"DOUBTING THOMAS? The Religious Life and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson" by MARK A. BELILES and JERRY NEWCOMBE deals with the faith---or the lack thereof---of one of our most important founding fathers. But this volume provides NEW information, some of which has not been in print before. To learn more about the book, see www.americapublications.org DOUBTING THOMAS contains previously unpublished documents including a dozen religious letters by Jefferson and two sermons by his pastor Charles Clay. Jefferson voluntarily joined and donated to Clay’s Calvinistical Reformed Church of Charlottesville.
Missionaries urged the distribution of whole Bibles to the multitudes of new Indian tribal groups, but a later letter on January 20, 1816, to Peter Wilson (who apparently had urged Jefferson’s support of Bible translations in languages of Indians) explained Jefferson’s reasoning the best: “. . . I think, therefore, …
Below is an excerpt from The Economist magazine about the book: A new book on Jefferson’s religion, “Doubting Thomas”, steers a middle course. On one hand, it squarely accepts that…Jefferson explicitly renounced many tenets of traditional Christianity. . . . [but] The book’s main author, Mark Beliles,…can’t be accused of refashioning Jefferson to his …
Most clergy in Jefferson’s lifetime were not antagonistic to him. Only later did this begin to be popular in some historical works of clergy. And similarly Jefferson was not universally opposed to the clergy. His anti-clericalism was clearly selective and focused, and for biographers to not make that distinction is …
Any fair reading of the faith of Thomas Jefferson should take in all sides of the story. When we examine Jefferson and the Bible, we see that he was overall a student of the Scriptures. We also see that he had bought into the philosophy, prevalent in Unitarian circles (and …