Guest Post by Morbo
As Carpetbagger mentioned the other day, the Rev. Rick Scarborough, a kind of poor man’s Jerry Falwell, held a two-day conference in the nation’s capital this week to lament the [tag]persecution[/tag] of [tag]Christians[/tag] he insists is rampant in American society.
Those poor fundamentalist Christians! They have the Republican leadership of the House and Senate in a headlock. The White House kowtows to them. They have the power to scuttle Supreme Court nominees. Their preachers collect millions every year tax free and have seemingly unlimited access to the airwaves — yet they are persecuted!
I was not at this meeting, but I did read that Scarborough and some of his allies attempted to draft [tag]Thomas Jefferson[/tag] on their side. To hear them tell it, the author of the Declaration of Independence was little more than an 18th Century Pat Robertson in a powdered wig.
Scarborough really should read more books — or have someone read them to him. We know exactly where Jefferson stood on the question of Christianity because he told us. Jefferson was nowhere near Scarborough’s neighborhood.
In a remarkable 1819 letter to William Short, Jefferson discoursed at length upon the dogma of conventional Christianity. In this letter, Jefferson lists specifically what he does not accept from that faith. He called these features “artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects.”
These include, in Jefferson’s own words:
“The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders or Hierarchy, etc.”
Yikes! Tom, there go the red states!
Jefferson was a fundamentalist Christian? Sure — he was just the type of fundamentalist Christian who rejects the immaculate conception, the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.
Also, remember this: Jefferson once took a knife to the New Testament, removing all of the material he did not believe in — any passages with miraculous overtones — and titled it “The Life and Morals of Jesus Christ.” Some people call it the “Jefferson Bible.” You can still buy copies today.
Jefferson was not an atheist. He admired the moral teaching of Jesus and believes in a deistic god that set the universe in motion. But Jefferson despised the ultra-conservative Christian clergy of this day and believed they had corrupted the doctrines of Jesus for their own ends; he fervently hoped for the rise of a religion in America based on reason.
Jefferson was a sworn enemy of those who would assail freedom of conscience, as the Religious Right of his day did constantly. The Jefferson Memorial in Washington contains one of his most famous quotations: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny imposed upon the mind of man.”
It’s ironic that fundamentalists sometimes site this passage to “prove” Jefferson’s religiosity. The “tyranny” he pledged to oppose was fostered by ultra-conservative religious leaders!
The passage comes from an 1800 letter to Benjamin Rush, a physician in Philadelphia. Jefferson noted that some religious leaders in America were still clinging to the hope that their faith would be established by law. He called out two by name: the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists.
Dashing their hopes, Jefferson wrote, “The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they [the preachers] 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.”
Nice try, Rick Scarborough. Now get your mitts off of Jefferson. He belongs to our side, not yours.