Happy Independence Day from American Dharma

So today is Independence Day (the 4th of July in colloquial) and what better way to celebrate than talking about my favourite figures in American history and American Dharma: Thomas Jefferson. (All who know me in real life have thus given a large groan due to their knowledge of my absolute unabashed love for Thomas Jefferson. They saw this coming). Why is Thomas Jefferson so special in the context of this blog? Well, aside from his importance to this day (aka penning the Declaration of Independence), he was an interesting character when it came to religion. My other major was archaeology and I used to love to say that Thomas Jefferson was the first scientific archaeologist, but he may as well have been among the first American religion scholars (well perhaps I wouldn't go *that* far with the latter! haha). He did have an interest, however, in religion; that much I can say for certain is true.

Most Americans, if they know anything about the religions of the Founders, know that many of them, particularly those from the Southern states like Washington and Jefferson, were Anglican Christians (the modern day cake or death Church of England). Still others proclaim many of the founders to have been Deists (from Wikipedia: " a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme God created the universe, and that this and other religious truth can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for faith". Its a very Enlightenment era- vibe kind of religion. Jefferson's deism could be argued with one of the books he "wrote" (I use that term loosely in this case): The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (aka the Jefferson Bible). He didn't so much write the book as he took a razor blade to the New Testament and carefully cut out any mention of miracles (including the Virgin birth), thus leaving only the moral teachings of Jesus. He believed that this, more than the popular Christianity of the times, "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man.".

On the more political front, for those who argue that America was founded as a "Christian Nation" (see previous posts), Jefferson could be considered the first opposition to that idea. Jefferson is the modern day founder of everyone's favorite phrase "the separation of church and state". It could be thought that this notion was the direct response to the Church of England and the state support it got from America's former Mother Country. Jefferson first enacted this idea in 1786 for Virgina, thus freeing the state from paying tribute to the Anglican Church and he further proposed (with his good buddy James Madison) the Bill for Religious Freedom, claiming that no one should be forced to follow any religion that wasn't their choosing. Perhaps this could have been influenced by the privacy in which Jefferson regarded his own piety (or lack thereof to some) and his own personal (unorthodox at the time) views on Christianity and Deism. In this same regard, Jefferson would continually support the Establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights which states the same: that the US cannot establish a state religion and everyone has the the freedom to choose there own. Todays pluralism can thank Mr. Jefferson (directly or indirectly aka via his friend Mr. Madison who penned the Bill of Rights while Jefferson was absent in France as the ambassador for the US).

Despite all this free exercise and anti-religious establishment-ness flying around, the Federalist party during the 1800 elections still felt free to slander Jefferson as anti-religious and a death the providence of America (and all sorts of other fancy slanders which are as similar as the Obama is a Muslim / Obama is a Christian with a crazy preacher claims from the 2008 election). Thus religiously, the rather private Jefferson became on of the first victims of the still on-going battle of Christian v. Secular nation.

But after stating all this about Thomas Jefferson, his relationship with the American Dharma, and his influence in creating American Pluralism, his crowning achievement remains what we celebrate today. Some say his human rights proclamations are the influence of Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and 18th century Deism, others say they are Christian rights, but regardless... in 1776 on July 4th in Philadelphia, a group of men in the midst of war signed a statement that claimed,"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...". This is the American Dharma, and all else are just the different flavors.

Happy Independence Day. Now go shoot off some fireworks!