This paper brings answer to the following question: To what extent did Christianity influence Washington’s First National Thanksgiving Proclamation? The article argues for a possible influence of religion on his political writings and actions. In other words, an objective analysis of the religious expressions in his First National Thanksgiving Proclamation gives more light, not only to his personal faith, but also to the vision he had about the place and the role of religion in the founding of the United States. No matter the way scholars may have considered Washington, they did not try to understand to which extend his Protestant inheritance influenced his political writings and actions. Along with the other Founding Fathers, much has not been said about the religious origin of his political thought, writings, and actions; and in the debate, his own words are generally overlooked. Using Said’s philology, namely his theories of “reception” and “resistance”, this article uses the First National Thanksgiving Proclamation as a case study.

Christianity, Thanksgiving, Washington, the Bible