If you haven’t read Clear As Mud, please read it first.
Since the DNC (Denver 2008) has just ended let me speak to its origin. Two nights ago the keynote speaker, Mike Warner, mentioned that Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the Democratic Party.
He is correct. Thomas Jefferson is the Democratic Party’s self-acknowledged founder. He started it. And who was Jefferson? A truly great man to whom we Americans owe a significant debt of gratitude, a genius, and a flawed human being.
Jefferson was a Deist and a Unitarian (source, another). Given the philosophy and theology of Deists and Unitarians, this is a very serious matter because it means that Jefferson was not a Christian in any biblical or historical sense. He mutilated the Bible by creating his own version which omitted the parts of it that he didn’t like. He was almost a Christian, which is like being almost pregnant. He resembled a Christian, without actually being one. And he, more than anyone else, set the course for America — a course that we are currently on, a course that is almost Christian — because he was the primary author of our Constitution (an almost Christian document), and he was a very effective political leader.
His own religious understanding and perspective was based upon his own best understanding of reality — and he was a lot smarter and more educated than most of us, by far. And this was the problem. “We hold these truths to be self–evident…” That means that he believed that the basis and foundation of truth is self-reliance. Truth is not revealed by God in Scripture, but is self evident. Contrast self-reliance with Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” See also Numbers 15:39, Deuteronomy 12:8, Judges 21:25, Proverbs 12:15, Proverbs 16:2, Proverbs 21:2, Proverbs 26:12, Proverbs 30:12, Isaiah 5:21, Matthew 7:19-ff, Romans 3:18, Revelation 3:18.
Clearly many (maybe most) of the signers of the Declaration were Deists. This helps explain why Deism is the most successful religion in America today. It is the defacto position of the American Civil Religion and that of the Supreme Court and of the majority of most Americans. Deism shares the belief in self reliance with atheism. Both issue from self reliance. Deism is the unspoken religion of the DNC. And Deism is a Christian heresy.
Lord, have mercy.
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