Freedom of religion according to Thomas Jefferson

Monday, February 20th, 2017

Much blood has been shed during human history in the name of religion. Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826) knew this all too well.

Here are Jefferson’s very words: “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned” (“Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVII,” 1781-1782).

It is useful to recount a few such incidents which occurred during periods prior to Jefferson, some of which he may very well have had in mind.

John Hus (1369-1415) was a Czech Priest, but he had been critical of the Church, especially the perceived moral failings of some of the Church’s clerics. In addition, his views on Holy Communion were different from the established doctrines of the Church.

And he was candid about being displeased with the Church’s use of Indulgences.

For such things, John Hus was summoned to appear before the Council of Constance (in 1415). Emperor Sigismund had given Hus a guarantee of safe conduct for the Council. But at the Council, he was condemned and then summarily burned at the stake.

But there is more. At this same Council, the views of the English Churchman and Oxford teacher John Wycliffe (ca. 1320-1384) were also condemned. Wycliffe was deceased, though, having died peacefully around thirty years before the Council of Constance.

But he had been buried in a Church Cemetery, so the Council decreed that Wycliffe’s body should be exhumed. And in time his remains were exhumed (in 1428), and then callously thrown into the Swift River.

Or again, the great reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) is famous for offering sanctuary to the Spanish physician and theologian Michael Servetus (1511-1553) because Servetus was fleeing from the Roman Catholic Inquisition.

But after the arrival of Servetus in Geneva, John Calvin soon had him burned at the stake, because Calvin was displeased that Servetus did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity.

Of course, on a much larger scale, the European Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) was a bloodbath anchored in religious garb, leaving in its wake some eight million dead.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Thomas Jefferson wished for freedom of religion to be the law of the land in the United States. Continue reading

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