evidence: Jefferson’s editorial work happened in a United States that was deeply rooted in state-sponsored religion. Though many emigrants had come to America to flee religious persecution, laws about religious practice were part of pre-Revolutionary life. Even after the founding of the United States and the ratification of the First Amendment, states used public funds to pay churches and passed laws upholding various tenets of Christianity for over a century after the passage of the Bill of Rights. Massachusetts, for example, didn’t disestablish its official state religion, Congregationalism, until 1833. [...] During his political career, Jefferson’s religious views—or lack thereof—drew fire from his fellow colonists and citizens. The Federalists charged him with atheism and rebellion against Christianity during the vicious 1800 election. Among them was Theodore Dwight, a journalist who claimed that Jefferson’s election would shoo in the end of Christianity itself. "Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of distress, the soil will be soaked with blood, the nation black with crimes," he prophesied. Jefferson continued to wrestle with his own views on Christianity after his presidential term ended. His personal correspondence often dealt with religion and religious freedom, and in 1820, when he was 77 years old, he began excising the portions of the New Testament he found unnecessary.