The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 288 pages
• Published by: Princeton University Press October 8, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0691133832
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0691133836
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 10.4 ounces

C. Robert Nixon, Library Journal
"This well-rounded selection of quotes provides fascinating reading material good for discussion. Recommended". --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Review
Seeking to let the Founders speak for themselves on religion, James Hutson has succeeded in producing a book of quotations that is not agenda driven and duly satisfies the canons of historical scholarship.
(Terry Eastland Books & Arts )

[James H.] Hutson offers quotes on religion not only from Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other famous Founding Fathers but also from less well known figures, like Elias Boudinot, president of the Continental Congress, and the Founding Mothers Abigail Adams and Martha Washington. . . .This well-rounded selection of quotes provides fascinating reading material good for discussion.
(C. Robert Nixon Library Journal )

James Hutson comes at this project from a different perspective than most. . . . Dr. Hutson is a historian and tries hard to be fair. He organizes the material by subject rather than by author. The strength of his decision is that it underscores the depth and breadth of the Founders' religious interests. . . . This is a most interesting book!
(Jeff Zell Dallas Morning News )

The book . . . represents, with great balance, the Founders' differing religious viewpoints. . . . All in all, this is the most balanced collection of quotations representing the Founders' religious views published thus far.
(Jonathan Rowe First Things )

[James H. Hutson is] a scholar friendly to religion--one who shows little bias in his writings and in his current work. Thus since the Founders differed so much from each other, Hutson offers some conflicting and contradictory comments by these leaders.
(Martin E. Marty The Christian Post )

The Founders on Religion might go a long way toward settling disputes[Hutson] takes us straight to the sources, with some surprising results. In easy-to-reference form, he shows the founders loved their country but were quite capable of thinking outside the pew.
(Susan Campbell The Hartford Courant )

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations (Hardcover) I agree with the previous reviewer's sound and well-expressed assessment, but only up to a point. This book is skewed in that it includes only certain members of the Revolutionary generation and only certain kinds of quotations from the included members. As to those excluded, Thomas Paine is an astonishing omission. Paine was a central figure in the American Revolution to his time, and his AGE OF REASON is rightly deemed a major statement on religion that deserved closer attention. So, too, Ethan Allen, the leader of the Green Mountain Boys and a founder of Vermont, wrote a book in which he advanced a powerful argument for atheism and freethinking. Even as to the people quoted, Jefferson's rather disturbing comments on Judaism are carefully omitted -- some of the most pungent may be found in THE ADAMS-JEFFERSON LETTERS. All in all, it's a useful book, but not without problems of its own. Comment | | (Report this)