Deism

Deism, a generic term for the “rational” religion that challenged orthodox Christianity from the middle Colonial Era through the era of the Early Republic.Essentially an Enlightenment phenomenon, American deism was inspired by British free thought; Newtonian physics; the empiricist psychology of John Locke; and, in the later eighteenth century, French revolutionary thought. American thinkers in the early eighteenth century were moderately influenced by deism, but by the 1780s it had become popular and militant. Both Ethan Allen (1738–1789) in Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784) and Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason (1794) publicly and notoriously endorsed it. Deism reached its highpoint in the 1790s under the radical leadership of Elihu Palmer (1764–1806). A number of deistical societies, “temples of reason,” and newspapers devoted to rational religion were launched.

Deists rejected Christian belief in scriptural inerrancy, miracles, Jesus's divinity, and revelation. Some also condemned Christianity on moral grounds, arguing that it encouraged intolerance, superstition, and irrationality. As an alternative, deism posited an impersonal First Cause whose rationality is reflected in physical laws and human intellect, and lauded the exercise of virtue and reason as the truest form of worship. As notorious for their radical republicanism as for their religious heterodoxy, deists defended free speech and universal tolerance, opposed slavery and the conservative principles of the Federalist party, and enthusiastically endorsed the radical ideology of the French Revolution. Thomas Jefferson, a deist sympathizer, was vilified during his first presidential campaign in 1800 as a libertine infidel. Rational religion and radical republicanism remained associated in the public mind throughout the next few decades.

Deism waned as the Enlightenment gave way to the Romantic movement and a resurgent Christian evangelism in the early nineteenth century. But its ideal of rational religion inspired liberal versions of Christianity such as Unitarianism and Universalism. Moreover, its advocacy of religious freedom and separation of church and state helped enshrine these two principles in the American mind.

Bibliography

Kerry S. Walters , The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic, 1992.
Kerry S. Walters , Rational Infidels: The American Deists, 1992.
Kerry S. Walters , Benjamin Franklin and His Gods, 1999.

Kerry S. Walters