Doubting Thomas: The Religious Life and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson (Morgan James Faith) Paperback – November 4, 2014

Mark Beliles and Jerry Newcombe have done a tremendous job with their new book on Thomas Jefferson. It is a well researched monograph heavily steeped in original sources. Beliles, who has lived in Jefferson's home town for 30 years, has thoroughly researched the religious history of our founding father. This is such an important work because it sets the record straight on Jefferson's view of Christianity and the Bible. As stated in the introduction, "The quotes that are most often repeated today are in fact things that people in his lifetime never heard from him. They were found later as unsent letters or else were sent to a few people in confidence with the understanding that they would never be published. In other words, Jefferson never attacked orthodox Christian beliefs in public - never." Drawing on new and previously unpublished sources, Beliles and Newcome have created a new analysis of Jefferson's religious life. There is no agenda here. They are not trying to make Jefferson into something he wasn't. They are simply setting the record straight. Jefferson was not an athiest. He was not antagonistic towards the church at large. He was a great supporter of orthodox Christianity. In a time when historians have tried to marginalize or even negate the religious beliefs of our founding fathers, Doubting Thomas: The Religious Life and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson is an important book that was a pleasure to read.Jon Horstman, MA American History

This very well researched and extremely repetitive attempt to take Jefferson off the board in the debate between American secularists and Christian indoctrinationalists failed to convince me that TJ believed in a god that could be known and intervened in human affairs and that any church organ should have a role in governing American. It was helpful in understanding TJ's many interactions with religious institutions and leaders, and helped me understand how the 'diest' label came to be affixed to him. This work might be useful in supporting evangelical christians' arguments that their 'religious freedom' is being degraded contrary to TJ's intentions, but nothing presented in this volume changed my perception that TJ held that religious organizations should not have any special position in administering the state.

This is in no way faux research. This is a well researched book if you actually read it. It's probably the most factually based book about Jefferson and his religious views and the evolution of those views that exists. It is linked entirely to his letters and entire body of writings on religion, instead of cherry picking. To accuse this author of cherry picking is pure slander, and the comments of someone who clearly has not read the books.This book in no way is based on Barton's work on Jefferson. Beliles's research is entirely original and based on the actual writings of Jefferson and mainstream writers on Jefferson and religion. It would be impossible to write a more accurate and honest book about Jefferson's religion.

A very enlightening book on the real person of Thomas Jefferson .He was a true supporter of freedom of religion not freedom from religion! The book explains how we as a nation have terribly twisted the meaning of “separation of church and state”. Very enlightening reading!

"If you're into the Founding Fathers You've got to add this to your collection ... Outstanding."

Extremely interesting and information.

Very good reference book if you want to know the real story.

Well, it seems to me to be a kinder, gentler (and much more extensive) version of David Barton.... but with the same fundamentalist Christian (extremist) viewpoint when it comes to Historical Revisionism!One of THE best examples (simply based on its size) of cherry-picking segments (a small piece of a much bigger picture), taking segments out of context, and (ESPECIALLY) the rightwing concept of "Agenda-Oriented Faux Research".The fact is that (IMO) the author must be getting their "facts" from Barton and Beck (who wrote the forward to Barton's book, "Jefferson Lies"... you know the book that one of the - if not THE - largest Christian publishing companies in the world PULLED from publication and had copies sent out to retailers returned at the publisher's expense; something that no one at the publishers could ever remember them ever doing before), and, of course Limbaugh, and Hannity, and that now proven liar and revisionist O'Reilly!BTW, the authors (Throckmorton and Warren" of the book that debunked Barton's "Jefferson Lies" and were a major causation of it being pulled by the publisher are (true) Christian conservative professors at Grove City College -- a private Evangelical college! In fact Dr. Throckmorton has his own webpage now devoted to debunking Barton just in general.Hopefully Dr. Throckmorton will now raise his sights to yet more quarry (i.e., this book)!!!It would be great to see people actually stretching their mental capacity and reading books such as "Revolutionary Spirits" by Gary Kowalski, "The Faiths of Our Founding Fathers" by David Holmes, "Moral Minority" by Brooke Allen, "That's Not What They Meant!" by Michael Austin, "Revolutionary Diests by Kerry Walters... and especially "Nature's God" by Matthew Stewart (a 400+ page text with 90-some pages of Reference Notes... now THAT is extensive research!)I cannot recommend these highly enough. Simply fantastic.In this Age of Information, ignorance of the facts is a PERSONAL choice - a choice made voluntarily and intentionally based on bias, discrimination, and prejudice. Ignorance in the Age of Information is absolutely offensive, in fact offensive to the point of being an abomination!And as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said (on more than one occasion and paraphrased after by many others), "You are entitled to your own opinions. But you are NOT entitled to your own facts!"John 8:32Do not bother with responding in search of an argumentative response as in a battle of wits and logic, I refuse to debate an unarmed person!