Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed by John Ragosta (review)

John Ragosta's book 'Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed' challenges the long-standing influence of Thomas Jefferson's ideas on American religious liberty. Ragosta argues that Jefferson's vision, rooted in Enlightenment reason and a theology of natural religion, shaped the nation's constitutional understanding of church-state separation for nearly two centuries. However, he contends that this consensus has recently faced scrutiny from legal scholars and judges who reinterpret the First Amendment's establishment clause. The study analyzes Jefferson's complex relationship with Christianity, exposing the potential consequences of his conflation of liberty of conscience with individual expression, which Ragosta suggests may have undermined orthodox Christian doctrines. While the book focuses primarily on constitutional matters, it leaves unexplored the broader implications for evangelical Christianity.

Curtis, C. M. (2014). Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed by John Ragosta (review). Journal of the Early Republic, 34(3), 501–504. https://doi.org/10.1353/jer.2014.0052