- Source
- The Age of Reason
- Date
- 1794–1796
Meaning of “My own mind is my own church.”
The compact statement places personal conscience and reason above compulsory religious institutions in Paine’s deistic argument.
Where does it come from?
The Age of Reason, Part I, Chapter I, “The Author’s Profession of Faith”; Moncure Daniel Conway collected/edited text represented by Project Gutenberg #3743 and cross-checked against Wikisource. “My own mind is my own church” follows Paine’s rejection of compulsory institutional creeds and states his historical deist emphasis on individual conscience and reason; this collection does not flatten it into a context-free rejection of all community, worship or institutions.
