Thomas Jefferson - a "new" faith hero for today?

As I was preparing to teach my “History of Religion in America” course last night, I rediscovered a forgotten faith hero…Thomas Jefferson. In the early 1800’s, as our founding fathers confronted challenge after challenge from various religious groups vying for supremacy in the emerging colonies, it was Jefferson who espoused a rational Christianity.

Jefferson’s main interest was to keep Christianity both simple and moral. His contention was that theologians and the purveyors of dogma were overcomplicating the pure faith of Jesus with “the incomprehensible jargon of Trinitarian arithmetic.” He blamed the Platonists for turning “the pure morality of the Sermon on the Mount into unintelligible jargon.” He went onto say, “We have given up morals for mystery and Jesus for Plato.”

For Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, religion’s chief societal purpose was to provide a reliable morality. These three sought a purer form of faith that placed “deeds above creeds.” In 1819, Jefferson went so far as to say, “If I were to found a new sect, my fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s; that we are saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.” As Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt put it, for Jefferson “the true emphasis of Christian faith must lie upon our deeds more than our words, upon our good works more than our declarations of belief.” (The Religious History of America)

I don’t want to overstate my point. I am well aware of the necessary tension between faith and works that the Christian tradition contains. But in the polemical landscape of contemporary American Christianity, I would gladly trade all our endless bickering over who is saved and who isn’t for a little love of neighbor. I am so ready to exchange our theological debates about homosexuality for some good, old-fashioned mercy and compassion.

In these days of division and diatribes, I long for a leader like Jefferson to call us back to the simple goodness and kindness of the Sermon on the Mount and Micah 6:8: “The Lord has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”  As long as our creeds are more important to us than our deeds, we shouldn’t be surprised that the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated multiply exponentially, while our church pews continue to empty.  

* Gautstad & Schmidt, The Religious History of America, Harper ONE, 2002