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Thomas Jefferson

A Biography of Spirit and Flesh

by Thomas S. Kidd

320 Pages , 6.12 x 9.25 in , 20 b-w illus.

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• Published: Tuesday, 13 Dec 2022
• 9780300265323
• Published: Tuesday, 10 May 2022

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Thomas S. Kidd is distinguished professor of history at Baylor University. His books include Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father and Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis . He lives in Woodway, Texas.

“What we need is a balanced reassessment of Jefferson’s thought and attitudes on God and religion. Thomas S. Kidd, a professor of history at Baylor, gives us that in his crisply written life Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh .”—Barton Swaim, Wall Street Journal Chosen by Wall Street Journal as one of “10 Books to Read on Faith in the Modern World” “[An] excellent, timeless biography. . . . Balanced and judicious.”—Collin Garbarino, World, Book of the Year for 2022 Listed in Current ’s “100 Books of the 21st Century” “Thomas Jefferson offers a new direction to examine a contentious figure. . . . By considering Jefferson as an emblem of early American tensions between religion, Enlightenment, race, and morality, Kidd offers a biography that embraces a contradictory protagonist.”—Daniel Howlett, Journal of Church and State “Set aside everything you think you know about Thomas Jefferson and religion, and read this book. Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh is the definitive account. It is well written, well researched, judicious, and entirely convincing.”—Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College “At long last, we have a biography of Thomas Jefferson that treats the enigmatic founder as more than just a living symposium of ideas or as a living museum of hypocrisies. In this long-awaited book, Thomas Kidd, one of the world’s most respected historians, portrays for us a compellingly complicated human being—who through both genius and will, and despite grave flaws, gave us a country we could not recognize apart from him. For people all across the ideological spectrum, this biography will be the starting point for countless new arguments and ideas.”—Russell Moore, chair of theology, Christianity Today “I don’t know a scholar more able than Thomas Kidd to bring breadth, depth, and moral clarity to a treatment of a figure as significant and complicated as Thomas Jefferson—and to do so with vivid, compelling prose that will engage a broad audience of readers.”—Karen Swallow Prior, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary “Kidd has written a unique work—‘a narrative of Jefferson’s moral universe’—that will make an outstanding contribution to scholarship on Jefferson.”—James Byrd, Vanderbilt Divinity School “In ‘trying to untangle the thicket of Jefferson’s moral, philosophical, and theological commitments, in the context of his time, not ours, while avoiding both ‘patriotic apologetics’ and ‘iconoclastic destruction,’ Thomas Kidd gives us the Thomas Jefferson we need right now.”—Kevin R. C. Gutzman, author of Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (28 Mar. 2023)
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About the author

Thomas s. kidd.

Thomas S. Kidd is Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion. Dr. Kidd writes at the Evangelical History blog at The Gospel Coalition. He also regularly contributes to outlets such as The Dispatch and The Wall Street Journal. His newest book is Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (Yale Press). Other recent books include Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale Press), and American History vols. 1 & 2 (B&H Academic). Find him on Twitter @ThomasSKidd

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About the author

Thomas s. kidd.

Thomas S. Kidd is Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion. Dr. Kidd writes at the Evangelical History blog at The Gospel Coalition. He also regularly contributes to outlets such as The Dispatch and The Wall Street Journal. His newest book is Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (Yale Press). Other recent books include Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale Press), and American History vols. 1 & 2 (B&H Academic). Find him on Twitter @ThomasSKidd

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Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh. By Thomas S. Kidd

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Daniel Howlett, Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh. By Thomas S. Kidd , Journal of Church and State , Volume 65, Issue 4, Winter 2023, Page 477, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csad062

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What more is there to be said about Thomas Jefferson? Perhaps a lot in our contemporary context, where Jefferson’s image as both an enslaver and proponent of liberty evokes strong opinions. Thomas Kidd acknowledges the politicization of Jefferson’s historical presence and the plethora of academic and popular works that chronicle Jefferson’s life to support vastly different characterizations. Rather than contribute yet another account to argue for either end of the spectrum, Kidd enters the discussion at the fulcrum of the arguments: Jefferson’s hypocrisy. The book is less of a thorough recounting of Jefferson’s life and more of an examination of several tensions that fuel the various memories of one of the most consequential founders. Kidd frames the narrative with three types of dissonance in Jefferson’s life: stated belief and practiced reality, religious beliefs and ethical beliefs, and spending and indebtedness. Through these three conflicts, Kidd offers a way to think about the disconnect between Jefferson’s writings and his deeds. Thus, Thomas Jefferson informs the tension between just criticism of Jefferson’s actions rooted in white supremacy and the reverence towards his legacy for his contributions to independence. Kidd neither seeks to credulously absolve Jefferson of his failings nor uncritically dismiss his achievements, but instead he explores the complexities of “Jefferson’s moral universe” that the man grappled with in his own time, leaving behind a difficult legacy for us to confront in the present (p. 3).

Many of the early chapters jump around key moments in Jefferson’s education and faith to leave breadcrumbs related to themes of Christianity, gentility, and imperial politics that seeped into Jefferson’s life to set up future moral paradoxes. For example, Kidd demonstrates that Jefferson’s stated beliefs in equality in the Declaration of Independence also sparked concern that God might cast providential judgment for denying natural rights. Still, Jefferson harbored racial prejudice and enslaved people. The same ideas returned in Jefferson’s presidency, where he repeatedly declined to extend Christianity past the bounds of the First Amendment but also declared that a republic would naturally result in mainstream Christian ethics. The long and often loose threads of religion extrapolate the underlying rationale for Jefferson’s dissonances and expose his hypocrisy of conflicting beliefs according to the Christian, genteel, or political calculus he occupied at a specific moment.

One challenge for the book is the introduction of Sally Hemmings into Thomas Jefferson’s life, which Kidd describes as “the central dilemma in Jefferson’s moral universe” (p.89). Kidd opts to avoid characterizations of the sexual relationship between the two. However, this is not to obfuscate the problematic nature of the affair or to dismiss classifying the affair as sexual violence. The book awkwardly avoids calling it rape, but Kidd also leaves a trail for the reader to undeniably reach that conclusion. For instance, he writes, “It seems plausible to assume, however, that Jefferson wished to have an available sexual partner, one whose existence was almost purely private and domestic, and whose movements he strictly controlled” (p. 106). It does not read as though Kidd wants to protect Jefferson’s legacy or avoid writing a presentist criticism. Rather, it seems as though Kidd takes historiographic caution while also drawing attention to the topic of sexual violence. Yet, Kidd stops short of connecting the dots.

Overall, Thomas Jefferson offers a new direction to examine a contentious figure. The book strides when the various tensions and biographical anecdotes culminate in the religious influences of Jefferson’s political career. The various history of religion threads sometimes disappears within the tapestry of political biography that Kidd needs to weave together, but it works well in placing the role of Jefferson’s religion in the context of his career as a statesman. Jefferson’s religious beliefs were not in the foreground of every decision or moment but lingered as consistent influences. By considering Jefferson as an emblem of early American tensions between religion, Enlightenment, race, and morality, Kidd offers a biography that embraces a contradictory protagonist and organizes moral and intellectual paradoxes into understandable categories of inconsistency.

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Happy President’s Day! Since 1879, it has been an American tradition to celebrate all 45 men who have served as president (on the date of George Washington’s birthday) as a federal holiday. Unfortunately, this year’s President’s Day is certainly coming amid difficult times, as a difficult election year, partisan squabbling, global wars, and anger continue to boil over on the international stage. With that said, what better way is there to celebrate than by looking into the life of one of our nation’s most complicated and controversial presidents?

Content Guide

Spiritual Content : The book explores Thomas Jefferson’s Heterodox approach to theology, describing his proclaimed and private beliefs in detail, from his relationships with traditional Christians to his Unitarian tendencies.

Violence:  The book describes several tense episodes in Jefferson’s life but with limited description.

Language/Crude Humor:  Little to none.

Sexual Content : Some discussions of out-of-wedlock sexuality, alleged sexual assault, and marital issues.

Drug/Alcohol Use:  The book discusses Jefferson’s enjoyment of alcohol, which he drank in large quantities.

Other Negative Themes:  Coarse discussions of racism, moral failure, and other issues.

Positive Content:  Themes of humility and grappling with the challenging aspects of history.

It would appear that the middle ground in American culture and politics has all but evaporated. When it comes to controversial areas of history, people almost entirely break into two ways of thinking — hagiography or iconoclasm. We either want to mythologize the past and make it untouchable or to burn it down. These two extremes usually outshout those who want to live with grace and nuance in these circumstances, as we saw most recently when a video circulated on Twitter of a Thomas Jefferson statue in New York City being removed from its pedestal in November 2021, drawing widespread anger and hostility as users debated the president’s controversial history.

Thomas Jefferson, in particular, is a useful figure to look at given the severity of our times. The author of the Declaration of Independence and America’s third president was one of the most complicated, hypocritical, and challenging figures in our nation’s founding. He was a slave owner who decried slavery. He was a defender of religious liberty who railed against organized religion. He was a man of virtue and character who indulged his vices and drowned himself in a lifetime of debt. He is a man who does not fit into any boxes cleanly, being both idealistic and highly flawed.

A Biography Of Spirit and Flesh

These contradictions make up the body of Baylor University Professor Thomas S. Kidd’s recent book Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh . Being an Evangelical Christian, a distinguished researcher on American history, and a disenfranchised political moderate, Kidd approaches the life of Jefferson with a rare eye for nuance and complexity. He avoids the extremes of portraying him as a faultless mythical figure or a vile monster but instead shows the former president as a complicated man caught up in the winds of his times and prejudices.

“This is a biography of a brilliant but troubled person,” he writes, arguing:

Most of the controversy about him comes back to questions of character. How could the author of the Declaration of Independence keep hundreds of human beings in bondage? How could he carry on a long-standing sexual relationship with one of his bondspeople, who was also his dead wife’s half-sister? … “Hypocrisy!” Jefferson’s critics cry. When you look closer at Jefferson, however, hypocrisy doesn’t quite penetrate the mystery, doesn’t explain Jefferson’s troubled genius and vacillating life.

Kidd initially eschews that he is writing a traditional biography, instead deferring a more expansive and historical look at Jefferson’s life to more comprehensive biographers like Jon Meacham, John Boles, Francis Cogliano, and Robert McDonald. Instead, he leans into the Spirit and Flesh subtitle to chart a more complex narrative about the man’s personal beliefs, actions, and hypocrisies across his incredible life.

Hypocrisy is certainly the easiest case to charge against Jefferson. He was an incredibly high-minded and intelligent man, yet his actions fell very short of his proclaimed virtues. Jefferson never freed the hundreds of slaves he held at his Virginia plantation because his estate was caught in terrible debt. This resulted in bankers descending upon his property to sell hundreds of bondspeople across the state of Virginia to settle his finances. Debt was an ongoing character fault in Jefferson’s life. The Virginia aristocrat regularly took large loans to buy expensive leatherbound books, French wines, artworks, scientific contraptions, or expansions to his mansion, either to keep up appearances among the elite or to soothe his yearnings. This character flaw meant that hundreds of men were forced to stay in bondage after half a century of their master publicly claiming to despise slavery.

Jefferson was a self-described Epicurean, subscribing to the ancient Greek philosophy that proclaimed the importance of minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure in life. However, Jefferson was far too sexually and financially irresponsible to indulge his pleasures responsibly. He was also a highly heterodox Christian who quietly doubted the divinity of Christ for most of his adult life, despite his orthodox Anglican upbringing, and publicly proclaimed that rationalistic Unitarianism would be the future of religion in America (narrator voice: it wasn’t ).

Kidd (Nominally) Defends Jefferson

All of these faults make it all too easy to simply wash one’s hands of such a complicated figure, but Kidd doesn’t take the easy road. He rightly highlights many of the clear moral failures of the man while portraying them in contrast with his most complicated realities — showing his genius as a political theorist, his deep capacity for charity towards religious minorities of the time (namely Baptists and Lutherans), and his curious fixation on the Bible and the philosophy of Christ.

Jefferson was a man of the enlightenment and science. He described himself fully as a materialist and advocated for a textual critic approach to Biblical scholarship that downplayed the role of spirits, miracles, and the historical relevancy of the Bible. But, he loved to learn and constantly sought out texts on the newest scientific news and discoveries, becoming a proficient and learned man in all areas of life. He had strong opinions on classical literature, learned enough architecture to design his own mansion (multiple times), and taught himself multiple languages. He was the greatest writer and political theorist of the Founding Fathers, and his words set the course for the country’s commitment to liberty and justice, even if those things were initially limited to white men.

Kidd’s biography brilliantly navigates a course through Jefferson’s life that focuses primarily on his character. The highs of his idealism and the lows of his character are depicted tightly in tension, showing how they played into one another and affected the lives of those around him.

Instead of renaming schools and toppling statues, I propose that we instead ponder perplexing, hard truths about the American founding. Time-bound self-interested men framed the world’s most enduring republic on the bedrock of the slave owner Jefferson’s glorious principle that “all men are created equal.” These paradoxes warrant sober reflection and further study. We should steer clear of the excesses of either patriotic apologetics or iconoclastic destruction. The Founders, including Jefferson, were hardly saints. But maybe we’re not either.

Thomas Jefferson lived a life that would make most modern people uncomfortable, and that has only increased the temptation to look at his life through narrow lenses. However, he is a man that does not fit comfortably into boxes. He is proclaimed a hero by Christians and atheists alike, who selectively quote him to their benefit. He is regularly crucified by “Jefferson bashers”(as Kidd calls them) for his obvious sins or adored by his fans as “the most quintessentially American founder of them all.”

The reality is that both of these statements are in some sense true. He was an idealist and a hypocrite, a Christian and an atheist, a violent rebel and a lover of tranquility, and a virtuous man who loved vice. He was a human being, and his flaws would foreshadow and fulfill the history of the nation he helped to found in ways he never could’ve imagined. This contradiction ought to force us to approach him and each other with humility.

+ Serious Examination of the Life of Jefferson + Valuable Anecdotes and Direct Quotes + Moderate Proposals for How to Grapple with the Facts

- Somewhat Limited Biographical Information

The Bottom Line

Kidd does an excellent job contrasting the complicated aspects of Jefferson's life with his accomplishments, portraying a tragic image of a man of high ideals and a powerful impact on history.

Tyler Hummel

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Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh

Recently on the Credo Podcast , Thomas S. Kidd joined Gary Steward and Matthew Barrett to discuss the many difficult tensions that rise to the surface in the thought and life of Thomas Jefferson. They also addressed how Christians today should think about the triumphs and tragedies of historical figures who have come before them with humility and grace.

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Thomas jefferson: a biography of spirit and flesh: an interview with thomas s. kidd.

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by Brett Fredenberg , Thomas Kidd    July 4, 2022

Thomas S. Kidd serves as research professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His latest book, Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (Yale University Press, 2022), is a revelatory new biography of Thomas Jefferson, focusing on his ethical and spiritual life.

Timothy Larsen said of the book, “Set aside everything you think you know about Thomas Jefferson and religion, and read this book.”

Russell Moore said, “In this long-awaited book, Thomas Kidd, one of the world’s most respected historians, portrays for us a compellingly complicated human being- who through both genius and will, and despite grave flaws, gave us a country we could not recognize apart from him.”

Karen Swallow Prior also commented, “I don’t know a scholar more able than Thomas Kidd to bring breadth, depth, and moral clarity to a treatment of a figure as significant and complicated as Thomas Jefferson- and to do so with vivid, compelling prose that will engage a broad audience of readers.”

James Byrd said that this book “will make an outstanding contribution to scholarship on Jefferson.”

Kevin R.C. Gutzman also stated, “Thomas Kidd gives us the Thomas Jefferson we need right now.”

Recently, Dr. Kidd joined us to answer a few questions about his latest book.

BF: As you state, your latest book is a “narrative of Jefferson’s moral universe more than a traditional biography.” What prompted you to take on Thomas Jefferson as your latest subject and to discuss him from this angle?

TK: There has been increasing controversy in recent years about the Founding Fathers generally, and Jefferson specifically, much of which has to do with moral questions. Many wonder how to reconcile the Jefferson who said that slavery was wrong, and who wrote that “all men are created equal,” with the Jefferson who owned hundreds of people as slaves. “Hypocrisy” is an easy and somewhat deserved reaction to Jefferson’s inconsistency, but I don’t think hypocrisy is a very helpful answer historically when trying to understand the enigma of Jefferson’s beliefs and contradictory life. In this book, I hope I offer a genuinely new approach by trying to understand how Jefferson’s religious and ethical views synced with how he actually lived.

In the book, you describe several tensions in Jefferson’s life. What are some of these tensions, and how do you hope readers will respond to hearing the story of Jefferson’s ethical life?

The most familiar tension is between Jefferson’s belief in God-given equality, and his deep investment in the enslavement of African Americans. A related tension is Jefferson’s constant touting of the virtue of frugality, or living within one’s means, and the disastrous state of his personal finances. Finally – and the one that may be of most interest to the Midwestern Seminary community – is Jefferson’s virtual obsession with the Bible, and his brazen deletion of the miraculous content from the Gospels in the “Jefferson Bible.”

I hope that when confronting as perplexing a character as Jefferson, readers will steer clear both of patriotic apologetics, and of today’s temptation to cancel those in our national past who have manifest failings and sins. It’s much better, I think, to ponder (in Jefferson’s case) how someone who did terrible things could also be used for great good in American history, most notably his articulation of our God-given rights and equality, and his championing of religious liberty.

Jefferson’s religious beliefs often did not help him politically. His convictions even led him to cut out sections from the New Testament to form the “Jefferson Bible.” Can you tell us more about the origins of the Jefferson Bible, and how Jefferson’s contradictory spiritual convictions can serve as a warning for Christians today?

  A lot of Bible readers implicitly cut out parts of Scripture they don’t like. But Jefferson literally did so, with scissors. He was an early example of what became “higher criticism” of Scripture, or the assumption that some parts of the Bible are erroneous, unreliable, or are later additions. Jefferson’s Jesus became a great teacher of ethics, but not the resurrected Son of God. The warning here is that as soon as we place our own standards of reason above any part of the Word of God, we are on a slippery slope.

As you’ve mentioned, Thomas Jefferson can serve as a needed example for us today. What are some of the other ways, possibly missed in a traditional biography, that Jefferson’s ethical life can give us lessons for our current cultural moment?

One of our biggest cultural challenges is knowing what to do with historical figures who were once widely revered, such as Jefferson, but who engaged in behavior we see as appalling and immoral, such as enslaving people. Somehow we have to be able to clearly repudiate these actions, while also not casually assuming that we are morally superior because we denounce (or cancel) such people. A proper Christian reaction to the terrible failings of people in history is sober humility, not pride or “virtue signaling.”

Editor’s Note: Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh is now available for purchase.

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• Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh by Thomas S. Kidd (review)

• Daniel McDonough
• Kentucky Historical Society
• Volume 121, Number 1, Winter 2023
• 10.1353/khs.2023.a902566
• View Citation

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Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh Audio CD – Unabridged, August 9, 2022

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A revelatory new biography of Thomas Jefferson, focusing on his ethical and spiritual life

Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson's moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity.

In this book Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson's ethical life through the lens of these tensions, including an unapologetic focus on the issue where Jefferson's idealistic philosophy and lived reality clashed most obviously: his sexual relationship with his enslaved woman Sally Hemings. In doing so, he offers a unique perspective on one of American history's most studied figures.

• Print length 1 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date August 9, 2022
• ISBN-13 979-8200963164
• See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Set aside everything you think you know about Thomas Jefferson and religion, and read this book. This is the definitive account. It is well written, well researched, judicious, and entirely convincing.

About the Author

Product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B92VGPB5
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Blackstone Publishing; Unabridged edition (August 9, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Audio CD ‏ : ‎ 1 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8200963164
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.3 ounces

About the author

Thomas s. kidd.

Thomas S. Kidd is Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion. Dr. Kidd writes at the Evangelical History blog at The Gospel Coalition. He also regularly contributes to outlets such as The Dispatch and The Wall Street Journal. His newest book is Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (Yale Press). Other recent books include Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale Press), and American History vols. 1 & 2 (B&H Academic). Find him on Twitter @ThomasSKidd

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