Reading the Culture: Except when Thomas Jefferson dined alone

On April 29, 1962, John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Laureates to the White House: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Jefferson was the author of the much-debated metaphor, “a wall of separation between church and state.” Given the theme of this edition of the Standard, we might consider his faith and its relevance today.

John McCollister’s So Help Me God: The Faith of America’s Presidents (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991) is a good introduction to our subject. McCollister tells us that during Jefferson’s years as president, he frequently worshipped with Christ Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He also sent a note with $50 to the rector every New Year’s Day.

Jefferson authorized federal support for military chaplains and Christian missions to the Indians. He attended Sunday services in the Capitol building and designated space in the rotunda of the University of Virginia for chapel services.

He refused to issue presidential proclamations for national days of prayer, fasting and thanksgiving, but only because he considered this to be the responsibility of state governments; as governor of Virginia, he did issue such calls.

But his personal faith was a different matter. Jefferson never joined a Christian congregation. He was a great admirer of Jesus’ ethical teachings, but did not consider Jesus divine. He stated, “I am a Christian, but I am a Christian in the only sense in which I believe Jesus wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to his doctrine in preference to all others, ascribing to him all human excellence, and believing that he never claimed any other.”

Upon Jefferson’s election as president, the Baptist Association of Danbury, Conn., sent him a letter of congratulations Oct. 7, 1801. They viewed his political platform as assuring their (minority) rights of religious freedom, and they were right. In his response of Jan. 1, 1802, he stated, “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.”

I, for one, agree with Mr. Jefferson. So would have John Leland, one of the most important Baptists in colonial history. He stated in 1791: “Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or 20 Gods; and let government protect him in so doing.”

Speaking from the east steps of the U.S. Capitol on May 16, 1920, George Truett envisioned the day when “in every land, whether great or small, the doctrine shall have absolute supremacy everywhere of a free church in a free state.”

Let us serve both.

Jim Denison is president of the Center for Informed Faith (www.informedfaith.com) and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.