Posted on 07/15/2002 10:58:55 PM PDT by scripter
Can't we just refer to them as having "a touch of the lavender?" After all, describing themselves with a synonym for "happy" does not exactly make me feel...um, happy.
The article criticizes the Gay-ista interpretation of Scripture. It does not condone it.
Could that be because it's...ABNORMAL???
Yes, the David whom God called "A man after my own heart".
The pro-gays have no problem in trying to convince Christians that David was really a homosexual.
Some very creative interpretation of scripture. Of course their reward awaits them.
Snicker. Been there and have to agree.
As to your question:
"Was Mr. Jefferson a Christian beforehand?"
From THIS LINK:
"Though Thomas Jefferson was baptized as a child in Virginia’s mild, established Anglican Church (which itself understood man, in it particular way, to stand inside of the greater spiritual cosmos); as a young man at the College of William and Mary he became exposed and converted to ideas labeled as of the “Age of Reason”, the so-called “Enlightenment”."
"In this way he began to examine Christianity and its ideas: of God as a Trinity, man, the Fallen world, sin, Divine Judgment, etc., with what he later described as the “Tribunal of Reason”. (This tribunal subjected the Trinity, for example, to its reason, and found it unbelievable, impossible or unknowable.)"
"His revealing notations from this early period reveal fundamental, sceptical ideas and attitudes, towards religious, theological and philosophical history – especially under the strong influence of his readings in Bolingbroke, which he held all his life, until, that is, he had the opportunity after his death to look down “from the clouds above . . . on our own guesses."
Also consider this Jeffersonian quote, on the religion of Christianity:
"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."
--Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thompson, 1816. ME 14:385
ME stands for the Memorial Edition of "Life of Jefferson," which also includes from 1803, when Jefferson was 60 years old.
"1. He [Jesus] corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and government."
"2. His moral doctrines relating to kindred and friends were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers and greatly more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids. A development of this head will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others."
"3. The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code laid hold of actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head."
"4. He taught emphatically the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted or disbelieved by the Jews, and wielded it with efficacy as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct."
(to Benjamin Rush, Apr. 21, 1803. ME 10:384)
I cannot find any earlier quotes where Jefferson called himself a Christian..Here are a couple that might relate to his younger life.
"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
Jefferson was not married in a church, but rather at his wife's childhood home. I have not been able to determine whether he was married by a clergyman, or whether any of his children were baptized.
But a couple other questions could be raised, especially in view of Jefferson's comments on the matter: How many people call themselves Christian, but don't go to church or follow a particular creed? How many Christians believe in the Apocalypse? Or much of the rest of the scriptures?
It should also be remembered that Jefferson, while he was serving as ambassador to France, put his daughter in a Parisian convent for safekeeping and education. While he certainly wasn't Roman Catholic, it might be averred that Jefferson espoused Christian sentiments, and hoped for the same in his children.
It is my belief that Jefferson's relgious beliefs (or lack thereof) evolved over time, like ours do. I believe he was widely regarded as a "Christian," and perhaps considered himself a perfunctory Christian until well into adulthood. I believe that as he aged, he became more honest with himself (again, perhaps like most of the rest of us), and began to speak a bit more freely of what he truly believed.
Whether or not you agree with him, Jefferson definitely believed in God, and admired Christian precepts. Did that make him a Christian? Probably not. Was he a Christian earlier? I suppose it's impossibe to determine, without a clear definition of what makes someone a Christian.
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