The kindling for George Washington’s Sacred Fire is the people who have shared the vision for its creation and have invested their wisdom, skills, time, energy, and resources to make it happen. To each of the following I express my deepest and sincere gratitude:
My family—To my wife, Debbie, for her love, encouragement, and long and gracious patience throughout the almost never ending process of completing this book. To my daughters, Cara and Priscilla, for their interest, thoughtful comments, contributions, typing, and help.
My Team Mates on the Project—To Jerry Newcombe who signed on to make sure that my scholarly smoke didn’t eclipse the clarity of the flame by writing, coaching, editing, enabling, and motivating. To the Board of Trustees of The Providence Forum, whose inspiration and support have fueled the vision from its first serious start. To Jack and Pina Templeton whose generosity and encouragement are extraordinary and legendary. To my brother in ministry, the Reverend Paul Karlberg, who recruited Jerry and shouldered the extra burden of ministry created by this project during those many days when all I could do was keep on writing. To the entire Pastoral Staff at Proclamation Presbyterian Church who joined Paul in bearing the extra stresses created by the creation of this book. To all of the support staff at Proclamation Presbyterian Church who have been typing tidbits (and much more) for George Washington’s Sacred Fire for at least a decade! Especially to these gracious ladies who have helped through the years: B.J. Dunn, Genie Herrell, Felicia Horton, Lisa Moneymaker, Kathy Olson, Marian Rebuck, Bonney Scott, Marion Sacks, April McKenzie. To Jim Browne who has shared his busy office staff in keeping this project moving forward. To Liz Fabiani who has been doing long, forced marches of service to get everything typed by our deadlines. Especially to Alex Thompson who has read every word at least three times, corrected thousands of mistakes, organized everchanging and growing chapters and titles, and tracked down more stray endnotes than Washington had soldiers in his entire Army. To the support team at The Providence Forum: Carolyn Jewett, Jody Vanmeter, and Carolyn Giosa, each of whom has provided unique contributions to make this book possible, to Silvia Augstroze for final proofreading, and to Aaron Bradford and Matthew McGowen for their excellent service as interns. To Judy Mitchell for her creative energy in the lovely graphic design of the maps of Washington’s Virginia. To our publicists, Larry Ross and Steve Yount and the ALRC team, for their excellent efforts to spread the word about this project. To Peter Roark and Roark Creative for capturing the essence of this work in the cover and interior design. To our printer, Dickinson Press, for their excellent efforts in bringing this book to completion. To our extraordinary marketing and business savvy executive director of The Providence Forum, Ralf Augstroze, who made sure that every picture, every deadline, every budget, and every communication was met according to plan. To all of our friends at Coral Ridge Ministries who gave this project new life, and Nancy Britt for editing assistance. To the entire production team at Coral Ridge who has shared the news of this book with America, and to Dr. D. James Kennedy for his passionate scholarship in regard to the faith of our founding father. To every friend who has asked for updates, prayed, and shared articles and ideas to help with the effort.
My special ministry team—the elders, deacons, members, pastoral staff, and office staff, past and present, of Proclamation Presbyterian Church, to the Board and staff of The Providence Forum, to the faculty, staff, and Board of Westminster Theological Seminary, to the Board and staff of Proclaiming the Word radio broadcast.
To special scholars who have granted interviews and provided invaluable information, wisdom, and guidance on this project, including Mary Thompson, historian of Mount Vernon; Reverend Donald Binder Ph.D., rector at Pohick Church in Lorton, VA; Dr. James Hutson, Chairman of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; Karen Hedelt of the Visitors’ Center of Fredericksburg, VA.
The Historical Organizations—I also wish to express my sincere thanks to the many organizations that provided invaluable access and information to further my research. Without their commitment to the history of our nation, and our founding father, this project could never have been completed. Pohick Church in Lorton, VA.; Christ Church in Alexandria, VA.; Falls Church in Falls Church, VA.; St. Peters Church, Philadelphia; Christ Church, Philadelphia; Trinity Church, New York City; Visitor Center, Fredericksburg, VA; Mother Bethel AME Church, Philadelphia; George Washington Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, VA; The Presbyterian Church in Morristown, NJ; and to Swain’s of Morristown and Thomas B. Vokes Galleries for their technical support.
Along with the people and the organizations, I must remember to thank the libraries, archives, and those who have granted permission to use their photographs and images in this work. I wish to thank each of the following institutions and their libraries and staffs for their exemplary commitment to scholarship which has provided the foundational materials that have made this research possible: Westminster Theological Seminary, and each of its extraordinary library personnel, Villanova University, University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore College, Harvard University, Eastern University, Cabrini College, the Library of Congress, Massachusetts Historical Society, The Boston Athenaeum, Library Company of Philadelphia, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, George Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Connecticut Historical Society, and Mount Vernon’s research library.
Finally, I wish to thank Divine Providence for the privilege and blessing of having had the inestimable honor of studying the life and faith of our founding father, George Washington. Indeed, I can do no better than to quote Washington himself, “I feel the most lively sentiments of gratitude to that divine Providence which has graciously interposed for the protection of our Civil and Religious Liberties.” (WGW, vol. 27, 11-10-1783. To the United Dutch Reformed Churches.) And a hearty thank-you to you, dear reader, for seeking to do your part, as well to protect our civil and religious liberties that were so dear to Washington.
Foreword
In many of America’s secondary schools and schools of higher education, history is considered irrelevant to the post-modern and multi-cultural world. Entire curricula on American history have been written with only passing reference to our founding fathers, including George Washington.
But this is not a sudden event. The roots of this historical revisionism go back to the early ninteen hundreds as many elite leaders and educators in America began, intentionally, to move in a direction away from America’s Christian heritage.
George Washington, the preeminent figure at the beginning of America as a new, independent nation, has been subjected to the reinterpretation of American history by numerous, secular scholars. Motivated by a world view that rejects the foundational doctrine of George Washington’s world view—Divine Providence—these scholars have filtered out and misrepresented the extensive evidence of George Washington’s faith. As a result, they have created a secular George Washington as a truncated figure from the heroic figure known by his contemporaries.
One cannot begin to understand the totality of George Washington and the faith which animated him unless one first explores the strong orthodox Christian upbringing which he experienced as a youngster. From his early years, he embraced a lifelong dedication to his Anglican faith. How he lived his faith was very much influenced by his passion for self-discipline, self-control, and rectitude. His personality caused him to avoid laying his heart on his sleeve.
Nevertheless, Washington’s contemporaries clearly saw in him his strong Christian faith and his appeal to, and trust in, “Providence,” to which “he regularly gave thanks, publicly and privately.”1
It was only many decades after his death that some historians began to interpret Washington’s values and beliefs, more from their own frame of reference, rather than by the extensive writings and utterances of Washington during his lifetime. Because some early American patriots, like Thomas Paine, were Deists, that is those who believed in a distant and remote Deity, many more recent historians have tried to label a number of the luminaries of the founding fathers of America as also being Deists. For example, it is often said today that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists. Yet, each man in a variety of contexts spoke earnestly of their conviction as Theists—that God was both approachable by man and that God played an ever-active role in the affairs of man. Consider Thomas Jefferson’s declaration: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed our only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” It is not surprising, therefore, that Thomas Jefferson and his fellow founders would have referred four times in the Declaration of Independence to a Creator God of Providence. Likewise, consider the statement of Benjamin Franklin delivered at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of man.”
In the case of George Washington, this book George Washington’s Sacred Fire documents with exhaustive detail and analysis that Washington was not only a Theist, as seen in his very frequent references to Providence, but that Washington was also an orthodox Trinitarian Christian. First, in regard to the impact of a Providential God, Washington later in his public life said: “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore his protection and favor.” (Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789)
From his deep Christian faith, Washington also found occasion to advocate Christianity. In a speech to the Delaware chiefs on May 12, 1779, he said: “This is a great mark of your confidence and of your desire to preserve friendship between the Two Nations to the end of time, and to become One People with your Brethren of the United States. My ears hear with pleasure the other matters you mention. Congress will be glad to hear them too. You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.”
Later, during the Revolutionary War, amidst a continuing series of disappointments and setbacks, Washington said: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
But for Washington, the true mark of conviction was how one behaved and what one did. From his lifelong commitment to rectitude and Christian moral principle, Washington stressed in his orders and directives and exhibited in his personal life, that a Christian faith is not just how one speaks but how one acts. As commander in chief, he set high standards for Christian worship and Christian behavior: “We can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Let vice and immorality of every kind be discouraged, as much as possible in your brigade; and as a chaplain is allowed to each regiment, see that the men regularly attend divine Worship.” This precedent was established earlier in his life as the widely recognized leader of Virginia’s Militia. He emphasized that his troops should “pray, fast, attend worship and observe days of thanksgiving.”2
Finally, it is helpful to reflect on those many, many times in his life when Washington was not sure that he was up to the task of the heavy burden of responsibilities he was called upon to fulfill. When he was selected, unanimously, by the Continental Congress to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army, he said: “I beg it may be remembered, by every gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with my utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” Many times during the eight long years of the Revolutionary War, Washington experienced more failures than successes. Because the conflict was so protracted, he faced continuing high rates of desertion of various state militias during the War. While Washington maintained great conviction in the merits of the American cause, he nevertheless clearly turned again, and again, to prayer that the Lord God would give him strength and sustain him.
For a man of such probity and such self-restraint, the truest reflection of George Washington’s conviction and practice as an orthodox Christian requires exhaustive and thorough scholarship to bring together the totality of George Washington’s devotion as a Christian. This book, by the Reverend Dr. Peter Lillback in conjunction with Jerry Newcombe, gives us all a much truer understanding of the man who as “Father of Our Country” was indispensable to the success of securing, not only American independence, but, more importantly, the survival of America’s bold experiment in republican representative government. George Washington’s Sacred Fire is an attempt to let Washington speak for himself, and to address, in a definitive manner, the evidence of his Christian faith and conviction. This book makes a unique and authoritative case for the underlying faith of George Washington which sustained him and guided him throughout his remarkable life.
John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D.
Introduction
In the popular culture of late twentieth and early twenty-first century America, two schools of thought about George Washington are doing battle. As evidenced by sermons and books by conservative religious leaders and numerous websites launched by people with an axe to grind, at least in regard to his religious beliefs, the Washington one finds on the internet appears to be a candidate for diagnosis as a multiple personality. He is either a rabid evangelical Christian or else is described as a Deist, a term which seems to be equivalent in the modern parlance of these polemicists to agnostic—someone who feels that there is no way to know if there is or is not a God, so they refuse to take a stand either way, and, if there is a God, he/she/it is unknowable. Perhaps Washington’s seeming personality disorder can be traced to the fact that, depending on which site one reads, he was either raised by pietistic parents or was the son of a man who spurned the Christian faith.
These differing views of Washington in the contemporary United States reflect the historical scholarship of the last two centuries. For over one hundred years following Washington’s death, his biographers tended to view their subject as a deeply religious man. Popular writers reflected that same opinion, but often elaborated on the religious theme; stories came into the popular imagination of Washington the perfect man, who broke up fights between children at school as a boy, was always in church each Sunday, had religious visions, and certainly never lied.
All that changed about seventy years ago. At that point, historians began trying to strip away the myths that had grown up around Washington, in order to make him more human and understandable to a twentieth century audience. While this was a laudable goal—and one that contemporary historians and museums are still striving to do in the face of some particularly imbedded beliefs, such as the wooden teeth legend—they began to cast doubt on the view of Washington as a devout Christian. The most influential of those works was historian Paul Boller’s Washington and Religion, which essentially described Washington as a person who, though raised in the Anglican Church, was at best only nominally Christian, who found that religion useful for keeping the lower classes in order, but did not seriously believe the tenets of the faith. Religion, moreover, was a subject in which he had very little interest. Boller’s position has been the standard interpretation of this facet of Washington’s life since its publication more than forty years ago. Most recently, scholarly examinations of the subject have suggested that Washington’s spiritual life was more greatly influenced by Stoic philosophy than Judeo-Christian theology.
There is evidence that the historical tide may again be turning. While not directly dealing with Washington, Edward L. Bond and John K. Nelson have written convincing explorations of the Anglican Church in Virginia, which take seriously the depth of faith of the American colonists and challenge the notion that the state church was solely a means by which the upper classes controlled the rest of society. Other scholars—Daniel L. Dreisbach, James H. Hutson, and Garrett Ward Sheldon, to name just a few—have reexamined the place of religion in the lives of Washington’s contemporaries and show their readers a group of men and women with a strong belief in God and an intense interest in matters of religion. Quite recently, still others have turned their attention to Washington himself. Vincent Phillip Munoz produced a fine article on Washington’s ideas on church and state, while Michael and Jana Novak have just (2006) published a book-length investigation into the identity of the God mentioned in Washington’s writings, as well as what the country’s most famous founding father meant when he wrote, so very often, about “Providence.”
Peter Lillback, with Jerry Newcombe, has written George Washington’s Sacred Fire as a means of redressing some of the past wrongs in interpreting the place of God and religion in Washington’s life. Striving for balance, the man to whom Dr. Lillback introduces his readers is decidedly Christian, but hardly an evangelical in the modern sense. He was an active churchman, whose relationship with the Anglican Church underwent change throughout his life, but never altered his relationship with God. Unlike many of the popular writers who have tried to resurrect belief in a very devout Washington, Dr. Lillback has taken great care to document his sources. His fifteen years of research are clearly evident, with very complete notes and appendices, so that readers wishing to explore further can follow the trail to additional sources. The author also brings an understanding of the eighteenth century church in America, which is invaluable in putting Washington into the context of his time and place.
So, if the historical tide is beginning to turn—a slow process at best—then scholars are in the first stages of reappraising Washington’s faith. As part of that reassessment, I would like to invite you to read George Washington’s Sacred Fire. It is now your turn to weigh the evidence and decide how you would answer the question of whether George Washington, America’s founding father, was a Christian or not.
Mary V. Thompson
Research Specialist
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate
ONE
Introduction:
The Controversy
“Broadly speaking, of course, Washington can be classified as a Deist.”
Paul F. Boller, Jr. 1963
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