In fact, Jefferson's opinion of received, holy writ was so low he penned his own version of the New Testament.
>From Wikipeida:
The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled, was Thomas Jefferson's effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists.
[...]
full at --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible>
Jefferson thought the ancient Christians -- with their primitive, pre Enlightenment era brains -- to be, more or less, nitwits. Look at them! They took a perfectly good moral philosophy and munged it with magical unrealism.
The solution: edit and rewrite.
I can imagine shocked parents down through the generations recoiling in hell fearing horror as their smart-ass kids defiantly waved Jefferson's book of corrections in their faces (in the years before the Manifesto was available).
Lots of Christian patriots (the kind of people who have a portrait of Jesus playing basketball with rosy cheeked, mid 20th century kids on the study wall and a pewter bald eagle on the massive, mahogany desk) are well acquainted with the lives and religious supportive or un-supportive statements of the founders.
I'm surprised it took so long for this to happen.
Note how earlier ages of US history -- say, the 1930s, 40s and 50s, displayed more traditionalist signs of religiosity, mainline church attendance, for example -- while allowing a wider range for the pop cultural spoofing of religious motifs. The secularized swing and jazz numbers in 40s and 50s musicals are one expression.
It's hard to imagine a modern equivalent of 1938's "Sing You Sinners" a song which uses evangelical leitmotifs while quite openly mocking them via something the ancients called 'boogie woogie'. Or rather, I *can* imagine a modern equivalent but not without apologies issued by the pop stylist's spokesdroid in the wake of media complaint and 'tolerance' campaigns ("this song is offensive to Christians...who are just as much an oppressed group as blacks were" said Brick Rodehard, Chairman of People for Traditional Hats.)
We're more secular but less comfortable being so. It's as if our actually existing alienation (and I use this word in a positive sense, not all forms of alienation are regrettable) from old tyme religion creates a greater need to put up appearances.
Zizek often asks: who is the subject being fooled? Well, this Jefferson business provides a clue.
.d.