The "Faith" of Our Founders and the Myth of a Christian Nation
A Tell-All Look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Who Built This “Christian Nation”
The Faith of Our Founders
A Tell-All Look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Who Built This “Christian Nation”
A note before we begin:
About 15% of you reading this don’t live in the United States.
Consider this my annual moment of American navel-gazing on the 4th of July.
If you’d rather skip this one, no hard feelings—go enjoy your day.
Or feel free to sit back and marvel at how in the world we ended up here.
Honestly, a lot of us are wondering the same thing.
The Myth
You’ve probably heard it:
America was founded as a Christian nation.
It’s a claim so common that it feels almost self-evident in certain circles—like gravity, or the Browns choosing the worst quarterback available.
But the reality?
It’s a lot messier.
More contradictory.
And, I’d argue, more interesting.
This isn’t a hit piece on faith.
It’s a chance to tell the truth—both the parts that inspired hope and the parts that revealed deep hypocrisy.
Because when you look closely at the actual beliefs and motivations of America’s founders, a picture emerges that doesn’t fit neatly into Sunday School or a political stump speech:
Some founders were sincere Christians, drawing on faith as a moral guide.
Others were Deists who believed God wound up the universe like a clock and walked away.
Some were slaveholders quoting scripture to justify cruelty.
Some were Enlightenment rationalists who saw religion mostly as a civic tool to keep the masses in line.
If we’re going to invoke “the faith of the founders,” we ought to be honest about what that faith actually was—and wasn’t.
The Devout: Sincere Believers
Many founders did see Christianity as essential to moral and civic life.
People like John Jay (the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) and Patrick Henry openly declared that the nation’s success depended on Christian virtue.
John Jay wrote:
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty…to prefer Christians for their rulers.”
Patrick Henry declared:
“This great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians.”
But even among these more traditionally religious figures, there was no consensus about doctrine or the role of institutional religion.
Their faith was sincere, but it was also diverse.
The Deists: God as Cosmic Clockmaker
Many of the most famous founders—Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Madison—were not orthodox Christians.
They were influenced by Deism, the Enlightenment philosophy that:
God created the universe and established natural laws.
God does not intervene in human affairs through miracles or special revelation.
Reason, not dogma, is the best guide to understanding morality and the world.
Some Deists described God as a kind of cosmic clockmaker—a creator who built the universe to run on its own and then stepped back to let it unfold.
Thomas Jefferson literally took a razor blade and cut every miracle out of the New Testament, publishing The Jefferson Bible—a Jesus who taught ethics but never performed wonders.
Benjamin Franklin wrote:
“As to Jesus of Nazareth…I have some doubts as to his divinity.”
When you hear politicians say we should “return to the faith of the founders,” it’s worth asking—which founder’s faith, exactly?
The Hypocrites: Faith Used for Self-Justification
Then there’s the uglier truth:
Many founders invoked Christian ideals while enslaving people, exploiting women, and erasing Indigenous nations.
Women were legally and politically invisible—barred from voting, holding office, or owning property independently in most cases.
George Washington attended Anglican services and spoke often about Providence.
He also enslaved hundreds of men, women, and children.
James Madison advocated for religious liberty while believing in the racial hierarchy of his day.
These contradictions don’t mean all of their ideals were worthless.
It just means they were—like all of us—products of their time and their privilege.
But it is worth noting: they could have changed their minds.
Washington did free the people he enslaved—but only in his will, after his death.
That alone tells you he could have done it sooner.
Other founders, like Alexander Hamilton, spoke out against slavery—though he also married into a slaveholding family and was not free of contradictions.
And some, like John Jay and Benjamin Rush, were even more vocal and active, working publicly to end slavery in their lifetimes.
It’s not that the truth of these injustices was hidden from them.
They simply chose, more often than not, to ignore it.
The Civic Religion: Christianity as Social Glue
Some founders saw religion less as personal faith and more as a tool to hold society together.
John Adams wrote that the U.S. Constitution was:
“…made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
But Adams also rejected core Christian doctrines, including the Trinity.
For many of them, Christianity was useful—something that could inspire public virtue, even if they didn’t fully believe it themselves.
It’s the same dynamic Karl Marx would later critique when he called religion “the opium of the people”—not because religion had no value, but because it could function as a soothing narrative that kept people compliant.
So…Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?
Not really.
At least not in the way that modern evangelical nationalists claim.
Yes—Christian language shaped public discourse.
Yes—many founders were influenced by Christian ethics.
But the Constitution itself deliberately separates church and state:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
If anything, America was founded as a pluralistic experiment where faith was respected—but never mandated.
Independence
This week, Americans celebrate the idea of freedom.
National freedom.
Political freedom.
Religious freedom.
But if you look closely, even the story of our own independence is more complicated than the fireworks and parades admit.
Freedom, as it turns out, is messy.
Collective freedom tries to coexist with oppression.
Personal freedom can be proclaimed and never practiced.
That’s why I do the work I do here:
To help people question the stories we were handed—national stories, religious stories, family stories.
Sometimes those stories were true.
Sometimes they were partly true.
Sometimes they were just convenient fabrications to help us feel better about ourselves.
If you’re willing to ask the hard questions about the narratives you inherited, you’ll discover something most people never find:
Personal independence.
The kind nobody can take away.
The kind that doesn’t need a flag or a holiday.
But be warned:
Getting there is its own revolution.
You will have to risk comfort.
You might lose relationships.
You’ll almost certainly feel, for a time, like you have no homeland at all.
But on the other side is a worthy prize: true freedom of being—a freedom from the stories that tried to soothe you but, ironically, locked you into a prison of ignorance.
When you step outside those walls, you discover something better waiting: the chance to build your own story on honesty, compassion, and hard-won wisdom.
Ah yes, the Founders’ “faith.” A real mixed bag of clockmakers, slaveholders, and men who thought “liberty” meant property—especially if that property could bleed.
If America were a church, its creed would be freedom for me, obedience for thee.
Thank you for peeling back the red, white, and blue curtain to show what’s actually behind it: not divine destiny, but deeply human contradiction.
The real sacred work isn’t worshipping the myths—it’s composting them.
Blessed be the ones brave enough to deconstruct their inheritance.
—Virgin Monk Boy 🕯️🔥✍🏻
Yes, I'm always fascinated by this notion of a "Christian America". And that we need to return to our "Christian roots." When exactly was that? Was it when we were slaughtering and stealing this land from the Native Americans? When we enslaved millions of African Americans, dehumanizing, abusing, and even killing them, all in the name of the Almighty Dollar? Was it when we refused women the right to vote, citing their delicacy, emotional instability, and lack of common sense? Maybe it was when large and very vocal segments of the American Church declared that AIDS was God's punishment against the gay community. I could go on. There is so much more. But I think it is best to answer the real question: At what point in time did Jesus look at any of this, give us a big thumbs-up, and say, "Yep, that's what I'm all about"?