainty what any of the founders believed, with some exceptions. Thomas Jefferson seemed to have a particular disdain for Christianity and believed that in the fullness of time it would be seen to be as fictional as the greco-roman pantheon.

Even if all of the founders were Christian, it doesn't really change anything. They seemed to have understood quite well that though they were establishing a nation with freedom of religion, they were not establishing a Christian nation.

 

[Nineveh]

I'm getting tons of information on both sides through Google. That's why Google isn't very reliable for statistical information, or for information regarding religious belief, or controversial civil issues.

Why is Google so great anyway? Times like these make me forget.

If you find a discrepancy, let me know. There are still 60 some odd folks I couldn't find anything on. But I tried to stick to the more reputable sites, and make sure I could locate the same info in more than one place. That's why this took so long to complete.

For instance: If one site said so-and-so was an "X", but a government site and political graveyard said they were "N", I went with "N".

 

[Nineveh]

It might not be justifiable to ascribe beliefs/non-beliefs to the founders so late after the fact, but that goes for the claim that they were mostly Christian as well. Anyone with any interest in having any influence over matters of state back in those days had better have been a Christian, to proclaim otherwise was to promise oneself a failed career and/or a tarnished reputation. It's difficult to know with any certainty what any of the founders believed, with some exceptions. Thomas Jefferson seemed to have a particular disdain for Christianity and believed that in the fullness of time it would be seen to be as fictional as the greco-roman pantheon.

As I mentioned to MacGyver, 60+ have no info I can find. Whether they claimed a denom or not, I do not know. The evidence, however indicates that even these folks agreed with the majority on morality.

Jefferson had a problem with platonism (calvies). He wouldn't be the first such causality. As for Granite's info, I've not read it anywhere. I've only heard it through such channels as those that might also claim "most of the founders were deist".

Even if all of the founders were Christian, it doesn't really change anything. They seemed to have understood quite well that though they were establishing a nation with freedom of religion, they were not establishing a Christian nation.

And what seems to be lost is the fact they also believed the Constitution was unfit to govern a immoral people. To speak on the founders but not include this fact is to deny half of their writings. To deny what morality they ascribed to is to try to rewrite history.

I posted an interesting verdict handed down from SCotUS in 1892. They seem to hold a completely different opinion on the matter.

You can read a part of it here.

 

[DocJohnson]

Jefferson had a problem with platonism (calvies). He wouldn't be the first such causality. As for Granite's info, I've not read it anywhere. I've only heard it through such channels as those that might also claim "most of the founders were deist".

Very true. Jefferson also had a major problem with the Church of England... as did the rest of the Founders. :mmph:

The Deism of Jefferson's day (and probably Deism in general) is completely misunderstood. Deism is defined as belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (as opposed to Theism which does not reject supernatural revelation).

 

[MacGyver]

And what seems to be lost is the fact they also believed the Constitution was unfit to govern a immoral people. To speak on the founders but not include this fact is to deny half of their writings. To deny what morality they ascribed to is to try to rewrite history.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about here.

 

[Nineveh]

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about here.

Morality is the foundation of the framework of our government.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -Adams

In other words, the best way to "remake America" is to corrupt her people. ...and it's working.

 

[MacGyver]

Morality is the foundation of the framework of our government.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -Adams

In other words, the best way to "remake America" is to corrupt her people. ...and it's working.

That makes sense, since it took about eighty years to outlaw slavery, and 133 to let women vote.

 

[Nineveh]

That makes sense, since it took about eighty years to outlaw slavery, and 133 to let women vote.

Keep in mind not everyone was for slavery the way it was practiced here (there was a war, in case you didn't know). Most of the world for most of recorded history had some form of slavery, and it still goes on today.

But, where do you stand on slavery? Do you see slavery as inherently immoral?

As a female, to see the house speaker do her job, maybe we should rethink the idea on women voting

Do you see... what shall we call it? Patriarchal? Sexist? Do you see any of this as inherently immoral?

Anyway, what have you found so far in your research on how many called themselves deist?