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Did America Have a Christian Founding?: Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth
A distinguished professor debunks the assertion that America's Founders were deists who desired the strict separation of church and state and instead shows that their political ideas were profoundly influenced by their Christian convictions.
In 2010, David Mark Hall gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation entitled "Did America Have a Christian Founding?" His balanced and thoughtful approach to this controversial question caused a sensation. C-SPAN televised his talk, and an essay based on it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.
In this book, Hall expands upon this essay, making the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists. He explains why and how the Founders' views are absolutely relevant today, showing
that they did not create a "godless" Constitution;
that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state;
that most Founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and
that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons.
This compelling and utterly persuasive book will convince skeptics and equip believers and conservatives to defend the idea that Christian thought was crucial to the nation's founding--and that this benefits all of us, whatever our faith (or lack of faith).
In 2010, David Mark Hall gave a lecture at the Heritage Foundation entitled "Did America Have a Christian Founding?" His balanced and thoughtful approach to this controversial question caused a sensation. C-SPAN televised his talk, and an essay based on it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.
In this book, Hall expands upon this essay, making the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists. He explains why and how the Founders' views are absolutely relevant today, showing
that they did not create a "godless" Constitution;
that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state;
that most Founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and
that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons.
This compelling and utterly persuasive book will convince skeptics and equip believers and conservatives to defend the idea that Christian thought was crucial to the nation's founding--and that this benefits all of us, whatever our faith (or lack of faith).
240 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 2019
About the author
Mark David Hall
20 books20 followersMark David Hall, is Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics and Faculty Fellow in the William Penn Honors Program at George Fox University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
February 29, 2020
The title asks the question, and the book answers it in the affirmative. The answer is definitive. Great book.
March 13, 2022
For me, the issue was settled back in 1975 when I first started reading about the Calvinistic influence on American history. There was a history professor at our local community college who was the most scholarly teacher on staff and a thorough-going Calvinist. A friend told me to take his class because "he teaches the Five Points of Calvinism, and you need to know that for American literature." She was right, for American literature is a tug of war between Calvinists (beginning with the Puritans) and those retreating from Calvinism (from Hawthorne to Twain to Crane to Hemingway).
Since 1975, the issue has been raised in a number of ways regarding the question of America's founding. Did America have a Christian founding? By founding, do we mean colonial America or the independent American Republic? What does it mean that America did or did not have a Christian founding? And, what difference does it make now?
I am guessing that I have read or heard over 100 full length books, essays, and lectures on the topic of Christianity and America. I even gave a few of those lectures and have written on it myself in my book. So, Mark David Hall's newest book Did America Have a Christian Founding?, published by Nelson Books, is a welcome guest to the discussion. But Dr. Hall is not a late arrival to the party. He has written and contributed to more than a dozen books on the relationship between religion and politics. These studies include a thorough study of Roger Sherman, who is often overlooked among the Founders and yet was a solid believer. This book, therefore, is not an author's exploration of new ground, but rather the scholarly contribution of one who has combed the sources repeatedly.
I will not at this time attempt a chapter by chapter survey of the book, but will instead focus just a bit on the opening chapter. The issue is Deism. I once heard someone say, "Whether history repeats itself is not clear, but historians repeat each other." Both specialized books and monographs and history textbooks assure us that by the time of the American War for Independence and the writing of the Constitution, Deism had supplanted Christianity as the prevailing religious and philosophical worldview. And, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and a few other key figures were all basically card-carrying Deists.
This whole contention is problematic. (I have long waited to use that stuffy word "problematic.") There was not a denomination or church group that adhered to the title Deist, but that is not the real issue. The language attributed to Deism and that attributed to Christianity is identical at points. I might say, "It is going to rain today." One might interpret that to mean that I believe that the falling of rain is not the direct intervention and providential control of weather by God, but is the acting of laws of nature that God created, but doesn't direct minutely. Should I say, "God is going to send rain today"? Nothing wrong with that. As James 4:15 points out, we ought to couch all of our language in terms that indicate God's present, active control.
I don't think James is giving us a directive so that we have to be this mechanical. But there should be an underlying presupposition, a worldview, a philosophy of life, that indicates and reinforces our conviction of God's presence. Yet, the Founders were not writing about an "it" or a force or laws of nature. They used terms like Providence, Governor of the Universe, Architect of the world, and so on. This language was no more denying orthodox Christianity than my saying "Jesus is Lord" denies the Trinity.
A few people of the time did prescribe to Deism. These included such men as Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine. Allen, best known now for his name being attached to furniture, played a minimal role (heroic though it was) in the war. Paine was a brilliant, quirky wordsmith with erratic tendencies. The "best known" Deists, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were either the two worst Deistic hypocrites of all time or were personally inconsistent in their practice. R. J. Rushdoony demolished the myth of Franklin's and Jefferson's Deism for me when I read the first of This Independent Republic decades ago.
Dr. Hall begins each chapter with a list of quotations from prominent historians and sources that go against his theses. He provides more quotes and references in the ample endnotes to the book. Then, he begins systematically answering and refuting the claims. There are no strawmen here. The best and most reputable scholars only are allowed in the ring in these matches.
I highly recommend this book. If you are a history teacher or student, get it immediately. If you are a pastor, get it quickly. If you are a patriot, get it soon. If you cannot buy it right now, ask your personal Santa Claus for the book. Don't end 2019 without this work in your hands and on your shelf.
Since 1975, the issue has been raised in a number of ways regarding the question of America's founding. Did America have a Christian founding? By founding, do we mean colonial America or the independent American Republic? What does it mean that America did or did not have a Christian founding? And, what difference does it make now?
I am guessing that I have read or heard over 100 full length books, essays, and lectures on the topic of Christianity and America. I even gave a few of those lectures and have written on it myself in my book. So, Mark David Hall's newest book Did America Have a Christian Founding?, published by Nelson Books, is a welcome guest to the discussion. But Dr. Hall is not a late arrival to the party. He has written and contributed to more than a dozen books on the relationship between religion and politics. These studies include a thorough study of Roger Sherman, who is often overlooked among the Founders and yet was a solid believer. This book, therefore, is not an author's exploration of new ground, but rather the scholarly contribution of one who has combed the sources repeatedly.
I will not at this time attempt a chapter by chapter survey of the book, but will instead focus just a bit on the opening chapter. The issue is Deism. I once heard someone say, "Whether history repeats itself is not clear, but historians repeat each other." Both specialized books and monographs and history textbooks assure us that by the time of the American War for Independence and the writing of the Constitution, Deism had supplanted Christianity as the prevailing religious and philosophical worldview. And, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and a few other key figures were all basically card-carrying Deists.
This whole contention is problematic. (I have long waited to use that stuffy word "problematic.") There was not a denomination or church group that adhered to the title Deist, but that is not the real issue. The language attributed to Deism and that attributed to Christianity is identical at points. I might say, "It is going to rain today." One might interpret that to mean that I believe that the falling of rain is not the direct intervention and providential control of weather by God, but is the acting of laws of nature that God created, but doesn't direct minutely. Should I say, "God is going to send rain today"? Nothing wrong with that. As James 4:15 points out, we ought to couch all of our language in terms that indicate God's present, active control.
I don't think James is giving us a directive so that we have to be this mechanical. But there should be an underlying presupposition, a worldview, a philosophy of life, that indicates and reinforces our conviction of God's presence. Yet, the Founders were not writing about an "it" or a force or laws of nature. They used terms like Providence, Governor of the Universe, Architect of the world, and so on. This language was no more denying orthodox Christianity than my saying "Jesus is Lord" denies the Trinity.
A few people of the time did prescribe to Deism. These included such men as Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine. Allen, best known now for his name being attached to furniture, played a minimal role (heroic though it was) in the war. Paine was a brilliant, quirky wordsmith with erratic tendencies. The "best known" Deists, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were either the two worst Deistic hypocrites of all time or were personally inconsistent in their practice. R. J. Rushdoony demolished the myth of Franklin's and Jefferson's Deism for me when I read the first of This Independent Republic decades ago.
Dr. Hall begins each chapter with a list of quotations from prominent historians and sources that go against his theses. He provides more quotes and references in the ample endnotes to the book. Then, he begins systematically answering and refuting the claims. There are no strawmen here. The best and most reputable scholars only are allowed in the ring in these matches.
I highly recommend this book. If you are a history teacher or student, get it immediately. If you are a pastor, get it quickly. If you are a patriot, get it soon. If you cannot buy it right now, ask your personal Santa Claus for the book. Don't end 2019 without this work in your hands and on your shelf.
September 10, 2020
It is a dangerous proposition to critique a “distinguished professor” but I do so as a practicing historian in both public and academic worlds who also holds a Ph.D. in American History. Mark David Hall has attempted a history of the founding generation of America to prove that it had a Christian founding. My finding is Hall had ignored better research to satisfy the groups supporting Christian Nationalism. Coming from an evangelical and Christian nationalist background myself, I understand how tempting it is to embrace this interpretation. However, the founding era is much more complex than Dr. Hall depicts, and it shows a lack of long-term research into the nature of public Christianity and cultural history. It is better written and researched but it follows the “David Barton school of historiography.” He cherry-picks documents to prove his point instead of swimming in the documents as a whole AND reading previous works by those who spent decades in this field. It is not a history but an argument. It is written by a legitimate scholar but, working outside his area of expertise.
Colonial America was on the historical edge of what we call “Christendom”. A society was Christian because its leaders identified as such and supported a Church. The American Revolution generation was part of a society that was very Biblically literate, even if they ignored its commands. The elite of that age, who led the Revolution and drafted our founding documents, were a mixed bag of personalities influenced by their culture which included Christianity, Enlightenment writings, and old radical Whig ideals. I also reject the other side claimed that America was only radical and religiously unorthodox. It was both. Historian Mark Noll noted after his decades of research into American religious history that the United States was a very religious country, very religious but vaguely Christian. Better research into this theme has been provided by historians such as Mark Noll, Thomas S. Kidd, John D. Wilsey, John Butler, and John Fea.
Colonial America was on the historical edge of what we call “Christendom”. A society was Christian because its leaders identified as such and supported a Church. The American Revolution generation was part of a society that was very Biblically literate, even if they ignored its commands. The elite of that age, who led the Revolution and drafted our founding documents, were a mixed bag of personalities influenced by their culture which included Christianity, Enlightenment writings, and old radical Whig ideals. I also reject the other side claimed that America was only radical and religiously unorthodox. It was both. Historian Mark Noll noted after his decades of research into American religious history that the United States was a very religious country, very religious but vaguely Christian. Better research into this theme has been provided by historians such as Mark Noll, Thomas S. Kidd, John D. Wilsey, John Butler, and John Fea.
November 28, 2020
With Did America Have a Christian Founding?, Mark David Hall has written a book that is as useful as it should be unnecessary. To anyone approaching the American founding (apologies to Russell Kirk) without ideological blinders, the religious faith of the founding generation is patently obvious. This is not to deny that there were varying levels of commitment to the Christian faith among that generation, nor that some prominent members of it held less orthodox views. But it cannot seriously be questioned that the generation that declared independence, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote and ratified the Constitution was deeply Christian. And, as Hall shows, that faith influenced them at all points along that journey.
Hall, the author and editor of several scholarly works on religion and the American founding, addresses this book to the layman, and in each chapter rebuts a common claim of those who he calls the "separationists" - the people who believe that the Founders sought to strictly divide all religion from political society.
First, he addresses the claim that the Founders were all, or were at least predominately Deists, people who believed in the existence of a God, but did not believe that He intervened in the affairs of men. In order to claim that the Founders were Deists, separationists focus on a select few men who, while undoubtedly prominent, did not comprehensively comprise that generation, and in fact were not representative in their religious beliefs of the Founders specifically, or American society more generally.
Indeed, in an era in which over half of Americans, and dozens of political leaders, were Calvinists, Hall numbers those who are claimed to be Deists at only eight. What's more, the evidence for the alleged Deism of some of these eight (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Maidson among them) is wholly unconvincing. Others, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, doubtlessly had unorthodox views and were given much more to Enlightenment rationalism than religious faith; yet these men still occasionally referenced the actions of God in the affairs of men and nations. Of the eight, says Hall, only Ethan Allen was unequivocally a Deist. All of this added together, Hall says, does not support the claim that "all" or "most" of the founding generation were Deists, and in fact such claims ignore the evidence that the vast majority of the generation, including prominent figures such as Roger Sherman (of whom Hall has written an excellent biography) and Samuel Adams, were orthodox, typically Reformed, Christians.
Next, Hall challenges the notion that the Constitution is a secular document that expels all notions of religious faith from the federal government. The evidence often cited for this view is the lack of references to God in the actual Constitution, yet Hall points out that this exclusionary evidence ignores the publicly-stated beliefs of civil leaders that good government goes hand in hand with religious instruction and public morality. Hall notes that the Founders believed that religion was necessary to the maintenance of public morality upon which peaceful, republican government depends. Washington, for instance, admitted the possibility that some few people could, using reason alone, develop positive moral virtues, but believed that society as a whole needs religion to inculcate these things broadly, an opinion he was joined in by many other of his contemporaries. The claim, then, that the Constitution is a "godless document" that presumes nothing about society's religious beliefs is false. Indeed, Hall shows that the Founders' attitudes on human nature, the necessity of limiting government power, and the idea of rights - all of which contributed to their political theory - were informed by Christianity.
In the third chapter, Hall addresses the elephant in the room, the claim that the First Amendment created, in Jefferson's phrase, "a wall of separation" between church and state (which separationists always extend into a complete separation between all religion and all politics). These claims are almost always buttressed with appeals to Jefferson and Madison - to their work on religious liberty in Virginia, and their private opinions on religion - the implication being that it is the opinions of these two men, and them only, that gives context to the First Amendment's Establishment clause.
But, says Hall, this ignores the influence of the many other men who participated in the construction and revision of the First Amendment while simultaneously overstating the importance of figures like Jefferson and Madison. He surveys the influence, or lack thereof, of Jefferson and the 1786 Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom on the First Amendment, noting that the Virginia Statute was not widely referenced at the time the First Amendment was being debated (Hall says it was "ignored"), and that even in Virginia the Assembly did not consider the statute an incentive to sever the ties between the state and religion.
Similarly, Hall finds the claim that Madison was the sole or primary influence on the First Amendment to ignore the fact that his "Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785) in Virginia, which fought Patrick Henry's attempt to secure taxpayer funding for churches, was not as influential as is claimed, and was actually less influential than an explicitly Christian argument against Henry's bill. Of importance is that this Christian argument, which Hall notes had more signatories and was written seven months before Madison's, fought against Henry's bill in order to protect religious faith rather than to reduce its influences.
Separationists also refer to Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists (the origin of the "wall of separation" phrase) and a private letter written by Madison in 1833 in which he references "a line of separation between the rights of Religion [and] the Civil authority." But these comments do not provide the kind of support for their ideas that the separationists suppose. Hall writes, "Jefferson and Madison wanted a greater degree of separation between church and state than most of their colleagues. But they did not support the sort of strict separation advocated today..." He concludes that focusing solely on Madison and Jefferson ignores the influence of figures such as Sherman, Fisher Ames, and dozens of others who worked on the First Amendment and who did not have the views that modern anti-religionists impute to Madison - which is likely the point.
Next, Hall makes the case that the Founders believed that government and civil society should support religion and morality. He again points out how intimately connected the founding generation believed freedom and civic order were to religious, specifically Christian principles, and how they thought that the government (not necessarily the federal government) had a supporting (not primary) role to play in their preservation and dissemination. State governments routinely passed legislation designed to curtail vice and encourage virtue, with some even mandating Bible ownership and church attendance. Hall's point is not that these would be appropriate measures today (he thinks they're not), but that in the founding era religion, morality, and civic order were all tied up together and not thought to be strictly separated, or separable.
Finally, Hall argues that the Founders' believed that true religious belief required the freedom to worship God according to one's own conscience, and that this commitment to religious liberty was often explained in explicitly Christian terms. Because of this, Americans argued for "the sacred rights of conscience," even when this meant offering protection to minority religious groups (though, due to social and political differences, this principle was not applied uniformly across the states).
Practically, this resulted in a sincere attempt to accommodate the beliefs of religious minorities, notably Quakers, particularly in relation to military service. This tradition was extended throughout American history to include the beliefs of both Christians and non-Christians believers, but Hall observes that particularly since the turn of the 21st century the idea of accommodating religious beliefs is quickly going out of style. Hall admirably attempts to apply the Founders' spirit of accommodation to today's issues, noting that the consciences of, say, bakers and florists can be respected without harming the general principles of plurality.
I think Hall is right to point out that proper government, being based on attempts to find compromise between different people and groups of people, requires offering as much latitude as possible to people of different religious beliefs. However, I also wonder if such levels of accommodation require a significant degree of common sentiment that is increasingly rare. The founding generation was, after all, overwhelmingly Christian and was without the dramatic differences in first principles that we now encounter in American society. Richard Weaver believed that "a culture is a shared thing, which cannot exist without consensus." For Weaver, "culture is like an organic creation in that its constitution cannot tolerate more than a certain amount of what is foreign or extraneous. Certain outside values may be assimilated through transformation or reworking, but fundamentally unless a culture can maintain its own right to its own choices—its own inclusions and exclusions—it will cease." The question of whether there is a limit to how much difference of belief can exist within the same society is one of increasing pertinence.
Further, if religious liberty and freedom of conscience are, as Hall says, essentially Christian ideals, as they were in the founding era, what becomes of these concepts in a post-Christian world? Indeed, we see all around us today a notable lack of tolerance among people with non-traditional, and sometimes explicitly anti-Christian views. The question, then, is not so much whether religious liberty is the proper political principle, but whether or not that political principle has cultural limitations beyond which it disintegrates.
Hall himself seems to answer this question in the affirmative. Earlier in the book he quotes Jedediah Morse, a prominent minister and geographer, who in 1799 said, "All efforts to destroy the Foundation of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican form of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." How ironic it would be if, in neutering the effect of Christianity in social and civic life, the separationists were to destroy the very foundations of the liberties they (and we) enjoy.
Did America Have a Christian Founding? makes a very good case that, in attempting to separate religion and government, the separationists are departing from, rather than upholding, the principles of the American founding. In this way, the book is a smashing success. However, the gathering question is to what degree the enemies of religion in American life even care about those principles anymore.
Hall, the author and editor of several scholarly works on religion and the American founding, addresses this book to the layman, and in each chapter rebuts a common claim of those who he calls the "separationists" - the people who believe that the Founders sought to strictly divide all religion from political society.
First, he addresses the claim that the Founders were all, or were at least predominately Deists, people who believed in the existence of a God, but did not believe that He intervened in the affairs of men. In order to claim that the Founders were Deists, separationists focus on a select few men who, while undoubtedly prominent, did not comprehensively comprise that generation, and in fact were not representative in their religious beliefs of the Founders specifically, or American society more generally.
Indeed, in an era in which over half of Americans, and dozens of political leaders, were Calvinists, Hall numbers those who are claimed to be Deists at only eight. What's more, the evidence for the alleged Deism of some of these eight (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Maidson among them) is wholly unconvincing. Others, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, doubtlessly had unorthodox views and were given much more to Enlightenment rationalism than religious faith; yet these men still occasionally referenced the actions of God in the affairs of men and nations. Of the eight, says Hall, only Ethan Allen was unequivocally a Deist. All of this added together, Hall says, does not support the claim that "all" or "most" of the founding generation were Deists, and in fact such claims ignore the evidence that the vast majority of the generation, including prominent figures such as Roger Sherman (of whom Hall has written an excellent biography) and Samuel Adams, were orthodox, typically Reformed, Christians.
Next, Hall challenges the notion that the Constitution is a secular document that expels all notions of religious faith from the federal government. The evidence often cited for this view is the lack of references to God in the actual Constitution, yet Hall points out that this exclusionary evidence ignores the publicly-stated beliefs of civil leaders that good government goes hand in hand with religious instruction and public morality. Hall notes that the Founders believed that religion was necessary to the maintenance of public morality upon which peaceful, republican government depends. Washington, for instance, admitted the possibility that some few people could, using reason alone, develop positive moral virtues, but believed that society as a whole needs religion to inculcate these things broadly, an opinion he was joined in by many other of his contemporaries. The claim, then, that the Constitution is a "godless document" that presumes nothing about society's religious beliefs is false. Indeed, Hall shows that the Founders' attitudes on human nature, the necessity of limiting government power, and the idea of rights - all of which contributed to their political theory - were informed by Christianity.
In the third chapter, Hall addresses the elephant in the room, the claim that the First Amendment created, in Jefferson's phrase, "a wall of separation" between church and state (which separationists always extend into a complete separation between all religion and all politics). These claims are almost always buttressed with appeals to Jefferson and Madison - to their work on religious liberty in Virginia, and their private opinions on religion - the implication being that it is the opinions of these two men, and them only, that gives context to the First Amendment's Establishment clause.
But, says Hall, this ignores the influence of the many other men who participated in the construction and revision of the First Amendment while simultaneously overstating the importance of figures like Jefferson and Madison. He surveys the influence, or lack thereof, of Jefferson and the 1786 Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom on the First Amendment, noting that the Virginia Statute was not widely referenced at the time the First Amendment was being debated (Hall says it was "ignored"), and that even in Virginia the Assembly did not consider the statute an incentive to sever the ties between the state and religion.
Similarly, Hall finds the claim that Madison was the sole or primary influence on the First Amendment to ignore the fact that his "Memorial and Remonstrance" (1785) in Virginia, which fought Patrick Henry's attempt to secure taxpayer funding for churches, was not as influential as is claimed, and was actually less influential than an explicitly Christian argument against Henry's bill. Of importance is that this Christian argument, which Hall notes had more signatories and was written seven months before Madison's, fought against Henry's bill in order to protect religious faith rather than to reduce its influences.
Separationists also refer to Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists (the origin of the "wall of separation" phrase) and a private letter written by Madison in 1833 in which he references "a line of separation between the rights of Religion [and] the Civil authority." But these comments do not provide the kind of support for their ideas that the separationists suppose. Hall writes, "Jefferson and Madison wanted a greater degree of separation between church and state than most of their colleagues. But they did not support the sort of strict separation advocated today..." He concludes that focusing solely on Madison and Jefferson ignores the influence of figures such as Sherman, Fisher Ames, and dozens of others who worked on the First Amendment and who did not have the views that modern anti-religionists impute to Madison - which is likely the point.
Next, Hall makes the case that the Founders believed that government and civil society should support religion and morality. He again points out how intimately connected the founding generation believed freedom and civic order were to religious, specifically Christian principles, and how they thought that the government (not necessarily the federal government) had a supporting (not primary) role to play in their preservation and dissemination. State governments routinely passed legislation designed to curtail vice and encourage virtue, with some even mandating Bible ownership and church attendance. Hall's point is not that these would be appropriate measures today (he thinks they're not), but that in the founding era religion, morality, and civic order were all tied up together and not thought to be strictly separated, or separable.
Finally, Hall argues that the Founders' believed that true religious belief required the freedom to worship God according to one's own conscience, and that this commitment to religious liberty was often explained in explicitly Christian terms. Because of this, Americans argued for "the sacred rights of conscience," even when this meant offering protection to minority religious groups (though, due to social and political differences, this principle was not applied uniformly across the states).
Practically, this resulted in a sincere attempt to accommodate the beliefs of religious minorities, notably Quakers, particularly in relation to military service. This tradition was extended throughout American history to include the beliefs of both Christians and non-Christians believers, but Hall observes that particularly since the turn of the 21st century the idea of accommodating religious beliefs is quickly going out of style. Hall admirably attempts to apply the Founders' spirit of accommodation to today's issues, noting that the consciences of, say, bakers and florists can be respected without harming the general principles of plurality.
I think Hall is right to point out that proper government, being based on attempts to find compromise between different people and groups of people, requires offering as much latitude as possible to people of different religious beliefs. However, I also wonder if such levels of accommodation require a significant degree of common sentiment that is increasingly rare. The founding generation was, after all, overwhelmingly Christian and was without the dramatic differences in first principles that we now encounter in American society. Richard Weaver believed that "a culture is a shared thing, which cannot exist without consensus." For Weaver, "culture is like an organic creation in that its constitution cannot tolerate more than a certain amount of what is foreign or extraneous. Certain outside values may be assimilated through transformation or reworking, but fundamentally unless a culture can maintain its own right to its own choices—its own inclusions and exclusions—it will cease." The question of whether there is a limit to how much difference of belief can exist within the same society is one of increasing pertinence.
Further, if religious liberty and freedom of conscience are, as Hall says, essentially Christian ideals, as they were in the founding era, what becomes of these concepts in a post-Christian world? Indeed, we see all around us today a notable lack of tolerance among people with non-traditional, and sometimes explicitly anti-Christian views. The question, then, is not so much whether religious liberty is the proper political principle, but whether or not that political principle has cultural limitations beyond which it disintegrates.
Hall himself seems to answer this question in the affirmative. Earlier in the book he quotes Jedediah Morse, a prominent minister and geographer, who in 1799 said, "All efforts to destroy the Foundation of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican form of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." How ironic it would be if, in neutering the effect of Christianity in social and civic life, the separationists were to destroy the very foundations of the liberties they (and we) enjoy.
Did America Have a Christian Founding? makes a very good case that, in attempting to separate religion and government, the separationists are departing from, rather than upholding, the principles of the American founding. In this way, the book is a smashing success. However, the gathering question is to what degree the enemies of religion in American life even care about those principles anymore.
August 6, 2020
Hall speaks briefly about the tendency of the founders to speak about God with terms such as "Supreme Being" or "Divine Creator" without getting into the important history of deism and enlightenment Christianity that these terms often denote. Of course the founders were Christians in many ways - it is the SORT of Christian that they were that matters. Many Enlightenment Christians had very warm feelings about a sort of "rational religion," a mental process by which they accomplished in their minds something which Jefferson needed scissors to do: prune religion down to what was harmonious with enlightened thought. I believe Hall ignores clear signs that many of the Founders were this type of Christian.
That being said, I agree with his conclusions about the Founder's intent when it comes to religious freedom and why Christians should support it for all Americans, not just the ones we agree with.
Did the Founders want an explicitly Christian Constitution? It seems not. If they had, the preamble might have looked more like that of the Irish Constitution, which I'm enclosing below.
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,
We, the people of Éire,
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,
And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,
Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
That being said, I agree with his conclusions about the Founder's intent when it comes to religious freedom and why Christians should support it for all Americans, not just the ones we agree with.
Did the Founders want an explicitly Christian Constitution? It seems not. If they had, the preamble might have looked more like that of the Irish Constitution, which I'm enclosing below.
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,
We, the people of Éire,
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,
And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,
Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
May 29, 2020
This is an excellent primer that pushes back on the idea of a deistic founding. It’s not meant to be a deep scholarly book. It’s written for laypeople. While I might quibble with a couple things here and there, Dr. Hall makes a great case that the Founders were in many ways convincingly Christian. I’m perhaps not as convinced they were particularly “interested” in religion, but to Dr Hall’s credit he states very clearly his aim is to show that the Founding was not deistic or secular. In that, he succeeds and does so convincingly.
May 28, 2020
Hall makes the briefest definitive case establishing America was founded by Christians and a few non-Christians happy to see Christianity voluntarily flourish. His discussion reveals how free speech, freedom of religion and more are part of a Christian founding. These values and freedoms are eroding as Christ and the church are marginalized.
April 20, 2020
The evidence is so abundantly clear that Christianity had a direct influence on this nation. If we are to remain in denial its either by willful ignorance or deep commitments to revisionist history.
The author does an excellent evidence based job to display this historical reality. What really should be common knowledge based on primary historical sources.
Did our founders create a "theocracy?" Absolutely not. Did a Christianized people create this nation....no doubt about it. When John Adams said " Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." No one from that era questioned what morality or religious perspective he meant.
When at the constitution convention Benjamin Franklin said "I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel." No one was ignorant of the allusions he uses, nor of the God he was referring to. Even though Franklin was not an orthodox Christian. He certainly wasn't a deist who believed God was so detached from America's creation.
This book is a direct and concise read. It rightly tackles the myths modern devout secularist lay upon our founding fathers and corrects those errors mostly with primary sources. I highly recommend it and view it as an important read as religious liberty seems to be on the chopping block by many elites. In truth our progressive friends don't realize that religious liberty gave way to the idea of tolerance. An ideal progressives claim to love......so long as they are the ones who only get to define it.
Pick this book up it's worth your time!
The author does an excellent evidence based job to display this historical reality. What really should be common knowledge based on primary historical sources.
Did our founders create a "theocracy?" Absolutely not. Did a Christianized people create this nation....no doubt about it. When John Adams said " Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." No one from that era questioned what morality or religious perspective he meant.
When at the constitution convention Benjamin Franklin said "I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel." No one was ignorant of the allusions he uses, nor of the God he was referring to. Even though Franklin was not an orthodox Christian. He certainly wasn't a deist who believed God was so detached from America's creation.
This book is a direct and concise read. It rightly tackles the myths modern devout secularist lay upon our founding fathers and corrects those errors mostly with primary sources. I highly recommend it and view it as an important read as religious liberty seems to be on the chopping block by many elites. In truth our progressive friends don't realize that religious liberty gave way to the idea of tolerance. An ideal progressives claim to love......so long as they are the ones who only get to define it.
Pick this book up it's worth your time!
March 25, 2021
The next time I hear someone argue “but Jefferson wanted a wall between church and state!”, this is the book I will throw at...erm, kindly ask them to read.
Hall does an excellent job of undressing the most common arguments against a Christian founding and repudiating them in easy-to-understand terms. He uses the Founders’ own words and writings to make his points, which makes his points pretty indisputable. And it’s a short, digestible read, so well worth it.
Hall does an excellent job of undressing the most common arguments against a Christian founding and repudiating them in easy-to-understand terms. He uses the Founders’ own words and writings to make his points, which makes his points pretty indisputable. And it’s a short, digestible read, so well worth it.
Want to read
July 2, 2021Mentioned positively here (at the very end).
Read
March 23, 2021If nothing else, this book make it abundantly clear how little I actually know about the founding of America.
April 21, 2021
Really great historical analysis. Pretty conclusive on the question. Some of his propositions for contemporary politics fall flat, however.
September 16, 2020
Great book! For my review just see Noah Meyer’s review. Retweet everything he said!
Would suggest this book to anyone interested in how Christianity influenced the Founding Fathers as they built the ideological foundations of America
Would suggest this book to anyone interested in how Christianity influenced the Founding Fathers as they built the ideological foundations of America
April 8, 2024
Yes, it did.
November 10, 2020
Yes, America had a Christian founding. Hall does a wonderful job defending and explaining it. He pulls out lots of key quotes and sources to support his argument. This is a key work for American Christians to read in order to understand our own country better and then work to maintain the liberties that we love: religious freedom, etc. Written interview with author here: https://crosspolitic.com/did-america-...
Read
March 10, 2020I was nearly finished with the book when I came across Andrew Seidel’s book, “The Founding Myth”. Here is an excellent debate between Hall and Seidel.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?463878-...#
https://www.c-span.org/video/?463878-...#
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2023
Sometimes your mind’s presuppositions make all the difference in how you interpret history. Using 21st century tinted glasses, it’s common to suppose that all the founding fathers were nominal Christians at best, deists/agnostics at worst. Hall here helps replace those glasses with ones more accurate to that period. I’m sure there are some quotes he chooses to use and others he ignores, but there can be no arguing that the US was formed out of and through Biblical, Christian principle rather than despite it. Understanding religious liberty and separation of church and state through the context of catholic vs Protestant dynamics is particularly helpful here.
January 26, 2023
I'm not entirely sure he proves his case that America had a "Christian Founding," but he more than makes the case that Christianity was very much bound up in the founding. A civic religion of a sort existed in the beginning and it is hard to overlook the role of public religion in American life. That said, I am still not convinced that many of the founders were fully orthodox. Not many may have been deists in the actual sense of the term, but I have often understood their views as a sort of Calvinistic providential rationalism (not sure if that is an actual category, but it captures how they seem to have understood God), which is not necessarily full orthodoxy.
June 4, 2021
This book was spectacular! I did not know how many assumptions and myths I had believed involving the founding and the founders. This book was a much needed corrective. Professor Hall takes each myth and dispels it with clear and concise arguments based on the mutually agreed on evidence. This book is a very well researched book and one many Americans need to read! Highest recommendation
November 1, 2020
Excellent summary of American history on the topic. Hall successfully defends his thesis that while not even close to being a Theocracy, American did indeed have a Christian founding.
December 29, 2021
A decent slab of popular history providing the highlight reel on the Founders' relationship with religion. It's well told and well cited. A fine introductory text for students on the subject.
July 4, 2020
A fascinating historical retrospective, Did America Have a Christian Founding? challenges the modern conception that the Founding Fathers were deists that intended to create a secular state. Author Mark David Hall looks at the lives of the Founders that are often cited as deists and sees if they actually fit that definition. He also examines who and what actually influenced the writing and passage of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. Additionally, Hall analyzes the actions of the Founders as heads of state (declaring days of prayer and thanksgiving, funding the building of churches and hiring of clergy) to see how they interpreted the Constitution that they created. Extraordinarily well-researched, a number of notations and supplements are included for further study, and the tone is professional and unbiased; reframing from making judgements about Christianity’s role in the founding or the researchers who have ignored or suppressed it. Did America Have a Christian Founding? reveals the true heritage of the nation free of political agenda.
December 12, 2019
Hall contends "that an excellent case can be made that Christianity had a profound influence on the founding generation" (xxii). This is true beyond any reasonable doubt, and this book helpfully pulls together some of the evidence and presents it in a very readable manner. At the same time, however, the book doesn't really wrestle with key concepts. What counts as Christianity? What is religion? What is liberty? What is morality? It is one thing to say that the founders were influenced by Christianity. Of course they were. But it is another to ask whether their concepts and actions were consistent with the revelation of Jesus Christ.
November 20, 2021
After three children's books in a row, I figured I'd better log something grown up! I've actually get several in progress, but this was the first I finished in a while.
I found Hall's research persuasive. I was already on the yes side, but this piled heaps more evidence on that side of the scale. Could have used a little more copyediting, but that's not the author's fault. It's funny how you can even sometimes hear typos in an audiobook when the narrator is just trucking through and doesn't notice, say, an it that should have been in, but the sentence doesn't really make sense that way. He gave a pretty decent performance nonetheless.
I found Hall's research persuasive. I was already on the yes side, but this piled heaps more evidence on that side of the scale. Could have used a little more copyediting, but that's not the author's fault. It's funny how you can even sometimes hear typos in an audiobook when the narrator is just trucking through and doesn't notice, say, an it that should have been in, but the sentence doesn't really make sense that way. He gave a pretty decent performance nonetheless.
January 12, 2021
In an age of growing public questioning about the degree to which America was founded upon Christian principles, this book is a timely rebuttal. Recent academic circles positing that the founding fathers were not Christian, but deists who believed that God did not intervene in the matters of men, and who argued for the strict separation of church and state, are refuted throughout this book by Mark David Hall, whose primary theses include attempts to debunk these myths.
As a prerequisite bias that could be ascertained simply by the book's subtitle, the author has an underlying motive of the preservation of religious liberty that permeates the book. To be sure, this coincides with my own personal convictions, and I especially enjoyed learning about the anecdotal facts presented herein. Unfortunately, I did find the degree to which objective evidence was appropriately cited to support these claims to be lacking throughout the book. The brief length of the book is a likely contributor to this shortcoming, and having just recently read David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning 'John Adams', and many of McCullough's other books on American history in which I felt like I learned far more about our founding fathers as compared to this work by Mark David Hall, I was a little disappointed. I believe the evidence supporting the author's claims to be even stronger than the arguments presented.
Nevertheless, the research provided that the United States constitution was indeed authored by Christian leaders, and that it even contains Christian language that is sometimes subtle yet other times obvious was a fascinating linguistic word study. Additionally, the author presents information regarding the religious backgrounds and intentions of founding fathers other than Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two men known to have less religious fervor than their contemporaries, as if those were the only two founding fathers worth studying. Jefferson and Madison are disproportionately cited throughout most of today's skeptics who claim that America was not founded upon Christianity, and this imbalance has even permeated the United States judicial courts who set law precedence. Throughout the history of judicial opinion, First Amendment citations of Jefferson and Madison are given at a staggering ratio of 301 to 21 as compared to other just as influential founders such as Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, Benjamin Huntington, Abraham Baldwin, Elias Boudinot, William Paterson, Samuel Livermore, Charles Carroll, or Fisher Ames.
The sections of the book comparing state constitutions to the US constitution and the clarification that the founding fathers did indeed "borrow" this language, and that most of it was with religious liberty intentions, provided further evidence of our religious founding. Little known facts like that President Pierce, although not the only Quaker president in America's history, was the only president to not swear, but rather affirm, the oath of office due to his personal religious convictions were nice tidbits of trivia to learn. Or that other presidents, like John Quincy Adams, refused to swear on the Bible, but rather on a law book, were facts I found interesting. Many fallacies of interpretation, as often argued by those such as myself with a textualism bent, are discussed. Early fallacies, such as those associated with the Establishment Clause, and even more recent ones like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its applicability to federal or state law are presented.
In summary, I agree with most everything argued in this well written book. I simply wish that it's claims were a little bit more well cited; I found the brevity to be something that opponents could poke holes through. Religious liberty is not a code name for "discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy" as coined in 2016 by the Obama administration, and in order to combat that perverted view the public needs arguments backed with irrefutable substance.
As a prerequisite bias that could be ascertained simply by the book's subtitle, the author has an underlying motive of the preservation of religious liberty that permeates the book. To be sure, this coincides with my own personal convictions, and I especially enjoyed learning about the anecdotal facts presented herein. Unfortunately, I did find the degree to which objective evidence was appropriately cited to support these claims to be lacking throughout the book. The brief length of the book is a likely contributor to this shortcoming, and having just recently read David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning 'John Adams', and many of McCullough's other books on American history in which I felt like I learned far more about our founding fathers as compared to this work by Mark David Hall, I was a little disappointed. I believe the evidence supporting the author's claims to be even stronger than the arguments presented.
Nevertheless, the research provided that the United States constitution was indeed authored by Christian leaders, and that it even contains Christian language that is sometimes subtle yet other times obvious was a fascinating linguistic word study. Additionally, the author presents information regarding the religious backgrounds and intentions of founding fathers other than Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two men known to have less religious fervor than their contemporaries, as if those were the only two founding fathers worth studying. Jefferson and Madison are disproportionately cited throughout most of today's skeptics who claim that America was not founded upon Christianity, and this imbalance has even permeated the United States judicial courts who set law precedence. Throughout the history of judicial opinion, First Amendment citations of Jefferson and Madison are given at a staggering ratio of 301 to 21 as compared to other just as influential founders such as Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, Benjamin Huntington, Abraham Baldwin, Elias Boudinot, William Paterson, Samuel Livermore, Charles Carroll, or Fisher Ames.
The sections of the book comparing state constitutions to the US constitution and the clarification that the founding fathers did indeed "borrow" this language, and that most of it was with religious liberty intentions, provided further evidence of our religious founding. Little known facts like that President Pierce, although not the only Quaker president in America's history, was the only president to not swear, but rather affirm, the oath of office due to his personal religious convictions were nice tidbits of trivia to learn. Or that other presidents, like John Quincy Adams, refused to swear on the Bible, but rather on a law book, were facts I found interesting. Many fallacies of interpretation, as often argued by those such as myself with a textualism bent, are discussed. Early fallacies, such as those associated with the Establishment Clause, and even more recent ones like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its applicability to federal or state law are presented.
In summary, I agree with most everything argued in this well written book. I simply wish that it's claims were a little bit more well cited; I found the brevity to be something that opponents could poke holes through. Religious liberty is not a code name for "discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy" as coined in 2016 by the Obama administration, and in order to combat that perverted view the public needs arguments backed with irrefutable substance.
August 1, 2020
I read this book because I’ve increasingly heard that America is not a Christian nation, that the founders weren’t Christians, and that government should play no role whatsoever in the promotion of religion.
Like everyone else in my generation, I’ve heard the constant reiteration of Jefferson’s ‘wall between church and state’ and therefore any slight symbol of religion (Christianity) put forth by government, state or federal, should not be tolerated.
I’ve also heard that a majority of the key founders were not Christians, but Deists, and that the Enlightenment served a much larger role in the founding of America than did the Christian religion. This line of thinking is widespread even within the American church.
Finally, with some of the controversial court cases of our day, I’ve heard that the government should not allow for religious exemptions, particularly when those exemptions would have the appearance of discrimination.
I was sincerely impressed with how well Mark David Hall addresses every single one of these points. Throughout the entire book, he pulls from the founders’ letters, original state constitutions, first drafts of founding documents, presidential and congressional speeches, judicial opinions, etc. that very clearly articulate the general thinking of not only the founders, but the whole founding generation.
It is undoubtedly clear for example that virtually all of the founders were, if not Christians themselves, at least strong believers in the importance of Christianity holding a secure and prominent place in American society and that government (especially state and local governments) should promote and encourage religion (Christianity) and morality wherever possible without encroaching on the liberties of those with other faiths or no faith at all. And that this understanding was one of the most important factors in framing our nations most crucial documents, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
I could go on and discuss what Hall says about Christianity’s role in abolishing slavery in America or his comparisons to religious liberty today, but I can’t do justice for it all in the same way as the founders’ own words from which Hall cites. There is so much content packed into this small book that it is certainly a great resource for anyone looking to have a better understanding of the ideals our country was founded on.
The only reason I take away one star is because while I was reading I felt like he should have dived deeper into each argument. He provides enough evidence for a compelling case, and I realize the book would have be substantially longer if he had done this, so maybe I just wanted more idk.
Super good though and very enlightening.
Like everyone else in my generation, I’ve heard the constant reiteration of Jefferson’s ‘wall between church and state’ and therefore any slight symbol of religion (Christianity) put forth by government, state or federal, should not be tolerated.
I’ve also heard that a majority of the key founders were not Christians, but Deists, and that the Enlightenment served a much larger role in the founding of America than did the Christian religion. This line of thinking is widespread even within the American church.
Finally, with some of the controversial court cases of our day, I’ve heard that the government should not allow for religious exemptions, particularly when those exemptions would have the appearance of discrimination.
I was sincerely impressed with how well Mark David Hall addresses every single one of these points. Throughout the entire book, he pulls from the founders’ letters, original state constitutions, first drafts of founding documents, presidential and congressional speeches, judicial opinions, etc. that very clearly articulate the general thinking of not only the founders, but the whole founding generation.
It is undoubtedly clear for example that virtually all of the founders were, if not Christians themselves, at least strong believers in the importance of Christianity holding a secure and prominent place in American society and that government (especially state and local governments) should promote and encourage religion (Christianity) and morality wherever possible without encroaching on the liberties of those with other faiths or no faith at all. And that this understanding was one of the most important factors in framing our nations most crucial documents, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
I could go on and discuss what Hall says about Christianity’s role in abolishing slavery in America or his comparisons to religious liberty today, but I can’t do justice for it all in the same way as the founders’ own words from which Hall cites. There is so much content packed into this small book that it is certainly a great resource for anyone looking to have a better understanding of the ideals our country was founded on.
The only reason I take away one star is because while I was reading I felt like he should have dived deeper into each argument. He provides enough evidence for a compelling case, and I realize the book would have be substantially longer if he had done this, so maybe I just wanted more idk.
Super good though and very enlightening.
January 20, 2020
Hall has provided a good corrective to the foundation for key political and religious decisions in our day that are based on a skewed view of early American history. He shows that a Christian worldview was very much a part of our Nation’s founding.
However, two weaknesses of his work are his minimal attention to the Declaration of Independence and to the Treaty of Tripoli. Scholars pressing for a broad Deist view of the founding pounce on the Treaty of Tripoli as evidence of their view. The Treaty announces that the U.S. is not tied to ‘Christian’ as it negotiates with an Islamic government. Hall largely dismisses the evidence of the Treaty as a case of context — saying what you need to say at the time. While I am a Christian, I am not convinced of Hall’s position.
The Declaration of Independence is not given sufficient space in the book. However, it provides some of the most powerful evidence of a departure from biblical thought among some of the Founders. The idea of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not biblical. Life, for one, is a gift, not a right (Acts 17:25). The ideas are part of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government; they reveal that indeed Locke carried influence among some of the Founders.
In conclusion Hall certainly is correct that Christian thought played a significant role in the Founding. Beyond that religious thought in general played a much larger role than modern secularists have allowed.
So, is Mark Hall’s book worth a purchase and read? Yes.
However, two weaknesses of his work are his minimal attention to the Declaration of Independence and to the Treaty of Tripoli. Scholars pressing for a broad Deist view of the founding pounce on the Treaty of Tripoli as evidence of their view. The Treaty announces that the U.S. is not tied to ‘Christian’ as it negotiates with an Islamic government. Hall largely dismisses the evidence of the Treaty as a case of context — saying what you need to say at the time. While I am a Christian, I am not convinced of Hall’s position.
The Declaration of Independence is not given sufficient space in the book. However, it provides some of the most powerful evidence of a departure from biblical thought among some of the Founders. The idea of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not biblical. Life, for one, is a gift, not a right (Acts 17:25). The ideas are part of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government; they reveal that indeed Locke carried influence among some of the Founders.
In conclusion Hall certainly is correct that Christian thought played a significant role in the Founding. Beyond that religious thought in general played a much larger role than modern secularists have allowed.
So, is Mark Hall’s book worth a purchase and read? Yes.
February 21, 2021
His answer to the title was a pretty resounding YES! if you think of it as being influenced by Christian values and not as our founders necessarily having true faith in Jesus. This book is particularly a response to those who say our founders were mostly deists. He asserts that only one or two were.
Growing up I was exposed to the opposite: all our founders were Godly men, which I think is also exaggerated. I was thinking the book was going to deal with that misrepresentation so I struggled some with the book, wondering if it was falling into that mindset or if I have just swung too far the other way.
I didn't think he was the best writer, but he quotes a lot of source documents which I appreciated.
He had a good chapter on separation of church and state and what our founders envisioned that to mean. A favorite quote in that regard from future Supreme Court Justice James Iredell "[It] would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by world authority. Has he not said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? It made much greater progress for itself, than when supported by the greatest authority on earth.”
Growing up I was exposed to the opposite: all our founders were Godly men, which I think is also exaggerated. I was thinking the book was going to deal with that misrepresentation so I struggled some with the book, wondering if it was falling into that mindset or if I have just swung too far the other way.
I didn't think he was the best writer, but he quotes a lot of source documents which I appreciated.
He had a good chapter on separation of church and state and what our founders envisioned that to mean. A favorite quote in that regard from future Supreme Court Justice James Iredell "[It] would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by world authority. Has he not said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? It made much greater progress for itself, than when supported by the greatest authority on earth.”
March 29, 2023
I appreciate the Author's zeal in defending our Christian founding. I would have appreciated more academic rigor from Professor Hall. I found the writing and structure of each chapter a bit lite for my liking. I had a liberal professor at Penn State for two semesters of Constitutional Law History. Out of the gate he made us understand that our Founding Documents were based on Judeo-Christian ideals. So, from my point of view he's proving something that already exists! Plus I did not appreciate some of his "liberties" taken (pun intended) with describing some of our Founding Father's. They were human, fallible, and not deities but they assembled the closest thing to perfection when putting our Republic together. I know many "secularists" would like to strip many if not all religious references from our founding. However, this situation must be approached with reasoned arguments which have foundational standing of that time period with proper context. Overall, a decent book if you are starting out on this subject.
December 23, 2020
A relevant book
A good book that refreshes the origin of the foundation of America and its Christian’ principles. The book gains points by not trying to preach or to sell religion, but historically acknowledging the influence of Christian principles in the foundation of America and, in special, that came mainly from Christians the idea of separation of Church and State and that it does not mean, but actually reinforce, that the influence Christianity is present in, for example, how the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written. Finally, the book brings the importance of freedom for religious and non religious people.
“A central theme in this book is that America’s founders embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty. This important freedom, which many founders referred to as “sacred,” is under increasing assault today. If we are to be faithful to the founders’ vision, we must insist that religious liberty be protected whenever possible.”
A good book that refreshes the origin of the foundation of America and its Christian’ principles. The book gains points by not trying to preach or to sell religion, but historically acknowledging the influence of Christian principles in the foundation of America and, in special, that came mainly from Christians the idea of separation of Church and State and that it does not mean, but actually reinforce, that the influence Christianity is present in, for example, how the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written. Finally, the book brings the importance of freedom for religious and non religious people.
“A central theme in this book is that America’s founders embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty. This important freedom, which many founders referred to as “sacred,” is under increasing assault today. If we are to be faithful to the founders’ vision, we must insist that religious liberty be protected whenever possible.”
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