As I read David McCullough’s best-selling book, John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001), I didn’t get the sense that the second U. S. president had a robust Christian faith. At least, McCullough, perhaps unintentionally, doesn’t present him that way. Rather, the book portrays Adams as a man whose Christian principles are always lurking behind the scenes, giving shape to many of his views on life and politics, but not existing at the forefront of his mind and heart. (In fairness to Adams, there may have been more to his Christian faith than what comes across in McCullough’s portrayal. Devotion to the conventions of modern [secular] history writing may impede an author’s ability to represent a Christian way of life from within.) Nevertheless, there are some important lessons to be learned—by everyone in general, and by modern politicians in particular—from Adams’s character traits and views of God and the world (which is far more than I can say for McCullough’s portrayal of Thomas Jefferson). The following are a few things worth emulating.
His Understanding of the Human Condition
Adams often had a perceptive sense of his own shortcomings, and he realized that he could not well tame the workings of even his own mind. He said, “I can as easily still the fierce tempests or stop the rapid thunderbolt, as command the motions and operations of my own mind” (41). When he wrote these words, he was having trouble overcoming absent-mindedness, laziness, and daydreaming. He couldn’t stick with his resolutions to read more seriously or quit chewing tobacco. We are not told if he took the consequent biblical step of entrusting himself to God’s mercy to transform the human heart, mind, and will, in order to conform them to divine designs. But recognizing the inabilities of human volition is a necessary—and often missed—first step in the right direction.
His Understanding of Human Limitations
Adams believed that the prosperity of the country depended not ultimately upon the strength of military might, the health of the economy, or the intellect, ability, and character of its leaders, but upon God. As McCullough writes, “For Adams the ultimate command rested always beyond the reach of mortal men, just as the very natures and actions of men themselves were often determined by their Maker.” As Adams himself once put it, “The prosperity of [my administration] to the country will depend upon Heaven, and very little on anything in my power” (527). On the topic of human limitations, he wrote to his granddaughter, with the wisdom of a grandfather, “You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little. . . . The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough” (650).
His Understanding of Human Equality
In a time when it was unpopular in many quarters, he believed that slavery was a blight on humankind and should be ended. Such a desire was rooted in his belief that all humans were endowed by their Creator with equal dignity and rights. With perhaps one or two improprieties of expression, he got close to biblical truth when he wrote, “The doctrine of human equality is founded entirely in the Christian doctrine that we are all children of the same Father, all accountable to Him for our conduct to one another, all equally bound to respect each other’s self love” (619). One can only wonder what might have been if others, such as Thomas Jefferson, who owned a number of slaves until his death, had carried similar principles to their logical end with reference to slavery. (One also wonders what will come from current trends to abandon the idea that the Creator has endowed humans with equal dignity if they are carried to their logical end.)
His Faithfulness in Hard Work
He was a man who regularly rose at 5:00 a.m. and labored with single-minded devotion to keep up his farm, to learn from his books, to carry out important political matters, and to teach his children. There is one story in the book, which is seemingly representative of his life, in which Adams worked long hours during the day to execute his duties as a foreign diplomat and then sat at the table with his son, John Quincy, who became the sixth U. S. president, for long hours into the evening, working with him on his studies. He seemed to give himself fully to whatever he set out to do.
His Enjoyment of Relationships and Conversation
We regularly find Adams enjoying the company of others and contributing his own wit and wisdom to conversation. He tells, for example, of his pleasure in conversing with his barber, who was “never . . . at a loss for a story to tell”: “while he is shaving and combing me . . . he contributes more than I could have imagined to my comfort in this life” (106).
His Ability to Wonder at God’s Creative Handiwork
Adams always enjoyed the wonders of life, but in his old age we find him doing so all the more—and explicitly in praise to the Creator. I’ll sign off with the following descriptive quotation.
I never delighted much in contemplating commas and colons, or in spelling or measuring syllables; but now . . . if I attempt to look at these little objects, I find my imagination, in spite of all my exertions, roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehensible universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole. [630]
