Kerby Anderson

Mark David Hall is the author of the book, Did America Have a Christian Founding? He came to my radio studio six years ago to talk about his book. More recently, he was invited to speak to the first National Religious Liberty Commission meeting last month. Because of that, I thought I would go back and look at his book again.

Early in the book, he suggests how to think about the founding of this country. One possibility he mentions it to acknowledge that most of the founders identified themselves as Christian. Except for about 2,000 Jews, nearly all colonists identified as Christian. But that isn’t too helpful since they may have been bad Christians or influenced by non-Christian ideas.

Another possibility would be that the founders were orthodox Christians. In some cases, there were: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Roger Sherman, and John Witherspoon. Of course, other founders were not orthodox Christians. Mark David Hall says there is no evidence the founders rejected orthodox Christianity and embraced deism.

Still another possibility is that the founders acted like Christians. However, some historians reject the idea that many of the founders were Christian because they did not join churches or take communion. Other historians argue they were not Christian because they fought an unjust war with England and did not abolish slavery.

A final possibility is that the founders were influenced by Christian ideas. He says this is the most reasonable way to approach the question but requires we do the hard work by looking at the links between biblical ideas and the framework of our government.

Over the next 350 days culminating on July 4, 2026, I plan to occasionally talk about some of those connections, because it is clear this country had a Christian founding.