Celebrating Independence Day can’t overlook the faith of those who led it. On a thread over social media, a professor of Philosophy and Humanities at St. Louis University, made a claim saying, “The founders were deists, not Christians…” I couldn’t let that go, so I responded, “Who are those deists… who signed the Declaration of Independence?”

Professor: “The Founding Fathers were all influenced by Deism…”

Me: All of them?

Professor: You are tiresome – your questions are inane – and you have no interest in learning anything that does not fit your own conformation bias.

Me: Is it that you can’t answer them so you call them inane or is it that you can’t answer them with substance sufficient enough, so you insert the gloss of academic fluff and verbiage? By the way, the wisdom of Dennis Prager emerges as he prioritizes clarity over agreement. I’m just making sure there is clarity in this thread about faith, the framers and theology.

Professor: “Wow, you have a marvelous capacity for deflection and seem to have little interest in doing any reading or work on your own. . . . Maybe if you do some work (like publish some books or articles) you might have a leg to stand on . . . and to suggest that Dennis Prager (a pseudo-intellectual of the first order) is someone to follow demonstrates that you are in over your head. . . Stop deflecting and do the hard work.”

Deists basically say that a deity is the creator and nothing else. In no way would this deity reveal the 10 Commandments and save, forgive and redeem people from their sin.

If the signers were all under the influence of deism, Charles Carroll wouldn’t have said, “On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts.”

Benjamin Rush stated, “My only hope of salvation is in the infinite, transcendent love of God manifested to the world by the death of His Son upon the cross. Nothing but His blood will wash away my sins. I rely exclusively upon it.” That’s profoundly Christian, not deistic doctrine.

Roger Sherman wrote, “I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God. . . . that God did send His own Son to become man, die [as the substitute for] sinners…” Those core beliefs of Christianity stand in sharp contrast to deism

John Witherspoon said, “I shall now conclude my discourse by preaching this Savior to all who hear me, and entreating you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ; for ‘there is no salvation in any other’ [Acts 4: 12].” That’s from the heart of an evangelical preacher, not a preacher of deism.

That’s only a short list, but proof enough that all were not under the influence of deism.

The deism argument by “credentialed” educators about our founders often is trucked out to discredit or marginalize any connection of God to education and government when numerous signers of the Declaration saw it as essential. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the professor to give me just a fraction of the signers who were deists.

The Rev. Mel McGinnis is a Frewsburg resident.