Jefferson advocated 'gate' between church and state
WND Exclusive FAITH UNDER FIRE
Jefferson advocated 'gate' between church and state
Pastor's research says 'deist' described himself as Christian
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54349
Posted: February 21, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Thomas Jefferson, credited with penning the famous "wall of separation
between Church and State" on which many secular organization have
rested their hopes of eliminating Christianity from the public square,
actually believed in a "gate" allowing free passage between the two,
according to a researcher who's reviewed Library of Congress documents.
How else, asked Todd DuBord, senior pastor at Lake Almanor Community
Church, could Jefferson as president in 1803 recommended a treaty with
the Kaskaskia Indians in which U.S. taxpayers promised to pay $100 a
year for seven years "for the support of a [Catholic] priest …" and
made a commitment that "the United States will further give the sum of
three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a
church…"
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=007/llsl007.db&recNum=\
90
And how else could Jefferson, as president, have held Christian church
services in the executive branch buildings, the U.S. House of
Representatives, and even the U.S. Supreme Court chambers? he asked.
"I used to believe in 'a wall of separation between Church and
State,'" DuBord wrote in a compilation of his research prepared for
his church website. "After researching the religion and politics of
Thomas Jefferson in the Library of Congress, I now understand that
barrier was a gate Jefferson would often pass through."
DuBord, who was exposed to the conflict between the actual Christian
heritage of the United States and what is being portrayed as the
nation's secular heritage while on a tour of the Washington, D.C., and
nearby areas, has researched the nation's Christian heritage through
materials from the Library of Congress, and has been submitting
requests that agencies responsible for that information be more accurate.
For example, WND has reported that he's been campaigning with the U.S.
Supreme Court to provide information that the stone tablet in the East
Wall Frieze actually represents the Ten Commandments, not the ten
amendments as current public information states.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54221
His documentation on the church's website shows historical documents
overwhelmingly support the Ten Commandments description.
http://lacconline.org/supremecourt.asp
WND earlier reported on his documentation
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52895
of the other representations of the Ten Commandments in the Supreme
Court Building.
His newest research includes pages of documentation of Jefferson's
active support for the teachings of Jesus, even to the point of
federal subsidies for the support of missionaries, the construction of
churches, the publication of the Bible and other key outreaches.
Now he's seeking some corrections from the foundation that runs
Jefferson's Monticello home, and offers information to visitors. He
noted that on his recent trip, a tour guide, although "cordial and
informative about many matters," became abrupt and even a little
"arrogant" when asked about Jefferson's faith.
"We all know Jefferson was a strict deist, who ardently fought for the
separation of Church and State," the guide announced at the historic
site run by the private, nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Foundation, DuBord
said.
But DuBord said his research actually supports the concept that
Jefferson was more religious than most people know, and "used both his
government positions and even funds on occasion to establish churches,
distribute biblical information, and promote Christianity."
"As a result, I am again respectfully requesting that a fuller view of
Thomas Jefferson and his intermingling of government and religion
(specifically Christianity) be reinvestigated and reintroduced into
the Monticello tour guides' information and education," he said in his
newest request.
Near the end of his life, Jefferson said in letters to Dr. Benjamin
Waterhouse, on June 26, 1822; to William Canby, on Sept. 18, 1813; and
to Charles Thomson, on Jan. 9, 1816, that:
The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness
of man…
Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come
under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus…
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines
of Jesus.
DuBord explained his research convinced him that Jefferson was opposed
to the "tyranny and corruptions" of Christianity, but not to the
teachings of Jesus himself. In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, he said,
"I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any to be; sincerely
attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others."
DuBord concluded that Jefferson probably was not an evangelical
Christian, and probably wasn't orthodox in most of his doctrine, but
he certainly was not "a dogmatic deist with a secular progressive
agenda to rid religion (specifically Christianity) from government, as
he is often conveyed, even by our tour guide at Jefferson's estate,
Monticello, in July of 2006."
DuBord said the background from which Jefferson came is important to
understanding his dislike of the "business" of Christianity. England
had a state-supported church and in Virginia, Jefferson's home, the
Church of England also was funded by taxes.
In his "Notes" from the Library of Congress, it says Jefferson also
was exposed to the religious intolerance of the anti-Quaker laws, and
suffered the opposition of some church leaders during his presidential
campaign.
A friend once noted of Jefferson that he didn't oppose Christianity,
just the "tyranny" different sects imposed on people.
It is within those parameters then, that he wrote to the Danbury
Baptist Association in Connecticut, whose members expressed concern he
would endorse a state church:
Believing with you 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 legislative power 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.
DuBord said those words were written in reaction and possibly
retaliation to the verbal attacks he'd endured from clergy. In another
letter he called them an "irritable tribe of priests."
But when he was called on to express his beliefs, such as in
recommending a seal for the U.S., Jefferson first suggested one that
reflected the "children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by
Day, and Pillar of Fire by night…" DuBord found.
Does such a symbol, he asked, "seem like they could come from those
who are ardently in favor of the separation of Church and State?" And
from a man, who two days after writing the letter to the Danbury
Baptists, would attend a worship service inside the U.S. House of
Representatives?
"Can anyone today see a president taking such Christian actions,
signing such treaties, or using governmental monies to further
'promote Christianity' as Jefferson did?" asked DuBord. "Does his
intermingling of religion and politics seem like deeds of the 'Thomas
Jefferson' so often conveyed today in educational circles and at
Monticello?
"If Thomas Jefferson espoused a wall of separation between Church and
State, he also breached it, by merging Christianity and politics over
and over again," DuBord said.
He said perhaps the best summary of the relation between government
and Christianity during a time when Jefferson was heavily involved in
that government comes from the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html
The Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that
governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an
extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of energy
that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of religion in the
new nation exceeded that expended by any subsequent American national
government. Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially
authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did
not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that
both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the
national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical
Christianity.
Congress appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces,
sponsored the publication of a Bible, imposed Christian morality on
the armed forces, and granted public lands to promote Christianity
among the Indians. National days of thanksgiving and of "humiliation,
fasting, and prayer" were proclaimed by Congress at least twice a year
throughout the war. Congress was guided by "covenant theology," a
Reformation doctrine especially dear to New England Puritans, which
held that God bound himself in an agreement with a nation and its
people. This agreement stipulated that they "should be prosperous or
afflicted, according as their general Obedience or Disobedience
thereto appears." Wars and revolutions were, accordingly, considered
afflictions, as divine punishments for sin, from which a nation could
rescue itself by repentance and reformation.
"While he was an advocate for the separation of the State from
aligning with any specific national Church, he was not attempting to
neuter government from Christian influence," DuBord said.
In fact, Jefferson wrote in 1781: "The God who gave us life gave us
liberty. 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 a gift from 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, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."
"While Jefferson conveyed deistic tendencies at times in his writings,
denied Jesus' miracles and deity, and certainly was Unitarian in his
theology, his faith was far more complex than 'strict deism.' On the
other hand, as he wrote to William Short on October 31, 1819, he
declared that the teachings of Jesus contained the 'outlines of a
system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the
lips of man,'" DuBord said.
To obtain Pastor Todd DuBord's research with photos on Thomas
Jefferson, "A Gate between Church and State," scroll down to the
bottom of the Lake Almanor Community Church Church website to the
grey-boxed media player and archives. Select "A Gate Between Church
and State" manuscript (.pdf) or the 30-minute audio message below it.
http://www.lacconline.org/
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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