Reddit reviews The Faiths of the Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers wanted to keep church and state separate just as much to keep religion from being corrupted as the church influencing the state.

For the interested -- there's a well written historical biography of the founding fathers that focuses on this idea about this called, appropriately enough, "The Faiths of the Founding Fathers".

I just ordered it, only $3.00 used. Thanks for the suggestion. I just finished this book, which was an interesting read on the Founding Fathers faiths.

I'd took it chapter by chapter (each chapter covered a different Founding Father) and looked up different sources on each claim so as not to be influenced by a writer's agenda.

All in all, it was a good read.

Well, it makes no sense to talk about the "religion" of the Founding Fathers as if there were only one. Some of the Founding Fathers were Deists and not Christians at all, like Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen. Some were Christians and uninfluenced by Deist ideas, like John Jay and Samuel Adams. Most were somewhere in between and at least occasionally worshipped in the church in which they were raised. For a fair and nuanced take on the subject, check out The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes.

Interestingly, there's a letter from John Adams (Unitarian) to Jefferson (Deist and self-described "true Christian") where he writes that "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were...the general principles of Christianity...and the general principles of English and American liberty" (often dishonestly quoted without the "English and American liberty" part). Specifically, he means "the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united," referring to a list of Christian denominations that includes "Deists and Atheists"!

Yeah, he's a definite partisan, and his body of work and his lecture circuits confirm it.

Believe what you want, but there's so much Christian Revisionism going on that when you originally cited Eidsmoe as being non-partisan I had to call bullshit - he's actually worse than David Barton, because at least Barton acts like the foolish charlatan that he is so you can smell his shit a mile away instead of packaging it as totally-real-super-serious-academia.

You wanna know the funny thing about all this? I'd never even heard of Eidsmoe before, but just the way you put it sent my spidey sense all a-tingle and called out Eidsmoe out as a partisan hack before I even knew who you were talking about.

And I nailed it. Doesn't that strike you as interesting?

Doesn't that make you pause just a moment and wonder? I mean if some random guy that's never even heard of the author that you're so enthralled with immediately pinpoints that he's a partisan hack selling shitcakes he's labeled as luxury bubble bath, don't you think maybe you're actually soakin' in shitcakes?

As for something to read to give you a better understanding of the deism and faiths of the founders, try this one. It's got a catchy title and it's written for the layman instead of hiding behind the citations.