The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves ... these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
That and some other quotes from the Founding Fathers have been collected for your reading pleasure.
I long ago separated what the bible and my faith says about Christianity and what the Christian church says what the faith is supposed to be. The two are frequently different. Even so, the Christian Church is the only voice in our society that talks about God, though it does so imperfectly. Jefferson is referring to that imperfection.
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