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Religion and the Presidency—Thomas Jefferson: Part 2

Religion and the Presidency (Part II)

By Gary DeMar / American Vision

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Here is one of the great ironies of history: The patron saint of absolutist Church-State separation, Thomas Jefferson, produced a volume that extracts the morals of Jesus, a system of ethics he describes as “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”2 He decided to suppress the volume’s publication because his unorthodox beliefs would not have been accepted by the generally orthodox public. He feared “public opinion.” And yet Jefferson’s “wee little book,” as he called The Life and Morals of Jesus, was later published by an order of Congress in 1904.3 If a contemporary conservative president had produced a similar work and had its publication financed by Congress, he would have been vilified by the liberal left for mixing religion and politics and violating the First Amendment to the Constitution! Full story...

http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/05-09-06.asp

Posted by Editor at May 10, 2006 09:49 AM