This was a comment from previous posting. It is good enough to be its own post:
Our Founding Fathers and Religion
It has become quite popular to claim that our Founding Fathers were Deists, agnostics or atheists. Unfortunately for historical revisionists, a true examination of history doesn’t support those claims.
Books have been written on this subject and I’m sure you have no real interest in my sharing example after example with you here. If you are truly interested, you might start by checking out what the Library of Congress website has to say about religion and the Founding of America.
You can find it at the Library of Congress.
Here is just one exceprt: ” It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson’s example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House–a practice that continued until after the Civil War–were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared….
“Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.
Jefferson’s actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist “a wall of separation between church and state.” In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a “national” religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.”