Respecting the Founders

The response to the “America is a Christian nation” meme is usually to argue that the Founders were deists, which results in an intractable debate about the Founders’ actual religion.  Transplanted Lawyer, however, takes a different approach:

Their writings and speeches are all over the map and certainly do not conform to contemporary standards of piety. But whatever they might have been, these men went to some effort to not be categorized into any “box.” They had complex motives for doing this, including a desire for personal privacy despite their public lives; a desire to keep their political profiles viable in a religiously heterogeneous nation; a lack of settling on any personal brand of faith during their lifetimes; discomfort with at least some of the loyalties, doctrines and teachings of the available organized churches; and perhaps most of all, a consciousness of the roles they would fulfill in the future as role models for the generations of Americans who would look back on them as heroes and role models.

I think we should respect their wishes. No one should get to claim them.

Read the whole thing – it’s not long.