There’s a lot of liberal trash written otherwise, but as far as I’m concerned, Jefferson was a Christian and this nation was founded by Christians on Christian principles. Hope you don’t have too much of problem with that, because I do believe it with all my heart.
I think many of US FF's did the best they could considering their view and upbringing of what they considered to be Christian. The Calvinistic view of Christianity had many flaws and the influence of this view is why we have problems today when carried out in time
In order to begin to fix a problem .one must recognize the flaws. There is nothing wrong with that, Jim
The late +Bishop Fulton Sheen explains what I'm saying here very well
First, the dream. Because our early settlers broke away from the political and religious quarrels, they assumed that they were going back into Paradise. Every ticket holder on the Mayflower and their early descendants thought they were coming to the Garden of Eden where they would meet Adam before the Fall.
John Winthrop promised a "New City"; Whitman, Holmes and Thoreau described man in a state of innocence; Franklin wanted the Seal of the United States to be Moses dividing the Red Sea, showing how much we had departed from the traditions of Europe; Jefferson suggested the seal be the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by which the children of the New Israel were led to the Promised Land. America was the land of milk and honey; its Frontiers were illimitable -- they could be pushed back and back, revealing new lands, buried gold and unlimited freedom.
The Myth of the natural goodness of man gave the assurance of an ever-increasing progress. If a man did not become wealthy, it was because he was lazy. Cream naturally comes to the top, scum sinks to the bottom. The ethic of work glorified for us the Great American Dream that one had only to dig. Progress was an ever ascending curve: it was only the past that had to be left behind.
Then the dream changed into a nightmare because our assumptions were all wrong. The dream was a reaction against European religious thought at the time of our Founding Fathers that man is intrinsically wicked. But the great religious traditions of the age never taught that man was evil, but only that his intellect was darkened and his will weakened by rebellion against God. Hence, newly found America could not be a Paradise where man could dream of unbounded wealth. Man is a weak creature whether you put him in a new United States or on the moon. But the silly notion that he is a god and America is a paradise is like trying to place a marble bust on the stem of a rose.
Politicians during election time, capitalists who have made quick fortunes in oil and psychologists who blame environment rather than an evil will for the drug anti-culture still subscribe to the American Dream. And by doing so, they contribute to the Nightmare which we are now entering.
The more you build up the expectations of a boy about the pleasure he will get from a toy, the angrier he will be when the toy breaks down. Telling youth that "America is greening" only angers them when they find it browning in the Winter of its discontent. Unbounded pride or what the Greek dramatist called 'Hubris', has in the second act brought a judgment and in the third act a fear of 'Ate' or disaster.
In this Hour of Frustration when we transfer 125 billion dollars a year to the oil producing nations, which is equal to the entire farm crop of the U.S. in one year; when over eight per cent of the population is unemployed; when our manners become crude and only our gasoline refined; when we have the feeling we have touched the Last Frontier and yet unlike mice in a maze keep knocking our heads against it; when we are forced to get along with less -- when all these evidences of a broken dream are upon us, some try to drug the public conscience by telling them that Progress is still with us provided: First, we get rid of God; second, we preserve the right to climb into any bed; and third, that we be allowed to make money by pornography.
What has happened is for the best. We have learned that a man's greatness does not depend on what he has, but on the recognition of limits. The moment we discover discipline, or the ability to limit our ego, our greatness surpasses anything in the past.
-†- Fulton J. Sheen D.D., Ph. D., ‘Bishop Sheen Writes’; November 1975.
GK Chesterton, Hilare Belloc and others understood this well as well.