The religious views of George Washington have long been debated. While some of the other Founding Fathers of the United States, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick Henry, were noted for writing about religion, Washington rarely discussed his religious and philosophical views.
Washington attended the Anglican Church through all of his life, and was baptized as an infant. He was a member of several churches which he attended, and served as an Anglican vestryman and warden for more than fifteen years, when Virginia had an established church. As a young man he also joined the Freemasons, which also promoted spiritual and moral values for society. His personal letters and public speeches sometimes referred to "Providence", a term for God used by both Christians and deists. Washington's religious perspectives were shaped by his relationships with religious and political figures such as Worshipful Master Francis Lowthorp Sr., who gave Washington the Masonic address of welcome at the New Bern Masonic Lodge in 1791. Washington's moral values can also be inferred from his correspondence with Reverend John Lathrop on June 22, 1788, praising the clergyman's work and discussing his support for the proposed U.S. Constitution.
Anglican affiliations Washington's great-great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican rector in England.
George Washington was baptized in infancy into the Church of England,Image of page from family Bible which, until 1776, was the established church (state religion) of Virginia.Colonial Williamsburg website has four articles on religion in colonial Virginia As an adult, Washington served as a member of the vestry (lay council) for his local parish. In colonial-era Virginia, office-holding qualifications at all levels—including the House of Burgesses, to which Washington was elected in 1758—required affiliation with the current state religion and an undertaking that one would neither express dissent nor do anything that did not conform to church doctrine. At the library of the New-York Historical Society, some manuscripts containing a leaf from the church record of Pohick were available to Benson Lossing, an American historian, which he included in his Field Book of the Revolution; the leaf contained the following signed oath, required to qualify individuals as vestrymen:
Washington served as a vestryman or warden for more than 15 years. The Vestry in Virginia was the governing body of each church.
As the British monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and its clergy swear an Oath of Supremacy to the monarch, the American churches established the Episcopal Church after the American Revolution. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) disestablished the Church, although it retained some lands which had been purchased with public money.First Amendment Center A History of Religious Liberty in American Public Life by Charles C. Haynes (1991 Council for the Advancement of Citizenship and the Center for Civic Education) (The denominations that share the Church of England tradition are associated through the Anglican Communion.)
Attendance at religious services Washington paid for pews at several churches. Rev. Lee Massey, his pastor wrote, "I never knew so constant an attendant in church as Washington."The History of Truro Parish in Virginia However, Washington's personal diaries indicate that he did not regularly attend services while home at Mount Vernon, spending most Sundays writing letters, conducting business, fox-hunting, or doing other activities. Biographer Paul Leicester Ford wrote:
His daily "where and how my time is spent" tells how often he attended church, and in the year 1760 he went sixteen times, and in 1768 he went fourteen.Ford, Paul Leicester. The True George Washington (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1897), 78.
While he was at Mount Vernon, his first parish was Pohick Church, from Mt. Vernon; his second parish in Alexandria was away.
When traveling, particularly on political business, he was more likely to attend church services. In the seven Sundays during the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, he went to church on three occasions, attending Anglican, Quaker, and Catholic services.Ferling, John. The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009), 78. During his tours of the nation in his two terms as president, he attended religious services in each city, sometimes as frequently as three services in a day.
Communion
The record of Washington receiving communion was spotty.Six Historic Americans by John Remsburg, Chapter 3. Ministers at four of the churches Washington often attended wrote that he regularly left services before communion.
After the religious ceremony and Pulpit service Washington, along with the greater congregation, would exit the church, leaving wife Martha with the communicants to receive communion. In one definitive case a Pastor James Abercrombie of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, in Philadelphia took exception to the advent and, considering it his duty, said in one of his sermons that he was unhappy to see people in elevated stations not set an example by receiving communion. He later admitted that the remark was intended for the President, and indeed Washington had assumed the remark was aimed at him. Washington later discussed the incident with a Congressman at a dinner and related to him that he had honored the preacher for his integrity and candour, and that he had never considered that his example was of any influence. Never being a communicant, Washington felt that if he were to begin it would be seen as an ostentatious display of a President flaunting his religion solely prompted by the Pastor's remarks. Historian Paul F. Boller suggests that Washington, a man who had helped to promote a major war, refrained from receiving communion from the idea that his heart and mind were not in "a proper condition to receive the sacrament," and that Washington simply did not want to indulge in something he regarded to be an act of hypocrisy on his part.Grizzard, 2005, pp. 2–3 After the incident it is believed that Washington completely stopped attending that church on communion Sundays.
In 1915 the great-grandson of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton reported that his grandmother said, when she was 97 years old (about 1854), "If anyone ever tells you that George Washington was not a communicant in the Church, you say that your great-grandmother told you to say that she 'had knelt at this chancel rail at his side and received with him the Holy Communion.'"Cited by Lillback, George Washington's Sacred Fire, p 421. The event is purported to be during the time of Washington's 1789 inauguration.
Nonetheless, it was also not uncommon in those days for churchgoers to pass on participating in communion.
Baptism
As noted above, Washington was baptized as an infant into the Church of England (Anglican Church), in April 1732.
During the Revolutionary War it has been suggested that Washington was again baptized by the Baptist chaplain to the Continental Army John Gano at Valley Forge. Washington biographer Rupert Hughes determined that Rev. Gano served with George Clinton's army, not with Washington's, that the location is sometimes given as Valley Forge and sometimes as the Potomac River, that there is no documentation of Gano ever being at Valley Forge, that there is nothing in Gano's own correspondence or his biography to suggest that the event took place, and that none of the 42 reputed witnesses ever documented the event.
Washington himself was a godfather in the baptism of several children including his niece Frances Lewis, his nephews Fielding Lewis and Charles Lewis, Catharine Van Rensselaer (daughter of Philip Schuyler), George Washington Colfax (son of William Colfax) and Benjamin Lincoln Lear (son of Tobias Lear).
Public writings and speeches Washington used the word "God" 146 times in his personal and public writings, many of which were in his public speechesJohn C. Fitzpatrick's Writings of George Washington George Washington – 2015 and while some were regularly used phrases such as "thank God," "God knows," "for God's sake," or "my God!" there are many other examples where Washington used thoughtful expressions about God and His Providence.
From his Headquarters in New York, July 9, 1776, Washington issued a General Order which read, in pertinent part, "The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger—The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country."Fitzpatrick, 1932, Vol 5, pp.244-245 Throughout his life, Washington spoke of the value of righteousness, and of seeking and offering thanks for the "blessings of Heaven." Washington often spoke of "Providence."477 instances of "providence" compared to 156 instances of "god " and 142 instances of "heaven" in Writings of George Washington by John C. Fitpatrick The Catholic historian and philosopher Michael Novak writes that Anglican laymen of that period rarely invoked the name of Jesus Christ. The most famous reference came in a 1779 letter to a delegation of Native Americans. The letter was in the handwriting of an aide, and the leading biographers, including Chernow, Henriques and Freeman, say that the aide wrote it, not Washington:
You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention; and to tie the knot of friendship and union so fast, that nothing shall ever be able to loose it.see – George Washington speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs (May 12, 1779); published in The Writings of George Washington (1932), Vol. XV, p. 55
Washington referenced Jesus as the "divine Author of our blessed Religion" in his "Circular Letter to the Governors" of 1783 in the following prayer:
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."
When the Continental Congress authorized a day of fasting in 1778, Washington told his soldiers:
The Honorable Congress having thought proper to recommend to The United States of America to set apart Wednesday the 22nd. instant to be observed as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, that at one time and with one voice the righteous dispensations of Providence may be acknowledged and His Goodness and Mercy toward us and our Arms supplicated and implored; The General directs that this day also shall be religiously observed in the Army, that no work be done thereon and that the Chaplains prepare discourses suitable to the Occasion.Washington, "GENERAL ORDERS: April 12, 1778" in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799 (1931) vol 11 p. 252.