09-05-2007, 12:47 AM
http://www.monticello.org/streaming/spea...igion.html
Transcript of Thomas Jefferson and Religion by Professor David Holmes
"When we read the correspondence of Jefferson and John Adams, we see that their religious views are very similar. Adams found it easy, easy to move from a Trinitarian denomination to a Unitarian, for he only had to say in his own pew. During his lifetime the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, including his own parish in Quincy, broke away and formed the American Unitarian Association.
So it was easy for Adams, but Jefferson had no Unitarian church in Virginia to unite with. He once notes in a letter that the closest one is in Baltimore. He was always willing to ride from Monticello to church services but not that far. And when Jefferson lived in Philadelphia he attended Joseph Priestly's Unitarian Church. His letters make it clear that he saw Unitarianism as primitive Christianity.
Thus I think we can safely classify America's third president as a conservative Unitarian. Like Adams he would have fallen into the Socinian category those who believed Jesus was quote, "from below," end quote. But his theology did not go beyond a belief that Jesus became the more example for humans while he was below."
Transcript of Thomas Jefferson and Religion by Professor David Holmes
"When we read the correspondence of Jefferson and John Adams, we see that their religious views are very similar. Adams found it easy, easy to move from a Trinitarian denomination to a Unitarian, for he only had to say in his own pew. During his lifetime the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, including his own parish in Quincy, broke away and formed the American Unitarian Association.
So it was easy for Adams, but Jefferson had no Unitarian church in Virginia to unite with. He once notes in a letter that the closest one is in Baltimore. He was always willing to ride from Monticello to church services but not that far. And when Jefferson lived in Philadelphia he attended Joseph Priestly's Unitarian Church. His letters make it clear that he saw Unitarianism as primitive Christianity.
Thus I think we can safely classify America's third president as a conservative Unitarian. Like Adams he would have fallen into the Socinian category those who believed Jesus was quote, "from below," end quote. But his theology did not go beyond a belief that Jesus became the more example for humans while he was below."