George Washington and Martha did not have children of their own. George did take in Martha’s children from an earlier marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. Later George and Martha raised John's two children when John died in 1781. George had no direct descendants.
Studies have shown we are more likely to believe that a statement is true if we have heard it before---whether or not it is actually true: “illusion-of-truth effect.” Subjects rated the validity of plausible sentences every two weeks. Without letting on, the experimenters snuck in some repeat sentences (both true and false ones) across the testing sessions. And they found a clear result: if subjects had heard a sentence in previous weeks, they were more likely to now rate it as true, even if they swore they had never heard it before. This is the case even when the experimenter tells the subjects that the sentences they are about to hear are false: despite this, mere exposure to an idea is enough to boost its believability upon later contact. The illusion-of-truth effect highlights the potential danger for people who are repeatedly exposed to the same religious edicts or political slogans.
How many untruths do Christians believe only because they have heard it all of their lives? What the fellow said about knowing George’s direct descendant is blatantly untrue but since they have heard it once when they hear it again people will believe it to be true.
From what I have found “No king but King Jesus” was the slogan of the Fifth Monarchists during the Interregnum in England, but there is little evidence for its use during the American Revolution.
At a 1999 commencement speech at Bob Jones University, Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft is quoted as saying this phrase was a slogan of the founding fathers. He also said this sentiment is found in the Declaration of Independence in the phrase, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Was this the motivating cry of the Revolution, and was Thomas Jefferson alluding to it in the Declaration? Ashcroft was wrong on both counts.
While people in the colonies may have used the expression, I have not found anything to suggest that it was a central rallying cry, nor that it was implied in the Declaration of Independence. Members of radical sects first used the phrase in a revolutionary context in England in the mid-17th century during the British Civil War. Groups such as the Diggers and the Levellers believed that after the execution of Charles I, a biblical monarchy was near and that Jesus would be the king. (The Diggers advocated the abolition of private property, and the Levellers were for the separation of church and state.) The phrase was particularly incendiary because it attacked the authority of both king of England as well as the clergy. In the American colonies, there are some historical references to it being said by Presbyterians who were agitating against the authority of the British king and harkening back to the earlier revolution.
The Enlightenment, not Revelation, was the underlying philosophy of the founders. While Jefferson was a member of the Anglican Church, he, like Washington, Adams, Madison, and Franklin, was a Deist. He believed in a rational God who created the world but that it was up to men, through reason and science, to shape it. Jefferson believed Jesus was a historical figure and moral philosopher, but like his fellow founders, was skeptical about the divinity of Jesus.
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