Most American Presidents have been Christians and most of them Protestants. Only one to date has been a Roman Catholic– John F. Kennedy. But three American presidents, while nominally Christians, claimed no formal religious affiliation.
Thomas Jefferson’s Grave Marker at Monticello
Which three American Presidents had no formal religious affiliation?
This Pew Survey on Presidential Traits provides the answer.
The American public has never had an atheist president, although three of them have had no formal religious affiliation. The most recent one, Andrew Johnson, left office in 1869. Since then, every president has been affiliated with a Christian church. (Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln are the other two.)
The three presidents with no formal religious affiliation were Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Jefferson was publicly accused of being an atheist by his political opponents such as Alexander Hamilton, who said Jefferson was “an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics.” (David L. Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, p. 81).
Jefferson once famously expressed his views on religious tolerance this way:
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I have written about America’s history of religious tolerance –and intolerance– previously in these articles:
“Jefferson, Madison, Newdow?” New York Times March 26, 2004
“America’s True History of Religious Tolerance,” Smithsonian October 2010
“Why US is Not a Christian Nation,” CNN.Com July 4, 2011.
Read more about these men in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents.
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback-April 15, 2014)
