Records prove founders' Christianity

I would like to correct a recent letter by claiming that the first presidents were "generally deists or Unitarians." None of them were.

Washington was a practicing Anglican/Episcopalian Christian all his life, attending Truro Parish and also Christ Church Alexandria, Virginia, where he had a pew. John Adams was a Christian who once said: "Ask me not whether I am Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist, or Arminian. As far as they are all Christians, I wish to be with them all."

Thomas Jefferson attended Episcopal services, and said Jan. 9, 1816: "I am a real Christian, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." He participated in Christian services in government buildings as president. The diary of Congressman Manasseh Cutler now at Northwestern in Evanston records this fact on several occasions.

James Madison, our fourth president, said: "We have staked the whole of our political Institutions according to the Ten Commandments of God." Madison studied Christian theology; he was Anglican/Episcopal.

Thomas Paine was an ardent anti-atheist, and said: "I consider myself in the hands of my Creator." He criticized orthodoxy, but was not without faith in God. Franklin was undoubtedly a Christian, in 1779 wrote a version of the Christian Lord's Prayer, and in 1790: "Here is my creed: I believe in one God, creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence."

In 1785, Ethan Allen wrote a book: "Reason, The Only Oracle of Man, Critical Remarks on the Truth and Harmony of the Four Gospels, Instructions Given by Jesus Christ and Christianity," demonstrating he was a knowledgeable Christian.

The Founding Fathers were Christians who were against sectarianism. John Adams in a letter to Jefferson well summed up the founding: "The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity." - June 28, 1813.

Harold Knudsen

Arlington Heights