According to some politically correct history being taught in schools nowadays, George Washington owned slaves.
Well, in point of fact, Washington did own slaves. There's no doubt about that. I think what you mean is that some people might want to define him solely by his owning slaves.
I don't understand the point of this article. No matter what the personal religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers, there can be no doubt that they wanted a nation that was officially neutral on the subject of religion, not taking any sides. They had ample opportunity to enshrine one faith into law and refused to do so at every turn.
Wahsington's religious beliefs are interesting to those who want to learn more about the man but not terribly relevant when discussing the nation the Founders created for us.
When you get time you may want to click my screen name and scroll about 1/2 way down the page to the "Emory Report", and beyond.
So long as we don't confuse the understanding of religious neutrality as James Madison understood it and the ACLU's Jacobin understanding as an enmity between state and church and a refusal to defer to the Christian religious heritage of its people. In any case, far more Americans were affected by the enthusiasm of the Great Awakening than by the logic of the Scottish Enlightenment, which Jefferson et al. found so persuasive. But it was not logic but observation that led Jefferson and Madison, and before them Patrick Henry, to support relgious liberty in the Commonwealth. The witness of unlettered Baptist preachers who dared to defy the establishment and were whippedf for it, aroused a sense of outrage even in their cool minds. When the Revolution came, New Light preachers of all sects supported the Revolution, much as their likes had supported Cromwell more thna hundred years before.