Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers [Hardcover]

Brooke Allen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2006

In her lively refutation of modern claims about America's religious origins, Brooke Allen looks back at the late eighteenth century and shows decisively that the United States was founded not on Christian principles at all but on Enlightenment ideas. Moral Minority presents a powerful case that the unique legal framework the Founding Fathers created was designed according to the humanist ideals of Enlightenment thinkers: God entered the picture only as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuous by his absence. The guiding spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Ms. Allen explains, was not Jesus Christ but John Locke. In direct and accessible prose, she provides fascinating chapters on the religious lives of the six men she considers the key Founding Fathers: Franklin, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. Far from being the conventional pious Christians we too often imagine, these men were skeptical intellectuals, in some cases not even Christians at all. Moral Minority presents unforgettable images of our iconic founders: Jefferson taking a razor to the Bible and cutting out every miraculous and supernatural occurrence; Washington rewriting speeches others had crafted for him, so as to omit all references to Jesus Christ; Franklin and Adams confiding their doubts about Christ's divinity; Madison expressing deep disapproval over the appointment of chaplains to Congress and the armed forces, and of what we would now call "faith-based" initiatives. Enlivened by generous portions of the founders' own incomparable prose, Moral Minority makes an impassioned and scintillating contribution to the ongoing debate—more heated now than ever before—over the separation of church and state and the role (or lack thereof) of religion in government.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this study of the religious lives of six framers of the Constitution, which began as an article in The Nation, Allen (Twentieth-Century Attitudes) ably demonstrates the uncontroversial thesis that many of the founding fathers were not very devout. Franklin was a skeptic and a humanist who displayed outright "contempt for the niceties of Christian observance." Washington was, like other Virginia gentry, a vestryman in his local Episcopal church, but he was not especially pious. Adams's Puritan heritage left him with a commitment to hard work but not to Calvinism. Jefferson, unsurprisingly, appears as a devotee of reason and a champion of religious freedom, a cause in which Madison joined him. Hamilton's piety was mainly "opportunistic," and the religiosity he evinced on his deathbed had "no effect" on his participation in American politics. In the concluding chapter, Allen summarizes the history of the Enlightenment, that philosophical watershed that "produced the founders," and she ends by warning that Enlightenment values are now under threat. Allen's sparring partners are, of course, those representatives of the religious right who claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. Unfortunately, they are not likely to read this book, and those readers already generally inclined to agree with Allen-including most serious students of American history-won't learn anything new.
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Review

Meticulously researched and eminently readable. . . . Enthusiastically recommended for all collections.
(D. L. Davey Library Journal )

Ms. Allen succeeds perfectly. (Adam Kirsch New York Sun )

Enlightening, infectiously enthusiastic scrutiny. (Ray Olson Booklist )

Careful and provocative reading. . . . Allen's book is welcome counterweight.
(Darryl Hart )

Allen's clear and intelligent eye is a pleasure . . . a fine small book.
(Peter Matthiessen )

Allen lucidly demolishes the fundamentalists' revisionist history of the Constitution. . . . An elegant and riveting defense.
(Heather MacDonald )

Well documented, exuberantly argued and quite persuasive. (George Will The New York Times )

Allen provides honest answers to the questions about the religious beliefs and practices of Washington and the other key founders. (Myron A. Marty St. Louis Post–Dispatch )

If our right-wing adversaries insist on claiming that Washington and Franklin actually wanted the United States to be a Christian theocracy, Allen's book certainly can help to refute that outrageous lie. (Emile Schepers People's Weekly World )

Her argument marks a salient starting point for an informed debate on a compelling topic. Those who call the U.S. a 'Christian Nation' when referring not only to the religious beliefs of its citizens but to the structure and intention of its government ought to welcome the contrarian challenge she poses. (Richmond Times-Dispatch )

Allen delivers a rationalist polemic against those who would make of the American Founders observant, believing Christians in the modern sense. . . . Ms. Allen writes with facility.
(Aram Bakshian Jr. The Wall Street Journal )

This is an excellent book about the beliefs of the six founders and well worth a read. Highly recommended. (Marty Dodge Blogcritics Magazine )

A mighty case for the religious questioning of America's Founding Fathers . . . thoughtful, diligently researched and often eyebrow-raising.
(Blue Ridge Business Journal )

[Written] in a brisk, highly readable style. (Village News )

This is a thoughtful, well-written book. (Alvena Bieri Newspress )

Examine[s] the . . . Founding Fathers to convincingly demonstrate that Christian belief did not guide their political thinking . . . an excellent concluding chapter.
(Milton Berman Magill Book Reviews )

A small, and wildly underappreciated book.
(Nicholas F. Benton Falls Church News-Press )

Ably demonstrates the uncontroversial thesis that many of the founding fathers were not very devout. (Old Durham Road )

Allen's book . . . brings the substantial literary talents of a public intellectual to the dialogue on church and state in America.
(The Journal Of Southern History )

Informed by substantial research in their writings and provides numerous quotations. (Allen Gibson The Historian )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee; annotated edition edition (August 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566636752
• ISBN-13: 978-1566636759
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5.9 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #930,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 102 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Irrefutable December 2, 2006

By Malvin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Moral Minority" by Brooke Allen is a brilliant refutation of the popular but misbegotten notion that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. Ms. Allen profiles the religious lives of six key Founding Fathers and proves that their scepticism was in fact widely shared among the vanguard of the Enlightenment. Placing the founder's source writings within their proper historical context and astutely drawing parallels to the culture wars of our own time, this important work deserves to be read by a wide audience.

Ms. Allen dedicates individual chapters to the religious attitudes of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Ms. Allen peruses the personal correspondences and other original documents of the founders to discuss how their thinking on religion might have developed over the course of their lives. In most cases, she finds that with education and life experiences came expressions of disillusionment and even hostility to organized religion, providing further evidence that these attitudes only became more resolute with age. In the case of Washington, who wrote almost nothing on the subject, the author presents strong circumstantial evidence that the first president was at best a Deist but almost certainly not a Christian.

Ms. Allen finds a modern antecedent in the person of Hamilton, whose defense of the Constitution's no establishment clause did not prevent him from advocating the use of religion as a political weapon. We learn that Hamilton's cynical political tactic to label Jefferson as the champion of 'no god!!!' during the 1800 presidential contest backfired, even as the advent of the Second Great Awakening was threatening to elevate religion as a major campaign issue. Interestingly, Ms.... Allen shows that religious groups rallied around Jefferson specifically for his staunch defense of church/state separation and his personal guarantee that no national religion would be established.

The final two chapters expound upon the character of the American colonies and the Enlightenment values that shaped the founder's attitudes. Through Ms. Allen's compelling comparative analysis, there is no doubt that many of the founders shared a widespread revulsion of organized religion in general and of Christianity in particular. Ms. Allen cites the works of John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith and others as evidence that Enlightenment thinkers sought to separate ethics from religion, prefering the moral examples that might be drawn from Classical ideals to religious superstition and ritual; importantly, the author draws a straight line to the founders who were guided by these great texts in their architecting of the U.S. system of government.

I highly recommend this powerfully persuasive and irrefutable book to everyone. Read more ›

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Textual Disproof of "Christian" Amerika April 28, 2007

By D. S. Heersink

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Brooke Allen is most known for her stellar literary criticism in journals like New Criterion and the Hudson Review, but here, she leaves her "conservative journal" credentials to the side and examines six of the Founders' religious views and their impact on our formation of government. Religious conservatives will be disabused of their "Christian Nation" and "Reconstructionist" views.

While 6 of 51 Constitutional Conventioneers does not establish the whole Convention's point of view, certainly Washington, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton were the central architects of our Founding Documents. What Allen aims to show is that these six individuals in particular were not normative Christians, and whatever religious views they held (mainly Deism or unorthodox Theism), the Enlightenment Ideals, not Christianity, prevailed. But, of course, it did.

One finds not a single Judeo-Christian notion, belief, concept, or ideal in any of our founding documents. NO mention of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, the Decalogue, Charity, Faith, Hope, Forgiveness, Non-Judgmentalism, Self-denial, Spiritual Rebirth, etc. is found in any of the founding documents. Not even American "exceptionalism," based on Calvin's Divine Election of the Chosen, is found (however much it continues to surface in practical politics). If America's founding was "Christian," no evidence exists for a single Christian idea.

The Liberal Ideals of the Enlightenment, of course, opposed much of historical Christianity: Notions of self-rule, democracy, autonomy, freedom/liberty, anti-authoritarianism, equality, pluralism, freedom of thought and belief and practice, fairness/justice, impartiality, one-person-one-vote, human rights, diffusion of power, etc., all hail from the Enlightenment.... Not one, not one, can be found in the Bible.

The Age of Enlightenment (16-18th centuries) was grounded in Reason, not Religion. Indeed, the Authority of King and Church was opposed by all the Founders. Even those with a decidedly Calvinist cast recognized (largely through self-interest) that privileging any particular form of Christianity would disadvantage theirs. The dominant Enlightenment thinkers, from Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Hume, Smith, Kant, etc. were either nominal Christians or atheists.

"Obedience" to a book, church, monarch, deity -- some of which had to become manifest, if America was founded on Christianity -- is repudiated. The idea of "religious obedience" was disagreeable, except to the Puritans came to these shores to avoid religious persecution, only to do to others what they sought to avoid in Europe. Thus, the freedom to exercise religion was granted, but no particular religion could be established. It was in the Calvinists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, and Free-Thinkers' interest, all.

One assumes one learned this stuff in high school civics courses. But, it's not ignorance, it's the preposterous Christian Nationists, the Evangelicals, and Biblical Reconstructions who Allen intends to discredit, and she does so with her typical aplomb, elegant and incisive prose, and textual analysis. Anyone who harbors a Religionist Amerika has lost focus of the truth, the facts, and the Age of Enlightenment. Allen sets the record straight, largely in the Founders' own words. Read more ›

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good History of Founding Fathers & Separation of Church and State December 30, 2006

By E. Broockman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased this book after reading a favorable review in the NY Times Sunday book review. The book uses a variety of sources, including letters and authored documents, to illustrate the very strong views and philosophies many of the founding fathers had on the issue of separation of church and state. The book dives into the historical context for their opinions. Contrary to what many of the Christian Right would have us believe about the view of our founding fathers, by reading original historical sources it is very clear that Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams and Franklin felt very strongly that central to the future stability and prosperity of the United States was the need for a separation of church and state. This was driven by moral, philosophical and pracitical considerations. In addition to gaining a much deeper historical perspective on this central tenet of our democracy, which has been under attack by the current administration, was the recognition of the combined brilliance of these men in reading their writings. I also gained a deeper appreciation of the uniqueness of our own constitution and declaration of independence and how it reflects upon the genius of these men and their peers. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in knowing more about the philisophical and moral perspectives of the great men who helped birth our nation.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Neglected Slavery? January 8, 2007

By Neal Moody

Format:Hardcover

In response to the "brilliant historian" who gave this book one star because he claims the founders neglected slavery all I can say is people who know nothing about history should not make such outlandish claims. Of course the founders did not neglect slavery...The Constitution banned the slave trade beginning in 1808, and the founders knew that if they banned it before then the southern states would have never ratified the Constitution...and the U.S. as we know it today would not have been formed...at any rate this is an excellent book about the brilliant minds of our founders...