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Iwas amused by a letter to the Journal that cited Jefferson, Washington, William Penn and John Winthrop as evidence that we need to put Christ in Christmas, and God in government.

Putting Christ in Christmas is a matter of personal choice; people should follow their conscience. Putting God into public schools and government is another matter.

What did those founding fathers really believe? Did they all define God in the same way?

Jefferson was a deist, believing that God can be known through logic and natural law. Jefferson believed that Jesus of Nazareth had lived, and that he had been a good teacher with fine ideas. He did not believe in the virgin birth, resurrection or ascension; or that Jesus was the son of God. He believed the scriptures had been corrupted and rewritten for political and economic ends by church fathers. He dismissed the Book of Revelation as a fairy tale, and had no use for the epistles.

To correct these errors, he authored his own Bible -- known as the Jefferson Bible, including only content from the four gospels that he thought were not "magical."

Jefferson vigorously supported the separation of church and state. He opposed the establishment of a state religion, but he would have also opposed the intrusion of religion into government in other ways.

Washington was also a deist, as were other founding fathers. They likely had religious beliefs similar to Jefferson's.

I doubt that Washington and Jefferson's God would be acceptable to many if placed in either our schools or our government. That would mean denial of the divinity of Jesus, and denial of the virgin birth, the resurrection and ascension. It would also mean accepting that the Bible is fallible, and has most likely been corrupted.

William Penn was a Quaker (Society of Friends). The Friends are generally more in alignment with mainstream Christianity regarding the divinity of Jesus, etc. They take the directive to "Love thy neighbor as thyself" very seriously, and as a result have a long-standing tradition of social activism and tolerance. Friends were abolitionists early on, were significant in the Underground Railway, led the woman's suffrage movement, and have been active pacifists since the 1600s. Today, the Friends General Conference has adopted a stance in full support of LGBT -- lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender -- equality.

Finally, we have John Winthrop, a Puritan. The Puritans were strict constructionists in their interpretation of the Bible. They believed in a vengeful God, summed up in the Jonathan Edwards sermon likening humanity to a spider suspended from the hand of God by a single silken thread above a burning candle flame, subject to being toasted at any moment for some arbitrary offense.

The Puritans fled England so that they could have freedom of worship. Evidently, that was for Puritans only, as in 1660 they hanged Mary Dyer in Boston. Her crime? She was a Quaker minister. This was a prequel to Puritan justice. In 1692, they followed with the main event during which (no pun intended) they hanged 19 people, and pressed one old man to death for "witchcraft." This episode is known euphemistically as the "Salem Witch Trials," but in reality, there was no "trial" about it. It was, simply put, serial murder, sanctioned and carried out by the church. Kind of puts a tarnish on Winthrop's "Shining City on a Hill," eh?

Three wildly different philosophies, all Christian. Which would you choose?

Then we have the other contenders for God to be "put into" our school and government. There are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, conservative Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Deists, Unitarians and Wiccans, not to mention atheists, agnostics, new age pagans and others. Quite a competition! Which God, which religious doctrine would we have guiding our governments and schools?

None! I stand with Thomas Jefferson. We must keep an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state. We must continue to recognize the right of all to worship and practice their beliefs free of restraint. The establishment of a state religion must be prohibited, and we must avoid mandating religious beliefs, practices and ceremony by law. It is a threat to our freedom, our way of life, to allow religious beliefs to limit our civil rights.

Should the government mandate eating fish on Fridays? Prohibit the consumption of pork? Require us to dance around an oak tree naked at the summer solstice? Prohibit wearing clothes made of two different fabrics? Mandate the stoning of children who are disrespectful to their parents? Deny a loving same-sex couple the ability marry one another in a civil ceremony?

No! Governmental action, of whatever nature, should be based on civil considerations, not religious dogma.

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