Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father

A major new biography, illuminating the great mystery of Benjamin Franklin’s faith

Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the “thorough deist” who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers influenced Franklin’s beliefs, to be sure, but devout Christians in his life—including George Whitefield, the era’s greatest evangelical preacher; his parents; and his beloved sister Jane—kept him tethered to the Calvinist creed of his Puritan upbringing. Based on rigorous research into Franklin’s voluminous correspondence, essays, and almanacs, this fresh assessment of a well-known figure unpacks the contradictions and conundrums faith presented in Franklin’s life.

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• American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths
• George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father
• Baptists in America: A History
• The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
• How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
• George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father
• Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots
• The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance
• On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books