On January 16, 1786, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

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3. Jefferson still teaches us lessons about religious freedom

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Jefferson still teaches us lessons about religious freedom | Commentary

By JOHN RAGOSTA
GUEST COLUMNIST | JAN 16, 2021 AT 6:00 AM

Jan. 16 is Religious Freedom Day, commemorating adoption of Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom, a foundation for the First Amendment. ... It is a good day to remember Thomas Jefferson, the statute’s author, champion of religious freedom and someone who enslaved 607 humans.

Before the Revolution, America was plagued with religious establishments. In Virginia, everyone paid taxes supporting the government-favored Church of England. Religious dissenters, mostly evangelical Baptists and Presbyterians, faced serious discrimination and persecution — jailed, beaten, dunked in rude parody of immersion baptism. The Virginia statute, championed by Jefferson, James Madison and the evangelicals, put a stop to this.

The statute became a model for the First Amendment. For 100 years, Americans grappling with religious freedom turned to Jefferson and his “wall of separation between church and state.” When states debated religious freedom, they almost never asked what Washington or Hamilton or Adams thought. Again and again they turned to Jefferson, Madison and Virginia’s statute.

Jefferson’s vision became so dominant that in 1879, the Supreme Court unanimously declared the statute “defined” religious freedom; Jefferson’s Danbury Baptist letter declaring a “wall of separation” explained the First Amendment.

Now, Jefferson’s memory is under attack because he was a slaveowner and racist. His role in what he understood was the abomination of slavery must be fully explored. History, though, also demands that we consider what he gave our nation.

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Religious Freedom Day is a good day to remember Jefferson’s deep and serious flaws, how much he did for our country, and how much we have yet to do.

John Ragosta, author of “Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed,” is a Fellow at Virginia Humanities in Charlottesville.