Most Americans are not aware of the fact that in early 1801, we did not know who the third president would be—Thomas Jefferson or Aaron Burr. The two of them were running for president independently. They both handily beat John Adams. But they were both tied with electoral college votes. …
Here comes one of the earliest criticisms we can find from Thomas Jefferson of the clergy. It comes in 1801—when he was almost 60 years old. This criticism was as related to POLITICS as much as it was to religion. The idea that our third president was a lifelong skeptic …
On November 27, 1800, Jefferson moved to Washington, D. C. where the new Capitol opened. In Margaret Bayard Smith’s First Forty Years of Washington Society, she wrote: “…During the first winter, Mr. Jefferson regularly attended service on the sabbath-day in the humble church. …The custom of preaching in the Hall …
Those who knew Jefferson personally tended to believe that he was a professing Christian. That does not preclude the fact that in the 1810’s and beyond (after he was president), he entertained privately some serious doubts about core Christian doctrines. Suffice it to say: it is not tenable to say …
[Photo of Dr. Mark Beliles and Dr. Alvin Edwards of “Healing 4 Charlottesville” on a prayer walk. Photo by Cathrynn Lowenstein] Bad news gets press. “If it bleeds, it leads.” Good news tends not to spread as well and as far. We all know about the horrible events of August …
Politics can be a dirty business. Just ask Thomas Jefferson. Some of the negative things being said about Jefferson, questioning whether he was a Christian, first came out as political statements against the Virginia politician when he was running for president in 1800. This helped create a misleading image of …
During the election of 1800, there was a great deal of acrimony. Some of the charges against Thomas Jefferson, alleging that he wasn’t a Christian were hurled at him at that time—because of political reasons. We address this in our book, Doubting Thomas. It’s hard to imagine muckraking by politicians …
Was Thomas Jefferson an atheist or skeptic? To hear some modern commentators you would think so. But in our book, Doubting Thomas, Dr. Mark Beliles and I show that the modern idea of Thomas Jefferson as a lifelong skeptic of Christianity does not fit the facts. After a few decades …
In our book, Doubting Thomas, Dr. Mark Beliles and I show that the modern idea of Thomas Jefferson as a lifelong skeptic of Christianity does not fit the facts. After a few decades of a seeming good relationship between Jefferson and the church, during the campaign of 1800—when Jefferson ran …
On February 5, 1798, Jefferson wrote some Notes on Newspaper Articles, which spoke of Jesus as “Saviour.” This term describes a redemptive mission. Jefferson also used this term or “Christ” in other letters; but in this 1798 case, like his earlier commonplace notes and other “Notes on Religion” (see DOUBTING THOMAS, pp. 10, …