For those who limit their reading of history to what’s been researched and documented, the newest twist on American history may come as a surprise. In fact, most folks who read above the fourth grade level may not encounter it unless they get bored enough to read their child’s new textbook. But when you do—and after you use your Brawny towels to wipe up the Dunkin Donuts coffee you’ve spilled on your Stainmaster carpet because you were laughing—you might reconsider the newest propaganda circulating among the “religious” right to justify the merging of (one) church and state in this country.
My introduction to this viral mythology came as a guest at a community service, where the scripture readings were exclusively from Old Testament. The story was from Kings (18, 19) although it took a lot of cut-and-paste to make it fit. In short, the chosen people are threatened by outsiders. God takes sides in a war. While the threatened chosen people sleep, God comes in and kills 185,000 of their enemies. They wake up to a sea of dead bodies. It’s a tempting and attractive revenge dream for folks who are angry, feel helpless and long to be considered specially privileged without much effort on their own part. (It’s also the very antithesis of the meme, “What would Jesus do?” since “Blessed are the peacemakers” was just one of the bits of advice that ultimately got him in big trouble.)
Fast forward 2000 years. Times are rough. People are in need. Their neighbors may look like strangers. America’s position in the world is threatened by indecisive wars and trade imbalances. It’s hard to feel special or chosen. But neither weapons nor dollars have the capacity to make things right. It’s tempting to pray to some saint that a miracle might occur during the night without any special effort on our part and simply (in the words of Pat Buchanan) return us to the good old days.
What’s needed is a powerful patron saint of WASPS. And they’ve found one.
The sermon continued to reveal the special miracles God wrought in order to make George Washington the appointed head of this chosen people, and to found a Christian nation. From the Old Testament to the new apocrypha: The minister proceeded to cite “historical facts” from the book The Bulletproof George Washington, a little paperback by fundamentalist minister Charles D. Barton. The “novel” (I use the term advisedly) claims to re-capture the little-known history of the miracle that saved George Washington’s life in the French and Indian War, where according to Barton four bullets hit him in the chest, piercing his coat but not his skin. The evidence that Washington was protected by God comes from Indian witnesses and (sic) contemporary journalists. This miracle saved the “sainted soldier” for his later role in founding this Christian nation.
Barton’s work is widely cited, not only in religious media but among those who want to cleanse the schools of any hint of diversity (aka Thomas Jefferson.) According to the current meme, all of this history of our first President was clearly taught to children a few decades ago in “standard” American textbooks until the evil progressives changed them. The end result is a George Washington even he would not recognize.
Who was the real Washington? From actual historical sources, it’s easy to infer that he was a tepid Christian, an average military strategist, and one of the most advanced political thinkers of his time.
First, let’s dispel the idea that he was a saint in the traditional religious sense. Here’s an abbreviated summary from one heavily referenced source (from http://www.infidels.org/... with links that can lead you to others.)
In his writings, he never referred to "Jesus Christ." He attended church rarely, and did not take communion - though Martha did…Clear evidence of his personal theology is lacking, even on his deathbed when he died a "death of civility" without expressions of Christian hope. His failure to document beliefs in conventional dogma, such as a life after death, is a clue that he may not qualify as a conventional Christian. Instead, Washington may be closer to a "warm deist" than a standard Anglican in colonial Virginia…After George Washington's death, Christians made an intense effort to claim him as one of their own. This effort was based largely on the grounds that Washington had regularly attended services with his wife at an Episcopal Church and had served as a vestryman in the church.
(John Remsberg, Six Historic Americans, p. 103).
A minister who served the family wrote about his frustration with Washington’s disinclination to formal religious observances:
"…as pastor of the Episcopal church, observing that, on sacramental Sundays, Gen. Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation--always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants--she invariably being one--I considered it my duty in a sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations who uniformly turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it"
(From Annals of the American Pulpit, Vol. 5, p. 394, quoted by Remsberg, pp. 104-105).
But read farther, and a real historian can find a lot to admire in George Washington. He refused to allow Americans to torture British captives, because of his strong sense of ethics. He had a clear vision of constitutional government, clearly separate from religion or mythology. And because of him, we call our President “Mr.” We are not obligated to march lockstep to the drum of a politician or oligarch. All of these truths about the man run counter to the philosophy of today's right wing.
A Corrupted Legacy
The most unfortunate part of this viral mythology is that it obscures the real honor that we should be giving George Washington. It’s a perversion of his very significant political legacy, and an effort to embed not only religion but “divine right” into our political environment. Washington’s own actions refute many of the positions of today’s far right. So why has Washington become the darling of the religious right? Part of it is an attempt by our oligarchs to subtly encourage respect for the rich and powerful. From Medieval times, can you name a saint who was not a noble or a Bishop? (There were, of course, the random virgins who were willing to be torn apart rather than participate in an arranged marriage to the wrong noble, but most were also daughters of the rich and famous.) It wasn’t until the 18th Century that religious leaders began to look for holiness beyond the privileged few.
It’s always uncomfortable to compare anything to Nazi philosophy. But the use of mythology to move the masses was field tested most recently there, and there’s no escaping the implications. When the German people were most depressed from post-WWI economic crises, the emerging political powers at once created a mythology to make them feel special and to justify prejudice against “the other.” (The party also decried birth control and pressured ethnically German women to have as many children as possible, but of course that’s another sermon.)
The newest hero to the religious right, George Washington, was of course white, European, Protestant (at least officially) and authoritarian. But that’s where the pseudohistory ends. Our first President may be rolling in his grave at the perversion of his life, his religion (or lack of it) and his political philosophy. We ignore this twisting of history at our own peril.