Hitchens on Jefferson

I don't know why Christopher Hitchens wrote a biography of Thomas Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson: Author of America). Hitchens is a piercing, irreverent thinker, and the book is a rather short and conventional chronicle of the founder.

The book is well written; I've come to appreciate Hitchens' skilled prose. And in its survey of Jefferson's life, it thoughtfully addresses those things I'd expect to be most relevant to Hitchens: Jefferson's role in putting revolutionary ideas into action and his dismissal of religion. But wouldn't it have been more worthwhile to expand those sections and eliminate the remaining chronology that has surely been covered many times over?

I happen to still be interested in Jefferson and might read on. Jefferson is a very powerful figure, especially for a Unitarian Universalist of sorts like myself. He wrote the "Jefferson Bible" by removing mystical references from the Gospels to reveal what he considered the unadulterated moral teachings of Jesus. It pleases me greatly that Jefferson is considered the "author of America" when religious folks assert that America's founding was unquestioningly Christian.

Unitarian Universalists consider Jefferson a Unitarian of sorts. They note his deism and continue to circulate the Jefferson Bible. And they certainly respect his guiding role in codifying our civil and religious liberties. But it recently became too much for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations to continue to have their Southeast District named after a slave owner. (Now it is simply the Southeast District.) UUists are good enough not to see Jefferson purely in black and white, and their interest in him remains. But through careful deliberation and a vote, they determined that even though Jefferson had taken some steps to fight the institution of slavery, even going as far as proposing abolition in a draft of the Declaration of Independence, had remained an owner of human beings and there had to be some punishment for that.



Jefferson also founded and designed what is now the original core of the University of Virginia. His ideal of orienting higher education around a familial relationship between student and teacher is one we can revisit as the quickly rising cost of college leads to inevitable crisis and reform. Students and parents will increasingly be asking themselves what makes college worthwhile. It is my hope that colleges respond by competing to craft clearly worthwhile programs. Jefferson's Academical Village will be an honorable source of inspiration.