The Big Idea

The Last Taboo

It’s harder in America to come out as an atheist politician than a gay one. Why?

I’ve been an outspoken member of the secular community since 2003, when I wrote Doubt: A Historywhich tells the story of religious and philosophical doubt all over the world. I decided to go public as an atheist during George W. Bush’s presidency, when the pressure brought to bear on the government by the religious right seemed to demand that atheists be more vocal in response. This isn’t just about opposing the rise of the religious right in American politics, though. In fact, there is a much richer tradition of American atheism than many realize.

To start, we atheists had a kindred spirit in Thomas Jefferson, who was often accused of being one of us. In 1787, Jefferson wrote in a letter to his nephew: “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than of blindfolded fear. … Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of others which it will procure for you.” Jefferson fought tirelessly for the separation of church and state and created the University of Virginia to be the first secular university. He was not alone: John Adams wrote in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli that ours was no more a Christian country than a Jewish or Islamic one. The Senate unanimously approved the treaty.

Of course, there remains a fierce debate among historians about just how religious America’s founding fathers were, but it’s clear why Jefferson and Adams’s generation felt so strongly about religious freedom: At least in part, it was because they were not far removed from an era of heretics being tortured and burned alive in the town square. They remembered the excessive force of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, and they did not want the United States ever to witness such horrors. (Today, the horrors of religion are more often about ignorance and inequality, but they are still there.)

Other presidents were also less than religious. James Monroe is not known to have had any religious affiliation or beliefs, nor is Abraham Lincoln. After his death, Lincoln’s wife reported, “Mr. Lincoln had no hope and no faith in the usual acceptance of these words.” His lifelong friend and executor, Judge David Davis, agreed, saying, “He had no faith in the Christian sense of the term.” This was confirmed by another of Lincoln’s closest friends, Ward Hill Lamon, who knew Lincoln in his early years in Illinois, was with him during the whole Washington period and later wrote his biography. As Lamon put it, “Never in all that time did he let fall from his lips or his pen an expression which remotely implied the slightest faith in Jesus as the son of God and the Savior of men.”

William Taft, before becoming president, turned down the post of president of Yale University (then affiliated with the Congregationalist Church), saying, “I do not believe in the divinity of Christ.” According to a 1908 article in the New York Times, “the report is being energetically circulated that Secretary Taft is an atheist.” Taft did not deny it but continued to attend Unitarian church services. And when he ran against the famously religious William Jennings Bryan, Taft was viciously attacked for his irreligion but still won handily.

These presidents reflected trends in the nation at large. True, the 19th century saw huge religious revivals, but there were also a host of popular speakers who traveled the country raising awareness about free thought. Ernestine Rose and later Robert Ingersoll, called “The Great Agnostic,” were tremendously popular on the lecture circuit. In the early 20th century, the Scopes Trial seemed to put to rest religious protests against evolution. (No one at the time would have guessed the issue would rise again later in the century.) The climate allowed for honesty. To take just one example, in 1910 Thomas Edison was asked by the New York Times if he thought it possible to communicate with the dead. “No,” he responded, “all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life—our desire to go on living—our dread of coming to an end as individuals. I do not dread it though. Personally, I cannot see any use of a future life.” A public figure could speak of a rationalist, naturalist understanding of humanity and the universe.

The Cold War changed all that. Atheism began to seem almost treasonous amid tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, because the Soviets were officially and emphatically against religion. Sen. Joseph McCarthy famously used the phrase “godless communists” to bash the political left and others he considered his enemies. In this context, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed laws in the mid-1950s inserting “God” into our Pledge of Allegiance and putting it on all our money. (It had been on most coins earlier, but Eisenhower made “In God We Trust” our national motto, henceforth to appear on all bills.)


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