Probably about a decade ago, I took a tour of Christ Church on 2nd Street in the Old City section of Philadelphia. It was once the tallest structure in America, and it served as a place of worship to fifteen signatories to the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin is buried in a nearby annex. At the time of the founding of our country, the congregation was led by the Most Reverend William White, who was only the second ordained bishop of the Episcopal Church. There is a church historian who accompanies people taking the tour, and he told an anecdote about George Washington, who attended services there off and on over a period of 25 years. This historian said that Rev. White had approached Washington about his unwillingness to take communion and asked him simply not to attend at all on Sundays when communion was given because a man of his stature rejecting the sacrament undermined belief in the faithful. According to this historian’s account, Washington complied with this request.
I can’t find a specific account of this history online, but Rev. White did report that Washington never once took communion in his church.
In Bishop White’s response of August 15, 1835 to Colonel Mercer of Fredericksburg, Virginia, he writes:
“In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that General Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant…I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them as I now do you.”
It might be lost on the modern mind what the significance of this dispute was really about. In the 18th Century, established churches were the norm in the colonies, and people who did not belong to an established church were disqualified from holding office in most colonies. In practice, however, it was enough to attend a church from time to time to “belong” to it, and thereby meet the prerequisite for office. George Washington belonged to Christ Church when he was in Philadelphia, but he didn’t take communion because he didn’t believe in the Trinity. He didn’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth had turned water into wine or that taking communion was a legitimately sacramental act. Refusing to take communion was an act of personal integrity, but it was also an unstated declaration of independence from Anglican orthodoxy.
He wasn’t abnormal in this respect, but his stature made it an issue. Respectable people who didn’t believe didn’t stay away from church in those days, but they didn’t take communion. There are a few different words for these people, but the most common are “Deists” and “unitarians.”
The second president, John Adams, was explicitly a unitarian, as was his son John Quincy Adams, who served as our sixth president. Thomas Jefferson was famously hostile to trinitarianism. James Madison and James Monroe both displayed deist tendencies. As a result, it’s fair to say that our country did not have a president who believed in the divinity of Jesus until after the end of John Quincy Adams’ presidency in 1829. That’s the first 40 years, or 18 percent of our history as a nation.
President Andrew Jackson was the first president to obviously accept trinitarianism, but he only did it in old age, after he had served two terms as president.
I mention all this because I think it is relevant for understanding whether or not this country was founded on Christian principles and what that might actually mean, even if it is true.
