It is baseless to say that America's founding fathers were, to quote Wes Hunt, "vehemently anti-Christian," and to characterize the preachers of the Second Great Awakening as swindlers.
Hunt's example of Mason Weems paints an incorrect image of the Second Great Awakening as a whole.
In actuality, its leaders spurred Christians to reform society by pursuing women's rights and abolition.
To claim to know about the hearts and faiths of the founding fathers who lived more than 200 years ago is also unreasonable. Furthermore, there are letters written by the fathers that contradict the argument Hunt made.
In an 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams discussed the principles through which the liberty of this nation was attained.
"Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the existence and attributes of God," he wrote.
In an 1803 letter, Jefferson wrote: "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense He wished any one to be; sincerely attached to His doctrines."
Jefferson and Adams, among many others, were deeply influenced by Jesus Christ and his teachings, and to say that our nation's foundation has no roots in Christianity is a lie.
