Flaws of the Fathers
America has always struggled—despite the desires of many of her citizens— to align with the will of God. This was true even before the founding of our nation, thanks to one person in particular: Thomas Jefferson. This man’s importance to the founding of our nation cannot be overstated. After all, Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the document that literally announced the existence of the United States of America. Sadly Jefferson also misunderstood Jesus, yet was extraordinarily confident that his interpretation of our Lord and his character was in fact superior to all others. Today, too many American Christians have resurrected Jefferson’s confusion in our present efforts to force together America and the Kingdom of God. In Jefferson we find the seeds of a lie that seems to plague us to this day: that we can make Jesus who we want him to be, rather than worship him for who he is.
Jefferson’s confused view of Jesus presents itself most clearly in a book Jefferson “wrote”, with the help of a razor blade and some glue: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, sometimes called “Jefferson’s Bible”. It seems that Jefferson was especially troubled by the miraculous actions of our Lord Jesus, and really any of the supernatural occurrences that accompanied Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. Taking these concerns head on, Jefferson undertook something of a craft project: he took multiple copies of the gospels and physically cut out almost any reference to miraculous or supernatural events. Stitching together the remains, Jefferson created what he called, in a letter to John Adams, “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man,” which contained only the moral teachings of Jesus and the practical elements of his ministry. He seemed to find this process rather simple, as he considered the truest teachings of Jesus “as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dung-hill.”
Regrettably, in boiling Jesus’ ministry down to an ethical philosophy, Jefferson excised fundamental truths from the pages of Scripture. Take, for example, Jefferson’s account of Jesus’ death. We pick up the narrative shortly after Jesus has been removed from the cross, with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea having recovered the Lord’s body:
Then they took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in this garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
THE END.
In his commitment to only including the “reasonable”, ethical teachings of Jesus, Thomas Jefferson literally cut the greatest victory of Jesus out of the pages of Scripture. He left the fact that Jesus defeated death—for himself and all who believe in him—on the cutting room floor. In so doing, Jefferson tragically neutered Christianity. As Paul rightly stated, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith.” In a sense, then, Jefferson succeeded in his goal: by removing anything miraculous from the life of Jesus, even his resurrection, Jefferson turned our Lord into a great moral teacher—and nothing more. Not our savior; not God; not who Jesus actually is.
Personally, I find Jefferson’s efforts to warp Jesus into a mere philosopher—and the gratuitous confidence with which this founding father conducted his work—quite sad. I see in Jefferson a man who studied Scripture much more closely than most American Christians today. He poured over the words of Jesus, analyzing and considering them, and interacting with them in a way that—to Jefferson—demonstrated a great deal of care. Yet for all this effort, he missed the point. He was unwilling to let Jesus be himself.
The greatest sadness here is in the opportunity getting to truly know Jesus presents. In Jesus, we find our one example of a truly holy human, someone who could confront the evil, sin, and injustice of this world and yet live righteously. In this holiness we also find love: incredible, radical, self-sacrificial love. Whereas we Christians today cringe at the thought of having to walk by an apparent drug-user on the street, Jesus willingly waded into the darkest corners of his day to show love to those who most needed it. Most importantly, in all this Jesus asserted that he was Lord. The one person tenacious enough to live a truly righteous life, and loving enough to die for our sake, promised that he would come back to set right every wrong. Jesus will return in righteousness, in love, and in power, and all will be as it should. In the meantime, following Jesus provides the greatest possible hope and purpose we can find in this life. Truly knowing Jesus is an incredible gift.
Jefferson missed all of this, because he could not accept what he did not understand. I think Jefferson desperately wanted to know and love Jesus: why else spend so much time reading his words? Yet at the end of the day, Jefferson chose to make Jesus what he needed, rather than accepting Jesus’ command that we recognize him as king of the universe and Lord of our lives. While Jefferson’s own words suggest that he made himself quite confident in this position, I cannot shake the fact that all his bravado and intellect means nothing in the face of the truth of eternity.
These sad facts have even sadder implications for Americans who want—or even need—the United States to be a Christian nation. If a principal founder of our country so fundamentally misunderstood Jesus, yet was completely confident in his false interpretation of our Lord, what does that say about the philosophies, values, and beliefs that propelled the United States onto the world stage? If this fictional, powerless Jesus lurks at the foundation of our nation, would it not be better for us to free ourselves from the need to insist that the Kingdom of God and this country must be inherently connected? I think, instead, that there is much more hope and truth to be found in listening to the words and teachings of the real Jesus, and the continued wisdom of his Holy Spirit, rather than shackling ourselves to the misconceptions of a man—and the values he poured into our nation—who while honestly seeking to know our Lord, came up so woefully and tragically short.