George Washington's God

In his blog today, Dr Al Mohler (pres. SBTS) has addressed the issue of the faith of George Washington. Some of what he says may surprise those who would expect Mohler to say, as some have, "Washington was an evangelical, born again, believer in the Lord Jesus Christ". Mohler does not say that. Here is some of what he does say:

"The prevailing secular wisdom of recent decades held that Washington was a Deist. While the 'Father of the Nation' did use rather Deistic-sounding phrases and expressions, Washington clearly believed in a God who ruled directly in the affairs of nations -- something the god of the Deists would not (or could not) do...We are wise to avoid the rush to remake George Washington in our own image, whether ardent secularist or fervent evangelical Christian. Washington, like all of us, was a man of his times. His expressions of Christian belief must be placed within the context of his Anglican experience in Virginia -- a tradition not given to flowery expressions of personal belief. This much is clear: Washington was no secularist, nor was he what we would now describe as an Evangelical believer. Most likely, he was a traditional Anglican believer whose trust in divine providence shaped every moment of his illustrious life. What George Washington believed about the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not fully clear. That Washington believed in a God who ruled over the nations and intervened in human affairs is clear -- and Washington was confident that God favored the cause of justice and liberty." -SOURCE

Mohler also has links to articles found in USA TODAY and George Mason U's History News Network. Whether you agree with the premise, or conclusion, of either article or not they provide for interesting reading. There is also a book out called "George Washington's Sacred Fire". I am putting that on my "wish" list but it will be a while before I can get around to reading it. This is because I have a stack of books on my desk waiting for me and that is on top of reading/research I am having to do for graduate school. But I really do wish to read that book even if I may not agree with all of it's conclusions.

The author of the book wrote the article at HNN (see above) and does state;

"While some of the testimony for Washington’s faith falls in the arena of unsupportable legend, there is a temptation simply to dismiss all evidence of his faith by assuming that there is only hagiographical and apocryphal testimony to support it. So self-evident did Washington’s Christian faith seem to prior generations, that they only slightly felt the need to establish a scholarly case. Thus when this earlier case for Washington’s Christian faith was examined under the microscope of serious scholarship, it was unable to withstand the assault.
However, that did not mean there was no evidence for the claim of a strong faith life in Washington. Rather, it meant that the case had to be built by a careful return to original sources and historically sound arguments. Thus there has been a significant need to reassess this whole debate by an in depth analysis of the relevant data. That, of course, is what I have sought to do in George Washington’s Sacred Fire. It has simply been too easy for all parties in this debate to rely on secondary sources. Ultimately, Washington’s own words and his own actions in his own context establish the truth about his own faith."

As for my own position, as I have stated in other posts, I believe that Washington was most likely not a full blown Deist. However I also doubt that Washington was an evangelical Christian. I even go so far as to say that we can't know if Washington was actually saved (born again) or not since, as far as I know, he never said. I believe Washington was at least a nominal Christian who had some deistic flavors in his thinking. How far those flavors went, well, I don't think we will know until eternity.

 

I have not done any real research into Washington's Baptist Baptism however I have reason to doubt it's historical accuracy. Washington was a Anglican, not a Baptist, and that never changed. I believe, and I will have to check on this, that Novak discounts this theory in his book "Washington's God". I will look further into this when I get a chance to be sure.