Video Transcript: Religion and the American Revolution - Part 1

I'm on page 13 of the syllabus. This is the First Great Awakening, and we're finishing up on the First Great Awakening today. We're kind of where we should be in the lecture, so we're grateful for that.

Just a reminder, we give a pretty long time to Jonathan Edwards because he was so critical not only to the First Great Awakening but a critical thinker in American Christianity. So we do that, and then we talked about three other important leaders: we talked about Freylinghuysen, then we talked about Tennent, and then we talked about the importance of George Whitefield. The First Great Awakening was not without pushback; there were reactions to the First Great Awakening. So we looked at those reactions, three of them particularly, and now we're at the results of the First Great Awakening.

It had a tremendous impact upon American life and culture, not only theologically but also a tremendous social impact, which a lot of people don't realize. These two things obviously cross over one to another, so you can't always make a fine distinction between the theological impact and the social impact. But it's the social contributions that we're.

I'll go down the list here; I forget exactly where we stopped, but I think we mentioned the elevation of the common person. The importance of the laity in the First Great Awakening meant they got to do things in church life that they had never been able to do before. They could speak in public, they could read the Bible in public, they could participate in church life. The congregations had always been doing that, but they could participate in church life. And that is number two: lay activity stressed. New roles of leadership in the church. So the leadership in the church is no longer just the priest or the minister, but the leadership in the church is now shared with the laity. I think we mentioned that one. I think we probably mentioned personal independence in religious life, freedom in religious life, freedom of choice, which leads to that kind of personal independence in political life as well.

Separation of church and state was very important. It had been important to people like the Baptists and the Roman Catholics and some of the Puritans, people who had suffered under state oppression in Europe. Now they come over here, and they certainly want a separation of church and state so that the state cannot control the church. Did we get to the new humanitarian impulse? Isn't this where we left off? Okay, let's talk about the new humanitarian impulse, which will be very important for American life and culture.

The Matthew 22 passage "love God, love your neighbor". It becomes important in the First Great Awakening. When John Wesley was asked, "Who is your neighbor?" he said, "The poorest among you is your neighbor, the one who is most helpless among you is your neighbor." So this humanitarian impulse, let me give you just one example of it, and then we'll see this grow and develop in American cultural life with the Second Great Awakening and the revivals that come in the 19th century. One example of this was Whitefield building an orphanage in Georgia. There was a need for an orphanage in Georgia, who's going to do this, who's going to take care of these orphans? And Whitefield decided that he would take care of them, and he built an orphanage. The orphanage had a long and very interesting history; we don't have time for all of that now, but it shows the humanitarian impulse of this First Great Awakening and George Whitefield wanting to build the orphanage and make sure that the children were taken care of. So we're going to see that a lot in our time together.

New forms of assembly were very, very important. These new forms of assembly take two characteristics that we're also going to see politically. The first characteristic is kind of the social context of the assembly. We've already kind of mentioned that. The social context of the assembly is not going to be confined to a church or a building or a place, but it's going to be out in the open air, and it's going to be in the open air where everybody can attend. You don't have to be a voting member of the church to attend this. So the new forms of assembly included the social context quite different from anything we've seen before; this is new, now this is different. 

And then the second thing about this is the ability in that social context to criticize authority. That happens a little bit probably even in the First Great Awakening, but it certainly happens politically following the First Great Awakening. People feel that the authority of leadership can be criticized, and they can do it openly and publicly. So these new forms of assembly really open up a couple of opportunities here in the First Great Awakening that they're going to kind of carry over. And then the sovereignty of the people now becomes critical to political office. So what we have seen now, this is a kind of a new form of organization. The leadership had been raised in the past only by virtue of one's connections or only by virtue of one's wealth and influence and power. Well, the sovereignty of the people now becomes critical. So. it's the people speaking in public about various things.

Here's a quotation that kind of summarizes all of this. I love this quotation because it's so well stated: "But considered as a social event, the First Great Awakening signifies nothing less than the first stage of the American Revolution." That's a pretty strong statement. That this is the first stage of the American Revolution. Would the American Revolution have taken place if there hadn't been such a strong First Great Awakening in America? Well, we don't know because we do know where history went, but that's a good question and a good summary, a good way to kind of summarize this as the first stage in the American Revolution. So lots of things are happening here, and there are lots of results, not only theological but social results as well. 

So the First Great Awakening, we could take our 15 weeks on this First Great Awakening; it was a pretty miraculous thing happening in American life and culture and also helped to shape American life and culture. But I wonder if there are any questions, anything that needs to be discussed about Jonathan Edwards, the leadership, what was going on in the First Great Awakening, what the results were of the First Great Awakening. These people will consider themselves Evangelical. It's a term that came up in the Reformation, the term Evangelical came up in the Reformation to kind of, in a sense, distinguish Protestantism from Roman Catholicism. 

And then the term is used very strongly by Wesley in England, and what's happening in England is the Wesleyan Revival that's going on at the same time as the First Great Awakening. So these people will think of themselves as Evangelical, and that's a term they'd be familiar with and perhaps sometimes use for themselves. Now the term then is going to come back, the term that we understand Evangelical, is going to come back again a bit in the Second Great Awakening, but it's really going to come into prominence in the middle of the 20th century. So we're going to see kind of history, but yes, this would be a term they'd be familiar with. If someone said to Jonathan Edwards, "You're an Evangelical," he would say, "Yeah, I am an Evangelical. This is what I believe, and this revival is an Evangelical Revival like the Wesleyan Revival in England." 

So, something else about the First Great Awakening, what's happening here? Okay, are we all set with that? Let's move on. I'm on page 13 of the syllabus, so now we're going to move on to lecture number five: Religion and the American Revolution. And we're going to look first at deism, a very important movement that will affect us both religiously and socially. Then we're going to look at the political and religious theory of the Founding Fathers, and then we're going to see the reaction of the churches to the American Revolution. And we'll end by talking a little bit about church attendance during the time of the Revolution. So we start with deism.

All right, first of all, let's take the 18th century just in general. The 18th century, you know it as the Age of Reason or the Age of Rationality. I mean, it starts in the 17th century but then it comes over into the 18th century, so that's a kind of a broad definition, surely, but I think it's helpful for us: Age of Reason, Age of Rationality.

Okay now, let me mention three things that are characteristic of the 18th century, three things that help to shape and form the 18th century “Age of Reason”. So okay, first of all, there is certainly kind of an exaltation of reason. We have the beginning of modern philosophy, the exaltation of reason, the importance of reason. And with that importance of reason, sometimes there is skepticism about the Bible, about the church, about organized Christianity, as appearing to be unreasonable, as appearing to be not being able to be measured with what is reasonable, what is rational. So that's one thing, kind of the rise of philosophy along with that, at times, a skepticism about historic Christianity.

Okay, number two, a second characteristic of this Age of Reason, and that is a way of doing theology. We call this natural theology. Natural theology is basically a theology, you might remember this if most of you maybe have taken a theology course, but natural theology is a theology based on reason and based on the observation of the natural world. So that natural theology really comes into play in the 18th century in a very powerful way. So what we know about God, what we know about his world, is done through observation. And what natural theology and what people in the 18th century said was, "Look at the world, there's beauty, there's order, and there's design in the world." That's what we're seeing in the world. So therefore, there must be someone who created this. So natural theology is just looking at that. What they didn't always recognize, however, was that natural theology has two flaws, and they didn't always recognize the flaws in natural theology. 

Number one flaw is that it kind of does away with revealed theology or disclosure of God in the scriptures or how God reveals himself in the person of Christ. So they didn't really come to grips with that. What about the revealed part of it? What about theology as Revelation? The second thing they didn't really come to grips with is really the question of, what if you're going to rely on natural theology, if that's what you're going to build your theology on, beauty, order, design of the universe, then what happens to that theology when there are earthquakes and floods and tsunamis and diseases which wipe out a couple hundred thousand people and so forth? Where is your natural theology then? Is this reasonable? Is this rational? Does this give you a good view of who God is? So natural theology had its real limitations, and people didn't always kind of recognize those limitations if you're going to rely only on natural theology; you've got to kind of come to grips with those limitations. So that's number two in terms of shaping the Age of Reason. So number one is philosophy, number two is natural theology.

They basically, the early deists that we're going to talk about, sometimes they did appeal to scripture, but eventually they let scripture go. The Bible is out, and our own reasoning ability is in, and that's what has shaped, a natural theology is shaped by our reason. Yeah, okay.

The third thing about the 18th century is that there had been years and years and years of religious wars in Europe. There had been all kinds of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe in previous couple of centuries, and in the 18th century, in a sense, people were kind of fed up with that. People thought, "If this is Christianity, I don't want anything to do with it." So there's kind of a backing away from those religious conflicts and saying, "Let's see if we can develop a theology and a moral life that doesn't allow for this kind of thing." So the religious conflicts and the wars of the previous century or two made people fed up with that; people want a more reasonable kind of approach to life and to religion. So the Age of Reason is kind of a reaction to what had been going on before.

Okay, now what happens is, once in a while you get, you know, in this course, you look at sometimes you get the right person with the right idea and the right events kind of coalescing. Well, that happens with a man by the name of John Locke. John Locke was very, very important to philosophy, to theology, to Christianity, and so forth. So okay, now John Locke comes along; there are his dates. And he writes a book called The Reasonableness of Christianity. So the title of the book itself is going to kind of give away what he is going to say in the book. Locke's premise in The Reasonableness of Christianity is that the basic truths of Christianity are rational. You can discern them by your reason; they can be rationally apprehended. So the basic truths of Christianity are simple, are basic, are reasonable, and he's going to kind of make a case for that. Okay, he relies heavily, of course, on natural theology, because partly he makes his case from the beauty of the world, the order of the world, the symmetry of the world, the design of the world. So he's going to partly make his case based on that kind of natural theology, but Christianity, as far as he's concerned, is basically reasonable. Okay, now someone like John Locke, however, is still using the Bible. This answers Nikki's question in a sense, but he's still using the Bible; he hasn't totally thrown out the Bible. But followers of John Locke, as you get into the 18th century, who will believe these same kinds of things and believe that Christianity is reasonable and rational, some of them will eventually throw out the Bible. They won't feel they feel they can develop everything they need to know about God and his universe and about our life from our reason, from just looking around. But John Locke becomes very, very important in terms of spelling out what eventually will be known as deism. So we do want to mention his name.

Okay, so along comes a movement called deism. Let's define deism. I think we've already probably mentioned this in the course, but deism is not a religion; deism is kind of a religious philosophy, a religious worldview that really begins in England through the writings of people like John Locke. It begins in England and comes over into America, comes over to the colonies, of course. So that is deism, and you know deism: God is up here, and we are down here. God wound up the world like a clock, and it's ticking away. So, just to make sure we understand, the opposite of deism is theism. Theism is God is up here, but he is concerned for our lives; he has broken into our world in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord, and there's a personal relationship with God here. That's theism.

Okay, but let's go back to the deists here. So they start to shape themselves in the 17th and 18th century. All right, let me give a few of their beliefs that were developed that will kind of highlight what deism is all about.

• Number one, they are monotheists; they do believe in God. So they are monotheists; they're not pagans, they don't believe in a lot of gods and that. But of course, they would deny the Trinity, so they are basically Unitarians, and that's the denomination they eventually evolve into.

• The deists would have to say that there is sin in the world because how could you not say that? You'd have to have blinders on not to say that. They have to say there's sin in the world, but that sin is not original sin; that sin just comes from the free will that we have to say yes or no to God. But they acknowledge that there is sin in the world; they'd have to do that.

• However, what they want to emphasize, what the deists want to emphasize, is morality and ethics. Is it possible to live the good life? Is it possible to practice virtue? Is it possible to live the moral life? And the deist answer to that is absolutely yes, it is, because you don't have any original sin obstructing those opportunities to do that. You may have some sin in your own life by the freedom of your will, but you don't have original sin that's going to obstruct you from doing that. So they really do call people to a virtuous life, to a moral life, and they think that's proper.

• Number four for the deists, they do, the deists, especially the early deists, did expect that there was an afterlife. They did feel that virtue could not be completely rewarded in this life; the good moral life could not be completely rewarded here. And so there is an afterlife, and they're willing even to say that there are rewards and punishments in the afterlife. Is there a heaven and a hell in the afterlife? Well, that gets a little fuzzy, but there certainly are rewards and punishments in the afterlife, no doubt about that. 

Now eventually, remember, deism is only a religious philosophy; it's not a denomination yet. But eventually, when it evolves into Unitarianism, it will also evolve into universalism, which teaches that all people are going to enjoy the rewards of heaven no matter what their life was like here on Earth. Everybody's going to go and be with God; God is going to set everything right in a sense. So, and it's no surprise that in the middle of the 20th century, the Unitarians and the Universalists, which started as two separate denominations, they are going to merge here in America in the 20th century so that they are the Unitarian-Universalist denomination. So those two kind of aspects of deism are going to come together. So those are some things that the deists taught, some things that they believed.

Now there are a couple of writers, therefore, who did not, and remember we said in answer to the question, the early deists did not want to throw off the Bible, they wanted to come to grips with the Bible, they wanted to use the biblical text. So I want to mention two writers that are important here. First is John Toland. These are both British writers, and both of these writers are going to basically defend deism. He wrote a book called Christianity Not Mysterious. And the thesis of his book is that there is nothing in the Bible that is above our ability to reason. There's nothing in the biblical text that is out of harmony with reason. Now if there happen to be some things in the biblical text that are out of harmony with reason, then maybe we should get rid of those texts. What we want is a Christianity not mysterious; we don't want any mystery. And so John Toland writes his book, and then he's followed by what became known as the deist Bible: Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as Creation. In this book, what he does is he upholds the use of reason to understand the scripture rather than the use of revelation. So the scripture is not a revelation from God to us; the scripture is some word of God to us, but a word of God that we can apprehend with our reason. So Christianity as Old as Creation, when you look at creation, what do you see? Order, beauty, and design. Well, that's true of Christianity as well. Christianity is a religion of order, beauty, and design, and it's not irrational, and it's not unreasonable. So Toland and Tindal had a tremendous impact through their writings upon English Unitarianism, English deism, but then of course Americans were reading Toland and Tindal as well, so it became really pretty important.

Okay, let's stay with deism for just a minute. Orthodoxy is now going to start responding to deism. Orthodoxy is going to start pushing back on deism and being a little worried that deism is so popular, so claiming the hearts and minds of people, kind of winning the battle. Let me mention three ways where Orthodoxy pushes back.

• Number one, the first way Orthodoxy pushes back is to acknowledge some of the deist message. To say to the deists, "Some of what you are teaching we agree with. We acknowledge that there is an order and a beauty and a design to the world, and we see this in the Old Testament, we see this in the writers of the Psalms, we see this in some places in the New Testament." So the first way that they respond is try to find some common ground with the deists and say some of what you're teaching is right. And Calvin himself said, "One of the ways in which we know God is by looking at the world around us." So that's one way that they respond, trying to find that kind of common ground.

• Okay, number two, a second way in which they respond is to defend the Bible, or I should say maybe it'd be better to say defend the whole biblical record. So Orthodoxy responded by saying, "The biblical record is not just a reasonable understanding of the world and God's design, but the biblical record is filled with miracles and with prophecies, and the ultimate mystery, God becoming flesh." So we acknowledge maybe that the deists see some of the biblical text, but we want to say there's another part of the biblical text that they are not acknowledging, and they should be, because that's the whole Bible. So the whole Bible is not just a rational understanding of who God is; the Bible is also at times filled with miracles and filled with other ways of God working that we don't always understand and so forth. So that's the second way that they kind of defended it.

• Okay, and a third way was, a third way that Orthodoxy defended it, there was a man who wrote a book called A Case for Reason. The third way Orthodoxy defended it was to say, "Christianity is faith seeking understanding." So a third way is to say we agree that reason is very important. We agree that the use of our mind in understanding God and what God wants for us is very important. So the third way Orthodoxy says, "Reason, we agree. Faith seeking understanding."

However, the however part to this is Orthodoxy said, "Remember, however, that there are limits to our rationality. Remember that there are limits to our reasoning ability. Remember that there is mystery in the way in which God works, and nothing more mysterious than God coming in the flesh in the person of Christ, and we rejoice in that by faith." So, a case for reason, yeah, you can make a case for reason, but there are limits to that reason. So Orthodoxy starts to push back, Orthodoxy starts to respond to the deists, so they start to have some bit of conflict here between the deists and Orthodoxy. One of the persons who pushed back, of course, was Jonathan Edwards, in responding to the deists.

Okay, so that's deism. Are there any questions about these folks? They are very important. Some of you may want to write about the deists in a paper, but are there any questions about these people? 

Okay, now let's go to B and talk about the religious and the political and religious theory of the Founding Fathers. Okay, so here's where we're going to go here with this. All right, I love my job, I love being at Gordon, love my job, but I'm going to say some things that not all of you are going to agree with and probably think are heretical and, you know, maybe the Board of Trustees should have a word with me. Sometimes you wish you taught math, like two and two is four, and you know, that's a nice thing. So I'm going to lay out the case and then see if you agree or disagree with it. You push back on me on this. Don't just swallow this if you don't agree with this, and if you've got good reason not to agree with it, you be sure to tell me. So, okay, so we're going to do okay with this? We're going to do all right. So, bless your hearts.

Okay, political and religious theory of the Founding Fathers. All right, the Founding Fathers, so here's my thesis in a sense: most of the Founding Fathers, not all, but most of what we call the Founding Fathers were not Evangelical Christians. There is no evidence that they were Evangelical Christians, and I'm talking about the Founding Fathers who were the primary movers and shakers, and I'll use Thomas Jefferson in just a minute as an example of that. These people were very influenced by the deists, and they were very influenced by deistic thinking, both religious thinking and political thinking. And so you cannot assume that the Founding Fathers were great Evangelical, Bible-believing, churchgoing Christians. The evidence will not support that, unfortunately.

Okay, so let's use Thomas Jefferson as an example. Thomas Jefferson was himself a deist. Deism was very influential in his life and also a certain political theory was very influential in his life, which was also deistic. Thomas Jefferson, just to show you how much of a deist he was, Thomas Jefferson wrote The Jefferson Bible. I don't know if any of you have ever seen The Jefferson Bible, but if you've seen The Jefferson Bible, Thomas Jefferson, what he did, he took the Bible, especially the New Testament and especially the Gospels, and what he did, he cut out from the Bible the miracles of Jesus. He cut out the miracles because he felt that the miracles were irrational, unreasonable, couldn't be supported or defended. He liked some of the good things that Jesus said, so you keep in some things like the Beatitudes in the text. But The Jefferson Bible really is a Bible that is carefully, carefully edited, I would say, to show Jesus, Jesus ends up being kind of like an 18th-century great thinker, you know. So the miracles are out. Well, if you cut out the miracles, you do have some problems here. And if you cut out things like the death on the cross and the resurrection, and so you've got some basic problems here. But Jefferson wanted a very tame Jesus; he wanted a very rational 18th-century Jesus, and that's what he ended up with with The Jefferson Bible. So Jefferson is a good example of this, being kind of a thorough, thorough deist himself. So I think, I mean, you tell me if he's not, but, and give me some good supporting evidence that he's not, but where you, want to talk about this.

But anyways, let's go to Rousseau and to the importance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. So here's Rousseau writing in Europe, and he's writing a thing called The Social Contract. You've certainly, well, how many have read The Social Contract for other courses, for maybe political studies courses, or things like that? So The Social Contract, if you haven't read The Social Contract, I'm going to help you out by giving you some points from the book. But so if you haven't read it, we're going to get through The Social Contract. The Social Contract, a very influential text in the 18th century, and very influential upon Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers. You'll find that this is basically kind of a deistic, deistic kind of text. It's not only political, but in a sense, a little bit religious as well.

Okay, it's Monday morning, though, you need a break. So, take a break. Now, let's take The Social Contract. Most of you haven't read it, so I'm going to just mention a few things from The Social Contract that become important to our Founding Fathers.

• So, first, number one, very important in The Social Contract, Rousseau denies any theory of the divine right of kings. So he denies any theory of the divine right of kings to rule as they are ruling over here in Europe, where he was writing the books. So he really proposes a very kind of radical, kind of secular view of political leadership, and that secular view of political leadership is that it comes from the people. So there's no divine right of kings, but leadership comes from the people. So that becomes very important. So that's kind of number one. 

• All right, number two, the general will of the people is what kind of continues to govern the people through the laws. What laws should we erect for government? Well, we should elect laws that come from the general will of the people. We do not follow laws that are imposed on us by some monarch. We follow the laws of government, follow the laws of life that the will of the people decide are good for the benefit of the people. So it's not anything imposed on us; we are the ones who develop this.

• So, okay, number three, what is the social contract? The social contract has two sides to it; it's like a coin with two sides. The social contract is, first of all, individual freedom must be guarded on the one hand. One side of the coin is individual freedom must be guarded, safeguarded. On the other hand, however, there must be a just government which has to care for the common good of the people. So we've got to guard, we've got to safeguard individual freedom on the one hand, but on the other hand, there is a just government that needs to watch out for common good. Okay, so that's number three. 

• Okay, number four, this book is, it's hard to, it's hard to say how influential this book was on the thinking of the political leaders here as the Revolution was warming up here in America. This book was very influential in what they were thinking about as they are under the what they consider to be the tyranny of England. As they are under the tyranny of England and the tyranny of a monarch, and what they're beginning to think about, and no less thinking about it than right in Boston, which was kind of the one of the hearts of the Revolution. But they're thinking about these ideas and they're applying them to American civil life. So the book itself, you know, really, really a very important book.

So, under the political and religious theory of the Founding Fathers then, what is the documentary appeal of that these people have? So once I read it to you, I think we get this, but notice that the documentary appeal was not to the Bible. The Founding Fathers, as the Revolution is warming up, they are not appealing to the Bible. The appeal is not to some kind of divine revelation in the Bible by which, which has given us a reason for our cause. All right, the appeal is to what? It's to self-evidence. So here we go now, this will sound familiar to you. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." So the appeal is to philosophically to self-evident truths. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and they're endowed by their what? By their Creator." That's a very deistic term, that's kind of a code word. "They're endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." So the appeal is to self-evident, reasonable appeal. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." So they didn't say, "We hold these truths to be biblical, we're opening the Bible and we're finding these truths in the Bible." And they didn't say, and they are given by their Redeemer God. They're given by God who came in Christ and, you know, to to rule, so forth. So they appeal, and that is the appeal of the Founding Fathers. So we want to be sure we understand that. "Among these are life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Now, here, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, not by divine, you know, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness." So, so you know, yeah, so this is not an appeal to the revelation of God in a sacred text, in the Bible, by which we are kind of forming and shaping what we're doing here.

So, all right, now let me just follow this through for just a minute and then I want you to tell me where I'm wrong here. Along with this, with the Founding Fathers, comes American, kind of, constitutional life breaking with religion. So we are breaking with religion as we form this new world in the Revolution. So there is the church on the one hand, there is the state on the other hand. And so the Constitution rejects all religious tests for officeholders. There are no religious tests for officeholders in the Constitution. Anyone can hold a public office by the consent of the people in the Constitution, but they don't necessarily have to be religious people. So what happens is that Christianity flourishes under this separation of church and state. So Christianity, this is kind of a Judeo-Christian flourishing that's going on here even at the time of the Revolution, we'll talk about that later.

Okay, now here's my final word on this. It's possible to call America a Christian Nation; that is possible. It's possible to call America a Christian Nation, but it's only possible to call America a Christian Nation if by that you mean that there are a lot of Christians in the nation, if by that you mean there are a lot of Christians who reside here, and also if by that you mean there is kind of a Judeo-Christian kind of life that's been developed in American life and culture. So if that's what you mean by calling America a Christian Nation, then that's fine. If you mean that the Founding Fathers intended to establish it as a Christian Nation by which we would use the term Christian as an Evangelical. If you mean that they intended to establish this country as an Evangelical Christian Nation based on the Bible and the whole Bible, which would have to include the Incarnation and so forth, if that's what you mean, then I don't think that's a case that you can make.

All right, now so what I'd like to finish up is now contrast this to two things. So if I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, so maybe I am wrong, so you need to tell me where I'm wrong. But contrast this now, if I am correct, contrast this to two things.

Number one, contrast this to the way the Puritans would have established this new nation. The Puritans would have established the new nation in a different way, wouldn't they? Because the Puritans wanted a city set on a hill to be a kind of a godly representation of, you know, what God wanted for his people here. And so, so contrast this to the Puritans, they never would have used this kind of language. They never would have established a new nation talking about certain inevitable, certain kind of Rights of Man kind of. They would have established a new nation based on the Bible. But they weren't establishing a theocracy here. So the Puritans didn't have the intention of establishing a new… 

And also, number two, contrast this to Roger Williams's understanding of what he was doing in Providence and in Rhode Island, because what he is doing there, he believes, is based on the Bible. Now it had the whole tenet of religious freedom, not just religious toleration but religious freedom. But Roger Williams, what he was doing, the world that he was establishing in Rhode Island was, as far as he was concerned, a very godly world, and it was based on the Scriptures. It wasn't just based on self-evident truths. It was based on the Bible.

So, but these people are different. These people do not have the same view of scripture or the same view of God that the Puritans had or that Roger Williams had. They are basically deists who have a view of God as the Creator God, and we're living a moral, rational life here on Earth, and God, that Creator God, expects us to do some good things in the establishment of government and throwing off English tyranny, of course. So, okay, so that's the case here. So now tell me where I am wrong, where am I wrong?

The Founding Fathers were basically Anglican in terms of church membership. The problem with someone like George Washington, who was Anglican, the problem is he very, very, very rarely went to church. We have very few records of George Washington actually going to church. So these people are basically Anglicans. They are in terms of their background, but the first Anglican Church in America, I mean, the First Unitarian Church in America, we're going to walk right by it, you've walked by it if you've done the Freedom Trail, is King's Chapel. 1785, it became Unitarian. So Anglican churches, even at that time, are moving toward Unitarianism, toward deism, which eventually is going to become Unitarianism. So they are Anglicans, but that's not saying much. The fact that they had this church tradition, traditional church background, still not saying much about their real deep-seated religious life. So yeah, so they were basically, remember the signee of the Declaration of Independence in Rhode Island was Quaker.

I certainly agree that the common people, apart from the leadership, are more kind of Orthodox religious at this time. It is unfortunate, however, in spite of that, we'll see this much later, it's unfortunate that in spite of that, church attendance starts to decline rapidly as you get closer to the time of the Revolution. And here we had just had this First Great Awakening, a tremendous Awakening in American public life, and yet you have this decline coming up to the Revolution. So I would say that common people, everyday people, are going to church, they are Christians and so forth. But the thinkers, the ones who thought this through, and the common people are glad to kind of tie into this in a way because they know enough about the religious wars, they know enough about church when a state controls the church, and they don't want to go back to that. So they are separation of church and state people anyway, generally speaking. So they will buy into this.

Have you ever read the... you tend to think of it as... right, yes. Would you say like, where would you say on that spectrum, because it's not all the way to... Are you saying that it's moving toward all the way to deism? If you've got Jefferson wanting to rewrite the Bible and to cut out the miracles, you are making pretty strong strides away from Orthodox Christianity into a pretty full-fledged deistic kind of thinking, yeah, because... Yeah, I choose Jefferson because also brilliant and writer, you know, and the former, the shaper of some of this thinking in his language, which is magnificent language. So yeah, I choose him because maybe he'd be the one we'd be most familiar with. But what about, you go to Benjamin Franklin, for example? Are you finding in Benjamin Franklin a very religious, Orthodox, grounded person who believes in Incarnation? No, you're not finding that with Benjamin Franklin. You're finding basically a deist, and who wanted to live a good moral life and gave us a lot of good things to think about like "the early bird catches the worm." But you know, you're not talking about a person who's, you know, grounded in the scriptures and in the church, in the life of the church, yeah.

Sure, at that time there was a divide between federalism and Jefferson. Right, Jefferson became president, right? And so I wonder, Adams' administration, Federalist, for, and people's ideology, right, was... I would say no, but I'm, you know, ready to listen to people who want, because I would say that deism was basically the thinking of the leadership, and even if the leadership changed and certain views changed, I think we're still basically talking about, you know, deists. So that's the case I want to make.

But have any of you ever heard of the book The Light and the Glory? Have any of you, who's heard of the book? The Light and the Glory is a very interesting book, and I've heard the author speak, and he's—he's a little bit upset with people like me teaching this stuff. And so in The Light and the Glory, he tries to propose, and you should read The Light and the Glory, that would give you kind of the other side of the story, but he tries to propose that the early Founding Fathers were kind of full-fledged evangelicals and that this business of talking about them as deists, that's, it's not a good thing to do. Well, there was, or the fellow I often point to is the Quaker in Rhode Island, who would, I think, even though he had Quaker beliefs, they were pretty deep-rooted beliefs in Christ and the Inner Light of Christ and so forth. So, yeah.

John Witherspoon was a member of the clergy, right? So he had interests. The thing about Witherspoon is like Charles Chauncy a little earlier. Charles Chauncy was a member of the clergy, but the critic of the First Great Awakening, as we mentioned, and he eventually he himself has an evolution into Unitarianism. So some of these people are moving away from Orthodoxy religiously as well. But yes, we can find people that we would consider to be evangelicals during this time. I am just trying to make the case that the movers and the shakers, no pun intended, we haven't talked about the Shakers yet, but the movers and the shakers were people who were deistic and using the language of Rousseau. They're not using the language of the Bible, they're using the language of social contract when they are setting up the Declaration of the Independence and the Constitution.

How is it that the most influential people ended up all being to do with...? Yes, I think what's happening is that deism is a compelling intellectual force in Europe, and it comes over into America through these people who are well educated, well read. Remember Jefferson spent how long in France? These people are very sophisticated intellectual powerhouses in a sense in that, in our culture. And so, and yeah, so I think I think deism had a real appeal here, yeah.

The idea of the Christian Nation, did that start the religious right in the '80s, were they the ones, or was there like sometime people were back saying that? No, that's a good question. I think two things. Number one, certainly the Pilgrims of the Puritans, the Congregationalists, Roger Williams, they thought in terms, they wouldn't have used this language, they would have used much more biblical language if they were actually founding a country, which they weren't, but if they were, they would have. But they wouldn't have used theocracy language either, because I think they basically thought that pertained only to Israel. But they would have used this "city set on a hill by God" kind of language. So they weren't kind of in tune with this. Certainly there were people during the Revolution who were looking back to that and thinking of it as a Christian Nation in that way. But the leadership, I don't think the leadership was. I think the leadership was giving us a new vision for this, and part of the vision, of course, was a separation of church and state, that was also part of the vision for we're developing in a whole new country, whole new world here. But now, so then, so then history goes forward into the 19th century, into the 20th century, and we certainly have people who look back to the Founding Fathers as trying to found a Christian Nation. I think they were founding a nation based on Judeo-Christian ethical principles and a foundation there, but I just don't find that their language kind of gives away to me what they were all about.

But she said that the separation of church and state, Roger Williams was mostly them, not state church rights, the other way. I think the Founding Fathers were still British, and we're throwing out the British, and the British, they saw the British world as still the world where the state controls the church, and they don't want that. And they are also glad to allow for the flourishing of Christianity in America, and even the flourishing of other religions. The first synagogue in America was founded, who, modern Jewish culture people, we got five seconds, modern Jewish culture anybody? Where's the first Jewish synagogue founded in America? In Rhode Island. Not surprising, because of the religious freedom. So they're glad to let religion flourish, no doubt about that. We'll pick this up on Wednesday. You can let me know how heretical I really am on Wednesday, and then we'll move on from there. 

This is Dr. Roger Green in his teaching on American Christianity, this is session number seven, "Religion and the American Revolution."