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Summary
Summary
Washington has long been viewed as the patron saint of secular government, but in Washington's God , Michael Novak and his daughter, Jana, reveal that it was Washington's strong faith in divine Providence that gave meaning and force to his monumental life. Narrowly escaping a British trap during the Battle of Brooklyn, Washington didn't credit his survival to courage or tactical expertise; he blamed himself for marching his men into certain doom and marveled at the Providence that delivered them. Throughout his career, Washington held fast to the conviction that America's liberty was dependent on our faithfulness to God's will and our trust in Providence. Washington's God , shows Washington not only as a man of resource, strength, and virtue, but also as a man with deeply held religious values. This new presentation of Washington-as a man whose religion guided his governance-will bring him into today's debates about the role of faith in government and will challenge everything we thought we knew about the inner life of the father of our country.
Author Notes
Michael John Novak Jr. was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on September 9, 1933. At the age of 14, he entered the preparatory seminary at the University of Notre Dame. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and English literature in 1956 from Stonehill College and a bachelor's degree in theology in 1958 from Gregorian University in Rome. While in Rome, he wrote for the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal and the Jesuit weekly America. After studying for a time at Catholic University in Washington, he decided not to become a priest.
He wrote a novel entitled The Tiber Was Silver. He received a master's degree in philosophy in 1966 from Harvard University. He taught at several universities including Stanford University, the State University of New York at Old Westbury, and the Catholic University of America. He wrote speeches and position papers for Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern. In 1982, he founded the magazine Crisis with Ralph McInerny.
He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including Belief and Unbelief: A Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, A Time to Build, A Theology for Radical Politics, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics, Confession of a Catholic, Will It Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, and Writing from Left to Right: My Journey From Liberal to Conservative. In 1994, he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He died from colon cancer on February 17, 2017 at the age of 83.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Most modern historians have made three basic assumptions about the religious views of our nation's first president: he was a deist; he was only a marginal Christian who kept up appearances but had no depth of conviction; and he believed only in an impersonal force or destiny that he called "Providence." Michael Novak, the well-known conservative thinker and author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, teams up with his daughter Jana to attempt to debunk all three of these notions about Washington's religious views. Written at the specific request of Mount Vernon and with the assistance of their archives, this book is carefully researched. It is most persuasive when the Novaks show that despite his natural reserve, a depth of religious feeling ran through Washington's public and private speeches and correspondence, disproving the portrait of a tepid, perfunctory Anglicanism. However, they don't succeed as well in disproving Washington's deist sensibility; the Novaks adopt the modern assumption that being a Christian and being a deist were mutually exclusive-a conclusion that few in the late 18th century would have shared. At times, the Novaks' starry-eyed admiration of the man pushes this book over the bounds of biography into hagiography. (Mar. 6) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Other historians are wrong: George Washington was no deist or secular humanist or atheist, he was an Anglican who kept Jesus in his heart but, for political reasons, out of virtually all of his public utterances. The authors (father and daughter) rest their argument on their belief that Washington was not a hypocrite; he meant what he wrote and said. The Novaks adore their subject. The beneficiary of several miraculous interventions, he looked like a Roman warrior and had a brow like Caesar's. "He was," they write, "like a rock." Washington loved his wife, his stepchildren, his army, his country, his God--and surely Jesus, too, though he never really said so, even on his deathbed. He believed the Supreme Being answered the prayers of his soldiers. (The Novaks do not much ponder the issue of why God neglected to answer the prayers of the Redcoats, many of whom were also Anglican.) The authors begin with a biographical sketch, then examine Washington's religious beliefs. They cull from his letters and papers just about everything he ever said about God, discuss in great detail what he meant by "Providence" and argue that most other historians have erred. The elder Novak, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has written frequently on religious topics (The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1993, etc.) and has published previously with his daughter (Tell Me Why, 1998, not reviewed). Their prose ranges from high dudgeon to just-plain-folks: Washington was "no dummy," they tell us, and he and Martha were "soulmates." A tendentious effort to keep our founding father firmly in the fold of Our Father (and His Son). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Though historians have frequently identified George Washington as a deist rather than a Christian, the Novaks vigorously dispute this characterization. Through careful scrutiny of Washington's religious pronouncements, they establish that the master of Mount Vernon worshipped the God of scripture, not the absentee clockmaker of deism. Like other Christians of his time, Washington recognized the Deity as a living--albeit often inscrutable--influence in his personal life and in the fortunes of his country. Readers even revisit specific events (such as the improbable retreat from New York under cover of a life-saving fog) in which Washington detected the hand of the Almighty. To be sure, the Novaks acknowledge that Washington generally kept his Christian convictions private, but the language and conduct of this Anglican vestryman reflect marks of real devotion, not the mere shell of social conformity. Perhaps more important, we recognize the substance of religious faith informing a military career during which Washington insisted that soldiers attend the sermons of their Christian chaplains and a political career during which he repeatedly summoned the nation to prayers of reverent thanksgiving. Much-needed light on an enigmatic icon. --Bryce Christensen Copyright 2006 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Preface: An October Invitation from Mount Vernon | p. ix |
| Part 1 The Man | |
| 1 George Washington, the Man | p. 3 |
| 2 His Life in Outline | p. 21 |
| 3 The Protection of Providence: Heroism on the Monongahela | p. 47 |
| 4 1776: A Year of Providential Interpositions | p. 63 |
| 5 His Beloved Army | p. 81 |
| Part 2 The Faith | |
| 6 What's a Deist? The Deist Tendency | p. 95 |
| 7 Not Deist, but Judeo-Christian | p. 119 |
| 8 Washington's Public Prayers | p. 143 |
| 9 A Very Private Christian | p. 161 |
| Part 3 The Fruit | |
| 10 The Smiles of Heaven and the Work of Providence | p. 175 |
| 11 To Die Like a Christian | p. 197 |
| 12 A Christian? Pro and Con | p. 211 |
| Appendix I Selected Writings of George Washington | p. 229 |
| Appendix II Washington's Names for Providence | p. 243 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 247 |
| Notes | p. 249 |
| Selected Bibliography | p. 273 |
| Index | p. 275 |
