THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION

nonbeliefs.com ^ | Jim Walker

[Enemy Of The State]

THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION

Compiled by Jim Walker

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

-Thomas Jefferson (Notes on Virginia, 1782)

---

It spite of Christian right 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.

Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.

Distortions of history occur in the minds of many Christians whenever they see the word "God" embossed in statue or memorial concrete . For example, those who visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington will read Jefferson's words engraved: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man." When they see the word "God" many Christians see this as "proof" of his Christianity without thinking that 'God' can have many definitions ranging from nature to supernatural. Yet how many of them realize that this passage aimed at attacking the tyranny of the Christian clergy of Philadelphia, or that Jefferson's God was not the personal god of Christianity? Those memorial words came from a letter written to Benjamin Rush in 1800 in response to Rush's warning about the Philadelphia clergy attacking Jefferson (Jefferson was seen as an infidel by his enemies during his election for President). The complete statement reads as follows:

"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ."

Jefferson aimed at laissez-faire liberalism in the name of individual freedom, He felt that any form of government control, not only of religion, but of individual mercantilism consisted of tyranny. He thought that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

If anything can clear of the misconceptions of Jeffersonian history, it can come best from the author himself. Although Jefferson had a complex view of religion, too vast for this article, the following quotes provide a glimpse of how Thomas Jefferson viewed the corruptions of Christianity and religion.

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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.

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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.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.

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What is it men cannot be made to believe!

-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786. (on the British regarding America, but quoted here for its universal appeal.)

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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

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Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

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I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")

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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

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They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

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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.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

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The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

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Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

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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.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

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If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

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You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819

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As you say of yourslef, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819

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Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] 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.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820

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To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

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Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.

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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.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

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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 Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

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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

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All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)

[hoosierskypilot]

America. “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers-- and it was not there... in her fertile fields and boundless forests-- and it was not there... in her rich mines and her vast world commerce-- and it was not there... in her democratic Congress and matchless Constitution-- and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
(Around 1840) by Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, a book which was assigned to the entire Republican freshman class of the 104th congress.

Neither secularism nor humanism will provide any basis for goodness. Such goodness which will allow us to persevere will only be found in the Christian principles that guided our founding fathers.

Consider, as an analogy, the French Revolution. During France’s Reign of Terror, France was declared to be a nation of atheists by the National Assembly. They outlawed religion and the Bible and declared their gods to be liberty and reason. Chaos ensued. One million Frenchmen were ultimately murdered and destruction was inevitable. Robespierre then proclaimed in the Convention that belief in the existence of God was necessary to the principles of virtue and morality on which the Republic was founded. And on the 7th of May, the national representatives voted by acclamation that “the French people acknowledged the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul.”

I could go on and on with the example of the Roman empire, their predecessor, the Greeks, the Medes, ad infinitum. But I think you get the point.

America parallels this. Do you think it mere coincidence that America's problems were relatively minor when our children began their school day with prayer, Bible reading and the Pledge of Allegience?

After religious morals, values and ethics were abolished in the classroom, in the home and even in the quasi-Christian denominations, in short order, our culture collapsed.

Do I need to share with you the statistics of the pandemic state of crime, sexually transmitted diseases and social chaos that typifies our society? Surely you cannot be serious.

To all the skeptics, again, it matters not what an individual's philosophy was. What is significant is that America's abiding principles found their basis in Bible. That is history. Not speculation. What matters is their collective, not personal, agenda.

This purports to be a conservative forum. If you intend to return America to some semblance of sanity without absolute reliance upon God through Jesus Christ, your cause is already lost. It cannot be done. To ignore the lessons of history doom us to repeat it in the future.

[ppaul]

And your point is?

[4CJ]

Fantatsic quote from Jefferson! The Sunday after his infamous Danbury Baptist letter guess where Jefferson was?

In church. House, Senate and SCOTUS chambers were to used to hold religious services (up until the War of Northern Agression).

[PhilipFreneau]

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.

[from a letter by Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Monticello, June 26, 1822]

[Sam Cree]

"America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

I don't think anyone can argue with this, furthermore it's clear that the founders agreed, hence their many statements about the need for a "virtuous people" for the success of a free society. Jefferson in particular is on record regarding the need for religion to ground the people in morality, though I certainly do not think he was a "reborn" type Christian such as we know today.

Regarding your other points, about the coincidence of declining moral values with declining religious values, I am sure you are right that there is a correlation. The Left, and these days that seems to include the National Council of Churches, seeks to destroy religion for a reason. I for one believe that the current campaign for the separation of church and state is part of this attempt. Even though I believe strongly in the principle of separation of church and state.

"What is significant is that America's abiding principles found their basis in Bible. "

I believe that America's abiding principles are freedom and liberty, especially for the individual. If these principles are in the Bible, they are certainly not its main thrust, as they are America's. But if you'd like to argue that our system of freedom cannot work without the moral principles found in the Bible, I am probably ready to agree with you.

[dark_lord]

To those who responded that the site I posted as a reference to the masons who were founding fathers is a loonie site, I agree. Yes, they are rather flaky. However, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and the particular link I posted is accurate when naming names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution who were freemasons. However, for those who would rather have some more definitive information on the relationship between freemasonry and the founding fathers, see here:
Masonic Myths of the Founding Fathers - this debunks some of the most widely held myths, but overall supports the thesis that "a lot" of the founding fathers were freemasons.
Masonic Myths of the Founding Fathers similar information, different site.
American Masonic History - a "Christian" perspective on the freemasons and the founding fathers.
So - hopefully ya'll find this interesting and forgive me that the original link was to a "loonie site". :-)

[gdani]

Name the atheists...name the agnostics..and prove it.

This might be helpful to the discussion:

_____________________________________

                      A Table of the Religious Affiliations 
                              of American Founders


Signer                      State       Doc.    Office          Affiliation (Ref.)

Adams, Andrew               CT          A                       CO(l)
Adams, John                 MA          D       President       CO(b)UN(a)
Adams, Samuel               MA          D/A                     CO(b)
Adams, Thomas               VA          A
Banister, John              VA          A
Baldwin, Abraham            GA          C                       CO(j,k)PR(n)
Bartlett, Josiah            NH          D/A                     CO(b)
Bassett, Richard            DE          C                       ME(g,j,m,n)
Bedford, Gunning, Jun.      DE          C                       PR(j,m)
Blair, John                 VA          C       Justice         PR(a)EP(n)
Blount, William             NC          C                       EP(n)PR(f,j)
Braxton, Carter             VA          D
Brearly, David              NJ          C			EP(n)
Broom, Jacob                DE          C                       QU(n)EP(m)
Butler, Pierce              SC          C                       EP(j,m)
Carroll, Charles            MD          D                       RC(d)
Carroll, Daniel             MD          A/C                     RC(d,j,n)
Chase, Samuel               MD          D       Justice         EP(a)
Clark, Abraham              NJ          D                       PR(c,e)
Clingan, William            PA          A
Collins, John               RI          A       Governor
Clymer, George              PA          D/C                     QU(j,n),EP(j)
Dana, Francis               MA          A
Dayton, Jonothan            NJ          C                       PR(n)EP(j)
Dickenson, John             DE          A/C                     QU(j,m,n)EP(j)
Drayton, William Henry      SC          A
Duane, James                NY          A                       EP(l)
Duer, William               NY          A
Ellery, William             RI(A)MA(D)  D/A                     CO(b)
Few, William                GA          C                       ME(j,k,n)
Fitzmorris, Thomas          PA          C                       RC(j,n)
Floyd, William              NY          D                       PR(c,e)
Franklin, Benjamin          PA          D/C                     EP(n)DE(j)
Gerry, Elbridge             MA          D/A                     EP(j)
Gilman, Nicholas            NH          C                       CO(j,n)
Gorham, Nathaniel           MA          C                       CO(j,n)
Gwynnett, Button            SC          D                       EP(k,o)
Hall, Lyman                 SC          D                       CO(b,k)
Hamilton, Alexander         NY          C                       EP(j,n)
Hancock, John               MA          A/D                     CO(b)
Hanson, John                MD          A
Harnett, Cornelious         NC          A                       EP(f)DE(f)
Harrison, Benjamin          VA          D       Governor
Hart, John                  NJ          D                       PR(c)
Harvie, John                VA          A
Hewes, Joseph               NC          D                       EP?(f)
Heyward, Thomas             SC          A
Heyward, Thomas, Jr.        SC          D
Holton, Samuel              MA          A
Hooper, William             NC          D                       EP(f)
Hopkins, Stephen            RI          D
Hopkinson, Francis          NJ          D                       Ep(l)
Hosmer, Titus               CT          D
Huntington, Samuel          CT          D/A                     CO(b)
Hutson, Richard             SC          A                       PR(l)
Ingersoll, Jared            PA          C                       PR(j,n)
Jefferson, Thomas           VA          D       President       DE(a)
Jennifer, Dan oF St. Thomas MD          C                       EP(j,n)
Johnson, Wm. Saml.          CT          C       Justice         PR(a)EP(j,n)
King, Rufas                 MA          C                       EP(j)CO(n)
Langdon, John               NH          C                       CO(j,n)
Langworthy, Edward          GA          A                       EP(o)
Laurens, Henry              SC          A                       HU(l)
Lee, Henry Lightfoot        VA          D/A
Lee, Richard Henry          VA          D/A     Senator
Lewis, Francis              NY          D/A
Livingston, Phil.           NY          D                       P(c)
Livingston, Wil.            NJ          C                       PR(j,n)
Lovell, James               MA          A
Lynch, Thomas Junr.         SC          D
Madison, James Jr.          VA          C       President       EP(a,j,n)TH(i)
Marchant, Henry             RI          A
Mathews, John               SC          A
McHenry, James              MD          C                       PR(j,n)
Middleton, Arthur           SC          D
Miflin, Thomas              PA          C                       QU(n)LU(j)
M'Kean, Thomas              DE          D/A                     PR(m)
Morris, Gouv.               NY(A)PA(C)  A/C                     EP(j)DE(i,n)
Morris, Lewis               NY          D
Morris, Robert              PA          D/A/C                   EP(j,n)
Morton, John                PA          D
Nelson, Thomas Jr.          VA          D
Paca, William               MD          D
Paine, Robert Treat         MA          D                       CO(b)
Paterson, William           NJ          C       Justice         PT(a)PR(j,n)
Penn, John                  NC          D/A                     UK(f)
Pinckney, Charles           SC          C                       EP(j,n)
Pinckney, Chas. Cotesworth  SC          C                       EP(j,n)
Read, George                DE          D/C                     EP(j,m,n)
Reed, Joseph                PA          A
Roberdeau, Daniel           PA          A
Rodney, Caesar              DE          D                       EP(m)
Ross, George                PA          D
Rush, Benjamin              PA          D                       PR(c,e)UN
Rutledge, Edward            SC          D       Justice         CE(a)
Rutledge, J.                SC          C                       EP(j,n)
Scudder, Nathaniel          NJ          A
Sherman, Roger              CT          D/A/C                   CO(b,j,n)
Smith, James                PA          D                       PR(c,e)
Smith, Jona. Bayard         PA          A
Spaight, Richard Dobbs      NC          C                       EP(f,j,n)
Stockton, Richard           NJ          D                       PR(c,e)
Stone, Thomas               MD          D
Taylor, George              PA          D                       PR(c,e)
Telfair, Edward             GA          A
Thornton, Matthew           NH          D                       PR(c,e)
Van Dyke, Nicholas          DE          A                       EP(m)
Walton, George              GA          D                       AN(o)
Walton, Jno.                GA          A
Washington, George          VA          C       President       EP(a,j,n)TH(i)
Wentworth, John Junr.       NH          A
Whipple, William            NH          D                       CO(b)
Williams, Jonothan          NC          A                       UK(f)
Williams, William           CT          D                       CO(b)
Williamson, Hu              NC          C                       PR(f,n)DE(j)
Wilson, James               PA          D/C     Ch. Justice*    EP(a)PR(e,n)DE(j)
Witherspoon, Jonothan       NJ          D/A     Minister        PR(c)(e)
Wolcott, Oliver             CT          D/A                     CO(b)
Wythe, George               VA          D                       EP(j)

______________________________________________________________________________

DOCUMENT

A = Articles of Confederation
D = Declaration of Independence
C = United States Constitution

AFFILIATION

CE = Church of England
CO = Congregationalist
DE = Deist
EP = Episcopalian
HU = Huguanot
LU = Lutheran
ME = Methodist
QU = Quaker
PR = Presbyterian
PT = Protestant
RC = Roman Catholic
TH = Theist
UK = Unknown
UN = Unitarian

REFERENCES

a = 1995 Information Please Almanac
b = The Congregationalist Library
c = Presbyterian Historical Society
d = U.S. Catholic Historical Society
e = Presbyterian Church, USA
f = North Carolina State Library
g = United Methodist Church
h = Lutheram
i = Memoirs & Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, IV, p.512
j = A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States
    Constitution, M. E. Bradford
k = Georgia Public Library Service
l = Dictionary of American Biography (1936)
m = A History of Delaware Through its Governors 1776-1984 by Roger A. Martin
n = Library of Congress
o = Georgia Historial Society


*
Served without being confirmed by the Senate

[marron]

For a people to be self-governing, they must be capable of self-government. This by its very nature requires a trained, sensitive conscience.

There is no possibility of liberty or self-government without a critical mass of moral people. And the moral inheritance of a people must be rebuilt, and reestablished in each generation or it is lost. And with it, liberty itself.

Despite the cliche that Chritianity is the source of intolerance and bigotry, the truth is quite the opposite. Bigotry and intolerance are endemic in the world, they are the natural state of humanity.

It is not an accident that the most advanced countries are the most free, and that the most free all have their ideological roots in the judeo-christian tradition.

And those few countries that have traded collective christianity for individual christianity are more free, and more advanced, yet. That is because the drive for individual liberty is natural to people who insist on obeying their own individual conscience. You cannot separate individual liberty from the exercise of individual conscience.

The fear of some kind of Christian theocracy is a fear of something that does not exist. Mass murder, slavery, oppression, misery and poverty, exist in coutries that have rejected objective morality and individual liberty. They do not exist in those countries that have embraced objective morality and individual liberty.

[moteineye]

Only about 60% of the population of Israel is Jewish yet without hesitation Israel is called a Jewish State.The percentages of Christians in Americda is much higher.

[windcliff]

fyi ping

[onedoug]

Thanks. Any excuse to push Ethical Monotheism.

[hoosierskypilot]

I contend America's greatness was subsequent to her faith in God through Jesus Christ. I further contend that our founding fathers, collectively intended this.

In 1851, Daniel Webster observed this same phenomenon. "Let the religious element in man's nature be neglected, let him be influenced by no higher motives than low self-interest and subjected to no stronger restraint that the limits of civil authority; and he becomes the creature of selfish passion or blind fanaticism."

Webster continued: "On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness...inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric, at the same time that it conducts the human soul upward to the Author of its being."

In 1892, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed this.
"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian...This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.....we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth....These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.
(U.S. Supreme Court, 1892, Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States)

Again, Charles Malik, Ambassador to the United Nations:
"The good (in the United States) would never have come into being without the blessing and the power of Jesus Christ...I know how embarrassing this matter is to politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and cynics: but, whatever these honored men think, the irrefutable truth is that the soul of America is at its best and highest, Christian."

Notice, America reached greatness, not because she protected liberty and freedom. Liberty and freedom are not what made America great. Liberty and freedom without moral governance through the Holy Bible results in pandemonium.
See my earlier post. The French Revolutionaries worshipped liberty as their god, and they almost destroyed themselves. They were compelled to go back to God and the Bible while there was time.

In a single decade, here's what divesting our schools, culture and community of Jesus Christ have benefited: One million teen-aged girls get pregnant out of wedlock every
year (hey, rocket scientists: who do you think pays for this?). 23% of 9th grade boys drink regularly. 1.1 mil. teenagers have a serious drinking problem. Suicide has tripled in less than 20 yr. 2 of 3 deaths in 5 to 18 age is due to violence. One million children run away every year. Arrests for teen prostituition are up 285%.
Arrests for narcotics are up 4600%. Arrests for murder, assault, rape, robbery, are up 200%.

And don't be so foolish as to suggest the above stats are simply because of increased population. Even with the increase in population, the above stats far outstrip any statistical norm.

I contend the chaos that typifies America is because the left-wing liberals (and, their close cousins: humanistic and secular Republicans) who are, in fact, the children of Satan, perverted our laws and principles to remove Godliness in order to pursue their personal nefarious agenda.

These spawn of the devil have justified this by parroting the phrase, "separation of church and state" as if it were in the constitution. It is not. And, Americans, whose primary source of information is a two hour movie-of-the-week believe it to be true.

On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association assuring them the government was not going to establish a state religion. He assured them that Americans would always have freedom of religion in every arena in life: church, school, government, community, et al. He never said what Satan's children contend, viz., freedom from religion.

The liberals, Satan's children, have perverted this by suggesting "separation of church and state" is constitutional. That is a lie.

The first amendment says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..

Notice: govt. is not to prohibit the free exercise. Yet that is exactly what the godless, secularist, humanistic, atheistic politicians have been doing for the past 50 years.
And our current collapse is the fruit.

We will not recover America by simply being law abiding citizens. There is no ethic that powerful.

The only way to recover America (or the schools, or your home, etc.) is to restore Jesus Christ to his rightful throne, politically. Anything less is doomed to fail.

You will not recover your children, you will not recover your marriages, you will not recover your communities, with becoming Christian.

[airborne]

It's threads like this that got me to join (and fund) FreeRepublic. VERY interesting and thought-provoking.

[Mr. Blond]

Wasn't the so-called(not so by Thomas himself) "Jefferson Bible" simply written to teach the unconverted Indians how to live a life according to the teachings of Christ?

[hoosierskypilot]

"America's greatness is because it is a SECULAR nation that does not interfere in the private practice of religions and has drawn a LINE between religion and state. America's greatness is because it is primarily an INDIVIDUALIST nation"

That would appear to be a succinct synopsis of humanism.
Viz., the individual is primary. Viz., the individual is his own best source of morals, values and ethics. Problem is, history clearly shows us this does not work. Every society that has embraced humanism has failed.

Take ancient Rome, as an example. The senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorized the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Thus, the Romans made Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) dictator for life, in the hope that the government of a single person would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars and calamities.

After Caesar's death, Octavian (63 B.C. - A.D. 14) later called Caesar Augustus, grandnephew of Caesar, came to power. Because Augustus established peace externally and internally and because he kept the outward forms of constitutionality, Romans of every class were ready to allow him total power in order to restore and assure the functioning of the political system, business, and the affairs of daily life.

After 12 B.C., Augustus became the head of the state religion, taking the title "Pontifex Maximus" and urging everyone to worship the "spirit of Rome and the genius of the emperor."

Later, it became mandatory for all the people of the Empire to worship the emperor as a god. This, in the hope that centralizing faith upon a single object (human), the people would be united.

Interesting sidebar: Christians were not persecuted because they worshipped Jesus Christ. They were persecuted because they would not worship the emporer.

Rome fell, because no human is sufficient to provide a moral or ethical base upon which a society can persevere.

This is a classic example of the inherent weakness of humanism. The French Revolutionaries discovered the very same thing.

No human can sustain a civilization, community, or even a family. Without moral absolutes larger than man, man has no compelling reason to obey.

Just because mommy and daddy say a thing is not enough to sustain junior when he is on his own. He needs a higher, more compelling purpose: faith in God.

Reliance upon human wisdom as the sole source of direction completely ignores history and is doomed to fail.

That is why America is collapsing.

[Aracelis]

Thank you for this reference!

[Aracelis]

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man."

This language is very clear to me. ANY form of tyranny designed to control the minds of the people were an anathema to Jefferson...and very likely to most of the other men who participated in drafting the Constitution. Lest anyone forget their early American history, many who came to these shores did so to escape religious persecution. Having escaped tyranny themselves, I seriously doubt that the Founding Fathers desired to create a government which would or could participate in religious debate or favor one religion over another.

[CyberCowboy777]

I have studied the Masons a little and have been to all your sites in the past. And though I believe that there is an inherit conflict in being a Mason and a Christian. I also know that there are many Christian Masons and that the Masons of today are different than those of yesteryear. Just look at the history of by-laws and you will see what I mean. So, the issue I and many others have with the Masons may not have been such at the time of our Forefathers. Lastly I like to note that group affiliation was very much apart of society and politics as it is today.

There is no doubt that a Fore Father could have been both a Christian and a Freemason.

[moteineye]

A CONTRARIAN VIEWPOINT TO THOSE WHO ARE ELITISTS,SOCIALISTS,COMMUNISTS AND LIBERALS

By Dr. D. James Kennedy

Note: the following was a sermon delivered by Dr. D. James Kennedy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.


This, as you know, is President's Week, when we generally remember George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and others. I have in years gone by spoken about the faith of Washington, discovering that he was a devoted Christian since his youth, that his prayer book written in his own hand contains prayers that were as evangelical and Gospel-centered as any that have ever been uttered from this pulpit.

Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, was not a Christian, for most of his life, at least. When he went to Springfield, he fell among skeptics and his faith was badly shaken. However, when he came to Washington, someone shared with him the Gospel in simple terms, and Lincoln, in a letter written after Gettysburg, said to a pastor in Illinois:

When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.

Yes, Washington and Lincoln were Christians. Ah, but alas, when we come to Thomas Jefferson, it is quite a different story, as we all know. A deist, a skeptic. He has been called an atheist, an infidel, hostile to religion, rarely ever attended church, expunged the miracles from the Bible and made the Jefferson's Bible which had no miracles in it. He originated the "separation of church and state" doctrine to keep religion out of government, out of the schools, out of the public life of America. He is the guru of separation, the darling of the liberal left, the leader of the effort to expunge Christianity from American life. Yes, we all know Thomas Jefferson, don't we. Or do we?

No, I don't think we do. What I have just described to you is a fictional character that has never lived on this planet. He is about as real as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. He is the creation of the secular elite. He is the creation of our secular educational system. He is the creation of the media. He is the creation of liberal judges. He never really, as described, actually lived.

Lest, perchance, some cynic in your midst decides I am inventing a character of my own, let me just say that what I bring to you today comes from the writings of people like

* Dr. James H. Hudson, curator and chief of the Manuscript Division of American History in the Library of Congress, the largest collection of human wisdom found anywhere in the world-22 million volumes. He has at his hand and at his disposal and under his care more authentic manuscripts from the founding of this country than any other person on the planet. Yes, he is quite an authority.

* Paul Johnson, eminent historian who has written much on the history of Western culture in the United States.

* William Federer, author of the Encyclopedia of American History.

* David Barton, one of the most knowledgeable men in the country today on the Christian history of America,

* and dozens of others of similar stripe.

Yes, Thomas Jefferson has been created by secularists for the purpose of getting rid of the Christian faith in the public square of America.

Several years ago, on the National Day of Prayer, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale opened a community room to allow citizens of Fort Lauderdale who wished to, to gather there and pray. One president of the Florida ACLU wrote a letter to the newspaper, a whole article, in which he expressed his horror that such a thing as that could be done. "Doesn't our mayor know anything about Thomas Jefferson? Has he never heard of the separation of church and state? Does he not know that Jefferson would be appalled by the unconscionable deeds that he is performing by letting Christians come into a public building and pray?"

I'm afraid that perhaps our ACLU officer doesn't know Thomas Jefferson either. What he has been created to be was portrayed for you in our recent motion picture made here, Scrooge and Marley. Scrooge, in this film, was an attorney, and he was suing the city to get rid of a manger placed, as it had been for a half-century or more, outside the city hall. He said to the mayor, "Don't you know that Thomas Jefferson introduced into the Constitution the separation of church and state?"

Well, he wasn't too sure about that. The facts are: Jefferson didn't. The separation of church and state has never been in the Constitution-nor is it now a part of the Constitution of the United States. It is, indeed, a myth that has been imported into that Constitution by others. "Don't you know," said Scrooge, "what Jefferson would say if he were alive today to see this terrible thing? Why he would say, 'Mayor, tear it down. Rip it apart board for board, and throw the whole thing in the fire. That's what Tom Jefferson would say.'" Or would he?

MEET THOMAS JEFFERSON

Today, I would like to introduce to you someone that I am quite confident ninety-nine and a half percent of you don't know. I would like to introduce President Thomas Jefferson. Ladies and gentlemen, the third President of the United States: Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia into an Episcopal family, or Anglican, as they were known then. He attended church regularly all of his life and was an active member of the Anglican Church. He also attended Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches and was particularly thrilled when all four of those denominations held services in the courthouse! Alas and alack!

Maybe when he grew up, he knew better. The truth of the matter is that though he had followed the Anglican faith in its orthodoxy all of his life, though he went to a Christian school and was taught by Christian pastors, he actually, as a grown man, served on the vestry of the Anglican Church, which means he was the equivalent of an elder in the Presbyterian Church.

Not only that, he supported the church, according to his own financial books. In fact, when he was President of the United States, the record shows that he contributed to ten different churches during those eight years. I wonder how many of us have done that?

Then, of course, as we all know, Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, went to France. Now France was the heartland of infidelity in that day. The French Revolution had just taken place, and Christianity had been devastated. A river of blood flowed as the French people in their folly decided to get rid of even b.c. and a.d. They started all over again, and found that in just a couple of years they had to abandon that because there was anarchy in France. But unbelief and skepticism reigned.

Abraham Lincoln went to Springfield and fell among the skeptics there and his faith was demolished. It took years before it was restored. Alas, with Jefferson something else happened while he was in France. His wife, whom he adored, died, leaving him with his two-year-old daughter, and she died, and his mother died, and his best friend died. Ordinarily, he would have gone to the congregation of the church where he served and found
solace and consolation from them, and his pastor would have been there to help him. But there were no such in Paris for him.

So his faith received a tremendous blow. From that point on he began to question, though it wasn't until 1813 that he ever came out and stated his disbelief in the Trinity. He had adopted a Unitarian view, rejecting the deity of Christ. Though the Unitarians at that time were vastly different from what they are now, they were biblical in their orientation (that is no longer the case).

In fact, Jefferson was a Bible scholar. He read the Bible daily. As Washington read it an hour every morning and an hour every night, with prayer, so Jefferson read the Bible in English and in Greek and in Latin and in French. He faithfully studied it, but apparently there was no one there to guide him, and he came to a rejection of the deity of Christ.

By the way, the Jefferson Bible is another myth. There never was a Jefferson Bible. No, years before this, he cut the miraculous out of the New Testament (out of the Gospels), and from the Gospels he produced a book on the ethics and morals of Jesus Christ for the purpose of evangelizing and educating the American Indians. They were a great concern of his. He approved money for building a church for the Indians while he was President. He approved money for the support of a missionary to the Indians out of the Federal Treasury. He also gave of his own money to help try to reach the Indians. He believed that this simplified statement of the ethics of Jesus Christ would help to civilize and educate these people.

He never ever called it a Bible. He called it a system of ethics. It was, he felt, the most marvelous system of ethics the world has ever known. He said later in one of his statements that the religion of Jesus Christ is the best religion the world has ever been given, and that the ethics and teachings of Christ are incomparable, and therefore, as Chief Magistrate of the United States, he would lend all of the power of his example to supporting that system. That is what he did with that system of ethics of Christ-he simply took out the teachings of Christ about ethics and morals to present it to the Indians.

By the way, let me also mention that the phrase of the so-called "separation of church and state" has been again totally twisted, turned upside down, and made to be the very opposite of what Jefferson intended it to be. When he was President, he received in late 1801 a letter from the Association of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. They were concerned about the newly formed federal government. This leviathan that had been created could, they feared, become a great danger to their Christian faith and to their churches.

Jefferson was out of the country when the Constitution was written and when the Bill of Rights was proposed and passed, and he had nothing to do with it. He said that he was greatly impressed that the American people, through their representatives and through the First Amendment, had, in effect, erected a "wall of separation" between the church and the state, so they need have no fear that the federal government was going to intrude upon their religion or in any way disturb their faith.

PURPOSE OF LETTER TO DANBURY BAPTISTS

Keep in mind that it was 1813, before the
effects of the French experience impacted his faith, at which time all of his work on the Declaration had been done for over a quarter of a century. His work as Secretary of State and President of the United States were now long past, so none of those statements had anything to do with any of his public utterances as an official of this country. His purpose was to assuage the fears of the Danbury Connecticut Baptists; He told them that by the First Amendment this wall had been erected to protect them. He took the language, actually, from Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist church in America, who talked about a wall being erected around the garden of the Church to protect it.

So Jefferson took that same phrase and said that this wall protected the Church not against hostile Indians or worldly things, but against the Federal government that had been appointed. However, liberals have taken that phrase and turned it around completely.

It is an unfortunate metaphor, because it can be used two different ways. The First Amendment completely controls the government only and not the churches. It states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." A wall can work against people on both sides. People on either side of the wall are inhibited.

The phrase "separation of church and state" has now been turned around 360 degrees. The only time you ever hear it used today is not talking about what Congress can do; it's talking about what you can't do, what I can't do, what the Church can't do, what any religious people cannot do. So it has been turned completely around.

That is not what Jefferson meant. It is not what his friend James Madison meant, who, by the way introduced the Bill of Rights into the Congress, which stated very explicitly that the purpose of this was to interdict the federal government from interfering with the religion of the people.

But it was Jefferson's view during his whole public life that the government should not interfere with religion. In fact, as you may know, the Constitution ends with the phrase, "In the year of our Lord, 1787." And so it was throughout the presidency of Washington. For eight years, all of his presidential papers ended "In the year of our Lord 18..." whatever. When Adams came to the presidency, for the next four years he again followed suit: "In the year of our Lord . . ."

However, when Jefferson came to the presidency, he changed that. I have a photocopy of the conclusion of one of many of the documents he signed while President, and it says, "In the year of our Lord Christ 1804." He was the first one, and to my knowledge the only one that did that. Here is Jefferson, the "anti-Christian, irreligious infidel," saying that it is Christ who is our Lord and no one else, lest anyone have any false ideas about that.

So, the letter to the Danbury Baptists has been greatly perverted and distorted. The ACLU today says that phrase means there should be no religion of any sort in any public building. Is that what Jefferson meant? That is what the liberal left has indeed pushed upon the minds of the American people.

On Friday, January 1, 1802, Jefferson's letter was sent to the Danbury Baptists. On that Sunday, two days later, Thomas Jefferson went to church. He said that he was going to throw the influence of his position as chief magistrate, President of the United States, in favor of the public display and support of the Christian religion. How did he do that? He went to church.

Where did he go? He went to the largest church in America. Do you know what that was? Do you know where that was? It was held at first in the chambers of the House of Representatives in Washington. Then later, when the complete building was finished, it was held in the Capitol Rotunda, the most visible public building in America, bar none. There, every week for seven years, during the rest of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson was there. He sat in the front row. He wasn't pleased with the music, and so he ordered that the Marine Band, under his control, come to church on Sunday and play to support the singing of hymns and psalms in the church. (By the way, they were paid out of the Federal Treasury.)

I guess Thomas Jefferson didn't know what he had written when he talked about the separation of church and state. Some say, "But that was in the Congress, and he didn't directly control the Congress." Well, that's about as feeble an argument I guess you could have. But let's take a look at it. He did control the War Office. That is part of the Executive Department. He did control the Treasury Department, and another church was holding services in the War Department and yet another in the Treasury building. Who was in the Treasury Department? Well, you see these Scotsmen that came over here and started the Presbyterian Church knew a good place to start a church . . . right in the Treasury building.

That may be allowed by the Congress and the Executive Office, but what about the Supreme Court? They would never allow anything like that. Well, as a matter of fact, the Chief Justice then of the Supreme Court, one of the most famous of them all, Chief Justice John Marshall, ordered that the facilities of the Supreme Court be turned over every Sabbath Day to another church to hold Christian worship, which included not only prayers and songs and hymns, but also the preaching of the Word of God. No religious activities in public buildings? Jefferson never even dreamt of such a thing.

This is a total distortion that has been used by the ACLU and their ilk to try to suppress and demolish Christianity and remove it altogether from the public square. In fact, one of the justices in recent times, taking the separation of church and state metaphor, said, "The wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." Well, I guess you could say that Thomas Jefferson had a few slight breaches in his wall-you could drive a truck through it. In fact, you could drive a whole company of tanks through the walls. That is not what he intended at all.

In fact, Madison, who introduced the Bill of Rights, said that the government was forbidden from establishing a national religion. The First Amendment was given, as all of the testimony
indicates, to do two things: to prevent the Congress from establishing a state church (like the
Anglican Church in England, from which they had mostly fled), and second, from interfering with the free exercise of religion. That has been grossly distorted in our day. I hope that as this message goes out to millions and millions of people across America, that we will begin to understand that we have been deceived, that this whole separation thing of Thomas Jefferson has been turned into a total distortion and perversion, and it is a lie.

Thus saith the preacher, but what saith an authority on the matter. How about this:

There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation [between church and State] . . . the "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. -William Rehnquist.

In case you do not know who Rehnquist is, let me say that he is the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

I hope that maybe America will wake up to the realization that they have been deceived, that the Thomas Jefferson presented to them is a myth and a lie, and that he never intentioned anything like what the ACLU and others today say he intended. No, my friends, he was a definite friend to the Christian faith. It was the finest religion that God had given to man.

Now someone may point out to you that there are several ministers who wrote highly critical letters of Jefferson. Yes, there are five of them. But on the other hand, Jefferson had 110 personal friends who were clergymen. Nine of them he encouraged to run for public office. As I said, while he was in the presidency, he supported ten different churches, and beyond that numerous other ones all of his life. He was not the anti-Christian bigot that some would like to make him out to be.

What did he lack? Was he really a Christian? That depends on what you mean. He was most emphatically a nominal Christian who attended church regularly virtually all of his life. He did come to question and doubt one of its major tenets later in his life, but that was long after his entire public career was over. He was certainly a nominal Christian, in which sense about half of the people in America today who claim to be Christians are nominal. That means "in name only."

I don't think we could say he was a genuine Christian, in the sense of one who had been transformed by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, to one who trusts in the death of Jesus Christ for his salvation. Like millions of church members today, like some of you here, he had never gotten beyond seeing in Christianity anything other than a code of ethics, a system of laws-howbeit the most elevated and wondrous system known to man.

But, my friends, that is not real Christianity. Real Christianity involves a supernatural transformation of the heart. Jesus said that it is a "rebirth." He declared to Nicodemus, who was an extraordinarily religious man and one of the religious leaders of Israel, "except a man be born again, he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." That is what it means to be a real Christian.

There are people sitting all around this sanctuary who are no more real than was Jefferson. You have never experienced that rebirth. You have never invited the living, risen Christ into your heart to transform you and to make you anew. Ah, dear friend, I would urge you to do that now. The day of grace could end for you at any moment, and then it would be everlastingly too late.

No, that is what Jefferson lacked, but even as a nominal Christian, what he did is totally antithetical from everything the ACLU and others have told the American people. For example, what he did as President included, among other things, supporting government involvement in

* Legislative and Military Chaplains,

* Establishing a national seal using a religious symbol,

* Including the word "God" in our national motto,

* Official Days of Fasting and Prayer-at least on the state level,

* Punishing Sabbath breakers (is that real enough for you?),

* Punishing marriages contrary to biblical law,

* Punishing irreverent soldiers,

* Protecting the property of churches,

* Requiring oaths saying "So Help Me God," taken on the Bible

* Granting land to Christian churches to reach the Indians

* Granting land to Christian schools

* Allowing Government property and facilities to be used for worship

* Using the Bible and non-denominational religious instruction in the public schools. (He was involved in three different school districts and the plan in each one of these REQUIRED that the Bible be taught in our public schools).

* Allowing clergymen to hold public office, and encouraging them to do so,

* Purchasing and stocking religious books for public libraries,

* Funding of salaries of clergymen in Indian mission schools.

* Funding for construction of church buildings for Indians,

* Exempting churches from taxation,

* Establishing professional schools of theology. [He wanted to bring over from Geneva, Switzerland, the entire faculty of Calvin's theological seminary and establish it at the University of Virginia.]

* Treaties requiring other nations to guarantee religious freedom,

* Including religious speeches and prayers in official ceremonies.

No, my friends, the real Thomas Jefferson is the ACLU's worst nightmare.

[CyberCowboy777]

I am dead set against many "Christian Churches" and many disagree with some of the details of Christianity, thus we have denominations. I speak as tough on today's Christians as Jefferson spoke of his fellow Christians. That does not make me or them an Agnostic. Bottom line is Jesus was very clear as to what saved a man and God is the only judge.

Jefferson seemed more like a man angry at the establishment (mostly of certain denominations), read his comments on the clergy of the day. I do not think he ever disparaged "true" Christians or Christ (unlike some here)

Jefferson did take issue with certain things outside the establishment including miracles (his scientific mind could not grasp the concept), and today many real Christians take issue with the Fruits of the Spirit (which would be a form of miracle). This does not lesson their Faith or effect their stature in the Lamb's book of Life.

I do not know if Jefferson was truly "Saved", nor does it matter. Jefferson understood that without a Moral Standard all is permissible and that no mere man could set those standards, they must be set by a Moral Authority outside man. He understood that to be the Author of Creation; God. And he believed that Un-Alienable rights granted by the Creator who holds that true Moral Authority over all mankind. He believed those were the only true rights a man had and that those rights must be protected by a moral and just society that held those truths to be self evident. He knew that without God all Rights and Morals were only reasoning's of man and that what man reasons can change.