John Quincy Adams on the Bible

John Quincy Adams was president of the United States from 1825 to 1829. Quincy Adams' letters on the Bible were written in 1811, while he was the U.S. ambassador to Russia. It's not clear what Christian denomination (if any) he identified with at the time. Later, he would join the Unitarians.

In these early letters, he still mentions the Trinity and strongly emphasizes the need for divine revelation, since reason alone can only dimly perceive the truths of monotheism, the immortal soul, and the notion of punishments and rewards in a future existence.

On several other points, however, Quincy Adams sound less “orthodox”. Thus, he says comparatively little about the atonement, instead emphasizing the moral teachings of Jesus. These, too, were unique and hence a new revelation was needed to promulgate them. The author regards the Christian life primarily as a path of moral self-exertion, and seems to believe that humans have a sufficiently free will to choose the good and reject the evil. While regarding the Greeks and Romans as standing on a somewhat lower elevation than the Bible, the future president nevertheless admonishes his son to read Cicero. The Stoics, rather than the Platonists, are his favorite ancient philosophers.

On other issues, John Quincy Adams sound traditional enough. He died before Charles Darwin published the theory of evolution, and takes a rather strict “creationist” and “young earth” position in these letters. He regards the Bible as truthfully reporting human history, above all the history of the chosen people, the Israelites or Jews. And yes, Abraham did the right thing when he obeyed God's (later cancelled) command to sacrifice Isaac.

Of course, it's risky to judge a man's theology or spirituality simply on the basis of a few letters. So I really don't. I'm simply pointing out what may be interesting areas of further study…

According to a Unitarian website I consulted, John Q Adams rejected both the most liberal Unitarians (who placed Jesus and Socrates on the same, presumably human, level) and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transcendentalism, which he regarded as a sectarian movement.