The assistant rector at Christ Church in Philadelphia, the Reverend James Abercrombie, once preached a vehement sermon protesting the “unhappy tendency of’those in elevated stations who invariably turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper.” Though Abercrombie did not name names, then President George Washington, who was in attendance that day, took the message to be aimed directly at him and thought it “a very just reproof.” Washington's custom had long been to excuse himself from church when it … [Read more...] about In God We Trust: A July 4th Conversation on the Historian’s Vocation & the Church