Effectively pokes dozens of holes in the concept that the founding fathers somehow intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Although a handful of the framers were orthodox Christians, the tendency of most was toward Deism, Unitarianism or simply non-religious philosophy. While many of the teachings of Jesus and Christianity were broadly respected, and the founding documents contain some of that language and spirit, there's little support for the claim that the earliest Americans somehow intended this to be a uniquely Christian nation. Sadly, this meme seems to be gaining traction in the political sphere. ( )

I thought it was a great book. I've known since high school that many of our Founding Fathers considered themselves Deists, but I never really knew what that meant. This book gave me a much better idea of what Deists believe and showed how this belief system influenced the birth of our nation. ( )

This is a very interesting take on the faith of our founding fathers, their wives and the faiths of 20th century presidents. After reading this book, I am still confident that the majority of our founders were indeed religious and mostly Christian in their leanings at some point in their lives. I'm not saying they were angels or great Christians, but, I do think their belief systems were of a religious nature. Remember that the times were very different and religious traditions were very different from the traditions of today. Additionally, I am still convinced that America has been under the protection of a real God, without whom I don't think we could have won the Revolution. Still, the information contained in this historical reference has been very helpful and enlightening. ( )

Good, well-researched account of a selected number of important figures of the period and how they related both to church and to religion. Makes judgements based on the known behaviors, letters and speeches as well as on comments by contemporaries. Very little free-lancing or speculating. Trails off toward the end by considering minor figures in whom our interest is not so great. Written as an extract of the dense historical text for a layman and works in that regard. ( )

I found this a fascinating book. David Holmes has done quite well disentangling the religious stances of the founding fathers of the United States. There are many today who believe that all of them wre firm Christians, while another group tends to see most of them as pure deists. The reality is quite mixed. The quintessential Deist is Ethan Allen, followed by Thomas Jefferson. George Washington and Abigail Adams would be classfied as Desiteic Crhristians, while Patrick Henry would be an orthodox Christian (also Samuel Adams, Elias Boudinot, and John Jay). John Adams was Unitarian, but a firm church goer with some deistic tendencies. Benjamin Franklin was a moralist who frequently attended Chruch of England services, but disdained orthodoxy.

One chaper is devoted to the tendency of wives and daughters of the founding fathers to be orthodox Christians. The final chapter brings the story up to the present and discusses religious beliefs of Presidents Gerald Ford through George W. Bush.

I wasn't sure I was going to like the book when I picked it up, but became quite enthralled with the descriptions of the various people talked about. This book is a good corrective to the grea amount of misinformation about the religious life of the statesmen who created the United States. ( )