Nora Haenggi

Liberty Delivered Through Interfaith Unity

The US is approaching its next election cycle. Among the many topics at hand are the founding fathers of our nation and what their beliefs and goals were when they drafted our founding documents. I wish to examine two common themes that seem to weave through the documents—God and Liberty. During conversation with my professor I expressed desire to learn more on this subject; he suggested that my research may result in polemic findings. Indeed, inquiry with classmates, professors, family, and acquaintances was divided. Some suggested the “God” frequently mentioned in our founding documents is a universal God, the God over all things, also known as the Deist God; others believe “God” is a reference to the Christian God. While the wishes of the founding fathers, with regards to the liberty for individuals of the United States, has always been a recurring theme in my education, I have found there has been less information or education on the subject of Deism. I wanted to find out if there was scholarly information explaining how or why the concepts of God and Liberty seem to be inextricably linked.

In short order, I found a humanities website. One contributor, by the name of Darren Staloff, is a history professor from the City University of New York’s Humanities department. His essay is titled Deism and the Founding of the United States (2008). Professor Staloff says we cannot assume religious affiliation of our founders based on the founding documents and that both Christians and Deists presided over the authorship. He explains that Deism is the basis of a belief in a supreme, yet perhaps distant God from whom all nature and reason derived. Professor Staloff suggests that only a few of our founding fathers and creators of our founding documents were Deist. The language chosen in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence align more with a neutral stance on religion in order that all may feel welcome. This particular style of writing language is also referred to as an ecumenical perspective. Staloff does equate rational theology with freethinking, and also attributes to freethinking as a freedom expressed in Christianity. I take this to mean that the terms “free”, “freethinking”, and “liberty” may have a shared history and philosophy between the Deists and Christians. Staloff also suggested researching an author by the name of David L. Holmes, because his approach was scholarly and non-polemic.

Interestingly enough, David L. Holmes penned a book called The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (2006). He suggests both Deists and Christians worked together to create our nation and founding documents. Some believers of traditional Christian values were Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson's daughters. However, some of the more influential figures believed differently including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison, and James Monroe. Respectful of Christianity, they admired the ethics of Jesus, and believed that religion could play a beneficial role in society and morals. However, they tended to deny the divinity of Christ, doubted the existence of a Holy Trinity, and a few seem to have been agnostic about the very existence of God. Although the founding fathers were religious men, Holmes shows that it was a faith quite unlike the evangelistic Christianity. In this regard, it seems they were able to respect and recognize the various versions of Christianity and other world faiths and draft the documents in such a way as to maintain a separation of church and state. This is personal liberty—the freedom to worship as one pleased and without having to honor a state sponsored religion.

Additionally, Holmes discusses the bridge between the Deist and the Puritan groups in the tolerant Protestants of Pennsylvania who stressed unity, liberty, and charity. He discovered in his research another bridge group called the freethinkers who associated with many different denominations including the Deists. Through his research he deduced that George Washington may have categorized himself in this group. This group is attributed favoring free-conscience for all Christians, Jews, Deists, and freethinkers. These groups convened and discussed the ways in which the US might promote and establish religious liberty and tolerance as central principles of the new US government. Holmes includes Madison in his research. Although Madison practiced orthodoxy, he was also devoted to the principle that liberty of conscience would then guarantee civil and political liberty. In fact, Madison was the one to demand freedom of conscience included in the Constitution of the United States.

Not only is the Constitution a founding document, but also is the Declaration of Independence. One of the better ways to determine the wishes of the founding fathers is to examine the words they used in these founding documents. For instance the Declaration of Independence States, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. This particular approach may be seen as either ecumenical, Deistic, or both. The US Constitution guarantees religious freedom, and that no citizen’s freedom or liberties may be revoked without due process.

               Though a considerable number of founding fathers were, in fact Deist, others were Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian. What we can glean from this brief look into the research of God and Liberty is an over-arching theme amongst the founding fathers in their wishes to establish unity and liberty based on a moral code in what appears to be a humanistic or ecumenical approach. As we think about what it means to have such legacies as the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, we might also better understand the ideological approach our founders launched for the citizens of the US and what it means for the upcoming election cycle.

References

Holmes, David Lynn. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006. Print.

Staloff, Darren. “Deism and the Founding of the United States.” Divining America, TeacherServe©.

National Humanities Center. Web. 29 March 2012

 http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/deism.htm

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/