7 Faiths of the Founding Fathers - Perimeter Church

A History of Christianity in America • Part VII: Faiths of the Founding Fathers 9• A radical separatist.• A radical restorationist view of church history.• Separating the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith.”• Jefferson: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since theintroduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, [and]imprisoned.”• Hostility toward Calvinists.• “The Presbyterian clergy is the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannicaland ambitious,” and they would burn heretics if the law still allowed it.• Author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786).• A secular presidency.• No presidential proclamations calling for national days of prayer andthanksgiving.• Jefferson’s promotion of secular education.• Jefferson’s religious vision for America:• “I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which hassurrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuinedoctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust there is not a young man nowliving who will not die an Unitarian.”• Historical criticism and the “Jefferson Bible.”• Jefferson: The New Testament writers were “dupes and imposters,” and the apostlePaul was “the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”• “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth” (1804).• The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (the “Jefferson Bible,” 1820).• A “demythologized” New Testament.• Jefferson on civil religion.• Jefferson: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removedtheir only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties arethe gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?”Radical DeistThomas Paine (1737-1809).• Opposition to organized Christianity.• A radical anti-supernaturalist.• The Age of Reason:• “The first article of every man’s creed” should be, “I believein God.”• “I believe in one God, and no more [i.e., “and nothingelse”]; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe inthe equality of man, and I believe that religious dutiesconsist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring tomake our fell-creatures happy.”• “My country is the world and my religion is to do good.”• On the superiority of Deism:• “The religion of Deism is superior to the Christian religion. It is free from all thoseinvented and torturing articles [of faith] that shock our reason... with which theChristian religion abounds. Its creed is pure and sublimely simple. It believes in