Bob

Welcome to Grace Episcopal Church Mr. President. This is the year 2011 and we thank you for your service to this great nation. Today being the 3rd of July, we were wondering if you would share with us some of your personal thoughts and religious practices. We have a lot of confusion today about what you, Mr. Washington, Mr. Franklin, and others were thinking at the time, and what your intentions were for the country. After all, Ben Franklin attended an Episcopal Church from time to time and once said that “Lighthouses are more helpful than Churches.”

TJ

You probably know that I was raised an Anglican, that is the Church established by the King of England. Early in my career I served as a vestryman at Fredericksville Parish in Albemarle County, Virginia. Sunday attendance in the tiny parish seldom exceeded 60. Now you may think I was continuing the Anglican tradition of my youth, but that would be incorrect. You see, Fredericksville was a new city and there was only one other church in town, which was a Catholic church. My colleagues and I had great respect for the influence of religion on public life and we supported it by attending church regularly. My commitment to this idea was so strong that often my family stayed home and I rode alone on horseback ten miles into church, even in winter. Wherever we went, our attendance at church was largely a choice based on convenience more than anything else. To me one church is no better than another.

Bob

Is it true that you, Mr. Washington and Mr. Franklin, were never confirmed and you never received communion, and if so, how do you justify that practice with your attendance at various churches?

TJ

Aye, Mr. Wickizer, ‘tis indeed true that none of us attended these superstitious rites. For my part, I believe that the Christian religion is a corruption of the genuine precepts of Jesus himself, the clergy being the chief promulgators for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words.

Bob

Wow. That’s quite a charge Mr. President. How do you propose we determine the genuine words of Jesus?

TJ

Well I started with two copies of the Good Book, (two copies, because you might have good text on either side of a page, you know), a pair of sharp scissors, some horsehide glue, and another book with blank pages. I plowed deep furrows through the Gospel books and even the Book of Acts trying to discern with only the gift of human reason whether the words spoken by Jesus made any sense at all. I cut out those words and affixed them to this volume of blank pages. By my method, you have only about twenty pages of text, something any school child could easily memorize.

Bob

So what do you do with the doctrines of the church, such as the divinity of Christ, his miracles, the holy Trinity, the virgin birth, the Nicene Creed?

TJ

These are all part of the “corruptions of Christianity, to which I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.”

Bob

So would you be comfortable with this recent trend of people worldwide of many different religions, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus who have read the bible and devote their lives trying to follow the teachings of Jesus? Many of these people continue to observe religious rituals of their own faiths while trying to live as good, virtuous followers of Jesus. Many of them are misunderstood and persecuted by their coreligionists.

TJ

I am happy to learn that people are putting the teachings of Jesus into their daily living. This is all that Jesus truly wanted us to do. I must ever believe that religion substantially good which produces an honest life, and we have been authorized by One whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit. Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our God alone. I inquire after no man’s, and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friends or our foes, are exactly the right.

Bob

Why do you think so many people today think that the founding fathers were deeply religious and founded this nation on great Christian principles?

TJ

Part of this nonsense got started with your own Episcopal clergyman named Mason Weems, who wrote a book titled Life of Washington, in which he created the myth of the cherry tree and portrayed Washington as a devout Christian. Washington’s diaries were available in the Library of Congress and revealed almost nothing of his religious beliefs. He never mentioned Jesus Christ in his diaries or the thousands of letters he wrote. On the Sundays when communion was given, Washington waited outside the church in his carriage for his wife to take it.

[pausing]

But Mr. Wickizer, I understand that you yourself have labored as a scientist. How then can you value human reason so much as to be a man of science and at the same time believe in all these superstitions such as miracles, the Trinity, a divine son of God, and the like?

Bob

Mr. President, a lot of science has advanced greatly since you … departed from this world. One of the most humbling aspects of modern science is the sure knowledge of what we DON’T know. We even have mathematics to calculate how much we do not know. When we look out at the heavens, we realize that we can only observe a tiny fraction of the universe, and even what we can observe is perhaps only 10% explained by science today. Faith in human reason alone is misplaced. We can now prove that human reason and observation can never uncover ultimate knowledge.

Like you, I have my doubts about all the doctrines of our faith. I hold these things lightly, but I know that the more science advances the more it uncovers deeper mysteries that can include a God that loves us and interacts with us in ways we can scarcely imagine.

Also, like you and Mr. Washington and Mr. Franklin, others believe that religion of all kinds is good for building up the moral fabric of a society. I believe that Jesus teaches us to change our priorities from a self-centered world to a world where God is first, other people are second, and I am third.

TJ

Mr. Washington probably said it best when he remarked, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religions” But you intrigue me in that you hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time: Your faith in a divine being on the one hand and your belief in human reason and the achievement of science on the other.

Bob

Did not Queen Elizabeth tell the English clergy and people that they would be both Catholic AND Protestant? Our Anglican-Episcopal faith is a model for modern people in that we can comfortably hold two seemingly opposite views at the same time. Things are not necessarily black and white. There is a lot of grey out there.

Our Episcopal brand of Christian faith is better suited for the modern world than any other denomination out there. We do not force people to believe things they cannot accept. We only ask them to think with their God-given gift of human reason, and then admit that maybe humans will never be able to know everything.

All you need to do is spread the word. Even Thomas Jefferson might be persuaded to attend Grace Church more often.