The Jefferson Unitarian Church Votes to Drop Thomas Jefferson’s Name from Title
The Church Considers the “Conflicting Realities” of Jefferson
Technically, the Jefferson Initarian Church in Golden, Colorado, isn’t named after Thomas Jefferson. It was named after Jefferson County, where it is geographically located. Jefferson County was named after the nation’s third president. Notably, the church was founded in 1959, before its affiliation with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in 1962.
Thomas Jefferson’s relationship to formalized religion was strained. He believed in many of Jesus' teachings, yet thought his early followers had corrupted some of them, allowing him to pick and choose what to obey. He created his own version of the Bible, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," which excluded the miracles performed by Jesus and focused on his moral message.
There has been controversy among Unitarian Universalists for some time about Thomas Jefferson. Some tout him as a famous church member, like a school might claim its famous alums. Yet Jefferson wasn’t truly a member of a Unitarian church, though he sometimes attended Joseph Priestley’s Unitarian church in Philadelphia. In 1993, at the UUA’s General Assembly, a group led by African-American UU ministers expressed outrage at plans to commemorate Thomas Jefferson’s 250th birthday. They asserted that “Thomas Jefferson’s role in the racial history of the United States is not one which African Americans, native Americans, or others victimized by the ‘founding fathers’ wish to honor.”
In 2011, the Thomas Jefferson District of the UUA voted to change its name to the Southeast District. It was the third such vote over almost twenty years before the two-thirds majority required was achieved. Proponents of the name change argued that even though Thomas Jefferson argued eloquently for religious freedom, he was a slave holder, with troubling views of Native Americans and women. In addition, they argued, he was not really a Unitarian, although he has often been identified as a “famous Unitarian.”
Those in favor of retaining the name celebrated his influential views on the separation of church and state and his contributions in writing the Declaration of Independence. They also cautioned against applying modern morality to a man of the seventeen hundreds.
The Golden, Colorado, congregation wasn’t breaking new ground when they considered whether to change their name. The choice was ultimately made by the congregation, which will also determine the new name later this year. In answer to frequently asked questions, the church made the following statement.
At a time when justice, equity, and inclusion are issues that drive our racial and social justice initiatives, many in our congregation feel it is important to consider the conflicting realities of Thomas Jefferson and what that means for us. Many in our congregation feel that to keep our church named after a location feels like a missed opportunity to signal to outsiders that we are a place where all belong. We cannot ignore that Jefferson County was named after the President himself and in association with his legacy.
While his legacy includes many gifts in addition to the flaws, and while some can argue that applying a modern lens to sins of past is erroneous, having a person’s name ascribed to our church requires a higher standard, one that we feel the name ‘Jefferson’ does not meet. We have heard from our BIPOC UUA partners of the harm, stigma, and pain that our current name elicits, and feel that now is the time to consider choosing a new name to elevate all that our wonderful community stands for.
Golden, Colorado, is just over twenty miles West of Denver. Jefferson County is over 90% white, and photos of the church activities suggest its congregation is even more white. Those familiar with my writing know that I have a lot to say about Jefferson and would have described him far more harshly than the church did. They ultimately decided their name and future were more about following their principles than devotion to a man. The Eighth Principle of the Unitarian Church is about anti-racism. There was a conflict between highlighting Jefferson and promoting anti-racism, which the name change removed.
It is very interesting to see how the narrative regarding Jefferson changed. When I was in grade school, in the 60s, Thomas Jefferson was revered as a patriot, inventor and statesmen. When my daughter was in grade school in the early 2000s, he was shown to be a slaveholder who raped his slave, Sally, who she learned was a teenager at the time, and that he wasn't such a great guy to put it in a nutshell. I remember she came home from school one day in the 5th grade and told me that Thomas Jefferson was a creep. We were living in a predominantly, if not overwhelmingly, white neighborhood. Good for the Unitarian Church!
Good news, good decision.