The 250th Declaration of Independence anniversary warrants a look at the “riddle” of Thomas Jefferson. His resumé as a Founding Father includes being the key writer of the Declaration and the third president. The first amendment’s freedom of religion and the wall of separation between church and state also bear his “mark.”
The Declaration demonstrates his belief in a “Creator who endowed us with inalienable (God given) Rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Pursuit of Happiness to Jefferson was the lifelong pursuit of virtue. Virtue is the quest for character improvement to practice the daily habits that lead to self-regulation, emotional intelligence, flourishing and growth.
Jefferson was a Deist. Deists believe in the providence of God as Creator but also that the truth of God was subject to human authority rather than divine revelation. As such, he did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ or the authority of the Bible. He attended church services, was friends with local clergy and even had a painting of the beheaded John the Baptist’s head on a platter in his living room at Monticello. He referred to a local Baptist pastor, John Leland, as “courageous and resourceful a champion of the rights of conscience as America has produced.” This right of conscience was a reference to the First Amendment to the Constitution.
He compiled a book called the Life and Morals of Jesus Christ. This book, found in the Smithsonian Museum, was a collection of over 200 New Testament Scriptures about Jesus’ life and character. It is sometimes referred to as the Jefferson Bible. However, it excluded all the miracles and other deity passages, reflecting his deist beliefs. Isn’t it ironic that the example Jefferson used for the pursuit of happiness (virtue) was the morals and character of Jesus Christ? He knew the New Testament well yet chose to not be a Christian. He also thought that freedom needs the balance of the moral virtuous restraint of religion. The historian De Tocqueville observed that America in Jefferson’s day had a very Christian religious morality to it, deist or otherwise.
In the 1960s and 1970s we began to mistrust many of the restraints of authority and religious virtue. Views regarding government, war, sexual restraint, marriage and education started to change. Jefferson’s position for separation of church and state to prohibit a state sponsored religion, was expanded to require the necessity of purely secular public institutions. As our shared values declined, moral clarity diminished, leading to greater ethical ambiguity. We have seen this happen in our lifetime.
What would Jefferson say we did to the American experiment that we celebrate this year? Maybe we should ask ourselves, “What would Jefferson do to balance the freedoms with the lifelong pursuit of virtues for the greater good?” Isn’t that the point of the Golden Rule [which is] to do unto others as you would have them do unto you?