Our Founding Fathers both exemplify and epitomize Enlightenment thinkers.
Their Declaration of Independence and Constitution are the ultimate expression of what the word "Enlightenment" means.
Our Founders were in no way "anti-clerical", certainly not in the sense of French revolutionary Jacobins.
Our Founders were all Christians -- even those now said to be "deists" were, in fact, Christian deists who used the Bible as a source for both natural law and moral behavior.
So, they were not "anti-clerical", but they did insist that government must not impose religions on citizens.
One Founder often said to be irreverent, if not irreligious, was Old Ben Kenobi, I mean Franklin ;-), who told of attending a Great Awakening revival meeting by the Rev. George Whitfield:
- "I happened soon after on one of his Sermons, in the Course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a Collection, & I silently resolved he should get nothing from me.
I had in my Pocket a Handful of Copper Money, three or four silver Dollars, and five Pistoles in gold.***
As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the Coppers.
Another Stroke of his Oratory made me asham'd of that, and determin'd me to give the Silver & he finished so admirably, that I empty'd my Pocket wholly into the Collector's Dish, Gold and all. "
That is our oldest and wisest Founder, the pinnacle of Enlightenment thinking, and Franklin is not "anti-clerical" or anti-religious.
He is the opposite.