By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A tour guide at Philadelphia’s historic Independence Hall made the mistake of playing down the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers to a tour group that included several experts on the subject.
WorldNetDaily.com is reporting that Pastor Todd DuBord who serves as chaplain for Chuck Norris, Pastor Jim Garlow of Renewing America Leadership, and historian David Barton of Wallbuilders, were all part of a recent tour group of Philadelphia’s historic sites when Pastor DuBord asked the guide at Independence Hall to tell them more about the Founding Father’s religious affiliation.
“The . . . guide went from being an expert on the Founders to someone who was fumbling to formulate his words and get even a coherent and accurate sentence about our Founders’ religion,” DuBord wrote. “It struck me from his initial utterances on their religious views that he knew very little if anything about the real issues at all – and that made me wonder how many presentations he had done over the years to school children and guests from all over the country and world without ever discussing the Founders’ religious nature with any accuracy.”
Among the guide’s misstatements, he claimed George Washington never went to church, that Ben Franklin was a deist, and questioned the authenticity of the Founders’ Christianity because many owned slaves.
The guide then admitted, “We don’t really know for sure about their religion. It’s open for interpretation. You’ll have to do your own study on that.”
“In the very house in which they adopted a Creator-filled Declaration of Independence, not one positive comment was made about any one of the Founders’ Christian faiths,” DuBord wrote.
Outraged, the pastors have sent a letter to officials at Independence Hall in which they asked them to provide more accurate information to tourists about the Christian heritage of America and said the mockery by the guide of the Founders’ Christian beliefs, “was simply unbecoming.”
The letter went on to explain the facts, such as how Washington attended Christ Church which was just a few blocks away from Independence Hall with Betsy Ross, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris and many other signers of the country’s founding documents. Washington also worshiped regularly at Pohick Church near Mount Vernon and Christ Church in Alexandria where he and his family had reserved pews.
Deists believe in a Creator, but typically do not believe that He intervenes in the affairs of man. Franklin clearly did not subscribe to these beliefs, and DuBord’s letter lists several instances where Franklin confirmed his belief in the intervention of God.
“I have lived, sir, a long time,” Franklin is quoted as saying, “and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, That God governs in the affairs of men! And if the sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”
As for the slavery issue, most landowners participated in the practice which was considered acceptable at the time, but many of the Founding Fathers were conflicted about it.
“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it,” Washington once said. John Adams admitted that for his entire life, he held the practice of slavery in “abhorrence” and Franklin called it “an atrocious debasement of human nature.”
DuBord’s letter also pointed out that even Thomas Jefferson, hailed as the great separatist who fought against the tyranny of religious denominational sectarianism in the state, endorsed the use of government buildings for church services, allotted federal funds for the building of a Catholic church and gave land to Protestant missionaries who were working among the Indians.
“Can you imagine any president doing so today? He would be labeled a radical … .” DuBord said in his letter.
“For the Founders, God and government were intricately linked. Even Thomas Paine, perhaps the most religiously exempt among the founders, echoed one year earlier, ‘Spiritual freedom is the root of political freedom … . As the union between spiritual freedom and political liberty seems nearly inseparable, it is our duty to defend both.'”
Officials at Independence Hall have not yet commented on the incident.
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