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Religious views of George Washington
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.
Washington's great-great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican rector in England.
George Washington was baptized in infancy into the Church of England, which, until 1776, was the established church (state religion) of 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:
I, A B, do declare that I will be conformable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as by law established.,
1765. May 20th.—Thomas Withers Coffer, Thomas Ford, John Ford.
19th August.
— Geo. Washington, Daniel M'Carty [...]
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Religious views of George Washington
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.
Washington's great-great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican rector in England.
George Washington was baptized in infancy into the Church of England, which, until 1776, was the established church (state religion) of 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:
I, A B, do declare that I will be conformable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as by law established.,
1765. May 20th.—Thomas Withers Coffer, Thomas Ford, John Ford.
19th August.
— Geo. Washington, Daniel M'Carty [...]