Thomas Jefferson

Those who wish to purge Christianity and the Bible from American public life often trumpet the third president, Thomas Jefferson, as a champion of the “wall of separation between church and state.”

Yet Jefferson was far from a secularist hero.

As America celebrates the 250th anniversary of his most influential work, the Declaration of Independence, it seems fitting to revisit Jefferson’s relationship with public religion.

1. The Letter to Danbury Baptists

On Jan. 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote the phrase secularists love to quote.

In referring to the First Amendment’s religion and establishment clauses, Jefferson wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church & state.”

The “establishment” of religion forbidden in the First Amendment applied to the federal government, not the states—many of which had established churches long after the Constitution’s ratification. This “establishment” involved directing tax money to support churches, and forbidding it did not mean excising references to the Bible from public places.

Furthermore, the letter itself reveals a religious motivation for this declaration.

Jefferson wrote, not intending to purge the public square of religion, but intending to protect the Baptists’ religious freedom. Immediately before the “separation” passage, the president stated his belief “that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his God, that he owes account to none other for this faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions.”

He ended the letter by stating, “I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.”

Jefferson did not intend to force religion out of public life—he explicitly grounded his respect for the establishment clause in his own high esteem for God and religion, and he stated his intention to pray for the Baptists.

2. Church Service in the Capitol

Two days after Jefferson sent that letter, he attended a Christian worship service at the U.S. Capitol. Rep. Manasseh Cutler, a Federalist member of the House of Representatives, noted Jefferson’s attendance in a Jan. 4, 1802, letter to Joseph Cutler.

Margaret Bayard Smith, a writer and social critic, wrote that “Jefferson during his whole administration was a most regular attendant” of Capitol worship services.

Whatever Jefferson meant by the “separation of church & state,” he took no objection to the notion of worship services in federal government buildings.

3. The Declaration of Independence

Any close reader of the Declaration of Independence would not come away with the opinion that its author wanted religion excised from the public square.

The declaration doesn’t just mention God four times; it credits God for giving the moral foundation of good government.

The declaration cites “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” for the notion that Americans have the right to assert their independence from Great Britain.

The document states that “certain unalienable Rights” are “endowed” by our “Creator.”

The signers appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the world” to vouch for their righteous intentions, and declare their “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

Jefferson wrote the document to represent the members of the Second Continental Congress, so he doubtless made compromises to represent the entire group, but he still grounded America’s fundamental rights in God, not in government.

4. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which the Old Dominion’s General Assembly passed in January 1786. While the statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia, it explicitly grounded the right of religious freedom not in secular government but in man’s duty to God.

The statute declares that “Almighty God hath created the mind free” and that “all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment… are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either.”

In fact, the document frames the disestablishment of Anglicanism as a way to protect religion, warning that establishing a religion “tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will eternally profess and conform to it.”

No Secularist Hero

As an American Christian, I am grateful to Jefferson for stating the principles that founded our country. I also acknowledge that Jefferson was hardly an example of Christian orthodoxy—he did cut up the Bible to remove passages describing miracles, after all.

However, the idea that Jefferson would have championed the secularist removal of symbols such as the Ten Commandments from government buildings is utterly contrary to his documented history.

Let’s set the record straight: Jefferson was no secularist hero, and his “separation of church & state” is a far cry from the modern secularist agenda.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]