Thomas Jefferson, Tolerance, and Jesus

Susan, I've read your blog occasionally and mostly I've enjoyed it. Unfortunately, you've launched into an area where I think you lack understanding. I hope you will take this comment in the way it is intended.I make no scathing remarks and my history on TH should tell you that I make a habit of writing forthrightly, but with as little malice as possible.

Christianity is not a term that is open to popular interpretation. It was first used in Antioch, Syria around AD 45 to describe a certain kind of Jewish sect that followed "the way of Jesus." In other words, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 10). The Antioch Christians were the first true evangelicals -- they launched an evangelical mission to Asia Minor. They sought to "evangelize" the Gentiles, to bring them to the same belief in Jesus Christ that they held.

Whether it fits our 21st C ideals or not, Jesus Christ was not an overly tolerant personality. Jesus made the claim that there's a narrow way into heaven and most people aren't going to get in because they'd rather take the broad path that leads to hell. Christians are commanded to tell people that they're headed for eternal disaster. We cannot force others to believe as the Bible says we must, but if we don't tell them the truth, we deny them the right to believe.

Tolerance is not holding your tongue when some claims a belief that is false. It's being civil as you explain that their belief is wrong. True intolerance is to not tell someone they're racing down a road that ends in a cliff.

I don't know if you've ever looked through a copy of the so-called Jefferson Bible. Jefferson removed all the parts in it that he thought weren't "reasonable". Unfortunately, most of the parts he removed were the parts where Jesus was saying how to come to God.

Jefferson has always been a personal hero of mine. I value his contribution to our country and wish we had minds like his today. However, being a moral man doesn't get you into heaven. Nicodemus was a moral man and Jesus told him he needed to be born again. Being moral wasn't enough. That Jefferson butchered out most of those parts of the Bible that would have told him how to be born again doesn't necessarily mean he didn't, while lying on his deathbed, give in to God, but it doesn't bode well for his final destination.

I grieve his choice, but I trust that God keeps His promises and that Jesus wasn't lying when He said "I am the Way" which if you study the words in the Greek is given the greatest emphasis -- as in "I am positively the only Way." Jefferson rejected the only Way to heaven. So why do we think God would give him a pass when He says "If you reject [Jesus] you reject the Father"?