I just finished reading an amazing new book I would highly recommend called “The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution” by Gregg L. Frazer.

Contrary to popular opinion frequently promulgated by those on the Christian Right (such as David Barton and others in the “Christian America” camp) that the vast majority of America’s Founders were Evangelical Christians as well as those on the liberal Left who claim that they were mostly secularists and Deists, Mr. Frazer, utilizing extensive and thorough documentation from both public and private writings of 8 “Key Framers” (Adams,Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton and Washington), proves that they were neither Christians nor secularists/Deists but were actually a hybrid of the two which Mr. Frazer refers to as “Theistic Rationalists.”

Aside from Hamilton, who came to saving faith in Jesus at the end of his life, all of the 8 Key Framers rejected the Trinitarian view of God, the deity of Christ and the Resurrection. As Mr. Frazer demonstrates, based on the documented evidence, all 8 of the Key Framers would be what we call today “Universalists” as all of them believed that there were “many paths to God.” (As George W. Bush is on record saying as well.)

It was fascinating for me to see how their religious beliefs (essentially a mixture ofliberal Enlightenment thought, marginal Protestantism and Lockean political theory) influenced our Founding documents and our Republican form of government they had a significant hand in crafting and establishing. And I will be honest, it was also humbling to recognize that the key Framers were not Christians given the number of times I have publicly claimed they were based on what I thought to be trusted sources such as David Barton.

Here is the link to the book. Again, I highly recommend reading it and interviewing theauthor if you are in the media.