A nice historical work about the religious views of this nation's founders, with a focus on Benjamin Franklin and the first five presidents. It also contains a nice overview of the influence of Deistic thought on the founders.

I really enjoyed this book and will need to re-read it as once was not nearly enough for me to absorb all the nuances of this book. One of the first books I reviewed early in my career was a catalog by John Hutson of the Library of Congress entitled Religion and the Founding of America. Holmes' book was a more expanded articulation of Hutson's.

I very much enjoyed Holmes' exploration of the religious backgrounds of the early presidents and American leaders. Enlightening.

I thought about only giving two stars - not because this book is bad but it left me disappointed based on the expectations I had going in. Like other reviews, I feel like more direct quotes use greatly strengthen the book. I was also hoping that the book would connect the Founding Fathers' religious beliefs to their political beliefs, especially around the separation of church and state. Disappointingly, this wasn't touched on at all.

Pretty good book. Holmes does a good job with his reseach, but I would SLIGHTLY challenge the framework he uses to understand everything he writes about. I do not like how he tries to understand everything through the philosophy/theology of "deism". By the time Holmes gets done with this theory, he has stretched deism so far that it does not even resemble the original theory of deism anymore. You can see the author doing this as he goes through and talks about "Christian Deism" and "Episcopalian Deists"...that does not make much sense to me.

Instead, I would argue that Unitarianism is a far superior theory to understand the religious faith and viewpoints of the Founding Fathers through. Now within Unitariaism there were clearly differences...the John Adams type of Unitarianism is much different from the Thomas Jefferson type of Unitarianism. But it simply "fits" better than stretching Deism to cover all these cases. Deism should only be applied to Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen and (perhaps) Benjamin Franklin.

Now, surely the Unitarians were very similar to the Deists and they used much the same language, but the theories are different when it comes to the ability of a deity to involve itself in the world and the ability of a deity to send Jesus as a "savior" or prophet. I honestly think theological unitarianism is the key to unlocking this mystery.

I thought this was an interesting book. A pretty easy read, given the topic and overall academic writing style. I learned a great deal and was fascinated by how many religions existed in the United States 200 years ago. It was also very intersting to hear the roots of Unitarianism, how the split between Roman Catholicism and Luther/Protestant religions emerged and morphed in the Americas, and the influence of the Enlightenment and France on a religion called "Deism". For history and religious buffs, this is a must read. The only part of the book that was less than impressive or interesting was the section on the Founding Father's wives and daughters and their religions. It had little information, unfortunately, although the opening chapter on it was good. The other critique I have is that the author likes to make a case for why the Founding Father's weren't overly Christian at the end of each chapter -- a bit gratituous and dissertation-like, but no book is perfect!

While not a great book to read cover to cover, it is a fine summary of the historical arguments for how Deism influenced (in various degrees) many of the Founding Fathers, and how this differs from what we know today as a more evangelical Christianity. Balanced and rooted in what facts are known, the author tries to categorize the Founders along the spectrum of pure Deist to orthodox Christian. This is a fine book for the student or those with an interest for the facts rather than the arguments of either right or left.

I wanted to like this book. Had to read it for my religion and America class. This book was incredibly biased.

Good book giving a very balanced view of what many of the founding fathers' views on religion and faith were.

Faiths of some of the founders and their wives.
The case for most of them can be summed up as "it's complicated". Enlightenment values and deists ideas are common even among those who identify as Christians, even someone as outspoken against orthodox Christianity as Jefferson (enough to be called heretic and atheist by his contemporaries) has been painted as faithful because he still participated in church services.
This book dives deeper than most biographies manage to treat the subject, but it's still only an overview of the conflicting views on faith each named founder had. To understand deism or for that matter freemasonry which was also common, you'd need a more specific book than this.

Great overview of the REAL beliefs and writings of our founding parents. Focuses primarily on the writers and enactors of the Declaration of Independence.

A very good breakdown of the founding fathers and their beliefs. Many Christians today seem mixed up about how orthodox the founding father may have been. Holmes does a good job of examining the topic historically and objectively. For a 185 pages book he has 40 pages worth of sources, mostly primary, to back any assertions he makes.