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AFR.net - The Faith of the Presidents: Thomas Jefferson.The Faith of the Presidents: Thomas Jefferson Stephen McDowell hosts America's Providential History Podcast >> Stephen McDowell: Welcome to America's Providential History Podcast where we talk about the real story of America and explore the hand of God in our history.Now here's your host, Steven McDowell.I'm glad you're joining us for this edition of America's Providential History Podcast.Now in the last number of podcasts, we began to examine the faith of some of the presidents of the United States.We first looked at our first president, George Washington, and took a number of m podcast looking at his life, his faith, his character.And then we looked at our second president, Jon Adams, last week.This week I want to present information about our third president, Thomas Jefferson.Since his time, pamphleteers misrepresented Thomas Jefferson's religious opinions Now we've all heard of Thomas Jefferson and he's the chief writer of the Declaration of Independence.but, and people think they know something about Jefferson, but a lot of it is misunderstood, especially regarding his religious beliefs because they are one of the most misunderstood things about him.One historian said Thomas Jefferson was probably the object of more unjust attacks than any other American statesman before.Since his time, pamphleteers misrepresented his religious opinions and many of his enemies spread false accusations concerning his personal life.As a result, the belief became widespread that he was an infidel.Infidel means he's a non believer, doesn't believe, but as this author writes, he says that despite his liberal leanings, Jefferson was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and he was especially well pleased with the religious situation which existed in Charlottesville where Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists met together every Sunday in the courthouse.So Jefferson's religious life, in a way kind of had three different, periods, certainly when he moved to France in 1784 and began to see that national church and the influence of in many ways a corrupt church and corrupt clergy began to change some of his thinking, and beliefs, later on in his life as well as we will examine.But his religious beliefs seem to certainly follow the orthodox Anglican faith and Calvinism, really.But after his experience in France, he began to.Before that he.Nothing he said or did would indicate he was anything but orthodox in his belief.After his experience in France, he began to adopt what you might call more interdenomination or non creedal Christian beliefs.And then in its later years, the last dozen or so years of his life, he became what could be called a Unitarian Christian.But remember, Unitarianism, as we talked about last week when it first began, was rooted in orthodox Christianity and belief in the atoning work of Christ and the errancy of God's word and other things.When he went to France in 1784, he was 41 years old.He went there to be the ambassador from the United States.but for the first four plus decades of his life, there's no clear evidence that Jefferson held to anything other than orthodox Anglican Christian tenets.Now, Jefferson grew up in the Anglican church.Virginia, before independence was founded officially as an Anglican colony.The Church of England was the established church, though there had always been from the very beginning, those of a different persuasion, dissenters, those who adhere to more puritan or separatist views early on and more of the Presbyterian, and other dissenting views as the time of independence approached.But he grew up in the Anglican church.He attended schools run by Anglican clergymen.And as an adult he worshiped regularly and served on the vestry of his church.The vestry, it's an elected position and these were the rulers of the church.Like elders in the church.Beginning around 1773, Jefferson also regularly attended the services held in the courthouse that were led by other denominations.As the quote from the historian early on mentions how Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists met together in the courthouse, which Jefferson thought that was a marvelous idea.They shared the courthouse as a common temple.Ministers rotated on who preached.And Jefferson thought this is a great example of, what the church ought to be like.And so Jefferson's regular exposure to the diversity of Christian worship and religious awakening occurring at this time in central Virginia helps us to understand his keen interest in leading the fight for religious freedom.Jefferson put both his own children and a nephew in private Christian schools and commended other Christian schools, as well.Jefferson consistently referred to God in his higher law in public settings.From the time of ah, an early court case in 1767 all the way to the end of his life.And his personal motto on his seal, personal seal was rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.And Jefferson turned his home, Monticello, really into a museum, hanging all kinds of paintings and sculptures as a tool to educate those who visited.And two thirds of the paintings and sculptures in his home at Monticello were from biblical or Christian history.Throughout his life, Jefferson studied the Bible for his own personal benefit.And he also gave money to Bible societies to so that they could distribute Bible to others.And so Jefferson's early life was orthodox, in its belief, first part of the Anglican Church.when we declared independence, he left the Anglican church because he was a patriot.And he actually started his own Church in 1777.He drew up a subscription letter and he got leading citizens in the Albemarle county to support this new endeavor because he said, look, we have to have church, we got to worship.I'm not going to go to the church associated, with England because we're in conflict with England and separated ourselves from England, but I want to worship.So he got together a subscription letter and he to establish a new church.He called it the Calvinistical Reformed Church of Charlottesville.Began meeting in 1770 and it met in the courthouse in downtown Charlottesville.He saw nothing wrong with using a public meeting place, a civil place of civil meetings, civil government to meet for a church building in this Calvinistic Reformed church.Met from 1777 to 1784.By 84, he and some of the other leading men had moved away.Jefferson had moved to, to Europe, to be ambassador to France.Others had moved away.And by that time the Episcopal Church kind of sprung up to take the place of the Anglican church here in Virginia and in the colonies.so he started his own church there.And then, in 1782 his wife died, which was a really devastating event to him.He'd been married 10 years.She had given birth to six children.Two survived to adulthood.And so when she died in 1782, it was really a great blow to him.Devastating to him because he loved her dearly.And in 1784 then he, his wife died in 1782.In fact, one of his two year old daughter died as well.Around this same time, 1784 he moved to France, to become the ambassador.And the deaths of his wife and daughter left Jefferson devastated and certainly may have contributed to some of his beliefs and views.Events occurring in France when he moved there likely affect his religious views as well because there was a strong anti clerical feeling among the French people due to the strong support of the Catholic church for the politically corrupt and unpopular monarchs.And so this caused some thinkers in France to become anti Christian.They equated the Christian faith with the corrupt version of the Christian faith that existed as the national church in France then and had been for a long time.of course Jefferson never became anti Christian, but he did see the problems that existed with having a national church.And he definitely saw the problems that exist when you