Today’s Waynesboro News Virginian has a story about a year-old group in Staunton, the Christian Heritage Center, which promotes Christianity in government with an endtimes-are-near philosophy and that rather-tired Christians-are-persecuted mentality. But the really weird thing is the groups ardent opposition to Thomas Jefferson:
It was the day to recognize the perpetrator, that “enemy of the Gospel” – Jefferson, according to Christian Heritage officials.
The new religious group, which recently built a complex on a hilltop overlooking Interstate 64 at Tinkling Spring Road, pronounced Jefferson “the anti-Christian” and George Washington’s opposite.
Jefferson, they said, “feigned belief in God to achieve his own political ends and came to sever Jesus Christ from his divinity.”
[…]
[They] cited examples to suggest Jefferson was the enemy of Christians and that Washington was a model Christian, who walked the walk – even begging forgiveness from God when his prayers were not fervent enough.
“Jefferson came disguised as an angel of light by appealing to reason instead of faith – to works instead of the cross,” Humphries said.“His purpose…was taught by Voltaire, Locke, Paine and Priestly. They become…wolves in sheep’s clothing,” he said.
The reason they’re upset, of course, is that Jefferson was a great defender of religious freedom. Groups like the Pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution, only to get here and immediately persecute anybody who was of any sect or faith different than their own. He knew that Iberian Peninsula had been taken over by the Moors and, while not actively oppressed, Christians was made subservient to Islam for centuries. Rather than understand that it was Jefferson who made the United States safe for Christianity, they instead (apparently) believe that he made Christianity weaker by not making it a state religion. (Faith has seldom sprung out of forced indoctrination. Would you become Hindu if you were ordered to by the legislature?) As a nation of many faiths, we are certainly none the worse. As Mr. Jefferson said, “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Of course, Thomas Jefferson did also write: “I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”
I can’t imagine that they’d be much of a fan of Abraham Lincoln, either. He wrote:
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
What’s funny is how big that this group is on George Washington. He has perhaps made the strongest statement on this matter of all presidents:
The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.
Perhaps nobody should mention that to the Christian Heritage Center. I think they’d be upset.
Was it Washington that said that? I assume you refer to the Treaty of Tripoli, which was ratified under the Adams administration. The preliminary treaty was written during Washington’s tenure, but I’m not sure about the extent of his involvement. The document was actually drafted by one Joel Barlow.
You can find pages upon pages of quotes from our founding fathers bashing Christianity…none of them were christians…
The whole idea that this nation was founded as a christian nation doesn’t pass the laugh test…
Steve, I actually didn’t look for an original source on the Washington quote — I took it from Gerard Straub’s “Salvation for Sale: An Insider’s View of Pat Robertson,” who attributed it to Washington. I’m normally fairly obsessive about ensuring that quotations are by the person to whom they are attributed (as they’re often not), but I’ve trusted this one because of the research and editing process to which the book was (presumably) subjected.
Eh, well he’d know better than I would.
In Thomas Jefferson : A Life, the following story is retold of the presidential election from 1800:
“A Federalist lady in a small Connecticut town was so terrified of what would happen to the family Bible if Jefferson became president that she took it to the only Jeffersonian she knew and asked him to hide it for her. The Jeffersonian tried to allay her fears about Jefferson, but she remained unconvinced.
‘My good woman,’ he finally said, ‘if all the Bibles are to be destroyed, what is the use of bringing yours to me? That will not save it when it is found.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ she insisted. ‘It will be perfectly safe with you. They’ll never think of looking in the house of a Democrat for a Bible.'”
http://swvalaw.blogspot.com/2004_09_19_swvalaw_archive.html#109589377799165663
Although, Steve, to be fair, she wouldn’t have said “Democrat.” The party was called the “Democrat-Republicans.” The story’s not quite as funny that way, though. :)