George Washington and the Book of Common Prayer

The Founding Fathers in America have had a contested history in recent years. Men who have wrought such mighty works and an overwhelming legacy could not be left untouched by the cultural debate taking place right now. Despite the very famous and attested faithful bona fides of most of the Founders such as Patrick Henry, Dr. Witherspoon, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and others, increasing attention has been brought to a few like Thomas Jefferson who had abandoned the Christian faith. And if he, who else? The searching eye, hopeful for apostasy, had cast its glance on the grandest Founder of them all, George Washington himself. Washington famously did not talk much about his beliefs, and revisionist historians have put him in the small group of those who had abandoned faith. That is, until Dr. Peter Lillback (president of Westminster Theological Seminary) performed perhaps the most important recent effort on the culture of the Colonial era: in 2006, he published George Washington's Sacred Fire. In this vast tome, he provided one of the most epic and meticulous records of a lifetime of a man's Christian faith ever put on paper. The story that is now left to be told is George Washington's faith tradition. What kind of Christian was he? Was the most famous Founder an Anglican? Dr. Lillback joins us for this amazing episode to describe George Washington's habits of prayer, his adherence to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, his dependence on Providence and the things unseen, and the rich Anglican milieu in which he was born, married, and formed his heroic character. Don't miss this episode!