On this day in 1801, Thomas Jefferson is elected the 3rd President of the United States. The transition from President Adams to President Jefferson was the first to practice the “peaceful transfer of power” from one political part to the next. The entire election was fraught with contention, mudslinging, and vicious partisan attacks. Jefferson was escorted with an armed regiment to be sworn into office while Adams left in the night and refused to be present at the inauguration.
I share that just to show that our politics today aren’t much different than they were at the inception of our nation. However, less than a year after being sworn into office, President Jefferson wrote a letter that has created great controversy today.
The Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut wrote a letter to the president on October 7, 1801. It said…
To Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America
Sir,
Among the many millions in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office, we embrace the first opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity, since your inauguration , to express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief Magistracy in the Unite States. And though the mode of expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe, that none is more sincere.
Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific….
President Jefferson’s Reply:
Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson
A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut.
Washington, January 1, 1802
Gentlemen,–The affectionate sentiment of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties…1
Jefferson’s reassurance to the Danbury Baptist Association was not that religion would be kept from the public or government arena. It was that the government would be kept from within the church. The government had no right to establish laws affecting how the church worshipped or creating a state-run church.
Today, the phrase “separation of church and state” is brandished about as a sword, threatening the church to remain out of politics and out of the public arena or suffer the wrath of the government entities. Stay in your little buildings and among your other narrow-minded friends. But, if your beliefs step one foot out the door of the church, there’s going to be trouble.
That was never Jefferson’s intent! And it certainly wasn’t God’s intent. Psalms 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” And Proverbs 29:2 reminds us that, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”
We are a nation in need. Our nation desperately needs God’s intervention. It needs the people of God to be praying. Will you intervene for America today in the throne room of God?
1https://wallbuilders.com/resource/letters-between-the-danbury-baptists-and-thomas-jefferson/
