Washington’s wish has largely been fulfilled in America. While there have been some ugly exceptions:
• Anti-Catholic mobs fighting on the streets of nineteenth century New York City or Philadelphia
• The anti-Mormon persecution, including the slaying of the founder Joseph Smith in 1844
• African-American Pentecostal ministers lynched for preaching the Gospel
Yet, by-and-large, America has not seen the kinds of wars on religion that devastated Europe in the wake of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. For the most part, America has seen religious conflicts fought by argument and reason.
As the first president under the well-reasoned American Constitution, Washington was given an enlightened pulpit from which to speak concerning his views on religious liberty, even to the clergy. Accordingly, President Washington wrote on January 27, 1793, to ecclesiastical leaders of The New Church in Baltimore. The New Church was a new denomination based on the creative ideas of the novel religious thinker Emanuel Swendenborg. Therein, Washington boasted of America’s triumph over superstition,
We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.33
This conviction came after two or three centuries of wars of religion within outwardly Christian denominations–Catholics vs. Protestants–Protestants vs. other Protestants.
In all the letters that Washington wrote to the many religious groups that contacted him, one of the main points he stressed was America’s religious liberty for all. European history was filled with religious intolerance, perpetrated all too often in the name of Christianity. But Washington saw the United States as an asylum where such bigotry would not gain a foothold. However, in taking such a stance, Washington did not become a Deist.
Writing to Benedict Arnold on September 14, 1775, and speaking of Roman Catholics in Canada, he affirmed: “Prudence, policy, and a true Christian spirit will lead us to look with compassion upon their errors without insulting them.”34 He wrote to his soldiers on July 9, 1776, immediately after receiving a copy of the Declaration of Independence: “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”35 In short, a belief in religious liberty did not mean a belief in Deism. In fact, the great original advocates of religious liberty in America were Christian clergymen—Reformed and Baptist thinker Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and Quaker William Penn in Pennsylvania.36
REASON VS. FAITH?
In Washington’s Enlightenment, reason had conquered bigotry and superstition. But had it conquered revealed religion too? The view of common scholars that the Enlightenment was monolithic, and its faith was that of a Deist, is unsound. A careful reading of the original writings of our founders yields their profound insistence on the importance of religion, and even religion of the revealed variety found in the Holy Bible.
It is historically untenable that Washington’s understanding of an enlightened faith meant a rejection of a biblical Christianity. As a point in fact, consider Washington’s biblical allusions in his concluding prayer of his May 1790 letter to the Hebrew congregation in Savannah, Georgia.
I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations of the earth, and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive; happily the people of the United States have in many instances exhibited examples worthy of imitation, the salutary influence of which will doubtless extend much farther if gratefully enjoying those blessings of peace which (under the favor of heaven) have been attained by fortitude in war, they shall conduct themselves with reverence to the Deity and charity toward their fellow-creatures.
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.
Consider the many phrases used by Washington in this letter that have their root in the Bible. To highlight the scriptural allusions, we have emphasized them by listing them individually and by placing them in italics:
• blessings of peace which (under favor of Heaven) (Numbers 6:23-26) have been obtained by fortitude in war, they shall conduct themselves with;
• reverence to the Deity, (Deuteronomy 6:6) and;
• charity toward their fellow creatures (Leviticus 19:18).”
• May the same wonder-working Deity (Daniel 4:3), who long since;
• delivering the Hebrews from the Egyptian oppressors (Exodus 15:11); and
• planted them in the promised land (Joshua 22:4)—whose;
• providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation (1 Samuel 2:7; Psalm 75:7; Isaiah 55:5; Daniel 2:21, 37)—still;
• continue to water them with the dews of Heaven (Genesis 27:28) and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the;
• temporal and spiritual blessings of that (Genesis 49:25; Ephesians 1:3);
• people whose God is (Psalm 33:12);
• Jehovah (Exodus 6:3; Psalm 83:18; Isaiah 12:2; 26:4).”37
These biblical references are linked together by Washington in a most remarkably integrated manner. They clearly demonstrate that Washington was not opposed to the Bible nor to its extensive use for forming and expounding upon his enlightened views of opposition to religious bigotry. They also underscore his biblical literacy. This is not the writing of a Deist. This kind of biblical synthesis reveals a lifetime of reflection on the scriptures, which is the result of a Christian faith.
CONCLUSION
George Washington saw the United States as an enlightened nation—enlightened by reason and by revelation (the Judeo-Christian revelation of the Holy Scriptures). Thus, Washington wrote in April 1789:
The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity;”38 “The blessed religion revealed in the word of God” is Christianity.
Perhaps the greatest theologian in American history was Jonathan Edwards. Although he died just years before the great events that triggered the American Revolution, he would have understood Washington’s language of the “Word of God” to be consistent with Christianity but not Deism. Jonathan Edwards wrote,
From what has been said, plainly appears the necessity of divine revelation. The Deists deny the Scripture to be the word of God, and hold that there is no revealed religion; that God has given mankind no other rule but his own reason; which is sufficient, without any word or revelation from heaven, to give man a right understanding of divine things, and of his duty.
What Deists denied, Washington affirmed. Washington accepted the scriptures, rejected superstition, and was comfortable with the reasonableness of faith advocated by the Christian enlightenment that celebrated religious liberty.
TWENTY FOUR
George Washington and Religious Liberty:
A Christian or Deist Idea?
“...
I was in hopes, that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far
...”
George Washington, 1792
1
Religious liberty was born in America, and George Washington made a major contribution toward the establishment of religious freedom under our government. Through the influence of the United States, he made a major impact on the existence of religious freedom in the world as well. In May 1789 he answered a letter from the General Assembly of Presbyterian Churches in the United States:
While I reiterate the professions of my dependence upon Heaven as the source of all public and private blessings; I will observe that the general prevalence of piety, philanthropy, honesty, industry, and economy seems, in the ordinary course of human affairs, particularly necessary for advancing and conforming the happiness of our country.
While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will be emulous of evincing [striving to prove] the sanctity of their professions by the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.2
How one can be a true Christian, asked President Washington, if one acts like a profligate and is a bad citizen? He did not want any professing Christian to abuse his freedom here in this free land and thereby cross the line from liberty into license.
Washington maintained that there was a difference between liberty and license, or immoral behavior. Washington simultaneously held the principles of high moral conduct and freedom of religion from any government coercion.
