Benjamin Franklin's Influence On Religion
Benjamin Franklin was a well-known American figure with humble beginnings. Born in Boston in the year 1706 from puritan parents, Franklin grew up with in a religious setting. Throughout his life Franklin changed his views on spirituality and religion. In his early teens, Franklin began to change his views on religion, later becoming a Deist. As a young man, Franklin stopped attending church on Sundays to have more time for his research.
At age 12, Franklin began his first job, apart from his apprenticeship in his father’s store, assisting his brother, James’, at a print shop. James created his own newspaper, The New England Courant, where Franklin would become employed as an apprentice. Franklin is largely known for his witty, sharp humor,
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Historian David T. Morgan argues that Franklin, who claimed to be a Deist, was actually the “first American champion of generic religion,” as he was generally undecided about his true beliefs. Morgan states that Franklin believed that all religions were the same in principal because they were all useful and served the same purpose: to provide one with comfort and morals. Morgan brings up Franklin’s pamphlet “A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” in which Franklin seemed uncertain and confused about his own beliefs. From the Dissertation, Morgan deduces, despite the fact that Franklin addresses his own deist beliefs in the beginning, that Franklin belied all conventional religions including his own. While Morgan defends his opinion that Franklin had never settled on any one belief, he states that Franklin “..did not fully endorse orthodox Christianity” and was unsure if “Christ was divine or not.”
In contrast to Morgan, Louis J. Sirico, Jr. writes about Franklin’s insistence of prayer before Constitutional convention meetings. Sirico quotes Franklins proposal to include prayer in meetings and focuses on Franklins quotes from Christian scripture. However, like Morgan, Sirico acknowledges Franklin’s contradictions with regard to his beliefs. Morgan uses a quote from his interview with Ronald Regan, asserting that it was strange that Benjamin Franklin, a distinguished deist, was the one who suggested the inclusion of
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