Although he never described himself that way, Thomas Jefferson was a deist, not a traditional Christian. Here, I respond to the conservative ideas that America was ‘founded on God’ by men like Jefferson, arguing that Jefferson’s beliefs would not remotely resemble today’s evangelical conservatism. He didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of God, nor in the Trinity, nor in hell, nor in God’s supernatural intervention in human affairs, nor in the bible as the words of God. He coined the term “wall of separation between church and state” to describe the relationship of government to religion.

Listen here as I respond to listener emails on the subject.