“There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion. It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by "religionists", but by Christians—not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

This has been cited at some sites as being in a speech to the House of Burgesses in May 1765, but the date and quote are both spurious. Patrick Henry never said anything like it; it was written in the 1950s. The writer David Barton misread a book and became in The Myth of Separation (1988) the first person to claim Henry wrote it (see "Fake Quotations: Patrick Henry on “Religionists”" (2009) http://fakehistory.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/fake-quotations-patrick-henry-on-religionists/). On internal evidence alone it could not have been written in the 18th century, for it is anachronistic to have Henry speaking of the colony of Virginia in 1765 as a "nation" that afforded "peoples of other faiths" the "freedom of worship." In fact this statement first appeared in the April 1956 issue of The Virginian in a piece partially about, not by, Patrick Henry, as the next sentence clearly shows: "In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example." (The "above quotation from the will" which is cited, is also quoted here, as a quote dated 20 November 1798).
Misattributed

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Patrick Henry 43
attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the Un… 1736–1799

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“I find that I can agree fully with my good friend Patrick Henry when he said it cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Edward Rutledge (1749–1800) American politician

This is clearly spurious. The only published appearance of this attribution yet located is in Baking Recipes of Our Founding Fathers : Authentic Baking Recipes from the Wives and Mothers Of, & Trivia About, the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and Our Constitution (2004), by Robert W. Pelton, p. 213. As the "religionists" passage cited was not written until 1956, and was not misattributed to Henry until 1988, it is obvious that Rutledge (who died in 1800) can neither have said that he agreed with it nor attributed it to Henry.
Misattributed

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Mahatma Gandhi photo

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

As quoted by William Rees-Mogg in The Times [London] (4 April 2005) {not found}. Gandhi here makes reference to a statement of Jesus: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Luke 16:13); also partly quoted in Christianity in the Crosshairs: Real Life Solutions Discovered in the Line of Fire (2004, p. 74 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=I7_5OM2VWuMC&pg=PA74) by Bill Wilson.
A variation is found in Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal & Gandhi Research Foundation's website mkgandhi.org http://www.mkgandhi.org/africaneedsgandhi/gandhi's_message_to_christians.htm. Christian missionary E. Stanley Jones, who spent much time with Gandhi in India, is said to have askedː “Mr Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is it that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?". To this, Gandhi is said to have repliedː “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ”. Jones would write a book called " Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation https://archive.org/details/mahatmagandhiani000019mbp" (1948), where he included excerpts of his personal correspondance with Gandhi, but he did not include this conversation.
No further sources for Gandhi have been yet found; but a similar quote is attributed to Bara Dadaː "Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians -- you are not like him." Source - Jones, E. Stanley. The Christ of the Indian Road, New York: The Abingdon Press,1925. (Page 114)
Disputed

Albert Mackey photo
George Washington photo

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

This statement was made by an official representative of the U.S. during Washington's presidency, but is actually a line from the English version of the Treaty of Tripoli ( Article 11 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp#art11), which was signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers on January 3, 1797. It received ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797 and was signed into law by John Adams. The wording of the treaty is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul, who had served as Washington's chaplain, and was also a good friend of Paine and Jefferson; Article 11 of it reads:
::As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,—as it has in itself no character or enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,—and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Misattributed

Max Müller photo

“It is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Preface (Scribner edition, 1872) <!-- New York, Scribner pp xxiv - xxv -->
Chips from a German Workshop (1866)
Context: It is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ. If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not win as many hearts in India and China as it ought, let us remember that it was the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic simplicity, but with its overpowering love of God and man, that conquered the worId and superseded religions and philosophies, more difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of Hindus and Buddhists. If we can teach something to the Brahmans in reading with them their sacred hymns, they too can teach us something when reading with us the gospel of Christ. Never shall I forget the deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real martyr to his faith, who had pictured to himself from the pages of the New Testament what a Christian country must be, and who when he came to Europe found everything so different from what he had imagined in his lonely meditations at Benares!

Thomas Arnold photo

“The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these other, men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after man.”

Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English headmaster of Rugby School

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 133.

John Adams photo

“As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Article 11 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp#art11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers on January 3, 1797 and received ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797; it was signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul); This phrase has also sometimes been misattributed to George Washington, and has also been misquoted as "This nation of ours was not founded on Christian principles".
Misattributed

Aron Ra photo

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