What makes these affirmations of Christianity personal for Washington is his deeply held view that strong leadership must be coupled with consistency and integrity. One of Washington’s “Rules of Civility” comes into play here.³³ The forty-eighth says, “Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precepts.” Thus he wrote to Lord Stirling, March 5, 1780, “Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence, and the higher in Rank the officer is, who sets it, the more striking it is.” He wrote as follows to James Madison, March 31, 1787, “Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made; because the first is a mere nihil [utterly useless], and the second is productive of much jealousy and discontent.” He also wrote to Col. William Woodford, November 10, 1775, “Impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for.” And writing to James McHenry on July 4, 1798, he declared,

A good choice [of General Staff ] is of . . . immense consequence. . . . [They] ought to be men of the most respectable character, and of first-rate abilities; because, from the nature of their respective offices, and from their being always about the Commander-in-Chief, who is obliged to entrust many things to them confidentially, scarcely any movement can take place without their knowledge. . . . Besides possessing the qualifications just mentioned, they ought to have those of Integrity and prudence in an eminent degree, that entire confidence might be reposed in them. Without these, and their being on good terms with the Commanding General, his measures, if not designedly thwarted, may be so embarrassed as to make them move heavily on.³⁴

The point of all of this is that Washington believed that a leader’s actions and integrity must illustrate his own commitment to his commands to his followers. A successful leader must lead by example. Washington could not have called on his men to be such authentic Christians, if he was not trying to be such a Christian as well. So it would seem that Bird Wilson did not search thoroughly enough for the Christianity of Washington in his writings. Furthermore, if you read the text of the prayers in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer that Washington and his fellow worshipers read regularly in the weekly worship services, you would repeatedly see the exaltation of Jesus Christ.

CONCLUSION

We believe that modern skeptics have read into Washington their own unbelief. Just as many Christians have read too much piety into the man, we believe modern skeptics have read too much skepticism into George Washington. The skeptics, however, are on even shakier ground than the pietists that Professor Boller ridicules for their uncritical reliance on unsubstantiated anecdotes and stories that turn Washington into a paragon of devotional piety. The skeptics have remade Washington into their own unbelieving image—even though:

•   He was clearly and deeply biblically literate. As we will see from his private and public writings, his pen inks scriptural phrases and concepts from all parts of the Bible.

•   He was a committed churchman, attending regularly when it was convenient and inconvenient; he not only attended service, but he diligently served the church, primarily in his youth, as a lay leader; throughout his life, he generously donated money and material goods for the well-being of the church.

•   He was generally very quiet about anything pertaining to himself, including his faith, yet he was always concerned to respect the faith of others, attempting to practice his Christian faith privately, even while he at times openly affirmed his Christian beliefs in public. There are numerous accounts from family and military associates—too numerous to be dismissed—of people coming across Washington in earnest, private prayer.

•   He repeatedly encouraged piety, public and private; he insisted on chaplains for the military and legislature; he often promoted “religion and morality” and recognized these as essential for our national happiness, and even called on the nation’s leaders to follow Christ’s example.

•   He turned away from the opportunity to become a king, even though a lesser man would have seized such power; he had not fought the king in order to become a new king, even though men wanted to make him that after he won the War. Indeed, Washington is a striking model of what Christians have called a servant-statesman.

These and many other indicators show that the scholars of recent years have been misreading George Washington and ignoring the spiritual realities of our founding father. By so doing, they have presented a very truncated picture of “his Excellency.”

George Washington’s Sacred Fire intends to convince you that when all the available evidence is considered, the only viable conclusion is that George Washington was a Christian and not a Deist. What enflamed Washington’s passion and stirred his heart was that which was sacred to his soul—his utter dependence on the hand of Divine Providence.

His passion is important for us as well. Where a nation began determines its destiny. Is the Judeo-Christian heritage of America a reality or an interloper aimed at suppressing the secularism of the founders? Or, is it the other way around? Are today’s secularists trying to recreate the faith of our founding father into the unbelief of a Deist in order to rid our nation of Washington’s holy flame of faith? Was it a secular flame or a “sacred fire” that Washington ignited to light the lamp for America’s future? If we look carefully at Washington’s words, it is clear that it was a “sacred fire.” Throughout the rest of this book, we will continue carefully to consider his words. And as we do, we believe that they will fuel the “sacred fire of liberty” and continue to illumine the path to America’s future.

TWO

Deism Defined:

Shades of Meaning, Shading the Truth

“The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf.”

George Washington 1789

¹

“The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith”

George Washington, 1778

²

Deism: n. [Fr. Deisme; Sp. Deismo; It. Id.; from L. deus, [God]. The doctrine or creed of a Deist; the belief or system of religious opinions of those who acknowledge the existence of one God, but deny revelation: or deism is the belief in natural religion only, or those truths, in doctrine and practice, which man is to discover by the light of reason, independent and exclusive of any revelation from God. Hence deism implies infidelity or a disbelief in the divine origin of the scriptures.

Deist: n. [Fr. Deiste; It. Deista.] One who believes in the existence of a God, but denies revealed religion; one who professes no form of religion, but follows the light of nature and reason, as his only guides in doctrine and practice; a freethinker. Noah Webster, 1828 Dictionary of the American English Language³

Before we begin our study, we should define our terms. A Deist is one who believes that there is a God, but He is far removed from the daily affairs of men. God made the world and then left it to run on its own. The Deist’s God does not take an active interest in the affairs of men. He is not a prayer-answering God. Praying to Him has no value. Deism is in some ways the natural outworking of exalting reason alone—that is, human reason apart from divine revelation.

The meaning of Deism has changed through the years. What Deism meant in Washington’s day and what it meant later is an important point in terms of understanding the religious milieu of George Washington. Because of these shades of meaning, there has been scholarly confusion over the use of the word “Deism.” Deism, in general, whether in Washington’s day or after, has not believed what the New Testament declares: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:1, 14, NASB). In other words, a Deist, most decidedly, did not accept the Christian claim of the incarnation—that is, that God entered time and space to reveal himself to humanity through his son Jesus Christ.

Scholars identify our founders with secularism or Deism. Does this mean that they did not believe in God’s providential actions in American history? Or is it possible that in this period of history there was an earlier form of Deism that still prayed and believed in Providence, but denied that the Bible was the revelation of God? The difference between the two can be described by what we will call “hard Deism” and “soft Deism.”

Hard Deists rejected more elements of Christianity than soft Deists. A hard Deist not only denied that God had revealed himself in scripture, but he also denied that God acts in history, which is usually described by the word “Providence.” Thomas Paine, the best representative of what we are calling hard Deism, in his Age of Reason, rejected the idea of Providence, calling it one of the five deities of Christian mythology.⁴ Hard Deists also typically rejected a belief in God’s hearing and answering prayer. The movement from the original soft Deism to the fully developed hard Deism is reflected in Crane Brinton’s comment in The Shaping of Modern Thought: “One of the most remarkable examples of the survival of religious forms is found when professed Deists indulge in prayer, as they occasionally did. After all, the whole point about the Deist’s clockmaker God is that he has set the universe in motion, according to natural law and has thereupon left it to its own devices. Prayer to such a god would seem peculiarly inefficacious.”⁵ This is clearly the conclusion that Thomas Paine reached in the Age of Reason.⁶ In other words, Deism means an absentee God.

Many consider Washington to have been a soft Deist. Supposedly, this would mean that Washington did not believe that God revealed himself in the Bible. It also means that he did not accept the Christian claims of Christ’s divine nature, nor of His atoning death for man’s sin and his resurrection from the dead, but that he may well have believed in prayer and Providence, in some sense. Further, while not even the strictest skeptic accuses Washington of being a hard Deist, there is a tendency to inappropriately compare Washington and Paine. Boller, for example, writes that both Washington and Paine used similar deistic names for God. Yet there was a deep divide between the two. The tension between Paine and Washington began over Paine’s book the Rights of Man.⁷ Before this, their friendship had been strong; Washington had loved Common Sense and loved Paine’s logical arguments that called for the American Revolution that he so ably put forth.⁸ But Paine’s criticism of Washington in the context of the Rights of Man is captured by Washington biographer Thomas Flexner:

Another complaint is that, in acknowledging copies of the Rights of Man, which Paine had sent him, Washington had coldly sidestepped all comment. As a matter of fact, the president, who wished to remain nonpartisan, had used common sense. Paine would undoubtedly have published any compliment Washington sent him. Jefferson was, indeed, to get into hot water by having a letter he wrote to an American printer appear as an introduction and seeming endorsement of Paine’s extremely controversial work.⁹

Moreover, Thomas Paine never forgave Washington for his utter silence to his cries for help when he was imprisoned during the violence of the French Revolution. When Paine made it back to America, he used every occasion he could to attack his erstwhile friend, while Washington never responded publicly.¹⁰ The complete severance of their former relationship is underscored by the words of George Washington scholar, John C. Fitzpatrick. This passage begins with Washington’s rebuttal to an open letter Paine had written, criticizing our first President: “…absolute falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are pursuing, I send you a letter from Mr. Paine to me, Printed in this city and disseminated with great industry.” The letter, “Printed in the city and disseminated with great industry,” was dated July 30, 1796, and published by Benjamin Franklin Bache, a newspaper publisher and a contemporary of George Washington who was severely critical of our founding father—not a popular stance at the time. It was republished in Dublin and London in 1797. It ended thus: “As to you sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide, whether you are an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any.”

So when Boller suggests a parallel between the theological vocabulary of Washington and Paine, in the following statement, in light of the above, it is clear that he entirely neutralizes the intense disagreement that an authentic description of their relationship requires.

Most of Washington’s official communications during the Revolution contained no references to the Christian religion itself. The appeal, as we have seen, was customarily made to “Heaven,” “Providence,” “Supreme Being,” “supreme disposer of all events,” and to “the great arbiter of the Universe.” All of these were, of course, expressions that a good Deist—like Thomas Paine, for instance—could use in all sincerity without in any way committing himself to the theology and doctrines of the Christian church.¹¹

DEISM IN WASHINGTON’S LANGUAGE?

Part of the shading of the truth in this debate is attempting to identify Washington’s language with that of the “hard Deist” Thomas Paine by pointing to his use of phrases such as “Heaven,” “Providence,” “Supreme Being,” “Supreme Disposer of all events,” and “the great Arbiter of the Universe.” But let’s take Boller at his own words. Are the names for God used by Washington “expressions that a good Deist—like Thomas Paine—could use in all sincerity, without in any way committing himself to the theology and doctrines of the Christian Church”? First we must ask, if Paine believed that Providence was a Christian mythology, how could he employ each of these terms that argue for God’s direct governance in human history? It seems clear to us, however, that Paine himself sensed the incongruity implicit in Boller’s claim, since Paine did not use these terms in the Age of Reason. Instead, Paine’s truncated Deistic theological terminology limited itself to the meager list of merely “God,” “Creator,” and “Almighty.” When the variety of names for God that Washington used throughout his writings is considered, however, one discovers around a hundred different titles for God.¹² These titles are remarkably diverse. It’s almost as though Washington did not want to use the same title for God a second time. Yet he did use the word “God” over a hundred times and the word “heaven” over a hundred times. The honorific titles for God such as “the Great Author of the Universe” or the “Great Disposer of Human Events” are only samples of his vast theological vocabulary by which he sought to honor God.

So, while Paine does not use these titles that Washington so frequently employs, we have also found these same titles for God in the writings of other great Christian preachers of Washington’s day, whose messages were among the sermons that Washington purchased, collected, and bound, and were found in his library when he died. Reverend Samuel Miller is an example of an orthodox minister of Washington’s day using terms for God that our President used. Reverend Miller was a Presbyterian minister and certainly no Deist. His July 4, 1793, message based on 2 Corinthians 3:17 was received by Washington and was bound in Washington’s sermon collection.¹³ Reverend Miller’s sermon, entitled “A Sermon on the Anniversary of the Independence of America,” refers to God in the following ways:

•   “the supreme Arbiter of nations”

•   “the grand Source”

•   “the Deity himself “

•   “the Sovereign Dispenser of all blessings”

•   “the Governor of the universe”

•   “thou exalted Source of liberty”¹⁴

When George Washington used his multitude of respectful titles for God, he was simply employing a Baroque style popular among many of the ministers at the time.¹⁵ He was not showing that he harbored some sort of secret, unspoken code of unbelief that would take two centuries for scholars to decode.¹⁶

SILENCE FROM WASHINGTON’S DIARIES

One of the arguments we have to assess is the completeness of Washington’s diaries—or really, incompleteness. Boller claims that Washington’s Christianity is not tenable based on his church attendance recorded in his private diary.¹⁷ If Washington didn’t note it, so the argument goes, he didn’t attend. But there is a problem here, both with the source and the logic. First, many of Washington’s diaries are missing. Second, the silence of the record does not prove it did not happen, or that it was not important to him. The records of his diaries are important. But it is difficult to make a definitive case from the brief and incomplete entries that Washington made in them. For example, when he presided over the Constitutional Convention, he barely wrote a word in his diaries about these epoch-making events.¹⁸ Moreover, he never entered a word about the historic debates that occurred there. Does that mean he barely attended the sessions (not so) or was indifferent to them? By this same logic, one could infer that Washington’s breeding and care of his hunting hounds were more important than the Constitutional Convention, since in his diaries he so often mentions his dogs by name! Here we choose not to follow Boller in imposing an uncertain and questionable standard to discern George Washington’s spiritual history. Instead of arguments from silence, we choose to accent the written words and substantiated actions of Washington to make our case for his Christian faith.

FAMILY INFLUENCES

We will show from the historical data that Washington was deeply influenced by his godly mother, Mary Ball Washington, and his older half-brother, Lawrence, who provided him with careful instruction in the Christian faith as evidenced by his childhood school papers and his school books, as well as by their active family and personal participation in their church. Along with his family’s impact on his faith, we need to also recognize the influence of his religious neighbors—the British noble family of the Fairfaxes that owned vast sections of the Old Dominion. Records show that they went to church together, that Washington was urged by the cousin of Lord Fairfax to have prayers for his troops as a young soldier. His childhood and life-long friend, Bryan Fairfax, actually was the pastor of the Episcopal Church in Alexandria for a time, where Washington worshiped after his return from the Revolutionary War, as well as after his return from the presidency. We will consider the family testimony about Washington’s faith—those who were in a position to know his faith the best. We will find that the family witness to his faith is uniform. In their minds there was no doubt that George Washington was a Christian. Perhaps this is why Professor Boller and many recent scholars pass over this extensive evidence in utter silence, treating it as though it were historically irrelevant.

THE CHURCHMAN

George Washington is famous for being a churchman. During the Revolutionary War, he at times actually rode on horseback some twenty miles to get to a church. The Reverend John Stockton Littell, Rector of St. James’ Church in Keene N.H., in his 1913 book George Washington: Christian¹⁹ records a story that reportedly took place in Litchfield in New England, where Washington saw some of his soldiers throwing stones at an old Anglican c hurch building. He said, “Stop throwing the stones! I am a churchman, and we should not deal with the church in this way.” Whether or not one accepts the historicity of this anecdote, Washington’s own records show he worshiped in Christian churches not only in his native Virginia, but also from New England to Georgia as he traveled on horseback through the vast and largely unsettled United States. He went to church all of his life, from the time he was a young boy to when he became a soldier. He led in devotions in his camp, when there was no church or chaplain present. As commander in chief and as president, he sought to set an example for his followers by regular worship. When he became a retired president and proprietor of Mount Vernon, he continued to be a consistent worshiper.