by Lewis Loflin
Benjamin Styles, in his essay *Doom of Deism?*, asks why Deism—embraced by Founders like Jefferson in shades of “Christian Deists” or “Half-Deists”—never became a full religion (see Doom of Deism?). Good question. He notes many Founders leaned Deist, yet it stalls. I’ll dig in.
Religions guide life and identity—good or bad. Anything can be “religion” socially. Thomas Jefferson, June 25, 1819, to Ezra Stiles Ely:
“I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.”
“Religion” today gets a bad rap—superstitious, backward. Beyond dictionaries, it’s a human institution: hierarchy, dogma, culture fused. Islam blends all three—state, faith, culture. Ancient Judaism did too. Christianity? Roman politics split church and state—Vatican aside—making disentanglement easier (see Separation).
In England, Henry VIII’s break from Rome sparked it. Puritans (Calvinists) battled Anglicans and the Crown, leaving room for “heretics” like Deists and Unitarians to slip by. Calvinist Holland, fighting Catholics, tolerated dissent—Jews, Polish Unitarians fleeing Racow’s Inquisition found refuge. Their ideas hit England, influencing Joseph Priestley, Jefferson’s pal, who brought Socinian Unitarianism stateside.1
Unitarians kept a church—loose beliefs, little dogma. Deists? Solo acts, often ex-Unitarians or liberal Protestants, all born from rationalism ditching superstition (see English Deism). Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Anglican giant, gave reason “natural sovereignty” over faith—Natural Law roots that fed Locke and Jefferson.2 Anabaptists and Unitarians, not Deists, birthed church-state separation—seeking apostolic purity, they faced Luther’s thuggish wrath.3
Styles ties Deism to Greek philosophy—Plato, Aristotle. Nonsense. They clashed—Aristotle trashed Plato. That’s philosophical Christianity, not Deism.4 Christians lean on “revelation”—God’s voice to chosen few. Jefferson saw them as Platonists, January 9, 1816, to Charles Thomson:
“I am a real Christian… a disciple of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel…”
And February 27, 1821, to Timothy Pickering:
“Reason advances towards rational Christianity… done away the jargon of Trinitarian arithmetic…”
Unitarians put reason over Bible literalism—revelation’s shaky. Deism ditched it outright (see Creed).
Calvinists—dogmatic, intolerant—set the stage. Their “Reform Churches” birthed the Protestant ethic, literacy, democracy—each church a free unit, state as protector. That flipped to individual liberty in America, now under siege by collectivist Progressivism (see Leftism). Puritans rejected kingly “Divine Rights,” aiming for theocratic purity, not just another state church. Their politics, not faith, got heat in England.
They pushed *sola scriptura*—Scripture alone—boosting literacy, even for women. Augustine shaped them, and Richard Hooker (modern) credits Calvin with “dominating Western culture.”5 Freed from tyranny, moderated by Locke and Hooker, this bred American values—Calvinists reintroduced Jewish business ethics too.
Rejecting predestination and Paulism fueled Unitarianism—Poland, England, New England’s Congregational shift. Deists sprang from both. Jefferson, a “deistic” Christian, leaned on Locke, Paine, Bolingbroke, Priestley.6 Greek philosophy? No—Deism’s a Christian revolt, not French atheism’s Eastern-Greek mashup (IEP). America’s Revolution dodged France’s bloodbath—culture, not creed, saved us.
Deism’s widespread—submerged in rationalist Muslims, Jews, Christians. It’ll never stand alone—needs cultural soil, not dogma or pews. Styles wonders why no “Deist religion”? It’s not built for it—reason trumps ritual (see Deism). A revolt within Christianity, not a new church.
