The American founders, in the last third or so of the 18th century, lived in a biblically literate society. Their many quotations from and allusions to both familiar and obscure biblical texts confirm that they were intimately familiar with the text sacred to the Christian faith. Most Americans of the age were well acquainted with the Bible not only because of its place in religious life but also because it shaped their culture and was critical to their general education. The Bible, for example, was a useful tool in teaching many to read. It influenced significant aspects of their public culture, including language, letters, arts, education, and law.

Given how thoroughly biblical themes and language saturated the culture, it is no surprise that the Bible informed the founding generations’ political thoughts, words, and deeds. The Founders and the Bible, by Carl J. Richard, is an illuminating excursion through the profoundly Christian culture of late 18th- and early 19th-century America. It copiously illustrates the Bible's ubiquity in the lives, thoughts, and expressions of some 30 leading founders. Many were raised by pious parents “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), instructed early in the core tenets of the faith, and educated formally by clergymen at home or in schools where the Bible was central to the curriculum.

The founders lived in a culture marked by the Bible. But did the Bible shape their political thoughts and projects? The founders drew on diverse intellectual sources, most prominently British constitutionalism, classical and civic republicanism, and Enlightenment liberalism (in a variety of forms). Historical accounts of the era often given little or no attention to the Bible as a significant source of influence. This is a remarkable omission, indeed, given that it was the most venerated, authoritative, and accessible book in 17th- and 18th-century America. It was, by far, the most cited work in the founders’ political discourse. Not content to ignore the Bible's contributions to political culture, some commentators contend that the founding era, sandwiched between two great spiritual awakenings, was an enlightened age when rationalism was in the ascendancy and the Bible was, if not rejected outright, relegated to the sidelines.

The Founders and the Bible is a valuable corrective for this unfortunate omission. In 10 chapters, relying extensively on the founders’ own words, Richard digs deeply into the Bible's place and role in the lives and political thoughts of selected founders. He begins by exploring the biblical culture that permeated the founders’ homes, churches, schools, and society. This grounding in the Bible was for many a prologue to lives devoted to studying the Scriptures, promoting its inculcation in their own homes and communities, and disseminating it through denominational institutions and Bible societies. One chapter examines how the founders used the Bible, especially biblical characters and stories, to communicate and explicate their own faith commitments and political ideas. A widely held belief in a superintending Providence who intervenes in the material world, Richard argues, refutes the assertion that the founders were deists, at least in the popular conception of the term as one who believes in a noninterventionist Creator. Subsequent chapters examine the familiar themes of the age that America was God's “new Israel” and that Christian morality taught in Scripture was essential for nurturing the civic virtues that give citizens the capacity for republican self-government. Richard highlights religious beliefs the founders held in common, such as a future state of rewards and punishments, and beliefs for which there was no consensus, such as Jesus’ divinity and the divine origin and authority of Scripture. The penultimate chapter considers the founders’ biblical understanding of humankind's fallen nature and the attendant necessity to guard against the concentration or abuse of government power through a system of separated powers and checks and balances. The final chapter looks at the founders’ views on religious liberty and church-state relationships.

Notwithstanding the book's many strengths, one wishes a few topics had been brought into sharper focus, especially the question whether biblically informed political thought influenced specific actions and policies critical to the founding project. The term “founders” refers to those who were engaged in the profoundly political project of articulating the rights of colonists, fighting for and securing independence, and then creating new independent constitutional republics. The book gives a rich account of the influences of Christianity and uses of biblical language in the culture inhabited by prominent founders, but it misses opportunities to describe or explore how the Bible informed specific political pursuits and governmental structures and institutions with which we associate the founders. Did biblical arguments, for example, figure in the founders’ justifications for resistance to British rule (an important question for Christians in the light of Romans 13)? To what extent, if any, did the Bible inform the broad principles, basic structures, and specific provisions of the many state and national constitutions framed in the wake of independence? Richard offers occasional insights into these matters, such as his discussion in Chapter 9 of the founders’ pessimistic view of human nature, which, he argues, inspired a constitutional design emphasizing the separation of powers. The study, however, fails to consider other possible connections. In his discussion of the founders’ biblical conception of a future state of rewards and punishments, for example, he does not mention that oath requirements in many constitutions and statutes of the era were often explicitly premised on this concept.

Drawing attention to the Bible's vital contributions to the founding does not diminish, much less dismiss, the substantial contributions of the Enlightenment, classical republicanism, and other influences on the founders’ political pursuits. Rather, acknowledging the Bible's often ignored role in the founding enhances our appreciation of the diverse influences that informed the ambitious enterprise of securing political independence and establishing new constitutional republics. The Founders and the Bible is a welcomed addition to the literature on the American founding, and it enriches our understanding of the ideas that animated key actors in the nation's founding.