What the Hell Were the Religious Beliefs of the Founding Fathers?

In this episode, John discusses the religious beliefs of some of the most prominent and impactful of the founding fathers. John begins by briefly reviewing over the broad strokes of the religious history of the British North American colonies from the early 1600s to 1770, discussing the religious diversity of the colonies, the most common denominations and the Great Awakening. John then explains the fundamentals of one of the most important belief systems embraced by a number of the founding fathers he covers later in the episode: Deism.

John spends a few minutes on the religious beliefs of each of the following American leaders: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Samuel Adams, Elias Boudinot and John Jay. He separates the men into two basic groups, the Deists and the Orthodox Christians and compares and contrasts their beliefs and how those beliefs impacted the structure of American government. John closes by giving his conclusions based on what he has learned by putting together this podcast.