Today I will do a joint book review since both of the reviewed books relate to the same topic:
The Faiths of The Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes is an excellent book for those who wish to learn about the religious views of the founding fathers of the United States. The book starts by looking at the religious views of the colonial Americans in the 1770s, looking at different churches and sects in different colonies. It then explores the relationship of the Founding Fathers and the Anglican (or Episcopalian, as the colonial Americans chose to rename it after rebelling against the English crown -the King was the head of the Anglican Church), and chronicles the rise of Deism in the European Enlightenment. It explores the influence of Deism on the Founding Fathers, and then investigates the views of Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Afterwards, it explores the views of their wives and shows that their wives held more theistic orthodox Christian views, and explains that Deism was popular among scholars (women were not allowed to go college) and Freemasons (an all male organization). After that, it shows how to distinguish a Deist from an orthodox Christian, and then looks at the three founding fathers that we know to be Christian: Samuel Adams, Elias Boudinot, and John Jay. The concluding chapter explains that the Christian Right is wrong to re-write history and view the Founding Fathers through the lens of modern evangelical Christianity. The book is followed by an epilogue that examines a few more modern presidents.
10/10
Ye Will Say I am No Christian: The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, and Values, edited by Bruce Braden, is a collection of letters that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson wrote to each other. Adams was a Unitarian Christian, while Thomas Jefferson was an anti-clerical Deist and far more skeptical than John Adams. They frequently conversed on their favorite topic, philosophy, via letters to each other. In these letters, their religious views are spelled out to each other, and it makes for a very interesting read once you get used to their archaic English. These are not all of the letters that they wrote to each other, much less to other people, on the topic, but they are very good. Being of a more skeptical bent myself, I appreciated a lot of what Thomas Jefferson had to say; He has been a personal hero of mine for a while. I would recommend reading The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes first before reading this, as this book is an excellent supplement to the discussion of the religious views of these two great men in the previously reviewed book.
10/10
Be sure to check out the brief biography of Thomas Jefferson on my People of Interest Page, as well as more books on the topic of the Founding Fathers on my Reading Lists page.
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