JEFFERSON on CHRISTIANITY 

by Madalyn O'Hair

"In the current times of the celebration of the bicentennial of our nation, it might be appropriate and timely to consider what Thomas Jefferson really thought about Christianity. 

His Memoirs and Correspondence, edited by his grandson, published in 1829, is instructive.
Let me read just a few items to you from that work.
In a letter to his nephew and ward, Peter Carr, Jefferson offers 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 approve the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear....Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear or its consequence. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you fill incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercice, and the love of others which it will procure you.

The god of the Old Testament Jefferson pronounces, "a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust". (vol.4, p.326)                    

In his letter of advice to Peter Carr, he thus refer to Jesus Christ :

Keep in your eye the opposite pretentions: 1. of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into heaven; and 2. of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, and the second by exile, or death in purea.        

His later opinion of Jesus was expressed in a letter to John Adams writen shortly previous to his death:

And the day will come when the mystical generations of Jesus, by the supreme beings 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.

In the gospel history of Jesus, Jefferson discovers what the terms "a ground work of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticism and fabrication"; and he says,

"If we could believe that he really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods and the charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an imposter." (vol.4, p.325)          

For the Christ of theology, Jefferson had nothing but contempt. What he thougt of the doctrine of the trinity, may be gathered from the following :

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.  

In a letter to John Adams, dated August 22, 1813, he says,

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one, and one is three, and yet, that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power, and profits of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more flies.

His hatred of Calvinism was intense. He denounces the "blasphemous absurdity of the five points of Calvin," and says that "it would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin."

What Jefferson thought of the Christian system as a whole is expressed in the following passage, found in a letter written to Dr. Woods:

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 upon fables and mythologies.

In his work entitled Notes on Virginia the following caustic allusion to Christianity occurs :

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion ? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.              

Writing to Dr. Cooper, he alludes to Christian revivals in the following language:

In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty will permit to a mere earthly lover.  

Of the priests and ministers he said, "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."

In 1822, Jefferson wrote:

We have most unwisely committed to the Hierophants (a priest in ancient Greece) of our particular superstition the direction of public opinion - that lord of the universe. We have given them stated and privileged days to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their oracles to the people in mass, and of molding their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands.

His hatred of the priests was lifelong. In addition to the remark I have just read, he had written half a century before :

If anybody thinks that kings, nobles and priests are good conservators of the public happiness, send him here (Paris). It is the best school in the universe to cure him of that folly. He will see here with his own eyes that these descriptions of men are in abandoned confederacy against the happiness of the mass of  people.

While Jefferson detested the entire clergy, of whatever denomination, regarding them as a worthless class, living like parasites upon the labors of others, his denunciation of the Presbyterians ministers was particularly severe, as evidenced by the following:  

The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant, of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could now be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinist creed ! They pant to reestablish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion.    

The anti-Christian views of Jefferson were the most part written after he had retired to private life. When he rant for president, however, the more orthodox journals violently opposed his election on these grounds. At his inauguration, some of these journals appeared in mourning, while flags were displayed at half-mast, in token of grief because an "Infidel" had been elected to the presidency.      

His administration was probably the most purely secular that the country has ever had. Christians were accorded the same privileges accorded to deists, infidels, and Jews - and no more. During his eight years incumbency of the office, not a single thanksgiving proclamation was issued. Referring to his action in this matter, he says :

I know it will give great offense to the clergy; but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.      

Jefferson manifested the strongest attachment to Thomas Paine. When Paine returned from France, Jefferson furnished a national ship to bring him home. After his return, he became the honorest guest of the president, both at Washington and Monticello.

As I find these references from Jefferson, I am stunned by just how successfully the Christian advocates have rewritten our nation's history so that the pablum we ingest at our public schools puts Jefferson in the camp of the Christians. He wrote with a frankness to John Adams which can only be interpreted to be an exchange between confidants. Yet, I am still unable to find coorespondence by John Adams as compelling in its statement as this from Jefferson.    

Have we been purposely kept from the information ? Who has done this ? Why? The myth of a Christian nation has brought to us in our times a church which feels that it owns the country. I speak of Christianity. The churches now, indeed, overtly and covertly, receive more money per year from the taxpayers than does the military. At the same time we are reading exposés, which creep out, that the military and the missionary have been partners for years. The CIA has funded some of the missionaries in return for intelligence in the countries where they practiced. Our president condones the practice and indeed applauds it.  Religion has been built into our military at a high cost to the taxpayer. It almost took over our space program, with the Pentagon planning all of the moves and the religious community being overzealous in its desire to be used by government.

It frightens me quite a bit that there is little or no interest in uncovering the Watergate of religion. Everything can be exposed in the United States but Christianity - it is still sacrosanct.
Well, I will hammer away at the small hole which gives the trickle of information until I break it agape. If no one else will do it, I shall.  
     

Source
Excerpt from Program 357 - August 30, 1975 - KTBC Radio Austin Texas by Madalyn O'Hair