prompted by a high sense of duty in my attendance on public worship, I have been gratified, during my residence among you, by the liberal and interesting discourses which have been delivered in your church.
”
George Washington (1797)
1
Skeptics today often claim that George Washington was not a real Christian, but in our view, the burden of proof is on them to explain why he was consistently in church throughout his life, why the churches he was part of were entirely orthodox in terms of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ, and why he attended churches where the Bible was regularly preached on Sunday.
Washington went to churches where the leaders had to affirm the key doctrines of the Christian Church. Furthermore, he was elected a lay-leader in the Church and as a leader, he had to take oaths affirming foundational Christian doctrines, which included these points and more:
• Christ was fully God and fully man
• Christ died on the cross to atone for sins.
• He rose bodily from the dead.
• He ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the Father.
• History is moving toward the climax of the return of Jesus Christ.
• The Bible is the Word of God.
• Sinners need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, etc.
Indeed, given the facts, the burden of proof is not to prove that Washington was a Christian; the burden of proof is to prove that he was a skeptic who nevertheless sought to act like a Christian believer!
This chapter and the next will explore George Washington’s life as an active churchman. Part 1 is his participation in the church as a parishioner. The next chapter will look at his leadership in the Anglican Church.
DIVIDED LOYALTIES?
It was not easy to be an Anglican and lead a revolution against the King of England. But somehow, Washington accomplished that very thing. The difficulties presented to him by the importance of the Anglican (Episcopal) Church in his life are captured in a letter that Lund Washington (1737-1796), his distant cousin and overseer of his farm, wrote to him concerning George’s neighbor and close friend Bryan Fairfax (1736-1802). Washington at this time had been in command of the Continental army in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for only a few months. Lund related to General Washington that Bryan Fairfax had:
...become a preacher. He gave Public Notice that on such a Day he should preach at his own House. Accordingly on that Day, Many Assembled to hear him, but to their great Confusion & surprise he Advise’d them to return to the Bosom of that Church in which they had been brought up (The Church of England). For he had been at much pains in Examining the Scriptures, & the different modes of Worshiping the Supreme being, which was now adopted by many, to the disgrace of Christianity, & that he found none so pure & undefiled as that prescribed by the Canons of the Church of England.2
To Washington’s great credit, his friendship never was broken with Bryan Fairfax, who entered holy orders in 1789, the same year that General Washington became President Washington. We will return to the special friendship between Fairfax and Washington, but here we need to see how difficult it was to be part of a state church that was loyal to the King, even as one was leading a revolution against that King! But just as the friendship between these two men survived, the latter never forsook his allegiance to his childhood church; not even a revolution, nor a new constitution could end his loyalty to his Anglican (Episcopalian) tradition.
An anecdote that comes from Washington’s military service in New England sets the stage for the written evidence of his role as a churchman. Author William Johnson observes:
When Washington was passing through Litchfield, Connecticut, during the war, there was some desecration of the church, recalling the treatment of the cathedral in old Litchfield, England, by the soldiers of Cromwell. Washington himself saw some of his soldiers throw a shower of stones at the church, and at once rebuked them. He did not put forward the merely just argument that such acts were disorderly, but he put his personal feeling into what he said: “I am a churchman, and wish not to see the church dishonored and desolated in this manner.”3
This church was likely an Anglican Church in a Puritan community.
Whether he actually said such or not, we do know that Washington was, from childhood to adulthood to his death, a “churchman.” There are two reasons for stating this. The first is indirect—-namely, the extensive ecclesiastical jargon that we find scattered through his writings.4 The second is direct, thanks to the discovery of the old vestry book of Truro Parish in the early nineteen hundreds. Through this invaluable historical record, we can develop a far more accurate understanding of Washington’s role as a vestryman and parishioner. (A vestryman was a lay-leader in the Anglican Church; the name is derived from the types of vests they wore.)
The existence of the vestry book was not known to Bishop William Meade, early bishop and historian of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, or to Paul Leicester Ford. Although published, it was not even consulted by Rupert Hughes or William Johnson. Thus, a very incomplete picture of his leadership in his church has resulted.
Early historian Jared Sparks could not properly interpret some pages recording vestry elections, and this resulted in the erroneous view that is still sometimes encountered, that Washington served in two vestries at the same time. The vestry book helps to explain that matter. Reverend Dr. Philip Slaughter explains:
The present writer has been so fortunate as to find the old vestry book of Truro Parish; so long lost to the public eye that even Bishop Meade said he could hear no tidings’ of it. . . It is now possible for the first time to authenticate its history by its own records, which are continuous from 1732 to 1785, when the civil functions of the Vestries were devolved by law upon the Overseers of the Poor.5
We will explore in more depth Washington’s experience as a vestryman in the next chapter.
RESERVED SEATING
To raise money for the interior designing of the churches, they sold pews to the highest bidders. The Washington family entered the bidding for the choicest pews and was successful. The minutes reveal,
[Number] twenty eight, one of the Center pews adjoining the north Isle and next to the Communion Table, to [Colonel] George Washington at the price of sixteen pounds. [Number] Twenty nine, one of the Center pews adjoining the north Isle, to Mr. Lund Washington, at the price of thirteen pounds ten shillings.6
Washington was tied with George William Fairfax as the highest bidder, as each paid sixteen pounds for their pew. They both bought the two pews that were closest to the Communion Table and to the altar piece that had the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, and Apostles Creed. The pew of nephew Lund Washington was immediately behind George’s pew. But George’s pew had another feature that may have made his preferable; it was also on the front row and therefore closer to the pulpit. One may appropriately wonder why a vestryman would have bid for and wanted this most conspicuous pew, if he never intended to worship regularly or to partake of Communion.
GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON THE PARISHIONER
As we shall see, George Washington was exemplary in his attendance at the meetings of the vestry. So was his attendance at the Sunday services, according to his pastor, Lee Massey, as quoted by Bishop Meade.
I never knew so constant an attendant in church as Washington. And his behavior in the house of God was ever so deeply reverential that it produced the happiest effect on my congregation, and greatly assisted me in my pulpit labors. No company ever withheld him from church. I have often been at Mount Vernon on Sabbath morning, when his breakfast table was filled with guests; but to him they furnished no pretext for neglecting his God and losing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For instead of staying at home, out of false complaisance to them, he used constantly to invite them to accompany him.7
But skeptical writer Paul L. Ford (1903) dismisses Massey’s testimony: “This seems to have been written more with an eye to its influence on others than to its strict accuracy.”8
Given the fact that Ford did not know of the existence of the vestry book, this dismissal of the pastor’s credibility concerning Washington is understandable. But it is unfortunate that Paul Boller, Jr., (1962) would rely so heavily on Ford’s unsubstantiated comment, given the fact that when he wrote his study on Washington’s religion, the vestry book had been available for over a half century.9 This is even more startling, since Paul Boller cites the vestry book at other points. With Washington’s history as a vestryman and churchman, however, the comment by Reverend Massey concerning his attendance at worship seems more likely.
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND SUNDAY WORSHIP
