User:JimWae/TJ

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 has been affiliated with Anglican, Episcopal and Unitarian churches, and the religious philosophy of Deism. Opposed to Calvinism, Trinitarianism and Platonic Christianity, his religious commitment is probably best summarized in his own words by his proclamation that he belonged to "a sect by myself".

Affiliations with Episcopalian Churches
Jefferson was raised in the Church of England at a time when it was the established church in Virginia and only denomination funded by Virginia tax money. Before the Revolution, Jefferson was a vestryman in his local church, a lay position that was informally tied to political office at the time. He also had friends who were clergy, and he supported some churches financially. Following the Revolution, the Church of England in America reorganized as the Episcopal Church in America. During his Presidency, Jefferson attended the weekly church services held in the House of Representatives. Church services were held in executive branch buildings throughout his administration. When challenged that he did not believe what was being preached in these sermons, Jefferson, agreeing with George Washington, responded that religion was an important prop for republican government. Jefferson also contributed to church endowment funds. However, in later years, he refused to serve as a godparent, because he did not believe in the Trinity. He was not a communicant and was never confirmed.

Jefferson as Deist
Avery Dulles, a leading Catholic theologian reports, "In his college years at William and Mary [Jefferson] came to admire Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke as three great paragons of wisdom. Under the influence of several professors he converted to the deist philosophy." Dulles concludes: In summary, then, Jefferson was a deist because he believed in one God, in divine providence, in the divine moral law, and in rewards and punishments after death; but did not believe in supernatural revelation. He was a Christian deist because he saw Christianity as the highest expression of natural religion and Jesus as an incomparably great moral teacher. He was not an orthodox Christian because he rejected, among other things, the doctrines that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God. Jefferson's religion is fairly typical of the American form of deism in his day.

Terminology Jefferson used in the United States Declaration of Independence, such as "Nature's God", is typical Deist terminology.

Jefferson did not believe in miracles, nor in the divinity of Jesus, but he had high esteem for Jesus's moral teachings, which he viewed as the "principles of a pure deism" in an 1803 letter to Joseph Priestley.

... In consequence of some conversation with Dr. Rush, in the year 1798-99, I had promised some day to write him a letter giving him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, and even sketched the outlines in my own mind. I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we have sufficient information to make an estimate, say Pythagoras, Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antoninus. I should do justice to the branches of morality they have treated well; but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life, character, and doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice and philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state. This view would purposely omit the question of his divinity, and even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines had to encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but by the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard them from him; when much was forgotten, much misunderstood, and presented in every paradoxical shape. Yet such are the fragments remaining as to show a master workman, and that his system of morality was the most benevolent and sublime probably that has been ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophers. His character and doctrines have received still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions and precepts, from views of personal interest, so as to induce the unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust, and to pass sentence as an impostor on the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that ever has been exhibited to man...

"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand [i.e., to mean] sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.' But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, 'something not fit to be named even, indeed, a hell.'" (Ltr. to Adams, May 5, 1817,Writings,A.A.Lipscomb,15:108-109.)

Disestablishment of religion
For Jefferson, separation of church and state was a necessary reform of the religious "tyranny" whereby a religion received state endorsement, and those not of that religion were denied rights, and even punished.

Following the Revolution, Jefferson played a leading role in the disestablishment of religion in Virginia. Previously the Anglican Church had tax support. As he wrote in his Notes on Virginia, a law was in effect in Virginia that "if a person brought up a Christian denies the being of a God, or the Trinity ...he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office ...; on the second by a disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy ..., and by three year' imprisonment." Prospective officer-holders were required to swear that they did not believe in the central Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.

In 1779 he proposed "The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom," which was adopted in 1786.[9] Its goal was complete separation of church and state and declared the opinions of men to be beyond the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. He asserted that the mind is not subject to coercion, that civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, and that the opinions of men are not the concern of civil government, became one of the American charters of freedom. This elevated declaration of the freedom of the mind was hailed in Europe as "an example of legislative wisdom and liberality never before known."[10]

From 1784 to 1786, Jefferson and James Madison worked together to oppose Patrick Henry's attempts to again assess taxes in Virginia to support churches. Instead, in 1786, the Virginia General Assembly passed Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom, which he had first submitted in 1779 and was one of only three accomplishments he put in his own epitaph. The law read: No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

In his 1787 Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson stated: "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world..."

Anti-clericalism, anti-mysticism, & anti-Calvinism
Jefferson was convinced that the message Jesus taught wascorrupted by later writers & clerics.

His later private letters indicate he was skeptical of too much interference by clergy in matters of civil government. His letters contain the following observations: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government," and, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government."

His experience in France just before the French Revolution made him deeply suspicious of Catholic priests and bishops as a force for reaction and ignorance. Similarly, his experience in America with inter-denominational intolerance served to reinforce this skeptical view of religion. In an 1820 letter to William Short, Jefferson wrote: "the serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous."

. . . the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. To John Adams, Jefferson wrote that he longed for the time when “this den of the priesthood is at last broken up.”

To Benjamin Waterhouse in 1811 he referred to the Revelation of St. John as “the ravings of a maniac,” adding, The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, Materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and preeminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.

Jefferson's hatred of Calvinism was intense. He never ceased to denounce the "blasphemous absurdity of the five points of Calvin." Three years before his death he writes John Adams: "His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin" (Works, Vol. iv., p. 363).

"It is hard to say observes Bancroft, "which surpassed the other in boiling hatred of Calvinism, Jefferson or John Adams."

To Dr. Cooper, November 2, 1822, Jefferson writes: "I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it [fanaticism] could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation" (Works, Vol. iv, p. 358).

Accusations of being an infidel
During the presidential campaign of 1800, the New England Palladium wrote, “Should the infidel Jefferson be elected to the Presidency, the seal of death is that moment set on our holy religion, our churches will be prostrated, and some devoted to the worship of the most High.” Federalists attacked Jefferson as an infidel, claiming that Jefferson's intoxication with the religious and political extremism of the French Revolution disqualified him from public office. At that time, calling a person an infidel, meant that they did not believe in God. This was an accusation commonly levelled at Deists and those who expressed opposition to Christian doctrines. While opposed to the institutions of organized religion, Jefferson consistently expressed his belief in God. For example, he invoked the notion of divine justice in 1782 in his opposition to slavery,, and invoked divine Providence in his second inaugural address.

Jefferson, however, did not shrink from questioning the existence of God. In a 1787 letter to his nephew and ward, Peter Carr, while at school, Jefferson offered the following advice: 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 the homage of reason than of blindfolded fear. ... Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it end 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 in the love of others which it will procure for you. -- (Jefferson's Works, Vol. ii., p. 217)

To Dr. Benjamin Rush, with a Syllabus Washington, Apr. 21, 1803 DEAR SIR, -- In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.

Following this incident, Jefferson became more reticent to have his religious opinions discussed in public, and would add often added requests at the end of letters discussing religion that his correspondents be discrete regarding its contents. Scholars have remarked that James Madison and James Monroe, observing the umbrage heaped on Jefferson for his religious views and concerned they would suffer the same fate, rarley put their thoughts about religion down on paper. Abraham Lincoln, whose views about religion were similar to Jefferson's, also had to defend himself against charges of being an infidel.

Separation of church and state
Jefferson sought what he called a "wall of separation between Church and State," which he believed was a principle expressed by the First Amendment. This phrase has been cited several times by the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, he wrote: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Regarding the choice of some governments to regulate religion and thought, Jefferson stated: The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Deriving from this statement, Jefferson believed that the Government's relationship with the Church should be indifferent, religion being neither persecuted nor give any special status. If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise as it had happened in a fair or market

Though he did so as Governor of Virginia, during his Presidency Jefferson refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer and thanksgiving.

In 1998 James H. Hutson, chief of the Library of Congress’s manuscript division and a Presbyterian, questioned 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.” Conservative religionists claimed this was proof that Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church and State” metaphor should never have been interpreted as an overarching principle. Disagreeing, Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, countered that Hutson’s view was “merely one opinion” that most scholars do not hold.

In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution. In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other.

Jefferson, Jesus, and the Bible
Jefferson's conclusions about the Bible are noteworthy. He considered much of the New Testament of the Bible to be false. He described these as "so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture". He described the "roguery of others of His disciples", and called them a "band of dupes and impostors" describing Paul as the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus", and wrote of "palpable interpolations and falsifications". He also described the Book of Revelation to be "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams".

While living in the White House, Jefferson began to piece together his own condensed version of the Gospels, omitting the virgin birth of Jesus, miracles attributed to Jesus, divinity and the resurrection of Jesus. Thus, primarily leaving only Jesus' moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation titled The LIFE AND MORALS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH Extracted Textually from the Gospels Greek, Latin, French, and English was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible.

Jefferson, Priestley, Unitarianism, and Deism


Jefferson never joined a Unitarian church, but he did attend Unitarian services while in Philadelphia (Joseph Priestley's home town) and spoke highly of those services. He corresponded on religious matters with numerous Unitarians, among them Jared Sparks (Unitarian minister, historian and president of Harvard), Thomas Cooper, Benjamin Waterhouse and John Adams.

Jefferson also expressed general agreement with his friend Joseph Priestley's Unitarianism, which was founded on Deist principles such as the rejection of the doctrine of Trinity. In an 1822 letter to Benjamin Waterhouse he wrote, "I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its conscience to neither kings or priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian."

To John Adams, he wrote, "You are right in supposing, in one of yours, that I had not read much of Priestley’s Predestination, his no-soul system, or his controversy with Horsley. But I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them, and on Middleton’s writings, especially his Letters from Rome, and To Waterland, as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered, nor can be answered by quoting historical proofs, as they have done. For these facts, therefore, I cling to their learning, so much superior to my own In another letter to Adams (April 11, 1823), Jefferson wrote, “And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter.”

He wrote of his hope that “. . . there is not a young man now living in the U.S. who will not die a Unitarian.” (meaning perhaps no more than "not a Trinitarian").

To the minister of the First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Portland, Maine, Jefferson once requested the services of a Unitarian minister for himself and for a small group of friends. The reply was that there was no one available to be sent so far away. In a 1825 letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Jefferson wrote: I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state. But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, although I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could hear the questions fairly stated.

He did, however, express reservations that Unitarians too were finding it important to dispute doctrine with one another, and holds the Quakers up as an example for them. Richard Price & Priestley disagreed over the existence of free-will & the soul, Priestley taking the materialist position No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus;  when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since His day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines He inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily His disciples;  and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its Founder an impostor. Had there never been a commentator, there never would have been an infidel. In the present advance of truth, which we both approve, I do not know that you and I may think alike on all points. As the Creator has made no two faces alike, so no two minds, and probably no two creeds. We well know that among Unitarians themselves there are strong shades of difference, as between Doctors Price and Priestley, for example. So there may be peculiarities in your creed and in mine. They are honestly formed without doubt. I do not wish to trouble the world with mine, nor to be troubled for them. These accounts are to be settled only with Him who made us; and to Him we leave it, with charity for all others, of whom, also, He is the only rightful and competent Judge. I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also.

Modern Unitarianism no longer implies belief in a deity; some Unitarians are theists and some are not. Unitarians consider Jefferson a kindred spirit and an important figure in their history. The Famous UUs website says: Like many others of his time (he died just one year after the founding of institutional Unitarianism in America), Jefferson was a Unitarian in theology, though not in church membership. He never joined a Unitarian congregation: there were none near his home in Virginia during his lifetime. He regularly attended Joseph Priestley's Pennsylvania church when he was nearby, and said that Priestley's theology was his own, and there is no doubt Priestley should be identified as Unitarian. Jefferson remained a member of the Episcopal congregation near his home, but removed himself from those available to become godparents, because he was not sufficiently in agreement with the Trinitarian theology. His work, the Jefferson Bible, was Unitarian in theology...

General remarks
Jefferson says he was a "Materialist" (letter to Short, Apr. 13, 1820), an "Epicurean", a "Christian", and a "Unitarian" (letter to Waterhouse, Jan. 8, 1825). Biographers have often characterized him as Deist, though nowhere does he state he is a Deist, while he does admire Jesus for his deism.

Jefferson also stated what he did not believe. Jefferson rejected the Christian doctrine of the "Trinity" (letter to Derieux, Jul. 25, 1788), as well as the doctrine of an eternal Hell (letter to Van der Kemp, May 1, 1817), and the divinity of Jesus. He also rejected miracles, and the Doctrine of Predestination as espoused in Calvinism.

Jefferson specifically named Joseph Priestly (English Unitarian who moved to America) and Conyers Middleton (English Deist) and said: "I rest on them ... as the basis of my own faith" (letter to Adams, Aug. 22, 1813).

Biographer Merrill D. Peterson summarizes Jefferson's theology: First, that the Christianity of the churches was unreasonable, therefore unbelievable, but that stripped of priestly mystery, ritual, and dogma, reinterpreted in the light of historical evidence and human experience, and substituting the Newtonian cosmology for the discredited Biblical one, Christianity could be conformed to reason. Second, morality required no divine sanction or inspiration, no appeal beyond reason and nature, perhaps not even the hope of heaven or the fear of hell; and so the whole edifice of Christian revelation came tumbling to the ground.

Jaroslav Pelikan, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has termed Jefferson a “rationalist Anglican.” Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities emeritus at the University of Richmond, however, holds (Free Inquiry, Fall 1998) that “Any perusal of the Jefferson writings will establish that the Sage of Monticello was a Deist.”

notes2
Dr. J. Thomas in his Dictionary of Biography says that Jefferson “in religion is denominated a freethinker.” He spoke in old age of “the hocus-pocus phantom of God, which like another Cerberus had one body and three heads.” Religious liberals often quote his sentence, “The care of every man’s soul belongs to himself. No man has the power to let another prescribe his faith.”

I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature.

Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech you that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought here out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in your Name we entrust the authority of government [especially George W. Bush, our President], that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to your law, we may show forth your praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in you to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.



http://huuweb.org/Sermons/john-adams-versus-thomas-jeffers.htm http://huuweb.org/Sermons/john-adams-versus-thomas-jeffers.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html

In declining to act as godparent to a friend’s child, Jefferson wrote: “The person who becomes sponsor fora child, according to the ritual of the church in which I was educated, makes a solemn profession before God and the world, of faith in the articles, which I had never sense enough to comprehend, and it has always appeared to me that comprehension must precede assent.” Quoted in Sworn on the Altar of God, Areligious biography of Thomas Jefferson, by Edwin S. Gaustad, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996, p.8.

http://web2.nidhog.com/~yturks/mgeier.htm

Thomas Jefferson: "Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for 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. - letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." -in his private journal, Feb. 1800

"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism, he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it." - to Carey, 1816

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"It has been fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and then I considered it merely the ravings of a maniac."

"The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come, when the mystical generation [birth] of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation [birth] of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823

"They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live."

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." -letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814

accept the label of ‘Christian’ in a weaker sense. In another letter he wrote that:I am a Christian, in the only sense in which [Jesus] wished anyone to be; sincerelyattached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself everyhuman excellence; and believing that he never claimed any other.11It’s clear from the context that the doctrines Jefferson here subscribes to are the moralteachings he finds in the gospels, freely interpreted, i.e., purified of what he would call“the corruptions of [Jesus’] schismatising followers.” (p. 1125)

http://www.wvinter.net/~haught/quandary.html

http://www.monticello.org/streaming/speakers/transcripts/religion.html baptized, educated, married and buried by Anglican and Episcopal clergy. He contributed to Episcopal churches regularly, and he had his children not only baptized but also married under Anglican and Episcopal auspices

We seem to have no evidence that Jefferson ever received holy communion though I wonder if he did not receive it once as a teen. Nor was he apparently confirmed

his favorite religious body outside perhaps of Unitarianism seems to have been the Quakers. A group that had neither clergy nor dogmatic creeds, though he seems to have ignored that they did have a lot of mystery.

Third, Jefferson was anti-Calvinist. Deism as we'll see in a minute had five points. Calvinism is also summed up in five points. Church historians remember them by the acrostic tulip, you think of Holland. Total depravity unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. And Jefferson opposed every one of those points. He thought the predestinarian Calvin had not only terrible ideas but also worshipped quote "a malignant demon," end quote.

Among the corruptors he named were Platonic philosophy, Paul The Apostle, Athanaius, Augustan, Medieval Popes, John Calvin and others. "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed," Jefferson asserted in a letter," but not to the general precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian

- To J. Adams, 1823

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 a man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points, is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the creator and benevolent governor of the world, but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed, I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to atheism by their general dogma, that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now one-sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christians; the other five-sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a God??

III. Character of Jesus

His sublime morality

- To W. Short, 1820

It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it, etc. It is the innocence of his character, the purity and sublimity of his moral precepts, the eloquences of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes, indeed, needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies, too, may be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.

http://www.americanunitarian.org/gastonhistory.htm

Middleton http://books.google.com/books?id=g8gOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA705&dq=conyers+middleton&lr=#PPA706,M1