John Adams and the Religious Controversies of a Revolutionary Age

This revisionist study examines little-known aspects of John Adams's religious attitudes and challenges his reputation as a champion of religious liberty. It analyzes his views on Judaism and his conduct toward Baptist and Quaker religious minorities during the Revolutionary War era and places his opinions within the context of the Enlightenment.

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Despite John Adams' reputation as a Founding Father and (in some circles) a champion of religious liberty, there is a "darker side" to his thoughts and actions concerning religion that scholars and biographers have overlooked. This book is the first detailed examination of certain aspects of John Adams' religious thought and the intersection between religion and politics in his public career. It describes little-known or ignored facets of Adams' religious attitudes, particularly relating to his conduct with regard to the Baptist and Quaker religious minorities during the Revolutionary War era, specifically at the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Revolutionary War Congresses in 1777. It contains the first scholarly examination of Adams' opinion of Jews and Judaism and an illuminating comparison of his views with those of Voltaire, rendering it an important contribution to the study of the cosmopolitan Enlightenment as a whole, a trendy topic among interdisciplinary scholars and the general public.
Finally, it describes Adams' activities at the last public event of his life, the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1820, particularly concerning religious freedom, something that no other Adams biographer has done. Thus, the book functions on two levels: as an eclectic "religious biography" of Adams in revolutionary times and an examination of his political and religious thought in the context of the Enlightenment.