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.
WILLIAM EDGAR
Professor of Apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary
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.
CARL TRUEMAN
Professor of Historical Theology
Chairman of the Church History Department, Westminster Theological Seminary
Editor of
Themelios
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
