James Madison, the Constitution, and "A Christian Nation?"

James Madison, Architect of the American
Constitution

The next of our founding fathers we want to look at in regards to whether or not the United States is by design of our Founding Fathers a Christian Nation, or a Judeo-Christian nation, is James Madison, the principal architect of the United States Constitution.  Madison, like Washington, was an Anglican/Episcopalian.  (Anglican until the Bishop of London renounced jurisdiction over the American Church upon English recognition of American independence in 1783 with the consequent result that American Anglicans were now an autonomous religious body and came to be known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.)  Madison was not particularly devout and seems to have worn his Christian faith somewhat casually although his wife, the famously extroverted Dolly, converted from the Quaker faith in which she had been raised to the Episcopal Church.  Dolly, like many of the wives of the founders of the Republic, was more religious than her husband.  Madison’s religious beliefs are particularly important given his role in the Constitution of the United States.    

     In the first years of the American Republic we were governed by The Articles of Confederation, a constitution that conceived of the nation as a loose affiliation of autonomous states pledged to collaboration rather than as a single nation with a sovereign government.  The system outlined by the Articles did not work.  It was ineffectual in dealing with issues such as the immense debt incurred by the American Revolution as well as matters of foreign policy.  Collaboration under the Articles depended on the mutual trust among the States but the divisions that would eventually lead to Civil War some eighty years later were already beginning to fester, imperiling the unity of the new nation.  It was clear to many, though not to all, that a stronger federal government had to be designed.  A convention was called to refashion the Articles of Confederation but once in session and without explicit authorization from the Continental Congress that convoked such an assembly, the convention decided to scrap the Articles and replace it with an entirely new Constitution.  Given that so many of the heroes of the Revolution were members of that Convention—Washington, Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, among others (Jefferson and Adams were abroad on Diplomatic Missions) the members of the Constitutional Convention got away with their bait-and-switch coup and our present Constitution was the result.  It was not an easy struggle.   There were those among the great founders who were appalled that so much had been taken from the sovereignty of the several states and given over to the national government.  Moreover, they not only saw the danger to the States, but saw the rights of individual imperiled by the failure of the new Constitution to explicitly guarantee them.  It was agreed that as soon as the Constitution was approved it would be necessary to amend it with a “Bill of Rights” that would make explicit the rights that were taken as due the individual under the English Common Law tradition dating back to Magna Carta. 

     Madison did not single-handedly write the Constitution.  No one person wrote it.  He did not even serve the role to the Constitution that Jefferson had for the Declaration of Independence.  The Constitution was produced by incessant argument and debate over each point but no individual was as active in that discussion and debate process as was James Madison.  In the four months of the convention (May-September 1787) Madison spoke over 200 times.  He clearly articulated a plan for government and when it was necessary to come to compromise, as it was time after time on point after point, it was Madison who guided the way out of each impasse.    

      When the Constitution was finally ratified it was Madison who then took up the cause for a Bill of Rights.  It was not at first a popular cause among the leaders of the new government although it certainly was a matter of concern in several of the States and among the citizenry at large.  Congress and the Executive branch were busy trying to get the Constitution itself to work and were reluctant to begin amending it.  Nevertheless Madison was able to guide the passage of the first ten amendments which we now call the Bill of Rights.  He did not get everything he wanted.  For example, Madison wanted an amendment that would assert the sovereignty of the national government over that of the individual States—an amendment that some historians believe would have prevented the Civil War, or at least robbed secession of any constitutional legitimacy.  (It would have interesting consequences for several of today’s issues as well.)  Nevertheless, the Bill of Rights was eventually passed and quickly ratified by the states. 

      The first amendment guarantees: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

      The phrase that interests us in this question of our being a Christian nation is the idea that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibition the free exercise thereof.  It is clear from the text that not only is no one Church to be established—or proscribed—but religion itself is neither to be established nor proscribed. 

      Madison was a protégé of Thomas Jefferson and while he may or may not have subscribed to Jefferson’s deist philosophy, he clearly subscribed to Jefferson’s political philosophy articulated in Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.  Madison had worked with Baptist preacher, Elijah Craig (after whom the designer Bourbon is named), in making sure that there would be constitutional guarantee for religious liberty.  Craig had served time in jail for preaching without a license in the days when the Anglican Church was established by law in Virginia and non-Anglicans were forbidden to preach or hold services.  While an Episcopalian himself (his cousin, also James Madison, was the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia) Madison clearly wanted to make sure that the no religion was set up to have a claim of precedence over others in either Virginia or the new Republic.  It would be inconsistent with his record to say that the “Father of the Constitution” saw the United States as a Christian Nation in the sense that Christianity (or any other religion) had a pride of place among various systems of belief or thought recognized by law or governmental courtesy in the American Republic whom he had done more than any other individual to shape.         

And For What Has Christ Come and for What Has He Died?

Is this why Christ died hanging on the cross or is this
about an ego having lost all touch with reality?

 We have been talking about the Founding Fathers and if their support could be invoked for the United States being a “Christian Nation” or as Virginia Blogger Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life put it: a “Judeo Christian Nation.”  Ms. Curtis writes her blog on a variety of topics, some of which she actually seems to know something about.  American History, however, is a field in which she could afford to take a course or two at her local community college.  We have looked at founding fathers Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and George Washington whose public stances would not lend credence to her claims for our being a Christian Nation, or even a Judeo-Christian one.  On the other hand, Sam Adams—ironically one of the most radical of the Founding Fathers—and Catholic Charles Carroll, one of the most conservative, would probably support her claim.  Carroll’s cousin John, the first Catholic Bishop in the new American Republic, and the larger Maryland Catholic tradition is harder to read.  Maryland Catholics had a conservative view of society.  They were, for the most part, monied and landed people.  They belonged to the Federalist Party, suspicious of Jefferson’s Republicans—who, despite their name, are the forerunners of today’s Democrats.  They were not given to the religious skepticism of Franklin or Jefferson or even the discreet unorthodoxy of Washington.  Yet, having been a disadvantaged minority, they strongly favored religious liberty for all of whatever belief.  They did not agitate for Catholicism to be given a privileged position and no writing survives that would suggest that they saw Maryland or the new Republic as officially “Christian.”  On the other hand, there were in those days few who were not, at least in the broadest of the word “Christians.”  A synagogue for Baltimore would only be organized in the 1830’s.  Whatever their vision of the place of religion in society, Maryland Catholics probably would have held aloof from the Christmas crèche on the Loudon County Courthouse lawn that triggered Ms. Curtis’s pompous pronouncement.  Religion was not a public affair in the recusant tradition.  So we will go on to other founding fathers.  We still need to look at James Madison who is particularly key as he is the basic architect of the Constitution and we also want to look at his fellow Virginian, Patrick Henry who will round out the cast of characters.  But that is for tomorrow—or the next day or whenever I get around to it.   Today I want to share some reflections that the first reading at Mass this morning raised for me. 
     It was the story of Samuel and the Israelites squabbling over a monarchy. You know the story.  (Or, if you don’t, you can find it in 1 Samuel, chapter 8.)  The people of Israel decide that they want a king like other nations.  The people had decided that God wasn’t quite cutting it as king.  He isn’t visible enough in times of war.  They want the trappings of an earthly king.  Samuel warns them of the price: Kings require taxes and they live in palaces with servants.  Daughters will have to become ointment makers and cooks; sons will have to be footmen and soldiers.  The people are going to have to shell out to keep a king in style—you know: palaces, crowns, liveried servants, etc. 
      What struck me was—and this is one of the reasons that I write this blog—why isn’t Christ enough for us?  Why do we need Swiss Guards and Nuncios and Vatican dicasteries?  Why do we need monsignors in their purples and bishops with their miters, and Eminences and Excelencies, and the kissing of rings and the bending of knees?  Now I am not saying that we don’t need the Petrine Ministry and a worthy Servus Servorum Dei to fill it, or that we don’t need Pastors who have the heart of the Good Shepherd to lead the Church.  (And by Pastors here I mean bishops.)  I believe Christ established a community of his followers and that he commissioned the Twelve (or at least the Eleven who remained faithful) to guide it in faithfulness to the Good News of God’s Kingdom as he preached it.  And I am not a strict constructionist of the New Testament.  I am amused with some of my Campbellite friends who insist that if there is not an explicit warrant for something in the New Testament you can’t do it. (One friend of mine who is a Church of Christ Pastor makes me laugh when he says that his deacons won’t allow lighted candles on the communion table as there is no warrant for them in the New Testament but that they have no problem flipping on the light switch.)  But I do think at times, indeed often, that we Catholics have allowed the human trappings to overshadow and even usurp the precedence of the Divinely ordered mission of the Church.  I’m sorry but the preaching of Good News to the Poor, of granting sight to the blind, freedom to captives, and announcing a time of God’s Favor is why we are here not to conduct self-aggrandizing ceremonies that exalt one or another of us over others.  Now I know that I have said that I don’t intend to get into theology and that I want to stick right to history and that when you start talking about Christ and his intentions for his disciples you cross the line from history into theology and I know I have crossed that line, but don’t even tell me theologically that the Grace of God is given us for pompous ceremonial that may have been fitting for medieval princes but is totally out of place in a world where more than half the population has no or insufficient access to safe water, where millions of children have been orphaned by AIDS, where famine is rampant, and where 5% of the population controls 90% of the resources.  Far from being the light of the world, we run the risk of being a scandal when we are more concerned about the trappings of office than the mission given us by our Savior.  So history and theology meet where justice and peace kiss and history can help theology sort out what is essential and what is charade.

Catholics on the Courthouse Lawn

Charles Carroll
only Catholic signer
of the Declaration
of Independence

Well, as to our being a “Christian Nation” we have looked at a New England Congregationalist and a Unitarian, a Pennsylvania Deist usually mistaken for a Quaker, a Virginia Episcopalian (one of them; there are more and we will look at them), and a Virginia Deist.  What’s the tally?  John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington would probably not support the idea of an officially religious society.  Sam Adams, the only evangelical in the group we have looked at, well might have.  Now on to our fellow Catholics.  There were few Catholic in the New Republic at the time of our Independence and they were centered primarily in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  Maryland had been founded as a colony where Catholics could openly practice their faith, but in 1655, during Cromwell’s Puritan interregnum in England, a Puritan Army defeated Governor William Stone at the Battle of the Severn, and ended the control of the Lords Baltimore over the colony.  With the Puritans in charge, Catholicism was outlawed and the Catholic churches were burned.  In 1658 the 2^nd Lord Baltimore regained control and re-enacted the Toleration Act guaranteeing religious freedom in the colony.  Peace was somewhat short lived, however.  In 1689, after the defeat of Catholic King James II by his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange (the “better-half” of William and Mary), Maryland Puritans again rebelled against proprietary Government in Maryland and the Calvert family (the Lords Baltimore) lost power. With their fall Catholicism was again outlawed.  In 1704 the legislature passed “An Act to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province” which barred Catholics from public office.  It wasn’t as bad as it might have been, however, and Catholics (including the clergy who were all Jesuits) were tacitly permitted private chapels on their estates where they could worship discreetly.  In 1776 Charles Carroll, the patriarch of the vastly networked Carroll Family, was a Maryland Delegate to the Continental Congress and has the distinction of being the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Catholics understood from their experience in Britain, Ireland, and the colonies, how important it was for there to be religious freedom.  After 1689 Pennsylvania was the only colony where Catholics were given freedom to worship openly and Catholicism was actually illegal in most colonies including Virginia (where being a priest was a capital crime), New York, and Massachusetts.  In signing the Declaration of Independence, Carroll claimed that he was seeking: “not only our independence of England but the toleration of all sects professing the Christian religion and communicating to them all equal rights.”   Carroll, in the Recusant Tradition of English Catholicism, was not a man given to external pieties however.  In speaking of religion he also said: “I detest screwed up devotion, distorted faces, and grimace.”  But he added: “I equally abhor those, who laugh at all devotion, look upon our religion as a fiction, and its holy mysteries as the greatest absurdities.”  How would he feel about the brouhaha on the Leesburg Courthouse Lawn?   I think that final statement would be a strong indication that he would not support displays that attack religion but at the same time as a Marylander he would have seen no purpose in a public display of religious symbols either.  In colonial and Revolutionary War days in America, Catholics would have been the only religious groups displaying something such as a crèche or nativity scene.  We have seen in our earlier blogs about Anglicans that eighteenth-century Anglicans (and their American branch, Episcopalians) did not so much as display a cross on the communion table much less statutes on the lawn. Congregationalists (who once had made Christmas illegal), Reformed, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Baptists, and those new-fangled Methodists (who were just coming on the scene) would be even more appalled at such “popish” displays.  Lutherans had known some such customs in Germany and Scandinavia—though I don’t think crèches were common—but the trip across the Atlantic had pretty much purified them of what Catholic heritage had survived among European Lutherans.  Maryland Catholics, with their recusant traditions, were used to keeping religious practice out of the public square and confining it to chapel and home.  Personally, I would be pretty much in that Maryland Catholic tradition.  In the Church, in the home (and on their lawns)—let there be nativity scenes.  In the public square—well, I think trees and other symbols of the Winter Solstice festival are fine, but not religious symbols. 

The Christian Faith of George Washington IV (and final)

George Washington wearing his Masonic Apron

while laying the cornerstone of the United States

Capitol

Well back to the Christian faith—or lack thereof—of George Washington, the most important of our Founding Fathers. Washington was, as we have said, an Anglican (before the American Revolution) Episcopalian (after American independence when the Episcopal Church in America separated from the Church of England.)  He attended church with a respectable regularity (though far from every week) and even served as vestryman and warden of his parish for about twelve years before the American Revolution.  There is debate as to whether or not Washington participated in The Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church but it seems as though he did not.  Given his undisputed integrity in public and private life, this abstinence from the Lord’s Table might be an important indication of how he understood Christian faith. 
      In addition to Washington’s being an active member of the Episcopal Church he was also a Freemason.   He was initiated in Freemason Lodge no.4 at Fredericksburg in 1752 at age 20.  Freemasonry was not simply a social activity for Washington.  With the same or even greater regularity as Washington attended church, he attended Lodge Meetings both while at Mount Vernon and while away, including the years spent away commanding the American forces during the Revolution.  Many of the senior officers in Washington’s command were also Freemasons, including his favorites, the Marquis de Lafayette and Henry Knox.  When Washington was sworn in as President in 1789 he took the oath of office on the Bible belonging to Saint John’s Lodge in New York City,  and when he laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in 1793 he wore his masonic apron, a sign of his membership and status in the Freemasons.      
       Today many devout Protestants are members of the Masons—and even, despite Church Law, Catholics.  Traditionally, however Lutherans and Catholics, the two most doctrinally minded Churches in the spectrum of Christian denominations, have refrained from affiliating to the Masons because historically Masons have offered a questionable (from an orthodox point of view) theology that differs substantially from Christian faith.  Classic freemasonry does not embrace the Father-God revealed in the Christian scriptures whose personal oversight extends into the lives of each of his children but rather offers the rationalist deity who is the Master Mason of the universe, the great designer of the laws of nature and embodiment of a rational justice whose moral laws are written on the human heart not by divine revelation but by absolute reason.  Such religion has a positivist understanding of the human person as guided by reason, not by grace, to goodness and sees sin not as the violation of Divine Command but a failure of reasonable judgment on the part of the individual.  Such “sin” does not need atonement and Christ is no longer Savior of the World but moral guide whose teachings are founded in reason rather than in revelation.  Such a savior has no need of being divinity incarnate but an enlightened human person whose godliness is a measure of his reason and not a divine nature.  As we saw in previous postings this allows the thinker to move from Christianity to Deism, from faith in Jesus to an admiration of Jesus, from Trinitarianism to Unitarianism or Deism (or Agnosticism) and from a personal God whose immanence is apprehended by faith to a Supreme Being whose Transcendence renders the believer significant only to the extent of his reasonable choices in life.  Now, I am not saying that all Masons, and in particular contemporary Masons, have moved this far from orthodox Christianity but it was typical of the Masons of the late seventeenth and of the eighteenth centuries.  Did Washington embrace such a rationalist “faith” rather than Christian orthodoxy?  We cannot say for sure but it is interesting that when Washington wrote of God he used such terms as “Providence,” “The Great Architect of the Universe,” "that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be"and “The Blessings of Heaven.”  When he wrote about Jesus it was as a moral teacher, not as a Redeemer.   All in all, one would have to say that viewed from today’s perspective Washington was more the Mason than the Episcopalian; more the Deist than the Christian.   Yet, unlike Jefferson or Franklin, I don’t think one could say about Washington that he wasn’t a Christian, at least of some sort.  In religion, as in politics, Washington was not a theoretician but a doer.  I suspect that for him Christianity was not about affirming doctrinal faith in Jesus Christ but living according to one’s best ability to follow the practical ethics found in the New Testament.  Even here, however, I think modern Christians would find Washington wanting.  Most seriously he maintained slaves.  He supported the American rebellion against constituted legitimate authority and he did so, in great part, because it was to his personal economic advantage.  But again when it came to morality, I think Washington was a man of practical judgments not abstract theory.  He did provide in his will that his slaves (not Martha’s) should be freed upon Martha’s death.  Even though Anglicans, like most Christians (including Catholics) other than Quakers did not object to slavery, Washington’s own moral compass told him that slavery was morally unsupportable but he knew that he could not maintain his public responsibilities without the benefits of a slave economy, nor was he willing to leave his widow without the practical support she needed to maintain their standard of livelihood once he was dead.  (And actually the majority of slaves on their estates were Martha’s, not George's.  He had no right in law, of course, to free her slaves.) I think for Washington public responsibilities took moral precedence over the freedom of one’s slaves.  This is a curious perspective, indeed troubling to the modern mind, but where would our Republic be had he chosen otherwise?  Similarly, Washington had no qualms about violating the oaths of loyalty to the King he had taken as a member of the militia, as a member of his church vestry, and as a member of the House of Burgesses.  I think Thomas Jefferson made it clear in the Declaration of Independence that the King’s failure to maintain the welfare of his American subjects justified the colonists in turning away from his “protection,” but it must be noted that severing the political subordination to Great Britain was of immense financial benefit to Washington and other Virginia Planters.  All of this is a way to say that Washington seems to have been guided not by Christian moral teaching but practical ethics symptomatic of Deist thought.  On the other hand, I think it is noteworthy that Washington has never been accused of marital infidelity with either a slave nor a social peer, despite his well-known love for Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend and neighbor.  This is only one example of Washington being a person of exceptional ethical fiber. For Washington it would seem that moral integrity was more a matter of personal honesty rather than what we would call today “social justice.”  I don’t think that was atypical, however, of eighteenth-century men of his social position whether or not religious. 
     Finally, let us note that when Washington was dying no clergy were summoned to attend him.  His funeral at Mount Vernon comprised both the traditional Episcopalian (formerly Anglican) Prayerbook rite and Masonic rituals. 
     All in all, I think Washington might be categorized with the oxymoron of a “Christian Deist.”  Unlike Jefferson or Franklin, Washington’s practical mind permitted him a dual allegiance to a vague Christianity and the religious indifferentism of Enlightenment Freemasonry. Unlike the more militant (and mostly European) masons, Washington was not hostile to religion and he never tried to exclude it from public life.  In addition to Sunday Worship he attended various services organized for the Continental Congress.  He was not only a generous financial supporter of the Episcopal Churches to which he belonged, but local legend maintains that through the agency of his friend and former aide, Colonel John Fitzgerald, Washington was one of the first contributors to the building of Saint Mary’s Church, Alexandria, the first Catholic Church in Virginia.  On the other hand, religious principles cannot be said to have guided his public or private life.  One would have to lump him with Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams in embracing a public life guided not by Christian principles but by what we might today call humanist ethics.       

    

The Christian Faith of George Washington III

Pohick Church, one of the churches that Washington

attended regularly.  This picture is taken from the

website.  Notice the centrality of the pulpit and how

the commuion table is placed in a more subordinate

position.  This arrangement was not unusual in 

Episcopalian Churches before the Oxford Movement

of the nineteenth century 

  So what about George Washington and his religious beliefs?  Was he a Christian?  Did he believe that this new Republic which he was so instrumental in creating was to be a Christian nation?  Remember we are looking at this in the context of the controversy of atheist displays on the Courthouse lawn at beautiful Virginia Horse Country Leesburg (the Home Town of Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum) Virginia and the claims of Loudon County Maven Barbara Curtis whose Blog Mommy Life is filled with information (and misinformation) of all sorts.  In the debate over the Leesburg Courthouse lawn Ms. Curtis asserted that “There is also the fact that our nation is indeed a Judeo-Christian nation - there's no disputing that.”  Is there no disputing that?  I am not so sure.  We have been looking at American History, first in the colonial period and then in the time of the creation of the American Republic, to see whether or not the United States was meant to be a Christian, or a Judeo-Christian, nation.  Massachusetts history would support Ms. Curtis’ claim, but the Founding Fathers of the Republic are not so univocal.  We have looked at the religious opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, and the Adams cousins and it would appear that the three responsible for the Declaration of Independence would not support the claim that we should be “A Christian Nation,” at least not as that claim is put forth by modern political “conservatives.”  (I put “conservatives” in quotation marks because I think they deviate from our American political heritage in any number of matters.)  Sam Adams who was somewhat of what we might call today an “evangelical” may have supported the Christian Nation idea.  So now we have moved on to George Washington—the single most significant—though not the most influential—of the Founding Fathers.  I make that distinction because Washington was extremely proactive in the practical matters of establishing the new nation  but not in shaping the political theory behind it.  He was a member of the Continental Congress and an advocate for Independence.  He was given command of the American forces fighting for Independence.  I chaired the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  And he served as the First President under the Constitution.  Yet other than being an advocate for Independence in the Continental Congress and an advocate for a (relatively) strong Federal Government in the Constitutional Convention he was not given to participating in the debates that shaped the new nation.  Washington was never much of a talker but more of a doer.  And it is precisely for that reason that the religious opinions of George Washington comprise a tricky subject.  Our last two entries painted a picture of eighteenth century Anglicanism (and its American expression, The Episcopal Church), the denomination to which Washington was formally affiliated. We have seen that Episcopalianism in the eighteenth century was not easily or narrowly defined and that an Episcopalian might be anything from an agnostic to an evangelical.  So what about George?  
      Well, in the first place George was an Anglican/Episcopalian not just in name but in practice.  He was affiliated to several Episcopalian parishes relatively near to Mount Vernon, most especially Pohick Church and Christ Church, Alexandria.  He worshipped at each of these Churches though with some irregularity.  Washington kept a meticulous journal of his daily activities and they indicate that he went to church about one Sunday in four while at Mount Vernon.  This is not a bad record for eighteenth-century Virginia gentry; after all it was not easy going to Church in eighteenth-century Virginia plantation society.  New England townsfolk could be religious without much inconvenience.  Pohick Church was about seven miles distant and would have been about an hour and a half by horseback or two hours by carriage each way from Mount Vernon. Given that George invariably went to Church in Martha’s company he probably went by carriage but, usually leaving church after first service (Morning Prayer) while Martha remained for Holy Communion at the second service, he may have returned by horseback.  Such a schedule probably meant leaving Mount Vernon before six a.m. and returning between eleven and noon.  Christ Church was three miles further from Mount Vernon than Pohick Church and in another direction, making the round trip perhaps an hour longer each way.  Weather would be one deterrent to Church attendance with rain making the roads difficult and snow making them impassable. However, Washington’s diary mentions Sundays where he went Fox-hunting rather than to Church so it was not always a weather related skip.  Sometimes too he stayed home to catch up on correspondence or to meet with his farm manager. 

Pohick Church where Washington most frequently attended was the seat of Truro Parish which had been divided from Hamilton Parish by the Virginia General Assembly in 1732.  Pohick Church itself, originally known as the Occoquan Church (because of a local creek), had been founded in 1695 when it still was part of Hamilton Parish.   Washington served on the vestry of Truro parish from 1762 until 1774 and several times was one of the two Wardens.  It was during his time on the Truro Vestry that the Falls Church was built and Washington briefly served on the vestry at the Falls Church as well.  However as it was contrary to law for one to sit on two vestries simultaneously he did not stay with the Falls Church. (Before the Revolution when the Church of England was the Established Church, civil law governed matters spiritual as well as civic.)   Given the distance from Mount Vernon to the Falls Church it is unlikely that he attended services there with any regularity.  Modern day The Falls Church and also Truro Church have separated themselves from the Episcopal Church while Pohick Church is still Episcopalian.  We might talk about that in some upcoming blogs. 

     Before the American Revolution public office in Virginia was restricted to members of the Established Church, i.e. the Anglican Church and Washington’s dedication to public life would have required of him membership in the Established Church. He could not have served either in  the militia or held any public office unless he were a member of the Anglican Church.   

Ironically Washington’s church attendance was better when he was away from Mount Vernon than when he was there.  Stories that he only attended divine service when Martha was with him seem not to bear out the facts and all those Sundays at Mount Vernon when he skipped church indicate that Martha probably played little influence on his worship patterns.  During the periods of time that he lived in Philadelphia and New York attendance at church services was much more convenient as the churches were right in town—a walk from where he lived.  In Philadelphia he worshipped at Saint Peter’s Church; in New York at Saint Paul’s Chapel.  During his time in Philadelphia he also attended a Quaker service and, on one occasion, a service (I believe it was a Te Deum, not a Mass) at Saint Joseph’s, the Jesuit Church, which is Pennsylvania’s oldest Catholic Church.   

      While George was a Church-goer there is a dispute about whether or not Washington received Holy Communion at Anglican or Episcopal services.  This would be a significant indication as to what his faith—and the Christian religion—meant to him.  In Washington’s time, as mentioned in the previous blog, Anglican theology held for a Calvinistic approach to the Eucharist that Christ was truly present but in a spiritual (as opposed to physical) manner.  Some Anglicans/Episcopalians would have emphasized the idea that Christ was Truly present and considered the difference between spiritual and physical presence to be inconsequential.  Others would have gone for a more Zwinglian understanding that Christ’s presence was purely by “remembrance”—a sort of “present in my heart” approach.  The Anglican liturgy itself was (and to some extent still is) ambiguous so as to be as inclusive as possible.  Washington never commented on Eucharistic theology so we do not know what he believed.  Various family remembrances, primarily from a generation or two after Washington’s death, claim that he frequently attended Holy Communion.  Several of the rectors of the Episcopal Churches which Washington attended claimed, however, that he never took the Sacrament and one of them, the Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie of Saint Peter’s—the Philadelphia Church Washington attended during the Continental Congress—explicitly said that Washington was a Deist.   Abercrombie had, in a Sunday Sermon, criticized Washington and other public figures who refrained from receiving communion for setting a bad example by not remaining in church for the Sacrament.  Historians generally concur that the clergy records are more reliable than the family stories in this matter and take it that Washington attended Morning Prayer—a service  of psalms, prayers, and a sermon, but not Holy Communion. 

Washington’s devotional practices reflect his moral integrity.  If there is one thing one can say about Washington is that, despite Parson Weems’ story of the cherry tree being a fabrication, he was a man of superior integrity.  He was certainly a gentleman and respectful of the opinions of others but he was extremely discreet regarding his own religious beliefs.  Martha, his wife, was a very devout Episcopalian who received the Sacrament often.  Washington normally accompanied her to church, both attending the Morning Prayer.   George would usually then leave while Martha remained for the second service of Holy Communion.  Washington never said why, but obviously the Holy Communion was not important to him.  Or perhaps it was too important to him to participate in a rite whose basic significance differed from his personal “faith.”  Perhaps when we look at the various other rituals which Washington did practice we can understand his rather unique Christianity. 

The Christian Faith of George Washington I

Samuel Seabury, first bishop

of the Episcopal Church in

the New Republic

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days, but have been doing some Christmas travel.  So let’s go back to our Founding Fathers/Christian nation series for a few entries.  I want to look at George Washington and his religious views, but before I do we need to understand the Anglican/Episcopal Church as it stood in the eighteenth century.  Washington was an Anglican/Episcopalian but that can be a bit misleading if we do not put it into context. 
     First of all why do I call his religious affiliation “Anglican/Episcopalian?”    Until the American Revolution the Anglican Church in the American colonies retained its traditional name—as it still does in most of the world—“Anglican.”  It was also called “The Church of England” in the colonies even as it was in the “Mother Country.”  “Anglican” means “English”—coming from the “Angles”—one of the Germanic tribes that in the fifth and sixth centuries had settled in what is today England.  In fact, England means “the land of the Angles.”  Even before Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1536 the English Church had a distinct identity and was known, even by Rome and in papal documents as the Ecclesia Anglicana—the English Church, the Anglican Church.   When the American colonies declared their independence from England many Anglicans, especially in New York and the northern colonies, were Tories and supported the British cause.  In Virginia, however, it was different. Most of the Virginia aristocracy was Anglican but for various reasons, including economic advantage, supported the break with England and were in favor of independence.  They did not want their Church to be known as “The Church of England” or as Anglican. They were no longer English.  They were Americans.  They needed another name. 
      At the time of the Reformation the Church of England had kept the traditional hierarchical order of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons though there is dispute over whether or not they maintained the apostolic succession or whether they understood the offices of Bishop and Priest in a sense compatible with Catholic dogma (see entry for December 7 2011 on “Valid Orders” for an introductory essay on this question.  We will have to deal with it in depth in some future entries—especially when we get to the subject of the English Reformation.)  In the colonial period American Anglicans were subject to the diocesan supervision of the Bishop of London as no Bishops had been appointed for the American colonies.   With independence that link with the Bishop of London was severed because the Bishop himself, Robert Lowth, refused oversight to the now independent former colonies.  After the Revolution, in 1783, The Anglican clergy of Connecticut elected one of their own, Samuel Seabury, and sent him to England to be consecrated as a bishop.  The English bishops, however, could not by English law consecrate him because he would not, as an American citizen, swear allegiance to the King.  English law required Anglican Bishops to take an oath of loyalty to the Crown as part of the Consecration Rite, even as Catholic Bishops were required to give obedience to the Pope.   Consequently, Samuel Seabury travelled to Scotland where several Scottish bishops who did not recognize the legitimacy of George III (their loyalty was to the Stuart claimant, Charles Edward, the “Young Pretender)” consecrated him to the episcopacy.  Several years later Maryland Anglicans elected William White and New Yorkers elected Samuel Provoost both of whom in 1787 were consecrated in England where the law by then had been changed to permit the consecration of bishops for lands not subject to the English Crown without requiring the oath of loyalty.  (By the way, this dispute about consecrating Bishops for America played an important role in the separation of Methodists from the Church of England, but that is for a future posting.)  Virginia Anglicans elected James Madison (no, not the future President but another James Madison) who was consecrated bishop in England in 1790.  With an established hierarchy, American Anglicans chose the name “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.”  That name is both significant and misleading.  The Church is Episcopal in as that it has an Episcopal system of government which is to say that it is led by bishops.  The confusion is in the name “Protestant.”  That was primarily meant to make it clear that, while it retained bishops, it was not “Catholic” in the sense of being in communion with the Pope. (“Bishops” were widely considered to be a Catholic innovation by most Protestants who followed a Presbyterian system of government.)  But what does Protestant mean and does it mean the same thing today as it did in the eighteenth century?  Did the organizers of the Episcopal Church choose “Protestant” as a negative identity, only to distinguish it from Catholics, or was it meant to convey a positive meaning, in terms of embracing the evangelical principles of the Reformation? 
      Today we see Episcopalians as “almost Catholic,” or, as one of my friends says “Catholic light: all the ritual, half the guilt.”  But what we see today in the Episcopal Church is not what George Washington would have seen in his day when Episcopal priests usually wore at the altar simply a black gown and preaching tabs and not even surplice much less Eucharistic vestments.  In Washington’s day, the pulpit was the focus of the church.  There was no altar, but a simple wooden communion table which held neither cross nor candles. Behind “The Holy Table” was mounted on the wall, tablets containing the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles Creed. The Service of Holy Communion (equivalent to the Catholic Mass) still had much of the structure of the Mass about it, but it was a far more Calvinistic Service than the 1928 Prayerbook or the1979 Book of Common Prayer.  For example, the reception of Holy Communion came directly after the Words of Institution “Take and eat, for this is my body…take and drink, for this is the cup of my blood….”  The Lord’s Prayer was only recited after Communion, the idea being the very Protestant idea that Christ gave us the Eucharist only for the eating and drinking in his memory. It was only with the Oxford Movement which began in 1833 that “Catholic” practices were revived in the Anglican and Episcopal churches—and revived slowly and with much opposition from the evangelical or “Low Church” wing, some of which still refuse the use of vestments, candles, altar cross, and hold to the Calvinistic liturgy and theology.   Far more significant to the Oxford Movement than the revival of pre-reformation ritual, however, was the insistence of doctrinal orthodoxy on the part of the Tractarian leadership of the Oxford Movement who realized that Anglicanism had been on a two-hundred year slippery slope into agnosticism and no longer held unswervingly to the Apostolic faith.  Many Anglicans embraced the rationalism of the period which had drifted from orthodox Christology and Trinitarian faith to Unitarianism and even Deism.  Thus we will see that George Washington’s being an Episcopalian is not guarantee of his being, by modern standards, a Christian.  Washington would recognize shreds and tatters of the Episcopal Church of his day in some of the language of the Prayer Book but he would be shocked to see both the liturgy and doctrine held by most modern Episcopalians who, as liberal as they are, were not nearly as scrubbed clean of Christian Orthodoxy as were Washington and his contemporaries. 

Founding Fathers and Christian Nations

Well, we have looked at Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and seen that their religious beliefs were what me might call post-Christian in as that, while recognizing the benefits of organized religion for the moral formation of the ordinary citizen, they themselves not only did not subscribe to any particular Christian denomination but in fact did not believe in a personal God as defined by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  They were both deists, what we might call today secular humanists, who believed that sound human reason, not divine revelation, was the cornerstone of moral formation and that human nature, being essentially rational and good, was inclined to moral behavior.  Of course I think that is incredibly naïve but then, like Luther, Calvin, and Benedict XVI, I am a pretty strong Augustinian.  Although both Franklin and Jefferson saw the benefits of organized religion for character formation of individuals less enlightened than themselves and their peers among the intelligentsia, Franklin seems to have held Christianity in higher regard than Jefferson but then while neither of them suffered fools gladly, Franklin was the more graciously mannered of the too.  Jefferson was your classic liberal showing little or no patience with those whom he regarded as his inferiors.  That is the problem with liberalism: it is not truly democratic but replaces socio-economic hierarchy with a social order based on intellectual pretense.  But let’s not pursue that, at least not now.  Instead let’s look at the third person responsible for the Declaration of Independence, John Adams—and by way of contrast—his cousin the instigator of independence, Sam Adams.   Both the Adams cousins were born and bred in New England Congregationalism.

     Congregationalism grew out of the Puritan wing of the Church of England and represented a strong Calvinist presence in the Established Church.  During the English Civil War when the monarchy was replaced by Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, Episcopacy was abolished in the Church of England and was replaced by Presbyterian Church Order.  That is to say that bishops were abolished and the Church was administered by Presbyteries—boards of pastors. The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 not only brought back the King but the bishops and the reintroduction of bishops split the Church of England with the Puritan wing refusing both bishops and the Anglican liturgy, and being known as non-Conformists (because they would not conform to the Anglican Church Order of Bishops and the Prayer Book).  During Cromwell’s Puritan Parliamentary government in England, the vast majority of colonial American Anglicans had not deviated from the Prayer Book and classic Anglicanism—though the Church in America never did have bishops—but in New England, which had always been quite Puritanical, nominal membership in the Church of England gave way to the emergence of a very non-Anglican denomination which we call Congregationalism. In the course of the eighteenth century New England Congregationalism itself split with many—indeed in Boston, the majority—of congregations rejecting Trinitarian faith for Unitarianism.

      Now, let’s talk for a moment about Unitarianism.  At the time of the Protestant Reformation there were many in Europe—particularly in England, Poland, Hungary, and Italy—among the intellectuals who rejected the Christian idea of a Trinitarian God—three “divine persons” consubstantial in one Divine Nature.  Trinitarianism was, and in some circles still is, seen as lightly disguised polytheism.  Nevertheless, the civil authorities, both Catholic and Protestant, rigorously suppressed any dissent.  After all, a corollary of Unitarianism is that Jesus is not Divine.  In the Enlightenment many mainline clergy—Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregationalists—embraced Unitarianism which at the time was not a separate denomination (much less a religion)  but rather a movement or opinion in various religious groups.  New England Congregationalism was split between Trinitarian and Unitarian factions.  Samuel Adams who maintained his membership at Old South Meeting House was a Trinitarian.  John Adams, who had studied at Harvard—a bastion of Unitarian thought—identified with the Unitarian faction.  It was only in the early nineteenth century, however, that the formal break came and Unitarianism and Congregationalism went their separate ways. 

     The Unitarianism of John Adams should not be confused with the Unitarianism of today.  Although it rejected the Divinity of Christ it considered itself—and was widely considered by others—to be a Christian denomination.  Unitarians believed—much like Jefferson—that the professions of Jesus’ divinity and the stories of miracles were added to the teachings of Jesus by the Evangelists and later generations of Christians.  Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Unitarianism looked to the Jewish-Christian scriptures for moral guidance and for inspiration though they did tend to give the texts a far more liberal interpretation than their more orthodox peers.  Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Unitarianism, influenced by theological Modernism, gradually dissolved its Christian identity in favor of a more universal approach to religion.  In John Adams’ day however, Unitarians still had a strong Christian (though not orthodox) identity.  While Jefferson and Franklin can be called Deists and post-Christian, John Adams should be counted as a Christian from a social point of view, if not a theological one.  That does not mean, however, that  he favored a Christian identity to the American Republic.  He wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1815:  “The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?”

       Adams saw organized religion as a threat to intellectual freedom and he bore a particular animus against Catholicism.  He had written his law dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law and, in true Enlightenment fashion, saw the Catholic Church as repressive of scientific advancement.  Yet he defended the rights of Catholics in the new Republic and despite a particular hatred—and fear—of the Jesuits he recognized that the American Republic had a duty to accept them.  He wrote to Jefferson: “I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.”  Reading this I cannot but wonder what he would have to say about Muslims in American today? 

       Samuel Adams was of a different bent than his cousin.  Perhaps no other individual save Thomas Paine was as responsible for fanning the flames of colonial discontent into the conflagration of Revolution as Samuel Adams.  Adams was a member of Old South Meeting House, a Congregationalist Church that when the break with the Unitarian faction came remained an bastion of Trinitarian belief. Sam Adams, even more rabidly anti-Catholic than his cousin, remained an orthodox Christian and religiously conservative. Today he would probably identify—though “today woulds” in history are tricky and unreliable (as well as irrelevant to argument) place himself among the so-called “Evangelicals.”  Would he favor the idea that we are “Christian Nation?” That is hard to say.  I can find no evidence either way.  During the lifetime of the Adams cousins Congregationalism was the official Church of Massachusetts—it was not disestablished until 1833.  Given his rationalist approach to religion,  I doubt that John Adams would have supported the idea of an officially  Christian Nation, but the more conservative Sam Adams might have.

Of Tim Tebow and Christmas Trees in the Park

The Christmas Tree in the Place

Notre Dame--just because it is in front

of the Cathedral doesn't make it a

symbol of Christian faith

I am not keen on this Tebow thing.  I don’t mean Tim—he’s fine, seems not only to play good ball but to be a very good man—but this prayer thing.  I don’t go for it.  The bible verse in eye black or whatever is fine.  Talking about Jesus is fine.  It is just that I think Jesus had a point when he said
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward  But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.  And your Father, who sees in secret will repay you.   (Matt 6:5-6)
     It is like those people who in a communion line need to drop to their knees just to show the world that they take Jesus more seriously than the rest of us luke-warm believers who follow the established procedure and remain standing to receive.  Nevertheless, even though I think the public displays of piety are indicative of a psycho-spiritual immaturity I want to defend Tim Tebow’s choice to publicly demonstrate his faith.  Rabbi Joshua Hammerman recently attacked Tebow’s public religiosity making the ridiculous claim that it can lead to “insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.”  Rabbi Hammerman retracted his statement and his column was pulled from the internet but the point had been made.  There are a lot of people in our society that want to see religion banished from the “public square.”  And this brings us back into the conversation about the crèche on the Courthouse lawn in Leesburg VA.   By the way,lil’ ol’ country town Leesburg isn’t the only place having this dispute.  Big ol’ California Gay Town Santa Monica is embroiled in it as well, but we will save that for future entries. 
     In looking at our Founding Fathers and the “Christian Nation” issue we need to differentiate between the “Public Square” and “The State,” or as we should call it for clarity—government.  A County Courthouse lawn is not only public space, it is government space.  A Courthouse lawn represents, symbolizes, like the Courthouse itself, the institution of government.  The same can be said for a State Capitol (or the U.S. Capitol),  government office buildings, the public lawns and chambers of official residences, embassies or other space where government functions.  This can be differentiated from publically owned (but governmentally administered) spaces such as streets or  public parks.  Government space, I think, should be free of religious (or anti-religion) symbols.  Public space, on the other hand, should be open to the public with equal access to all.  I don’t think that a crèche or a Menorah or an atheist slogan belongs in government space but I also think it is wrong to bar Muslims or atheists or Buddhists from erecting displays where Christians or Jews are so permitted to place their symbols.  There are those in our society who want religion to be restricted to the private sphere.  They would maintain that there should be no public displays of any religious symbols.  That is a restriction upon religious freedom.  While there are some religious groups who themselves see religion as a private matter—Quakers, for example—and while there are religions such as Judaism whose rites are traditionally practiced in the privacy of home and synagogue, there are other religions, Christianity being one, whose rites are meant to be public and to attempt to restrict their practice to behind closed doors is to inhibit their religious freedoms.  So Tim—I think you need to give Matthew 6:5-7 some thought, but if you want to showboat your religious faith I will defend your right to do so. 
     And before we move on from the subject of religious displays, there is need for one more clarification and that is between religious symbols and societal symbols.  A crèche is a religious symbol, a “Christmas Tree” has nothing to do with Christian faith.  “Christmas” is actually an amalgamation of two celebrations.  There is a Christian holyday.  A wreath with four candles, a crèche, a star, wisemen on camels, shepherds, Silent Night, a Saintly Bishop Nicholas,  or a good king Wenceslaus—all these symbolize the Christian feast.  There is also what anthropologists might call a “solstice celebration.”  The days are getting longer; the spell of winter is broken.  Christmas trees, candy canes, a fat man in a red suit with presents, strings of lights—these are about the solstice celebration.  Now not everybody chooses to celebrate the solstice.  That is a choice they make. They have no right to begrudge others having a glass of eggnog (or even getting snockered) while toasting the earth’s change of tilt.  But celebrating or not celebrating the solstice is not the same as celebrating or not celebrating the birth of Jesus.  There are plenty of people who don’t regard Jesus as anything more than pious fiction but who are into celebrating the solstice.  Personally, I would like to find a way about celebrating the birth of Jesus without having to get trapped in the solstice thing.  But don’t denigrate my religious faith by saying that a light-covered tree or an overweight elf represents my religious convictions.  I don’t need to see the baby Jesus at the Mall but don’t scream because there is a Christmas Tree in the town square.