America Was Founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The Founders Disagree.

The Statement

“This nation was not founded on some set of neutral, liberal principles. It was founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

— Sen. Josh Hawley, speaking at Kingdom Come 2026, reposted by @theinstitutefc, March 27, 2026

Hawley also posted the quote himself. We’ll treat it as his claim.

This isn’t an offhand remark. It’s a thesis statement about the nature of America’s founding — one with direct implications for how Hawley believes the government should operate. So let’s go to the primary sources.

The Shot: The Treaty of Tripoli (1796)

You don’t have to interpret the Declaration of Independence. You don’t have to argue about what the Founders “really meant.” You just have to read a treaty they signed.

In 1796, the United States negotiated a peace treaty with the Barbary state of Tripoli. Article 11 reads, in full:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Mussulmen — and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

This treaty was:

• Signed by President John Adams — a Founding Father and the second president of the United States
• Ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797 — a Senate composed largely of men who had participated in the founding
• Read aloud in full on the Senate floor before the vote, per the record in the Annals of Congress
• Published in full in American newspapers at the time, without controversy

The Founders didn’t whisper this. They wrote it into an international legal document, read it aloud in the Senate chamber, voted unanimously to ratify it, and put it in the newspapers. The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

The Chaser: The First Amendment

If the Treaty of Tripoli is the Founders saying it out loud, the First Amendment is them writing it into law permanently.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The Establishment Clause — the first clause of the First Amendment — was drafted primarily by James Madison, who had already argued in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance that even a small government tax to support Christian teachers was a violation of natural rights. Madison opposed government-paid Congressional chaplains as a constitutional violation. He believed the wall between church and state had to be absolute.

The Constitution itself — the supreme law of the land — contains zero references to Jesus Christ, Christianity, or the Gospel. Article VI prohibits any religious test for public office. This was not an oversight. These men were capable writers. They chose their words carefully. They chose not to invoke the Gospel.

What About the Founders’ Faith?

To be fair: many individual Founders were Christians, and Christian moral culture was pervasive in colonial America. That’s true and worth acknowledging.

But the key architects of the founding documents held views that ranged from orthodox Christianity to heterodox to outright Deism:

• Thomas Jefferson edited a version of the Bible that removed all miracles, the resurrection, and the divinity of Christ. He kept Jesus as a moral teacher. He called the Book of Revelation “the ravings of a maniac.”
• Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that he had “some doubts” about the divinity of Jesus and never resolved them.
• George Washington rarely mentioned Jesus by name in his writings and is widely regarded by historians as a Deist.
• James Madison — primary author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights — was deeply skeptical of institutional religion’s role in government.
• John Adams — the man who signed the Treaty of Tripoli — wrote to Jefferson in 1813: “The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

These are not the words of men who believed they were building a nation on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Christian Nationalist Argument

Hawley’s position has a scholarly tradition behind it — historians like David Barton have argued for decades that America’s founding was explicitly Christian. We’re not dismissing that tradition out of hand. These arguments deserve engagement, not just mockery.

But that tradition has been roundly rejected by mainstream historians across the political spectrum. Barton’s most prominent book, The Jefferson Lies, was pulled by its own Christian publisher after historians — including conservative Christian scholars — documented systematic factual errors. The American Historical Association, the Library of Congress’s own historical analysis, and the preponderance of peer-reviewed scholarship all reach the same conclusion: the founding was shaped by Christian culture, but the government was deliberately designed to be secular.

The existence of a scholarly tradition does not make its conclusion correct.

Verdict

Hawley’s claim isn’t a matter of interpretation. It’s directly contradicted by:

1. A treaty signed by the Founders themselves, ratified unanimously, stating the government is “not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”
2. The First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from establishing religion
3. The Constitution, which contains no mention of Jesus, Christianity, or the Gospel
4. The Founders’ own writings, which reveal views ranging from skeptical Christianity to outright Deism among the key architects of the republic

This is a FALSE claim. Not nuanced. Not mixed. Not mostly false with a kernel of truth. The primary sources say the opposite of what Hawley is asserting.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a matter of sincere faith for millions of Americans, including many Founders. That faith deserves respect. What it doesn’t deserve is to be drafted, retroactively, into a political argument the Founders explicitly rejected.

Sources: Treaty of Tripoli (1796), Annals of Congress; U.S. Constitution, Articles I–VII and Amendments; James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785); Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptists (1802); Library of Congress, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.