ReligionLambert (2003) has examined the religious affiliations and beliefs of the Founders. Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 49 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons).[citation needed] Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.[citation needed] A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians, such as Thomas Jefferson[21][22][23] (who created the so-called Jefferson Bible) and Benjamin Franklin.[24] Others (most notably Thomas Paine, who authored the religious book The Age of Reason[25]) were deists, or at least held beliefs very similar to those of deists.[26] Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid theistic rationalism.[27] The Treaty of Tripoli, states that the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion[28] and was passed unanimously by the Senate and signed by President John Adams.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:28:48 +0000
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