Not as boring as you would think from the topic, but definitely opens minds about the Founding Fathers. You can't ever say all the Founding Fathers were all one thing. Interesting to see how far they changed even as they went through this process.

Holmes is quite knowledgeable on the subject. It is intriguing how little the founding fathers (with the exception perhaps of John Adams) talked about their beliefs. I would have expected them to go into more detail, but they seemed rather private, discussing only with close friends and church leaders their beliefs (or lack thereof). I wish Holmes would have done a better job at weaving the epilogue into the rest of the book to see how Evangelical Christianity did a hostile takeover of America, as well as the history of the founding fathers. Overall, worth the read.

throughly enjoyable

David L. Holmes argues many of the major Founding Fathers were neither “pure” deists nor pious Orthodox Christians, but rather Christian Deists. He identifies three broad groups that the Founding Fathers fell under, while recognizing diversity in each category: Non-Christian Deists such as Thomas Paine, Christian Deists such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Adams, and Orthodox Christians such as Samuel Adams, John Jay, and Elias Boudinot.


The books begins by outlining the broader religious context of different colonies in early colonial America. New England was dominated by Congregationalism, which was an offspring of the Calvinistic Puritanism. Maryland began as a haven for English Roman Catholics under the proprietorship of the Calverts but soon became majority Protestant. Virginia and the many founding fathers from the colony such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were part of the Anglican tradition, which morphed into the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America after the Revolution. Pennsylvania was the most diverse and tolerant of the colonies given it was founded as an experiment in religious toleration. Nevertheless most colonies had some religious diversity with a smattering of various religious minorities that included Quakers, Baptists, Jews and other fringe forms of Christianity such as Shakers, Universalists, Moravians (descended from Czech reformer Jan Huss), and Mennonites. The 1730s - 1740s witnessed the appearance of evangelicalism under the charismatic George Whitefield who used his eloquent preaching to add a strong personal emotional component that emphasized that every person was capable of being reborn and a person could only achieve salvation once they recognized that they deserved damnation and asked god for Forgiveness. It was the Great Awakening that “left the legacy of evangelic “born-again” Christianity (28).” This was a time where 9 of the 13 colonies had state-sponsored official religions. Although some states did allow some toleration, which was different from separation of church and state or religious freedom. For example, the colony of Maryland in 1649 passed an act that allowed for a high level of religious toleration (not to be confused with the more radical religious freedom adopted by the founding fathers) before the arrival of the Enlightenment proper.

A deist is someone who believes in God and accepts that reason is the greatest gift from God, but rejects superstition, miracles, priestcraft, religious mysteries, Jesus as savior, the Bible as revelation, and irrational elements of religion. Deists also tended to emphasize ethics over doctrine and ritual. To quote one American clergy (as quoted in Holmes):

“Deism is what is left of Christianity after casting off everything that is peculiar to it. The Deist is one who denies the Divinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement of Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost; who denies the God of Israel, and believes in the God of nature (39-40).

Holmes offers four criteria for distinguishing a Deist from a Christian among the Founding Fathers: frequency of church attendance, participation in sacraments/ordinances such as baptism for their children, how active they were in participating in rituals, and choice of religious language usually to describe God. All of these criteria offered by Holmes has limitations. If someone were to argue the baptism of the founding father’s children demonstrates their religious commitment, Holmes also points out that this can be dismissed as the Founding Mothers being far more traditionally religious. If someone wanting to demonstrate a Founding Father was a deist using evidence of the terms they use for God, this too has problems because of the overlap of terminology. Although Holmes acknowledges sometimes they use the same terms, there are points in the book where he identifies a phrase as being deist as opposed to Christian, yet in almost all these cases you can find Orthodox Christians who used these terms. For example, John Calvin refers to God as an architect, which was supposedly indicative of Deism and its associated with free mason lodges, and it doesn’t get more Orthodox than Calvin himself.


Holmes does a good job at keeping a relatively neutral scholarly tone and approaching the topic with nuance. This is a much fairer treatment and far less ponderous than Matthew Stewart’s more polemical and biased book on a similar topic. It also has the merit of being short and readable. There are some weaknesses. For example, sometimes he refers to John Adams as a Deist, sometimes as a Christian Deist, and sometimes as a Unitarian, while also acknowledging that Unitarianism at this time was technically still a form of Christianity. My takeaway is that the book leaves open the question whether the Founding Fathers were deists who continued to embrace and refused to abandon some aspects of Christianity or if they were unorthodox Christians with who were influence by Deists and Enlightenment ideas. I suspect Holmes thinks the former in most cases rather than the latter. Maybe it’s both, depending of the Founding Father. Someone like John Adams still “believed in a personal God, in a guiding Providence, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in life after death (77).” He also used phraseology that was more specific to Christianity rather than Deism.

Professor David Holmes has given us a jewel in his book “The Faiths of the Founding Fathers”. Other reviewers have given very capable overviews so I won’t repeat what has already been written. But what surprised me, and pleasantly so, was the author’s exposition of how little Deism played in the overall life of the colonies. That is an idea which is refreshing because it flies in the face of the modernist humanist evaluations of the period which would like to see Deism as having been the dominant theology of the Founders.

As evidence, Dr. Holmes notes that Calvinism was far and away the dominant influence in that place and time: “As of 1770, two-thirds of the institutions of higher education in the American colonies were of Calvinist origin.” He then notes that that percentage actually continued to grow such that at the time of the Revolution that percentage was actually 70%! And the reason for that is that “80 percent of American Christians in the colonial period…were significantly influenced by John Calvin’s teachings.” When one adds in the Lutherans, Roman Catholics and various other sects not “significantly influenced” by Calvin it becomes quickly apparent that it was numerically impossible for Deism to be the dominant influence some have hoped it was.

But Deism was espoused by a few whose names have become synonymous with our founding – men such as Franklin, Washington and Jefferson. But Dr. Holmes shows how Franklin’s decision for Deism was made during his teen years (how many of us would like to be described by our teenage decisions!) and that he is famously remembered for stopping the Constitutional Convention by a call for a day of prayer – a practice that was superfluous to any self-respecting Deist. And to include Jefferson in the Deist’s camp is to ignore his claim that “I am a Christian…” which Dr. Holmes documents.

I hope not to spoil your adventure by telling you how Deism came to this country but suffice it to say that it was through “men only” institutions. All of which leads Dr. Holmes to discover that while Deism may have been on the lips and pens of some of our Founders, their wives and children maintained their orthodox traditions. And that explains why Deism was subsumed into Unitarianism or evaporated altogether very early in the 19th century. So it appears from the evidence that while Deism was a popular fad, it was short-lived and merely that – a fad.

This book should be commended to any student of American history. It is very accessible while providing significant intellectual heft.

This book, written in response to the argument by conservative Christians that the founding fathers intended to create a Christian nation, is a balanced analysis of the beliefs of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Paine, Madison, Monroe and their wives. In so doing, Holmes analyzes the writen and written words, and practices, of the founding fathers. The results reveal a varied set of beliefs of the founding fathers which challenge the simplistic claims of those conservative Christians.

I thought it was a great book. I've known since high school that many of our Founding Fathers considered themselves Deists, but I never really knew what that meant. This book gave me a much better idea of what Deists believe and showed how this belief system influenced the birth of our nation.

This is a fascinating book that helps us better understand the religious views of six of the most influential founders of our nation: Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.

A must-read for all politicos who use the founding father documents as a basis for orthodox religion-based justifications for all manner of issues...Deists unite. And thanks to the William and Mary professor who researched and wrote the book. And just for the record, if you have an opportunity to visit Highland (owned by the College of William and Mary) near Charlottesville, please do so to learn more about Monroe and his daughter Eliza and their French connections.

One quote to consider:
"When Hamilton was asked why the members of the Philadelphia Convention had not recognized God in the Constitution, he allegedly replied, speaking for many of his liberal colleagues, "We forgot.'"... Gordon Wood

This book is a balanced look at the religious views of the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) of the USA. It takes the view that while the founders clearly intended the separation of church and state, they were not all of one mind about religion in their private lives. The author roughly groups them in several categories: non-Christian Deists, Christian Deists, Unitarians, and Orthodox Christians of varying degrees of liberality/conservatism.

The first chapter is an overview of the religious climate in the American colonies in 1770, and shows how some denominations differed in belief and practice form these same denominations today. Next, he covers the Anglican tradition, focusing on how this was a common factor in the upbringing of the founders from Virginia.

The next two chapters deal with Deism, the first being an overview of this philosophy and its relationship to the Enlightenment. The second covers the varying degrees of influence Deism had on the founding fathers.

The next six chapters cover the religious backgrounds and later beliefs and practices of several founders: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, none of whom could be categorized as orthodox Christians.

The eleventh chapter covers the religious beliefs of women close to the founding fathers: Martha Washington, Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis, Abigail Adams, Martha Jefferson, Martha Jefferson Randolph, Maria Jefferson Eppes, and Dolley Madison. This chapter also discusses why Deism was less common among women during this time and why orthodox religion may have been more appealing to most women.

In the twelve chapter, there is a guide on how to distinguish a Deist from an orthodox Christian when reading material about people from this time period.

Chapter thirteen covers the religious beliefs of three prominent orthodox Christians of the time: Samuel Adams, Elias Boudinot, and John Jay, comparing and contrasting them with the founders mentioned above.

The book concludes with thumbnail sketches of the religious backgrounds and beliefs of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush senior, Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and George Bush junior.

I enjoyed this book immensely, subtracting a star only because the book could have gone into more detail.

The author provides a historical background of the religions of the time period and his interpretations of the actions and beliefs of various founding fathers to determine what their possible religious leanings were, whether orthodox Christianity (denomination) on one had or Deism on the other. Overall, a good, educational read.

This book confirmed what I suspected; except for a few, the Founding Fathers were not what current society would define as Christian. Most subscribed to some form of Deism. They were profoundly influenced by The Age of Enlightenment and were skeptical of the mysteries of Christianity. Not so the Founding Mothers. Except for Abigail Adams (who like her husband was Unitarian), most wives were orthodox believers. The author, a professor of religious studies at William & Mary, wrote, "...the founding generation held certain convictions in common. Most believed in a guiding Providence and in a life after death. These affirmations separated them from the radical Deists of their time. They respected the ethical teachings of Jesus. Many believed that simple virtue and morality were of greater importance than adherence to a particular set of religious doctrines. Above all, they valued freedom of conscience and despised religious tyranny."