The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
Founding Fathers. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Fielding, Howard Ioan. 1940. “John Adams: Puritan, Deist, Humanist.” Journal of Religion 20 (January): 33–46.
Frazer, Gregg L. 2012. The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, and Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Sutter, Richard L. 1976. “The Divine Dimension: John Adams and Religion in America.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 4 (Fall/Winter): 42–46.
Adams, John Quincy
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), America’s sixth president, only one of two who was himself the son of another president, spent a lifetime in public service. Prior to serving as president, he served as a U.S. senator, was appointed to a number of ambassadorial posts, and served as James Monroe’s secretary of state. After serving for a single term as president, he served from 1831 to 1848 in Congress, where he largely distinguished himself for his opposition to slavery. Adams served for a time as the vice president of the American Bible Society (Presidential Inaugural Bibles 1969, 20).
Adams made it a practice to begin reading through the Bible once each year. After finishing the task in September one year, he decided that he would begin again, this time in French (Cook 2013, 217). Beginning in September 1811 and continuing for about two years, during which time Adams was an ambassador to Russia, he wrote a series of nine letters to one of his sons who was at school in Massachusetts. These letters were published on the year of his death and gives one of the most complete views of any U.S. president on the Bible.
In the first letter, Adams reported his pleasure in hearing that his son was reading a chapter of the Bible to an aunt: “for so great is my veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated on, it is of all books in the world, that which contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy” (Adams 1848, 9). Adams indicated that he read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning and hoped that his son would continue reading it with the goal of improving in both “wisdom and virtue” (11). Observing that he was sometimes distracted from his reading by pain, passion, pleasure, or dissipation (14), he realized that such excuses were inadequate and hoped that his son would learn to govern himself through disciplined reading. Indicating that Scriptures contained world history, the history of Israel, “a system of religion, and of morality” (20), suggested that he would explicate it further in letters to come.
In the second letter, Adams wrote, “My idea of the Bible as a Divine Revelation, is founded upon its practical use to mankind, and not upon metaphysical subtleties” (22). Adams believed its three main doctrines, all of which 11furthered morality, were “the existence of a God,” “the immortality of the Human soul,” and “a future state of rewards and punishments” (22–23). He further thought that “it is possible to believe them all without believing that the Bible is a Divine revelation” (23). The very existence of the world pointed beyond itself to a Creator, the nonmaterial nature of consciousness pointed to its spirituality and immortality, and the goodness of God suggested that there must be justice in the life to come (23–24). Adams believed, however, that Scripture presented such ideas with much greater clarity. The opening words of Genesis portray a God far above any conceptions of prior civilization. Noting that there had always been those “who cavil at some of the particular details of this narration” (28), Adams acknowledged both that “much of it is clearly figurative and allegorical” and that it is difficult “to distinguish what part of it is to be understood in a literal and not in a symbolical sense” (29). He thought it clear, however, that the Bible taught that obedience to God and His will was a virtue that humans should pursue.
Drawing from the language of 2 Timothy 3:17, Adams urged his son to read the Bible so as to be “thoroughly furnish[ed] . . . unto all good works” (34). Adams then further distinguished the universal history found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis from the history of Abraham and his family that followed, promises that Adams believed were fulfilled in Christ (38). Believing that it was “immaterial” whether the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis was “literal or allegorical” (40), Adams believed that its central theme was the necessity of obedience to God. Whereas Adam and Eve were initially told simply what not to do, Abraham faced a greater task in obeying God by leaving his family and even being willing to sacrifice his son.
Adams’s fourth letter continued his understanding of the connection between Abraham and his family and its role “as the means in the ways of God’s providence, for producing the sacred person of Jesus Christ, through whom the perfect sacrifice of atonement for the original transgression of man should be consummated, and by which ‘all the families of the earth should be blessed’” (Adams 1848, 48, repeating a biblical phrase found in both Genesis 12:3 and 22:18). Whereas his father is generally considered to have been a Deist, John Quincy Adams even suggested that there might be intimations of the Trinity in the book of Genesis (49). In addition to obedience, Adams believed that the story of Abraham evidenced God’s justice, which was tempered with mercy (50–51). Continuing with the story of Joseph, Adams indicated that biblical stories “have an air of reality about them which no invention could imitate” (52) and pointed to the need for the law of Moses, which would continue to guide the people through Joshua and subsequent judges and through Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.
Adams’s fifth letter focused on Moses. Noting that “human legislators can undertake only to prescribe the actions of men: they acknowledge their inability to govern and direct the sentiments of the heart,” Adams observed that one of the strengths of the Ten Commandments is that they sought to govern both (62). Recognizing that the law of Moses was directed to a particular people, he believed that “it was destined to be partly suspended and improved into absolute perfection many ages afterward by the appearance of Jesus Christ upon earth” 12(64). He attributed the longevity of the Mosaic law to its excellence, observing that “the first four commandments are religious laws, the fifth and tenth are properly and peculiarly moral and domestic rules; the other four are of the criminal department of municipal laws” (69).
In Adams’s sixth letter, he tied the Jewish law to the idea “of a covenant or compact between the Supreme Creator and the Jewish people,” which he furthered noted was sanctioned “by the blessing and the curse” with which the commandments had been accompanied (75). Adams further attempted to outline the rest of the Old Testament, even mentioning the apocryphal books in the process (83).
Adams’s seventh letter pointed to some defects in Mosaic institutions, namely, “the want of a sufficient sanction,” their lack of “universality,” “the complexity of the objects of legislation,” and the overemphasis on religious rites (85–89). Jesus perfected the law by introducing a more universal law with divine sanction that separated his kingdom from that of the world, and nailed ancient rites to the cross (89). Adams preferred to address the contribution of Jesus “not as the scheme of redemption to mankind from the consequences of original sin, but as a system of morality for regulating the conduct of men on earth” (89). He believed this moral system sought to strive for absolute perfection, like that which he believed Jesus had himself achieved (90). In contrast to some religious writers, Adams believed that Christ had proclaimed new standards of morality which “as far exceeds any discovery in the physical laws of nature, as the soul is superior to the body” (94). He believed that Christ had exercised authority such as only a “Redeemer” could do (95).
In his eight letter, Adams proceeded to discuss the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew 5–7. Again differing from some who believed that Jesus had presented a religion of weakness, Adams observed Jesus’s own assertiveness and courage, which was subsequently reflected in the acts of his disciples. He gave particular attention to how “bold, inflexible, tenacious, and intrepid” St. Paul was and to how Peter was known as a rock (107).
In his ninth and final letter in the series, Adams addressed the Bible as literature. In the process, he discussed the five books of Moses (some of which he thought may have originated from Egypt), the