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Founders & the Bible
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By Tribune-Review
Published: Friday, March 22, 2013, 8:57 p.m.
Updated: Friday, March 22, 2013
This letter is in response to the letter by Bruce Braden ( “The Bible & violence,” March 2):
When checking the backgrounds of Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen, I found they both “followed in the tradition of early 18th-century British deism.” These men would have a bias in Bible interpretation.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson wrote many articles on a wide variety of subjects. I found a quote from each that supports the Bible and God.
From Adams: “Suppose a nation in some distant region, should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men, and to Piety and Love, and reverence towards Almighty God. In this Commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness or lust — no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or any other trifling and mean amusement — no man would steal or lie or any way defraud his neighbour, but would live in peace and good will with all men — no man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion, would reign in all hearts” (diary entry, Feb. 22, 1756).
From Jefferson: “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Kenneth Firestone
Normalville
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Mr. Firestone (March 21-Founders and the Bible) quotes John Adams from a diary writing at age 21. Jefferson is quoted from his "Notes on Virginia", Query 18, composed in his forties on the subject of slavery. Both quotes intend to show that Adams and Jefferson supported Bible and God. "Bible" and "God" are terms that need defining if readers wish to know what these two Founders supported about each. If you wish to read some of what they wrote on the subjects in the last 14 years of their lives, I recommend reading their letters to each other in a book I edited entitled, "Ye Will Say I am No Christian: The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, and Values." Jefferson was 83 at death; Adams 90. These letters are the result of a lifetime of study and reflection on religion. A taste of what Adams wrote about the Bible is found in his letter to Jefferson on November 4, 1816: "We have now, it seems, a National Bible Society to propagate the King James Bible through all nations. Would it not be better to apply these pious donations to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity than to propagate those corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America?" The quote Mr. Firestone cited from Jefferson's Query 18 that God's "justice cannot sleep forever" is a chastisement of America's use of slavery. Jefferson goes on to say that were there to be "a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation...the Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." In other words, if slaves were to revolt, become masters of whites, Jefferson believed God would side with the slaves! Moreover, in Query 17, Jefferson chastises Virginia for not doing more to rid "that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of civil freedom." That religious slavery entailed legal penalties for any person who denies "the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority." Although Jefferson considered Jesus "the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country," he did not believe in the "artificial systems" installed by Jesus' biographers. Jefferson listed these "artificial systems" in a footnote to his Oct. 31, 1819 letter to William Short: "The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of hierarchy, etc." Both these Founders believed in God, as did Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen. Yet, all four believed that religious freedom guaranteed a right to freedom of thought about God and the Bible. Even if it leads to, "Ye will say I am no Christian." What a shame on America that these Founders could not more fully and openly speak their minds in their lifetime........or even now.
Submitted by: Bruce on Saturday, March 23, 2013
Mr. Firestone (March 21-Founders and the Bible) quotes John Adams from a diary writing at age 21. Jefferson is quoted from his "Notes on Virginia", Query 18, composed in his forties. Both quotes intend to show that Adams and Jefferson supported Bible and God. "Bible" and "God" are terms that need defining if readers wish to know what these two Founders supported about each. If you wish to read some of what they wrote on the subjects in the last 14 years of their lives, I recommend reading their letters to each other in a book I edited entitled, "Ye Will Say I am No Christian: The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, and Values." Jefferson was 83 at death; Adams 90. These letters are the result of a lifetime of study and reflection on religion. A taste of what Adams wrote about the Bible is found in his letter to Jefferon on November 4, 1816: "We have now, it seems, a National Bible Society to propagate the King James Bible through all nations. Would it not be better to apply these pious donations to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity than to propagate those corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America?" The quote Mr. Firestone cited from Jefferson's Query 18 that God's "justice cannot sleep forever" is a chastisement of America's use of slavery. Jefferson goes on to say that were there to be "a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation...the Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." In other words, if slaves were to revolt, become masters of whites, Jefferson believed God would side with the slaves! Moreover, in Query 17, Jefferson chastises Virginia for not doing more to rid "that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished their lives and fortunes for the establishment of civil freedom." That religious slavery entailed legal penalties for any person who denies "the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority." Although Jefferson considered Jesus "the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country," he did not believe in the "artificial systems" installed by Jesus's biographers. Jefferson listed these "artificial systems" in a footnote to his Oct. 31, 1819 letter to William Short: "The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of hierarchy, etc." Both these Founders believed in God, as did Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen. Yet, all four believed that religious freedom guaranteed a right to freeom of thought about God and the Bible.
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