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House Speaker Mike Johnson’s prayer at his recent swearing in on January 3, 2025, is a prime example of Christian nationalists attempting to Make a Founding Father Christian Again, for the first time.

Johnson delivered a prayer that he claimed Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and our 3rd president, recited every day from his first as President to his last on earth, about 9,256 days. Not true, never said it, says Monticello, the foundation that runs Jefferson’s former plantation.

The “Jefferson” prayer that Johnson recited ends with “Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” However, Jefferson did not believe in Jesus’ divinity but wrote “I am a Christian in the only sense that he wanted anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence and believing he never claimed any other.”

I define a Christian as a believer in the Trinity: Jesus is the son of God, equal to God, God.

Christian nationalists believe the United States divinely inspired by God, created by devout Christian Founders, and that Christianity infuses the founding documents. They state our problems are due, in part, to straying so far from the godliness of our Founders and their religious intentions for the nation. Therefore, we need to Make the Nation Christian Again, for the first time. To bolster their argument, they will distort the Founders and the Founding, either on purpose or because they have blinders on to who the Founders actually were.

I acknowledge that the Founders and the country were mostly Christian, but a good number of the most influential and important Founders were not. As well, the two most important founding documents, the Declaration and the Constitution, did not reference Jesus and were not authored by Christians.

Most importantly, the Constitution explicitly states in the first amendment “the congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution” and our 4th president, repeatedly fought in Virginia against the subsidizing of churches by the state and for freedom of religious conscience before authoring this first amendment. Madison was not a Christian but a unitarian greatly influenced by deism, as were many Founding Fathers.

Deism is a religious/philosophical movement of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, when people more actively and openly questioned Christianity and royalty. Deists are not atheists but believe in one God, not a Trinity, who created reason as the highest human faculty and who is best worshipped by living a virtuous life.

Deists were individuals but tended to distance themselves from aspects of the New Testament like miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection, as well as from the God of the Old Testament—a God that intervenes on behalf of and against the Jews. Deism’s Creator tends to be a distant presence who created the Heavens and the Earth then stepped back, though, again individual deists might see some involvement by God in human affairs. These “deists” might more accurately call themselves unitarians.

Most words used for God in the Declaration were words that Deism used for God like “Nature’s God,” the “Creator,” and “Supreme Judge.” “The Year of our Lord” is the only mention of God in the Constitution.

Deism greatly influenced the Founders Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—the first five presidents of the United States. Our sixth president, John Adams’s son, was also a unitarian like his father. These men all saw church as helpful to morality and often enough attended themselves. These men variously believed that Jesus’ teachings were wise but not that he was God. Some of these men are, therefore, referred to as Christian deists.

Two other noted founders also were not Christians: “The First American,” Ben Franklin, who helped to write the Declaration as well as the man who is sometimes called “The Father of the American Revolution” because he wrote pamphlets that stirred the country to rebellion; and Thomas Paine. Paine was an anti-Christian deist.

Finally, Abraham Lincoln—Savior of the Union, “founder” of the Republican party, and our greatest president—was not a Christian but appeared to believe in the Old Testament God. Lincoln was a fan of Paine and wrote a Paine-like polemic, in young adulthood, arguing that the Bible was not the word of God and Jesus was not the son of God. A friend in town who knew of Lincoln’s political aspirations burned the document.

Christian nationalists are going to repeatedly attempt to do what Speaker Johnson did a month ago.

President Trump says he “was saved by God to make America great again” but he might as well said to Make America Christian again. The Christian nationalists might take a similar approach to the one Elon Musk is using with the Federal Government, believing they are righteous and right.

We need to to push back, hard.

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