The Narrow Path Ministries

Steve, I heard you last week on the radio struggling with questions about America's founding Fathers. Here's something to shed some light for you:

Denominational Affiliations of the Framers of the Constitution
Dr. Miles Bradford of the University of Dallas did a study on the denominational classifications that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention accepted for themselves. Contrary to myth, the following list, published by Bradford, indicates that only 3 out of 55 of the framers classified themselves as Deists.

Note: only those Denominations whose Confessions of Faith were expressly Calvinistic at this time have been identified as "Calvinist" denominations. While many "Old-School" Lutherans and "Whitfield" Methodists at this time would have identified themselves with a Calvinistic view of Predestination, their affiliation has for the sake of charity been assumed to be non-Calvinist.

New Hampshire

* John Langdon, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nicholas Gilman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
Massachusetts

* Elbridge Gerry, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Rufus King, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Caleb Strong, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nathaniel Gorham, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
Connecticut

* Roger Sherman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Johnson, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Oliver Ellsworth, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
New York

* Alexander Hamilton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* John Lansing, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
* Robert Yates, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
New Jersey

* William Patterson, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* William Livingston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jonathan Dayton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* David Brearly, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Churchill Houston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist

Pennsylvania

* Benjamin Franklin, DEIST
* Robert Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Wilson, DEIST
* Gouverneur Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Thomas Mifflin, QUAKER
* George Clymer, QUAKER
* Thomas FitzSimmons, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* Jared Ingersoll, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist

Delaware

* John Dickinson, QUAKER
* George Read, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Bassett, METHODIST
* Gunning Beford, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jacod Broom, LUTHERAN

Maryland

* Luther Martin, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Carroll, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* John Mercer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McHenry, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Jennifer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Virginia

* George Washington, EPISCOPALIAN (Non-Communicant)
* James Madison, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* George Mason, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Edmund Randolph, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Blair, Jr., EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McClung, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* George Wythe, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
North Carolina

* William Davie, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Hugh Williamson, DEIST
* William Blount, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Alexander Martin, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Spaight, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
South Carolina

* John Rutledge, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Pierce Butler, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, III, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Georgia

* Abraham Baldwin, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Leigh Pierce, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Houstoun, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Few, METHODIST

Some may say, "well, this list only shows what churches these men were members of, it doesn't show what they believed." Which is a veiled way of suggesting that these men were liars when they swore to God to adopt the confessions of their churches when they became members of these churches (most churches back then required an "examination" of members when they were received into full membership).

Thanks for the info. Though I had never seen the demographic quantified like this before, it shaped up pretty similarly to what I would have imagined.

When Alabama joined the Union in 1819 she did so as a free and sovereign state, With all the rights and privileges of every other state. In 1819 New Hampshire, on its own accord, decided to disestablish the congregational church, which had been the established church there since before the War for Independence. It is important to note that New Hampshire and a number of other states had official state churches when they joined the new Union
(i.e. The United States under the Constitution) by ratification of the Constitution. They also had a state church when they voted for the Bill of Rights, which includes the 1st Amendment. New Hampshire, as well as every other state, saw no contradiction between an established church and the 1st Amendment. The reason is for this, when properly understood in context, is simple -- there is none.

The 1st Amendment was written to restrain the federal government from entering into the realm of church/state issues, because this was considered to be a state, and not a federal matter. A number of the original States still had official state churches when they ratified both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Some of the established churches were Anglican and some were Congregational. Other states had recently disestablished their state churches, because of the pressure from non-established sects, especially the Presbyterians and the small but growing number of Baptists.

It was an accepted idea that this issue was a state issue and that if the new federal government tried to interfere in this area the Union would not and could not have been established. The Bill of Rights was written to restrain the FEDERAL government. The states were sovereign and had their own constitutions and they were often overtly Christian. Let’s look at a few of them here:

DELAWARE 1897: Through Divine goodness, all men have by nature the rights of worshiping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences…

GEORGIA 1887: To perpetuate the principles of free government, insure justice to all, preserve peace, promote the interest and happiness of the citizen, and transmit to posterity the enjoyment of liberty, we, the people of Georgia, relying upon the protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

MASSACHUSETTS 1780: We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence, or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit and solemn compact with each other; and for forming a new Constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain, and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Now let’s look at the Massachusetts “Declaration of Rights” established that same year.

III. As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused throughout a community but by the institution of public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily....

And every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the Commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; And no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.

I should note at this point that Massachusetts maintained an established Church until the 1830’s when it voluntarily disestablished the Congregational Church from being the state church.

NEW HAMPSHIRE 1784: Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and reason, morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay, in the hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection; and the knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through society by the institutions of the public worship of the Deity…

Vermont joined the Union soon after ratification and this is from her constitutions preamble:

VERMONT 1793: That all men have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God: and that no man ought to or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of his conscience, nor can any man be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments, or peculiar mode of religious worship; and that no authority can or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of Christians ought to observe the Sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.

It becomes clear as you read the history of the States that they saw themselves as Christian Commonwealths. And these states created the federal Union and they barred the federal government from establishing one Christian sect as an official federal church.