Washington [90]
Many mysteries have surrounded George Washington’s religious beliefs. A pair of notable acquaintances raised questions about his faith. Thomas Jefferson once remarked cynically that Washington “has divines [ministers] constantly about him because he thinks it right to keep up appearances but is an unbeliever.”14 Jefferson contended that when Washington stepped down as president, a group of clergy-men presented him with a list of requests to bolster public faith in Christianity; they noted he had refrained from public endorsements of the tenets of Christianity and beseeched him to declare openly his beliefs. According to Jefferson, “the old fox was too cunning” for the preachers and replied to all their points except the one about his personal faith.15 (It should be said that Jefferson’s source, Dr. Ashbel Green, later insisted that Jefferson had garbled the story.) Bishop William White of Pennsylvania, Washington’s pastor during his presidency in Philadelphia, also stated, “I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation.”16
From family recollections, it seems indisputable that Washington grew up in a household steeped in piety. Mary Ball Washington was extremely devout and did not hesitate to invoke the aid of Jesus. “She was in the habit of repairing every day to a secluded spot, formed by rocks and trees near to her dwelling, where, abstracted from the world and worldly things, she communed with her Creator in humiliation and prayer,” Washington’s adopted grandson wrote.17
A stalwart member of two congregations, Washington attended church throughout his life and devoted substantial time to church activities. His major rites of passage—baptism, marriage, burial—all took place within the fold of the church. What has mystified posterity and puzzled some of his contemporaries was that Washington’s church attendance was irregular; that he recited prayers standing instead of kneeling; that, unlike Martha, he never took communion; and that he almost never referred to Jesus Christ, preferring such vague locutions as “Providence,” “Destiny,” the “Author of our Being,” or simply “Heaven.” Outwardly at least, his Christianity seemed rational, shorn of mysteries and miracles, and nowhere did he directly affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Numerous historians, viewing Washington as imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, have portrayed him as a deist. Eighteenth-century deists thought of God as a “prime mover” who had created the universe, then left it to its own devices, much as a watchmaker wound up a clock and walked away. God had established immutable laws of nature that could be fathomed by human reason instead of revelation. Washington never conformed to such deism, however, for he resided in a universe saturated with religious meaning. Even if his God was impersonal, with scant interest in individual salvation, He seemed to evince a keen interest in North American politics. Indeed, in Washington’s view, He hovered over many battlefields in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. His influence was especially manifest during stirring patriotic victories and hairbreadth escapes from the enemy. Convinced that his life had been spared for some larger purpose, Washington later expressed gratitude to Providence, “which has directed my steps and shielded me in the various changes and chances through which I have passed from my youth to the present moment.”18 Throughout his life he descried signs of heavenly approbation and seemed to know that he operated under the overarching guidance of a benign Providence.
Many of Washington’s eminent contemporaries, ranging from Marshall to Madison, regarded him as “a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man,” as Marshall attested.19 Some of Washington’s religious style