Religious affiliations of presidents of the United States

This is a list of the religious affiliations of Presidents of the United States. For better or worse, the particular religious affiliations of U.S. Presidents can affect their electability, shape their visions of society and how they want to lead it, and positively or negatively shape their stances on policy matters.

For example, a contributing factor to Alfred E. Smith's defeat in the presidential election of 1928 was his Roman Catholic faith. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy faced accusations that as a Catholic president he would do as Pope John XXIII would tell him to do.

Some people who were president changed their beliefs during their lives. George Washington, for example, gravitated from conventional Christianity more towards Deism as he aged.

Evangelical Christians and religious Americans in general have a stake in the perceived religiosity of past Presidents and are disinclined to believe that there may have been atheist or agnostic Presidents, especially amongst the hallowed Founding Fathers. In general, it's difficult to define with any certainty the faiths of Presidents, because as with all religious beliefs, no one can truly be sure what relationship exists between a man and his God, gods or godlessness.

List of Presidential religious affiliations (by President)

1. George Washington – Deist; Episcopalian
   • According to his own journals Washington rarely attended church, going to Sunday services a handful of times each year. And the rector of the Episcopal chuch Washington attended while president, Rev. Dr. James Abercrombie, commented long after the death of Washington about his religious beliefs: "Sir, Washington was a Deist."
2. John Adams – Unitarian
3. Thomas Jefferson – Episcopalian; Deist
   • Though a member of the Episcopal Church, his beliefs were primarily Deist, and are considered very close to Unitarian. The Famous UUs website says:

     Like many others of his time (he died just one year after the founding of institutional Unitarianism in America), Jefferson was a Unitarian in theology, though not in church membership. He never joined a Unitarian congregation: there were none near his home in Virginia during his lifetime. He regularly attended Joseph Priestley's Pennsylvania church when he was nearby, and said that Priestley's theology was his own, and there is no doubt Priestley should be identified as Unitarian. Jefferson remained a member of the Episcopal congregation near his home, but removed himself from those available to become godparents, because he was not sufficiently in agreement with the trinitarian theology.

4. James Madison – Episcopalian
5. James Monroe – Episcopalian
6. John Quincy Adams – Unitarian
7. Andrew Jackson – Presbyterian
8. Martin Van Buren – Dutch Reformed
9. William Henry Harrison – Episcopalian
10. John Tyler – Deist; Episcopalian
11. James Knox Polk – Presbyterian
12. Zachary Taylor – Episcopalian
13. Millard Fillmore – Unitarian
14. Franklin Pierce – Episcopalian
15. James Buchanan – Presbyterian
16. Abraham Lincoln – Uncertain, possibly Deist; see (1)
17. Andrew Johnson – none
18. Ulysses S. Grant – Methodist
19. Rutherford B. Hayes – none
20. James Garfield – Disciples of Christ
21. Chester A. Arthur – Episcopalian
22. Grover Cleveland – Presbyterian
23. Benjamin Harrison – Presbyterian
24. Grover Cleveland – Presbyterian
25. William McKinley – Methodist
26. Theodore Roosevelt – Dutch Reformed
27. William Howard Taft – Unitarian
28. Woodrow Wilson – Presbyterian
29. Warren G. Harding – Baptist
30. Calvin Coolidge – Congregationalist
31. Herbert Hoover – Quaker
32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt – Episcopalian
33. Harry S. Truman – Baptist
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower – Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witness
    • Eisenhower was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness as an child. Eisenhower left the Jehovah's Witnesses when he was an adult. see [1], [2], and [3].
35. John F. Kennedy – Roman Catholic
36. Lyndon Johnson – Disciples of Christ
37. Richard Nixon – raised as a Quaker
38. Gerald R. Ford – Episcopalian
39. Jimmy Carter – Baptist
    • In 2000, Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention, disagreeing over the role of women in society. See [4]
40. Ronald Reagan – Disciples of Christ
41. George H. W. Bush – Episcopalian
42. Bill Clinton – Baptist
43. George W. Bush – Methodist

List of Presidential religious affiliations (by religion)

Baptist

• Warren Harding
• Harry Truman
• Jimmy Carter
• Bill Clinton (Southern Baptist)

Congregationalist

• Calvin Coolidge

Deist

• Thomas Jefferson

Disciples of Christ

• James Garfield
• Lyndon Johnson
• Ronald Reagan

Dutch Reformed

• Martin Van Buren
• Theodore Roosevelt

Episcopalian

• George Washington
• James Madison
• James Monroe
• William Henry Harrison
• John Tyler
• Zachary Taylor
• Franklin Pierce
• Chester Arthur
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Gerald Ford
• George H. W. Bush

Methodist

• James Polk (originally Presbyterian)
• Ulysses Grant
• William McKinley
• George W. Bush

Presbyterian

• Andrew Jackson
• James Polk (later Methodist)
• James Buchanan
• Rutherford Hayes (also attended Episcopal and Methodist services)
• Grover Cleveland
• Benjamin Harrison
• Woodrow Wilson
• Dwight D. Eisenhower (originally Jehovah's Witnesses)

Quaker

• Herbert Hoover
• Richard Nixon

Roman Catholic

• John F. Kennedy

Jehovah's Witnesses

• Dwight D. Eisenhower (later Presbyterian)

Unitarian

• John Adams
• John Quincy Adams
• Millard Fillmore
• William Howard Taft

Presidents without affiliation

• Abraham Lincoln
• Andrew Johnson

External links

• Adherents.com's list

• Unitarian Universalism is the religion generally associated today with those whose ideology is Deist.

• Abraham Lincoln was a Deist

Further Reading

Steiner, Franklin, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents: From Washington to F.D.R., Prometheus Books/The Freethought Library, July 1995. ISBN 0879759755