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Jefferson had almost no religious influence on the American churches at the time as well... Liberal theologians of the "higher criticism" school led originally by Schlermacher (who was highly influenced by Kant) were the ones who in the later 19th Century up until the present day moved Protestant mainline denominations into heresy, not Jefferson's amature & individualistic musings on religion, or his famous cut and paste "bible."

perhaps...but the evidence suggests that the mainline protestant churches were liberal in everything but name by the time the germans got here. There's no need to go to the second great awakening of the 1830's which was rank with all manner of heresies.

the unitarians were already making inroads into harvard in the early 1800's and then there was emerson... here's an extended piece on the guy

Emerson's Influence At Harvard

Ralph Waldo Emerson had muttered into his journal for 30 years or more about new laws, new religion, a new race, and other things equally enigmatic. Emerson's defection from the Christian faith provided a hinge upon which to turn an entire nation. Preaching and lecturing as occasion arose and pocketbook demanded, he spoke in terms that could only be called spiritual:

"If there be one lesson more than another which should pierce (the scholar's) ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all: in yourself is the law of all nature ... in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason: it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare all. A nation of men for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men."

The Concord philosopher was invited by students to address the senior class of the Divinity school. Emerson told students that Christ had come to teach that God was incarnate in man - all men. He suggested that what man has been unable to find in the Church may be found in the soul: "In the soul let redemption be sought." The Boston Daily Advertiser carried an article deploring Emerson's address because it rejected the revelation upon which Christianity is based and demonstrated the work of evil forces seeking to draw men from the Church. Emerson's philosophy clearly struck at the roots of Christianity, denying both experience and tradition. The Divinity School Address resulted in his banishment from Harvard for almost 30 years.

In 1854, when a student opened his dormitory room for Emerson's lecture on "Poetry," an investigation was made to discover why the philosopher was on campus. Clearly Harvard administrators, after 14 years, still remembered the Divinity School address. A change of climate became evident at Commencement 1866, when Harvard awarded Emerson the LL.D. degree and the alumni elected him to the board of overseers. Harvard was ready to enter the new era.

At the time of Eliot's inauguration, erosion of the old faith had been making way for change at Harvard for more than a generation. Until 1865, Harvard University had administrative ties with the State of Massachusetts. When these ties were cut, selection of the board of overseers fell into the hands of the school's alumni. Some perceived the time had come for Emerson's "American Scholar." With president and governing board ready to work together, a new system was inaugurated at Harvard that required a new kind of educator and a new curriculum.

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0286_Hijacking_American_L.html

Consider Emerson's words "in yourself is the law of all nature ... in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason: it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare all."

Don't those words sound a lot like Hitler's words.