thomas jefferson and emanuel swedenborg
Thomas Jefferson stepped out of history and onto the campus of Bryn Athyn
College on April 1 – and it wasn’t an April Fool’s stunt.
This Jefferson is actually Bill Barker, who has devoted his life to being
a Thomas Jefferson “interpreter” at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. He is
amazingly good at it, staying in character whenever he is dressed for the role.
He was born just a few miles from Bryn Athyn and attended a private
school that competes with the Academy of the New Church. He not only feels
at home in Bryn Athyn – “just off the old York Road when I used to travel
to Philadelphia from my home in Monticello.” He also feels at home with
Emanuel Swedenborg.
Jefferson has visited the College and the Bryn Athyn community several
times since the College developed a special relationship with Colonial
Williamsburg several years ago. During an engaging talk and question-andanswer session on this visit he noted that he had great respect for Swedenborg
and valued several of his volumes in his own library.
Jefferson is not the only American President believed to be familiar
with Swedenborg. There was also John Adams and Abraham Lincoln, plus
Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers. It was not unusual that wellread people in the 1800s knew Swedenborg – including Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau, William James and Robert and Elizabeth Browning.
Jefferson is best remembered as the author of the visionary Declaration of
Independence, as a firm believer in individual rights and limited government,
and as an outspoken advocate for religious freedom. He was raised in the
Episcopal Church but abandoned it in his youth. As did Lincoln he shunned
organized religion but considered himself a devout Christian.
He once wrote: “I am Christian, in the
only sense in which Jesus wished anyone
to be.” He created his own somewhat
controversial “Jefferson Bible,” which
focused on “The Life and Morals of Jesus
of Nazareth.” He believed that God was the
Creator of the universe and that “all evidence
of nature testifies to His perfection.”
We can only guess at how much he
was influenced by the revelation given to
Swedenborg by the Lord but Jefferson did
believe in the afterlife and was confident that
Jefferson outside the Mitchell Performing
Arts
Center with Bryn Athyn College history
the “sum of all religion is loving God and the
professors Drs. Greg Rose and Wendy
neighbor.”
Closterman (Photo courtesy of Jane Blair)
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