To the editor:

I noticed that someone was repeating the urban myth that most of the “Founding Fathers” were deists. There are over 200 founders, and any generalization of the founders as deists is completely inaccurate.

Of the members of this notable group, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were notable for their promotion of Christianity. Charles Pinckney and John Langdon, founders of the American Bible Society; James McHenry, founder of the Baltimore Bible Society; Rufus King helped found a Bible society for Anglicans; Abraham Baldwin, a chaplain in the Revolution and considered the youngest theologian in America; Roger Sherman, William Samuel Johnson, John Dickinson and Jacob Broom, also theological writers; James Wilson and William Patterson, placed on the Supreme Court by President George Washington, had prayer over juries in the U.S. Supreme Court room; and the list could go on. And this does not even include the huge number of thoroughly evangelical Christians who signed the Declaration or who helped frame the Bill of Rights.

I’d suggest that anyone really interested in this subject spend some time reading what the various “founding fathers” wrote. I know that I was quite surprised by some of it, especially Franklin’s comments.