Editor’s note: This guest column is part of a Seattle Times Opinion series exploring the First Amendment and its five freedoms.
I was standing at Thomas Jefferson’s grave at his Monticello home, looking at the inscription that he chose. I am fascinated by Jefferson, both as a journalist who has written about him and as an ordained minister who has paid attention to his views on religion.
There was nothing on Jefferson’s gravestone about being the third president of the United States.
There was note of him as the author of the Declaration of Independence and his pride in founding the University of Virginia. But in between those two was this: “Author of … the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.”
It was his good friend James Madison who put freedom of religion into the First Amendment of the federal Bill of Rights. Surely over the years, they had talked about this concept that was so different from what was known in the world at the end of the 1700s.
So I imagined them joining me on this day at Jefferson’s gravesite, the architects of the separation of church and state, their spirits reflecting on what has become of their vision for the nation they helped found.
Jefferson: Well, Mr. Madison, it is so kind of you to visit me here at my final resting place.
Madison: Mr. Jefferson, it has always been a delight to come to your beautiful home. My wife and I enjoyed many good moments here. And I recall the hard work we put in to create a country where people with differing religious beliefs — or even no religion at all — could all live together.
Jefferson: Yes, we heard what had happened in Europe before our ancestors came here, the deadly wars fueled by religious differences, the oppression of those who did not believe in whatever faith the rulers declared to be the official religion.
Madison: I saw that here as well. I learned that in my early 20s when I saw the Anglican clergy in Virginia putting Baptist preachers in prison. When I went to Princeton for college, I saw how the Presbyterians practiced religious freedom. I learned how Pennsylvania had included religious toleration in its charter. That is why I was so happy that you laid the groundwork for the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.
Jefferson: Well, it took the delegates in Virginia six hard-fought years to adopt that. You made it even stronger than I had hoped, going beyond toleration to saying that everyone is “entitled to the free exercise of religion.”
Madison: Yes, I wanted people to know that right to follow whatever path you chose was your right, not something granted by the government.
Jefferson: When I look at the nation we helped found some 250 years ago, I am worried that people are not understanding that right the way we had hoped.
Madison: Yes, I have noted the same thing. While there has always been debate about the relationship between church and state, in the last few decades, people seem to want to breach what you once called a wall separating church and state.
Jefferson: I heard about a football coach at a public school in the state of Washington who prayed with players on the field or in the locker room. Ultimately, the highest court in the land said that was OK, even though it seemed to give a stamp of approval to one religious belief from a public institution.
Madison: And I have been hearing that in the state called Texas, they are requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted on the wall of every classroom and that the state is trying to demand that new history textbooks extol Christianity and degrade Islam.
Jefferson: Mr. Madison, none of this is what I envisioned. People think I was against religion. Why, I was baptized in the Anglican church and attended Sunday services throughout my life. I helped finance the first church in Charlottesville. I tried to put a focus on the teachings of Jesus. But, as I once wrote, I was opposed to “the corruption of Christianity.”
Madison: Yes, Mr. Jefferson, I know you put a higher value on science than on religious dogma and I probably was more engaged in the spiritual life. But we both held to the principle that by ensuring freedom for religion — all religion — we would be a better nation.
Jefferson: I hope that can still be the case. We set down the principles. But we are now gone from this earth. It is up to the people of this time to maintain a place where all can exercise that freedom without government interference. I surely hope that will be the case.
That imaginary conversation based on what they both believed just reinforced for me the importance of the First Amendment in our day, whether thinking about a free press which has been so much a part of my — and the nation’s life — or the freedom for religion that has defined so much of my work as a minister. That gravestone and its focus on religious liberty is a powerful reminder for me and for us all.
