I believe that quote from Wood is from his review of “George Washington’s Sacred Fire” by Peter A. Lillback. I have not read the review in a long time.

I don’t remember the context of the statement above, but on its face value I tend to agree with him. The Founders beliefs and writings on Religion indeed represented a “complex” array of circumstances and thoughts. For every quote I can give representing, on its own terms, the religious belief of the Founders, someone else could produce obsure quotes and writings to contradict my own findings, and that is what Wood’s is saying, essentially.
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Now, were the Founders Christian? Absolutely. That means Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, et al. Were they deists, yes, but not in the sense that is usually attributed to them. The 18th Century was a time of great reflection on Religion in terms of is dogmas and its rhetoric, as Franklin would have said. It was the impact of the Enlightenment on the Founders.

The Founders were Christians and our Constitution was based on Natural Law which is essentially a Judeo-Christian philosophy that all Founders believed in, hence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…,” to quote the Declaration which is the first step towards the Constitution. Those “inalienable rights” came from God. They also believed that a Republic could only last if its people remained virtuous and the role of Religion in that endeavor was crucial.

I will actually be posting soon an essay on the Founders and Religion in reaction to a Social Justice education article I recently encountered.

Hope to see you around here often Martin!

Chris

Second, thanks for writing this article. I just finished reading another Gordon S. Wood history, Revolutionary Characters. I really enjoyed the book, but Wood used the phrase “myth of American Exceptionalism” and my eyebrows went up. It seemed as though he wasn’t so much saying that America is not exceptional as that some historians in the 1800’s (and later) took exception to the concept of Americans being “exceptional”. Unlike the founders who sought to serve with “indifference” and separate themselves from personal ambition, those that followed stopped trying. Still, his use of the term “myth” troubled me. I believe as you do, that not “many [cultures] equal our own accomplishments, especially when considered within our limited existence.”

Wood uses Aaron Burr as an unabashedly grasping ambitious politician. I think Burr is more representative of today’s politico.

Anyway, I wanted to find out more of what Wood might have meant and found your site. I also found this quote from Wood:

“We can’t solve our current disputes over religion by looking back to the actual historical circumstances of the Founding; those circumstances are too complex, too confusing, and too biased toward Protestant Christianity to be used in courts today, and most of them are remote from or antagonistic to the particular needs of the twenty-first century. We do not, and cannot, base American constitutional jurisprudence on the historical reality of the Founding. . . . What Founders’ intent should we choose to emphasize? That of the deistic Jefferson and Madison? Or that of the churchgoing Washington and Adams, with their sympathies for religion? Or that of the countless numbers of evangelical Protestants who captured control of the culture to an extent most of the Founding elite never anticipated?”

This made me even more suspicious of his take on the Founders. Unfortunately, I don’t have the rest of the context. The quote came from an article in the NY Times Review of Books.

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on Wood. I will be going through the rest of your articles on American Exceptionalism as well as linking to your site.

This looks like a fantastic body of work. Well done. Thanks for taking the time to publish it.

Sincerely,
Martin

“I am more concerned with those who, and I know you are also concerned, seek to destroy our history because they are ideologically against the idea of American Exceptionalism.”

That, specifically, was my point. Keep up the good work.