Faith of the Founders
...ility of a free mind, not one restricted by someone else's views in religious matters. In the book, Gaustad often compared Franklin to Solomon in the matters of their reasoning. America looked up to Franklin as a hero, and one who guided them. Franklin was often thought to be a little bit too playful though, it is often joked upon how they did not have Franklin write the Declaration of Independence because he would hide a joke or two in there. He was a strong believer in the fact that religion should not be completely eliminated from society, but was needed to teach the American people good morals. Washington was also considered a hero for keeping the country together throughout his times of leadership, and even after his death! Washington was not a leader who was obsessed with power, and was often compared to Cincinnatus, who was a farmer of ancient Rome who left his farm to go to the battlefield. He became a great hero, and later went back to his farm as if nothing ever happened. When Franklin died, Washington was still in presidency when a request was made for a national mourning in honor of Franklin. Washington promptly refused because it went against the first amendment. Later, when Washington died, there was a national mourning, even though he most likely would have stood against such a thing just like he had for Franklin. He too believe, just like Franklin, that the church should teach more about how to be a good citizen than a good christian. After Jefferson and Adams had already served there terms as president and were retired, they began to mail back and forth on their opinions about religion. They came to the conclusion that christianity was better off back in its basic, primative roots, "fear God, and love thy neighbor." This was the only thing one truly needed to know. No priest had to preach this to the people. It was a simple truth without all the cluttered sophistication that later evolved from religion. They called themselves true christians for believing in this. Gaustad based a lot of what he wrote on many sources. His bibliography page was four pages long, and unfortunately in paragraph form, making it very unorganized in terms of most bibliographies. His primary sources included letters and documents written by the founding fathers themselves. His secondary sources, which were numerous, included biographies of the founding fathers. The book added to my understanding of the mindset which influenced the fathers to make the decisions that they made. Gaustad went into extreme amounts of detail for the reasoning behind their re...