George Washington’s Warning About Religion Still Matters
This affects the entire country.
The United States may not be in the midst of a spiritual revival, as President Donald Trump touted during the State of the Union address, Feb. 24. The data is mixed, with religion being viewed as “very important” to less than half of Americans, as a recent Gallup survey found.
Nevertheless, for the nation to prosper and bind together, religiosity is not only a crucial aspect of civil society, but vital to its sustainability. This sentiment was expressed by none other than the country’s first president, George Washington.
Although private in his own religious convictions and skeptical of fanaticism, in his Farewell Address (1796), Washington’s clarion, prescient warning to contemporary and future Americans—on national and international affairs—definitively emphasized that “[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Moreover, to “subvert” such “great pillars of human happiness”—like the freedom of religious expression—would be considered unpatriotic.
Indeed, Washington believed religiosity served as a bedrock for national stability and individual virtue, and a lack thereof would cripple cohesion, writing:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
He was not the only Founding Father to stress religion’s intrinsic importance to the new republic. John Adams once reflected, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Benjamin Franklin, likewise, considered religious practice important for developing virtue, and believed “[God] ought to be worshipped” and “the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.”
Even Thomas Jefferson, the most notable deist among the Founding Fathers, warned about the consequences of abandoning religious conviction entirely. While advocating a “wall of separation” between church and state, he also stated:
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
Washington’s—or the other Founding Fathers’—rationale was not without historical precedent. For centuries, Christianity has served as the basis for establishing institutions that we take for granted, such as universities, hospitals, economic systems, and—most importantly—the philosophy undergirding the truth that “all men are created equal.” Indeed, as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville—a 19th-century political scientist—in “Democracy in America,” religion is the “companion of liberty” and a “safeguard” in preserving the “pledge of freedom.”
Today, however, American religiosity is struggling—and the consequences borne from this sociological trend have reverberated across civil society and political dynamics.
In the early 1950s, 75% of Americans found religion to be “very important” in their lives. …
This affects the entire country.
The United States may not be in the midst of a spiritual revival, as President Donald Trump touted during the State of the Union address, Feb. 24. The data is mixed, with religion being viewed as “very important” to less than half of Americans, as a recent Gallup survey found.
Nevertheless, for the nation to prosper and bind together, religiosity is not only a crucial aspect of civil society, but vital to its sustainability. This sentiment was expressed by none other than the country’s first president, George Washington.
Although private in his own religious convictions and skeptical of fanaticism, in his Farewell Address (1796), Washington’s clarion, prescient warning to contemporary and future Americans—on national and international affairs—definitively emphasized that “[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Moreover, to “subvert” such “great pillars of human happiness”—like the freedom of religious expression—would be considered unpatriotic.
Indeed, Washington believed religiosity served as a bedrock for national stability and individual virtue, and a lack thereof would cripple cohesion, writing:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
He was not the only Founding Father to stress religion’s intrinsic importance to the new republic. John Adams once reflected, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Benjamin Franklin, likewise, considered religious practice important for developing virtue, and believed “[God] ought to be worshipped” and “the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.”
Even Thomas Jefferson, the most notable deist among the Founding Fathers, warned about the consequences of abandoning religious conviction entirely. While advocating a “wall of separation” between church and state, he also stated:
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
Washington’s—or the other Founding Fathers’—rationale was not without historical precedent. For centuries, Christianity has served as the basis for establishing institutions that we take for granted, such as universities, hospitals, economic systems, and—most importantly—the philosophy undergirding the truth that “all men are created equal.” Indeed, as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville—a 19th-century political scientist—in “Democracy in America,” religion is the “companion of liberty” and a “safeguard” in preserving the “pledge of freedom.”
Today, however, American religiosity is struggling—and the consequences borne from this sociological trend have reverberated across civil society and political dynamics.
In the early 1950s, 75% of Americans found religion to be “very important” in their lives. …
George Washington’s Warning About Religion Still Matters
This affects the entire country.
The United States may not be in the midst of a spiritual revival, as President Donald Trump touted during the State of the Union address, Feb. 24. The data is mixed, with religion being viewed as “very important” to less than half of Americans, as a recent Gallup survey found.
Nevertheless, for the nation to prosper and bind together, religiosity is not only a crucial aspect of civil society, but vital to its sustainability. This sentiment was expressed by none other than the country’s first president, George Washington.
Although private in his own religious convictions and skeptical of fanaticism, in his Farewell Address (1796), Washington’s clarion, prescient warning to contemporary and future Americans—on national and international affairs—definitively emphasized that “[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Moreover, to “subvert” such “great pillars of human happiness”—like the freedom of religious expression—would be considered unpatriotic.
Indeed, Washington believed religiosity served as a bedrock for national stability and individual virtue, and a lack thereof would cripple cohesion, writing:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
He was not the only Founding Father to stress religion’s intrinsic importance to the new republic. John Adams once reflected, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Benjamin Franklin, likewise, considered religious practice important for developing virtue, and believed “[God] ought to be worshipped” and “the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.”
Even Thomas Jefferson, the most notable deist among the Founding Fathers, warned about the consequences of abandoning religious conviction entirely. While advocating a “wall of separation” between church and state, he also stated:
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
Washington’s—or the other Founding Fathers’—rationale was not without historical precedent. For centuries, Christianity has served as the basis for establishing institutions that we take for granted, such as universities, hospitals, economic systems, and—most importantly—the philosophy undergirding the truth that “all men are created equal.” Indeed, as observed by Alexis de Tocqueville—a 19th-century political scientist—in “Democracy in America,” religion is the “companion of liberty” and a “safeguard” in preserving the “pledge of freedom.”
Today, however, American religiosity is struggling—and the consequences borne from this sociological trend have reverberated across civil society and political dynamics.
In the early 1950s, 75% of Americans found religion to be “very important” in their lives. …
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