American Minute with Bill Federer
First Things First: Religious Freedom! How Baptists influenced Jefferson's views on Separation of Church & State
|
|
On JANUARY 1, 1802, the people of Cheshire, Massachusetts, delivered
a giant block of cheese weighing 1,235 lbs
to
President Thomas Jefferson,
being presented by t
he famous Baptist preacher,
John Leland.
|
|
On the block of cheese, they put
Jefferson's motto,
which was also on his personal seal:
"Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."
|
|
After delivering the cheese,
John Leland
was then invited to preach to the President and Congress in the U.S. Capitol.
The subject of his talk was
"separation of church and state."
|
|
Baptists
had been particularly persecuted in
colonial Virginia,
as Francis L. Hawks wrote in
Ecclesiastical History
(1836):
"No dissenters in Virginia experienced for a time harsher treatment than the Baptists ...
|
|
... They were beaten and imprisoned ...
Cruelty taxed ingenuity to devise new modes of punishment and annoyance."
|
|
So many Baptist ministers were harassed, and their church services disrupted, that
James Madison
introduced legislation in Virginia's Legislature on October 31, 1785, titled
"A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship,"
which passed in 1789.
|
|
Colonial Virginia had an "establishment" of the
Church of England,
or
"Anglican Church"
from 1606 to 1786.
Establishment
meant:
- mandatory membership;
- mandatory taxes to support it; and
- no one could hold public office unless they were a member.
|
|
Over time, lax enforcement allowed
"dissenting" religious groups
to enter
Virginia,
the first being
Presbyterians
and
Quakers,
followed by
German Lutherans, Mennonites
and
Moravian Brethren,
then finally
Baptists.
|
|
Patrick Henry
almost succeeded in having
Virginia not ratify the Constitution
as it did not have a
Bill of Rights guaranteeing,
among other things, the
freedom of religion.
|
|
Baptist Preacher John Leland
had considered running for Congress, as he wanted
an Amendment
added to the new United States Constitution which would
protect religious liberty.
|
|
Leland
reportedly met with
James Madison
near Orange, Virginia.
Upon
Madison's
promise to introduce what would become the
First Amendment, Leland
agreed to
persuade Baptists
to
get involved in politics
and support
Madison.
|
|
John Leland
wrote in
Rights of Conscience Inalienable,
1791, that they wanted not just toleration, but equality:
"Every man
must give account of himself to
God,
and therefore
every man
ought to
be at liberty
to serve
God
in a way that he can best reconcile to
his conscience.
If government
can answer for individuals at the
day of judgment,
let men be controlled by it in religious matters; otherwise, let men be free."
|
|
John Leland
was following in the tradition of the
Baptist Roger Williams,
who fled England to Massachusetts, then fled to found Rhode Island.
The situation was that Puritans were persecuted by the established Anglican Church in England.
They fled in a
Great Puritan Migration
to Massachusetts, where they proceeded to
establish Puritanism.
|
|
Supreme Court Justice Hugo Lafayette Black
wrote in
Engel v. Vitale,
1962:
"When some of the very groups which had most strenuously
opposed the established Church of England
found themselves sufficiently in control of colonial governments in this country to write their own prayers into law,
they passed laws making their own religion the official religion
of their respective colonies."
|
|
Roger Williams
wrote in his
Plea for Religious Liberty,
1644:
"The doctrine of
persecution for cause of conscience
is most
contrary
to the
doctrine of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace
...
God requireth not a uniformity of religion
to be enacted and
enforced in any civil state;
which
enforced uniformity
(sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war,
ravishing of conscience,
persecution of Christ Jesus
in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls."
|
|
A few years later,
Quaker
founder of Pennsylvania
William Penn
wrote in
England's Present Interest Considered,
1675:
"Force
makes hypocrites, 'tis
persuasion
only that makes converts."
|
|
Following George Whitefield's
First Great Awakening Revival,
1730-1755, a
Second Great Awakening Revival
took place between 1790-1840.
In
Thomas Jefferson's
county of Albemarle,
Baptist, Presbyterian
and
Methodist revival meetings
were held.
Even
Jefferson's daughter, Mary,
attended a
Baptist reviva
l preached by
Lorenzo Dow.
|
|
On July 4, 1826, the editor of the
Christian Watchman
(Boston, MA) published an account:
"ANDREW TRIBBLE
was the
Pastor of a small Baptist Church,
which held its monthly meetings at a short distance from
Mr. JEFFERSON'S house,
eight or ten years before the American Revolution.
|
|
...
Mr. JEFFERSON
attended the
meetings of the church
for several months in succession, and after one of them, asked
Elder TRIBBLE
to go home and dine with him, with which he complied.
Mr. TRIBBLE
asked
Mr. JEFFERSON
how he was pleased with
their Church Government?
|
|
Mr. JEFFERSON
replied, that it had struck him with great force, and had interested him much; that he considered it the only form of
pure democracy
that then existed in the world, and had concluded that it would be
the best plan of Government for the American Colonies."
|
|
Thomas F. Curtis wrote in
The Progress of Baptist Principles in the Last Hundred Years
(Charleston, S.C.: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1856):
"A gentleman ... in North Carolina ... knowing that the venerable
Mrs. (Dolley) Madison
had some recollections on the subject, asked her in regard to them.
She expressed a distinct remembrance of
Mr. Jefferson
speaking on the subject, and always declaring that it was
a Baptist church
from which these views were gathered."
|
|
President Calvin Coolidge
stated at the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1926:
"This preaching reached the neighborhood of
Thomas Jefferson,
who acknowledged that his
'best ideas of democracy'
had been secured at
church meetings."
|
|
During the Revolution, Anglican ministers had sided with
King George III,
who was
head of the Anglican Church.
As a result, patriotic parishioners gained courage to
migrate out of the "established" churches
and filter into "dissenting" churches.
|
|
Jefferson
was baptized, married and buried in the
Anglican Church,
which was called
"Episcopal"
after America's Revolution
,
as recorded in his family Bible.
In 1777, though, he started a dissenting church named the
Calvinistical Reformed Church.
|
|
Jefferson
drew up the bylaws of the church, which met in the
Albemarle County Courthouse.
His idea was for it to be
a "voluntary" church,
supported only by the voluntary donations of those who attended.
This contrasted with the
Anglican model
of church support where citizen paid
mandatory taxes
to the government, which in turn dispensed funds to established churches.
|
|
Jefferson's
memorandum book showed he contributed to the evangelical pastor of the
Calvinistical Reformed Church,
the
Rev. Charles Clay.
Jefferson
also gave generously to missionaries and various other churches:
"I have subscribed to the building of an
Episcopal church,
two hundred dollars, a
Presbyterian,
sixty dollars, and a
Baptist,
twenty-five dollars."
|
|
After the Revolution, the
Virginia legislature
rewrote its laws, removing all references to the King.
"Dissenting" churches lobbied
Jefferson
to take this opportunity to
"disestablish" the Anglican Church.
Jefferson
responded by writing his
Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.
|
|
In 1779, fellow member of
Jefferson's Calvinistical Reformed Church,
Col. John Harvie, introduced the bill in
Virginia's Assembly.
It took seven years to pass.
|
|
Justice Hugo Black
wrote in
Engel v. Vitale,
1962:
"But the successful Revolution against English political domination was shortly followed by intense
opposition to the practice of establishing religion by law.
This opposition crystallized rapidly into an effective political force in
Virginia
where the
minority religious groups
such as
Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers
and
Baptists
had gained such strength that the adherents to the
established Episcopal Church
were actually
a minority themselves.
In 1785-1786, those opposed to
the established Church
... obtained the enactment of the famous
'Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty'
by which all religious groups were placed on an equal footing."
|
|
After three of
Jefferson's
children died, his wife,
Martha,
died in 1782.
After her funeral,
Jefferson
suffered depression and withdrew from politics.
|
|
In his grief, he burned every letter he had with his wife and sequestered himself in his room for three weeks, only venturing out to ride horseback through the hills of his estate.
|
|
Jefferson's daughter,
Martha 'Patsy' Jefferson,
described how he wept for hours:
"In those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion ... a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief ... the violence of his emotion ... to this day I do not describe to myself."
|
|
Trying to help, Congress asked
Jefferson
in 1784 to be the U.S. ambassador to France.
|
|
France
was going through a period of
"French infidelity"
prior to its
bloody French Revolution and Reign of Terror.
Upon returning to America,
Jefferson
entertained liberal "deist-Christian" ideas, though in later life he was described simply as a "liberal Anglican."
|
|
Jefferson's bill,
with the help of
James Madison,
finally passed by
Virginia's Assembly,
January 16, 1786.
So significant was this, that
Jefferson
noted it on his gravestone as
"The Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom."
It stated:
"Almighty God
hath created the mind free ...
All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments ... are a departure from the plan of the
Holy Author of religion,
who being
Lord both of body and mind,
yet chose
not to propagate it
by
coercions
on either, as was in His
Almighty power
to do ...
To compel a man to furnish
contributions of money
for the
propagation of opinions,
which he
disbelieves
is
sinful
and
tyrannical
...
Be it enacted ... that no man shall ... suffer on account of his
religious opinions."
|
|
This last paragraph, if applied today, would mean that
Jefferson
would have
opposed
Christian parents having to
pay taxes
to have
their children indoctrinated
in
public schools
with
anti-biblical views on sex and marriage.
|
|
Jefferson
acquired a
Qur'an
in 1765, but after studying it, he only had praise for
the morality of Jesus,
as he wrote to William Canby, September 18, 1813:
"Of all the systems of morality,
ancient or modern, which have come under my observation,
none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus."
Jefferson
wrote to Jared Sparks, November 4, 1820:
"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man."
Jefferson
wrote to Joseph Priestly, April 9, 1803, regarding
Jesus:
"His system of morality was
the most benevolent and sublime probably that has been ever taught,
and consequently
more perfect
than those of any of the
ancient philosophers."
|
|
Jefferson's
belief that
"the Holy Author of religion ... chose not to propagate it by coercions"
is consistent with an account in the
Gospel of John:
"Many of his disciples ... said, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?'
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, 'Doth this offend you?'...
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, 'Will ye also go away?'
Then Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.'"
|
|
Jesus'
example of being willing to let disbelievers
voluntarily
depart is
in stark contrast
with the coercion present in
Islamic "ridda" apostasy laws,
where Mohammed said:
"Whoever changes his Islamic religion,
kill him."
(Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 9, No. 57)
Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, narrated by Abdullah:
"Allah's Apostle said, 'The blood of a Muslim ... cannot be shed except ... in three cases ...
the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves
the Muslims.'" (Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 83, No. 17)
Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, narrated by Ikrima, stated:
"Ali burnt some people (hypocrites) ... No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion,
kill him.'"
(Hadith Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 4:260, Vol. 9, Book 84, No. 57)
Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari stated:
"The punishment for
apostasy (riddah)
is well-known in Islamic Sharee'ah. T
he one who leaves Islam
will be asked to repent by the Sharee'ah judge in an Islamic country;
if he does not repent and come back to the true religion,
he will be killed as a kafir and apostate,
because of the command of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): 'Whoever changes his religion,
kill him.'"
(Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, 3017)
|
|
Baptist founder of Rhode Island,
Roger Williams,
wrote:
"That religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it."
|
|
Jefferson's
efforts to
disestablish the Anglican Church
in
Virginia
would never have passed had it not been for
Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury
splitting the popular
Methodist movement
away from the Anglican Church
into its own denomination in 1785, forming the
Methodist Episcopal Church.
|
|
Francis Asbury
also ordained
Richard Allen
as
the first black deacon,
and preached the dedication service at
Allen's "Mother Bethel" African Methodist Episcopal Church
in 1794.
|
|
Virginia
had notable leaders who
resisted "disestablishing" the Anglican
, or as it was now called, the
Episcopal Church,
such as
Governor Patrick Henry.
This movement was later termed "
anti-disestablishmentarianism,"
which for decades was
the longest word in the English Language.
|
|
Virginia
built its
first Jewish Synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Shalome,
in 1789.
|
|
Virginia
built its
first Catholic Church, St. Mary Church,
in Alexandria in 1795.
|
|
John Leland
then helped start Baptist churches in Connecticut -- which was a State having the Congregational Church established from its founding in 1639 until 1818.
|
|
Baptists in Connecticut formed the
Danbury Baptist Association
which sent a letter to
President Jefferson,
October 7, 1801:
"Sir ... Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of
Religious Liberty
--That
Religion
is at all times and places a Matter between
God
and
Individuals
--That
no man ought to suffer
in Name, person or effects on account of his
religious Opinions
--That the
legitimate Power of civil Government
extends no further
than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor:
|
|
... But Sir ... our ancient (Connecticut) charter, together with the Laws made coincident therewith ... are; that ... what religious
privileges
we enjoy (as Baptists) ... we enjoy as
favors
granted, and not as
inalienable rights
...
Sir, we are sensible that the President of the united States IS NOT the national Legislator
& also sensible that the national government CANNOT destroy the Laws of each State;
but our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved President, which have had such genial Effect already, like the radiant beams of the Sun, will shine & prevail through all these States and all the world till Hierarchy and Tyranny be destroyed from the Earth ..."
|
|
In other words,
Baptists
hoped that
Jefferson's
sentiments which helped disestablish the
Anglican Church
in
Virginia
might also help disestablish the
Congregational Church
in
Connecticut,
and likewise influence all other States.
The
Danbury Baptist
letter to
Jefferson
continued:
"Sir ... we have reason to believe that America's
God
has raised you up to fill the chair of State ... May
God
strengthen you for the arduous task which
Providence
& the voice of the people have called you ...
And may the
Lord
preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to
His Heavenly Kingdom
through
Jesus Christ
our Glorious Mediator."
|
|
Jefferson
replied with
his famous letter,
January 1, 1802,
agreeing with the Danbury's Baptists,
even repeating sections of their letter almost verbatim:
"Gentlemen ... Believing WITH YOU
--that
religion
is a matter which lies solely between man and his
God,
--that he owes account to none other for faith or his worship,
--that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,
I contemplate with solemn 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
..."
|
|
Jefferson
ended:
"Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the
rights of conscience,
I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common
Father
and
Creator of man."
|
|
Baptists
were familiar with Jefferson's metaphor
"wall of separation,"
as the Baptist founder of Rhode Island,
Roger Williams,
used it in his
Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Conscience Sake,
1644:
"Jews
under the Old Testament ... and ...
Christians
under the New Testament ... were both
separate from the world;
|
|
and that when they have opened a gap in the hedge, or
wall of separation, between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world,
God hath ever broken down the wall itself ...
And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be
walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world."
|
|
Jefferson
viewed the "wall" as limiting the federal government from "inter-meddling" in church government, as explained in his letter to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808:
"I consider the
government of the United States
as interdicted
(prohibited) by the Constitution
from
inter-meddling 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
(10th Amendment) ..."
|
|
Jefferson
continued:
"Certainly no power to prescribe any
religious exercise,
or to assume
authority in religious discipline,
has been delegated to the
General (Federal) government
...
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."
|
|
Though
Jefferson
considered the
Federal Government limited
from
"inter-meddling"
with what was under States' jurisdiction, it was
not limited
from spreading religion in
Federal territories,
as on April 26, 1802,
Jefferson's
administration extended a 1787 act of Congress where
lands were designated:
"For the sole use of
Christian Indians
and the
Moravian Brethren missionaries
for civilizing the
Indians
and
promoting Christianity."
|
|
And again, December 3, 1803, during
Jefferson's
administration, Congress ratified a treaty with the
Kaskaskia Indians:
"Whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been
baptized
and received into the
Catholic Church
... the
United States will give annually,
for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the
support of a priest of that religion,
who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to
instruct as many of their children as possible
...
And the
United States
will further
give
the sum of
three hundred dollars,
to assist the said tribe in
the erection of a church."
|
|
When Abigail Adams died,
Thomas Jefferson
wrote to her husband, John Adams, November 13, 1818:
"The term is not very distant, at which we are to
deposit
in the same cerement, our sorrows and
suffering bodies,
and to
ascend
in essence to an ecstatic
meeting with the friends
we have loved and lost, and whom
we shall still love and never lose again.
God bless you
and support you under your heavy affliction."
|
|
Twelve years before his death,
Jefferson
shared his personal views to Miles King, September 26, 1814:
"We have heard it said that there is not a
Quaker
or a
Baptist,
a
Presbyterian
or an
Episcopalian,
a
Catholic
or a
Protestant
in heaven; that on entering that gate,
we leave those badges of schism behind ...
Let us be happy in the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end. And that you and I may meet and embrace, is
my earnest prayer."
|
|
Over time, brilliant legal minds have
used Jefferson's words
to
prohibit Jefferson's beliefs.
|
|
Jefferson
believed
in a
Creator
, as he wrote in the Declaration:
"All men are endowed by their CREATOR,"
yet in 2005,
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones,
in
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,
ruled students could not be taught of a CREATOR: "to preserve the separation of church and state."
|
|
In other words, activist judges have used
Jefferson's
phrase
"separation of church and state"
out of context to remove national acknowledgments of
God,
despite
Jefferson's
specific
warning not to do that.
Inscribed on the
Jefferson Memorial,
Washington, DC is
Jefferson's warning:
"God
who gave us life
gave us liberty.
Can the liberties of a nation be secure when
we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that
God
is just, that
His justice cannot sleep forever."
|
|
Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
