Part 1 - T. Jefferson and the Wall
It is a commonly held belief that our founding fathers were at worst deists and at best agnostic or atheist.
In fact, this is the Wikipedia entry on Thomas Jefferson dealing with his religious beliefs:
Further information: Thomas Jefferson and religion
The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged widely from the orthodox Christianity of his day. Throughout his life Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, biblical study, and morality*. He is most closely connected with the Episcopal Church, the religious philosophy of Deism, and Unitarianism.
“ Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
That’s it, that’s the “reader’s digest" version of Jefferson’s religious belief. That is the totality of wiki's main entry on the life of one of the greatest thinkers of all time.
There is a second entry with a more detailed approach to his beliefs but it follows the same line of thought, "Jefferson was a deist who believed that religion had no place in public life".
For the last several months, I have been reading about the founding fathers. Time and again I come to a struggle between the “commonly held opinion” and the actual actions and words of the founders – nowhere is this struggle more apparent than with the man known as “The Sage of Monticello”, T. Jefferson.
The most common belief about Jefferson is that he wrote that “…there is a wall of separation between Church and State…” in reference to the US Constitution. In fact no less a body of Jurist than the US Supreme Court have, in their creation of the “establishment clause”, referred to this statement*. What most people don’t know about that statement is that it was NOT written in reference to a legal debate, but to the Danbury Baptist Association in answer to a letter they wrote to him. Here’s the full context of the “wall letter”:
Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins & Stephen S. Nelson
A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut
Gentlemen:
The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association assurances of my high respect and esteem.
Thomas Jefferson
January 1, 1802
In 1998 James H. Hutson, chief of the Library of Congress’s manuscript division addressed Jefferson’s meaning, saying it “was never conceived by Jefferson to be a statement of fundamental principles; it was meant to be a political manifesto, nothing more.
In fact, what it really amounts to is a campaign promise to the association in response to their desire to make sure that the constitution protected their rights as a smaller congregation in an overwhelmingly Puritan/Congregational state. Here’s what they wrote:
“Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty - That religion is at all times and places a matter between God and Individuals - That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions - That the legitimate Power of Civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor…. and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favor granted, and not as inalienable rights: And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen.”
Note the last sentence; they were concerned with being made to swear oaths (degrading acknowledgements) that disagreed with their religious beliefs. Understand that Baptists and Puritans are at very different ends of the theological spectrum.
They were not concerned with Christmas trees or crèches; they were concerned with actual punishment or denial of rights for not adhering to the Puritan majority’s religious beliefs. They could be fined for missing a worship service and their taxes supported the actual church, paying for buildings and ministers’ salaries.
Okay, you came here either believing in "the wall" or not believing in "the wall". Given the context we've placed the statement in, is your view challenged or confirmed? If you asked 50 people, fully 35 would tell you that "the wall" statement is in the US Constitution. As we now know, it is not.
Now the question is does "separation" mean what the commonly held opinion thinks - that there is no place in public life for religion, a la the Freedom from Religion crowd or maybe, just maybe does it mean something very different. Remember, article one of the "Bill of Rights" of the US Constitution starts out thusly; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
The debate gets better in part 2:
“THOMAS JEFFERSON WAS A DEIST!!!”.
*A reader, who is an attorney, correctly pointed out that the "Danbury Letter" was just one documents the Court looked at in determining what the First Ammendment meant in the 1947 hearing of Everson v. Board of Education, Madison's writings were also among those referred to - we'll get to him a little later.
Part 2 - THOMAS JEFFERSON WAS A DEIST!!!
“In spite of right-wing Christian attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.”
Thus begins NoBeliefs.Com’s attempt to frame one of the greatest thinkers in history as a “freethinker”. For their purpose, a “freethinker” is “one who has rejected authority and dogma”.
Hmmmm, rejects authority….Here’s one of their “proof texts” to make that assertion:
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.” Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Here’s that same sentence in context:
Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty and singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears and servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God.
Jefferson is not challenging the existence of God; he’s challenging what he later identifies in the same letter as “Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration”. It should be noted that the young man he is talking to is his nephew. The purpose of the letter was to spell out the courses of study he should follow in pursuit of a balanced education. The subjects of the letter included thoughts on what languages to study (he decries the study of Italian as interfering with the study of Spanish, submitting that Spanish is more useful to an American). On the subject of Moral Philosophy – he thinks the study of this field to be a bit of a time waster, offering this thought: “He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science.” Wait, what, “…He who made us…” what’s that all about?
In his fourth paragraph, he addresses the subject of the study of religion – that’s where the “Question with boldness…” sentence comes from. It is obvious from the discourse on the Bible that T. Jefferson had more than a passing acquaintance with the book. He offers that “….If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.” He ends the discourse on the study of religion with this offering, speaking about the books we have come to know as the Apocrypha “…and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics.” The purpose of this longest bit of the letter was to encourage his nephew to the study of religion, not suggest that it was of no value.
I can already hear you posing the question: “Why does he seem to be saying that we should question what we read and are told”. Good question, simple answer, the same one the Apostle Paul gave in 1 Thessalonians 5:21: Test everything. Hold on to the good. Christians aren't to automatically accept every claim that is made by somebody supposedly speaking for God. The Bible is clear that we are to test every claim we hear against Scripture; if it contradicts something taught by Scripture, we should steer clear. Jefferson goes the further step to say read all of the books, not just the currently approved Canon, what we think of as the Bible (he offers to send a collection of the Apocryphal books if he can obtain one).
The letter ends with a discourse on the importance of travel to the full development of his nephew, desiring to make him “…precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself…”
You can find the letter here
So – where are we? Is Jefferson a atheist (free thinker – free from dogma)? It is clear that he was not a Calvinist – but was he a Christian? Maybe, maybe not, what did he have to say about that?
"I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did."
But what did he say about who he was? In a 1820 letter to Reverend Jared Sparks, Jefferson wrote:
“…I hold the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of His religion, having no foundation in what came from Him…”
In an 1803 Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush
“…To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every _human_ excellence; & believing he never claimed any other…”
Sounds like a Christian to me – just saying.
What, he doesn’t hold to the contemporary Calvinistic view of what a Christian is? That’s okay – he doesn’t have to hold to Calvin’s views, Luthers’s views or mine, your Dear Colonel, he only has to believe and confess.
Romans 10:10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved
"...I am a Christian...sincerely attached to his doctrines...", T. Jefferson
Looks like he did both to me.
"...I am a Christian...sincerely attached to his doctrines...", T. Jefferson
Looks like he did both to me.
Stay tuned for Part 3 So what does this have to do with deism?
