[Sam Cree]

Jefferson continues to be a controversial character, years after his death.

I'm not sure the quotes back up the body of the essay, though I believe the general thrust to be correct.

[stainlessbanner]

I have to agree with Sam Cree, I don't think the quotes prove the author's case.

[hoosierskypilot]

And this has what to do with the price of rice in China?

Who cares?

Fact: of the 55 men who drafted the constitution, 52 considered themselves to be evangelical Christians.

Fact: when TJ was appointed president of the Washington, DC school system, he installed a copy of Isaac Watt's hymnal and the Bible as the two primary reading texts.

Fact: When our founding fathers decided to organize our government, they did it based upon Biblical principles.

At the time, Russia had a czar and Britain had a king.
Because of the excesses of absolute monarchs, our founding fathers knew no single individual was competent to rule a country.

Therefore, they operated upon two premises: "There is none righteous, no not one" (Romans 3:10) and "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

That is why we have three opposing branches of government: each is supposed to keep the other two in line.

It is absolutely irrelevant what any individual believed or did not believe. It matters not that TJ may, or may not, have owned slaves. It matters not that Grant was an alcoholic. It matters not that Kennedy was a whoremonger and drug abuser. The nation is more than an individual.

America's greatness has always been because she is a Christian nation. And without her Christian moorings, she will not survive the coming storm.

[jern]

bump for later

[RLK]

Thank you. And thank Thomas Jefferson.

[jwalsh07]

"The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819. ME 19:416

[Willie Green]

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."
.
--Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237

[oldvike]

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

52. Freedom of Religion

Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

---

"We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Virginia Baptists, 1808. ME 16:320

"The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819. ME 19:416

"Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to John Thomas et al., 1807. ME 16:291

"In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object." --Thomas Jefferson to Baltimore Baptists, 1808. ME 16:317

"Religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:283

"One of the amendments to the Constitution... expressly declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,' thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:382

"The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of mankind, and... if any act shall be... passed to repeal [an act granting those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. (*) ME 2:303, Papers 2:546

The Private Nature of Religion

"I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, 1816. ME 15:60

"From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:545

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.

"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378

"Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198

Government Intermeddling in Religion

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378

"Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the consciences of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to New London Methodists, 1809. ME 16:332

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:429

"To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2: 546

"It is... proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428

Religion Intermeddling in Government

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281

"Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were the public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and with more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative and executive functions." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:419

"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:425

"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith." --Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434

Establishments of Religion Undermine Rights

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.

"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind." --Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1810. ME 12:345

"[If] the nature of... government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierrepont Edwards, July 1801. (*)

"This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers'] is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they now hold." --Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

"The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy]." --Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802. ME 10:305

"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] 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 Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

"Believing... 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 legitimate 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 to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

"I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this [i.e., the purchase of an apparent geological or astronomical work] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose." --Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127

"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, 1813. ME 14:21

"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 to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

"I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its fundamental bases is expressed in these words: 'The Roman Catholic religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatever.' Now I wish this presented to those who question what [a bookseller] may sell or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words, 'Roman Catholic,' and to insert the denomination of their own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like the Spanish religion, under the 'protection of wise and just laws.' It would show to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:128

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545

The Benefits of Religious Freedom

"The law for religious freedom... [has] put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:400

"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. 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 the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546

"Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:545

"We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546

"The proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:546

"A recollection of our former vassalage in religion and civil government will unite the zeal of every heart, and the energy of every hand, to preserve that independence in both which, under the favor of Heaven, a disinterested devotion to the public cause first achieved, and a disinterested sacrifice of private interests will now maintain." --Thomas Jefferson to Baltimore Baptists, 1808. ME 16:318

Religious Illegality

"The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98

"If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:224

"If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548

"It is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers 2:546

"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and, therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547

ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition.   See Sources.

---

Cross References

To other sections in Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government:-

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Copyright 1995-99 Eyler Robert Coates, Sr.

The University of Virginia Alderman Library Electronic Text Center Jefferson: Online Resources

[Romulus]

Don't know why your post suppresses this fact, but in his letter to Dr. Rush, quoted above, Mr. Jefferson expresses the explicit hope that America will embrace a Unitarian faith.

[stainlessbanner]

"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

[Liberal Classic]

Jefferson was a "deist," which roughly means he believed that the universise was made by the Creator, but thought the Creator doesn't much interfere with the universe He has created. While critics called him nothing but an atheist, it is clear that he generally accepted the events told in the Bible as true as well as held the words of Jesus in high esteem. He did, however, have scepticism for the efficacy and morality of the body of men that is the church, which made him some enemies. He also believed that faith should be a personal subject. It is also clear he believed that a moral public was essential to a free country, but likewise knew that freedom was a component of a moral public, and that people should not come to rely on the government for protection and safety.

[nmh]

Thomas Jefferson did believe in God. No doubt about that. What he didn't believe in was miracles. He wasso fanatical about this he rewrote the Bible leaving OUT all miracles. It's commonly called the Jefferson Bible. What amused me about this aspect of Jefferson is that he believed in God, which is supernatrual yet when it came to miracles hw couldn't but into that. Silly one.

[rmlew]

I am no fan of Jefferson (frankly I consider him the first limousine liberal). His enthrallment with the Jacobins makes me thankfull that the Federalists were in power for this countries formative first 12 years under the Constiution.

However, I believe that you are only giving one side of Jefferson. Here are some more Jefferson quotes
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0200.htm

"God... has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:197

"I believe... that [justice] is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1816. ME 15:76

"The practice of morality being necessary for the well-being of society, [our Creator] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain." --Thomas Jefferson to James Fishback, 1809. ME 12:315

"Our Saviour... has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them." --Thomas Jefferson to Martin Van Buren, 1824. ME 16:55

http://www.americanpresidents.org/letters/03.asp
"Adore God. ... Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1825

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever." Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Let's briefly look at some other Founders.

Here's Ben Franklin, who many people call an atheist.
http://www.christianamerica.com/foundingfathers/ben_franklin.htm
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing I see of this truth: "that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his Aid?

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -Benjamin Franklin

From George Washington

"Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports. -- In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. -- The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. -- A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. -- Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. -- Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure -- reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." --George Washington, from his Farewell Address "It is rightly impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible." --George Washington

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship." --Patrick Henry

"If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us."- Patrick Henry

"Statesmen...may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand." --John Adams
Letter to Zabdiel Adams, June 21, 1776

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams
address to the military Oct. 11, 1798

And let me concluse with the following non-religious quote:
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams

[rmlew]

Let me note that I am Jewish. Perhaps because of this, I am especially asware that America is, or at least was founded as, a Christian nation without denomination.

[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?

[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]

[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.

[windcliff]

fyi ping

[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.