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.
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