Keep these two quotes near at hand for the next time someone wants to quibble that the founders like Jefferson and Franklin weren’t Christians, but Deists. Consequently, the argument goes, the founding of America wasn’t as a Christian nation. Am I arguing that Jefferson and Franklin were Christians and I expect to see them in heaven? Not necessarily, that’s up to God and certainly there is much they wrote that would cast doubt on their being converts, but they were steeped in Christian culture. Their thinking and mindset was a cake that tasted Christian through and through and they consequently were largely what they ate.

Remember that Deists believe in a “clockmaker god” that kicked everything off, but then sits outside creation and never intervenes and certainly isn’t responding to anyone’s prayers. No Deist would speak as these men did.

Consider these quotations from Franklin and Jefferson. Before the constitutional convention, on June 28, 1787, Benjamin Franklin made this earnest plea for public prayer:

“In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find the political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible to danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection.
“Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we image that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs the affairs of men.
“And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

B. Franklin

Consider also these earnest words of Thomas Jefferson:

“Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that... a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”

T. Jefferson

These quotes taken from a brief side project I’m wrapping up in publishing The American Mind in 1776 along with Natural Law or Biblical Law? as an appendix, which I’ll likely also publish as a standalone item.

QotD on Christian American Founding