Ministers and the church should have nothing to do with politics – or so we hear all the time.
Thankfully, during the settling and founding eras of America, that was not the dominant opinion.
In fact, ministers often helped lead the way to American independence.
Christian educator Travis Witt of Virginia once remarked: “Every single one of the issues mentioned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence had been preached from the American pulpits in New England before 1763.”
His remarks are well-documented in a 1928 (revised in 1958) book by Duke professor Alice M. Baldwin (1879-1960), titled, “The New England Clergy and the American Revolution.”
For example, Baldwin notes: “The teachings of the New England ministers provide one unbroken line of descent. For two generations and more New Englanders had heard their rights and the political philosophy underlying them carefully analyzed; they had been taught that these rights were sacred and came from God and that to preserve them they had a legal right of resistance and, if necessary, a right to resume the powers they had delegated and alter and abolish governments and by common consent establish new one.” (p. 169)
And she adds, “With a vocabulary enriched by the Bible they made resistance and at last independence and war a holy cause. … Resistance thus became a sacred duty to a people who still were, on the whole, a religious people.” (p. 177)
For Providence Forum, I have produced a 7-part series of hour-long documentaries on the Judeo-Christian roots of America. We call it “The Foundation of American Liberty” series. The above-mentioned Travis Witt was a guest in this series, and his remark can be found in the episode on the Declaration, titled “Endowed By Their Creator.”
Of course, in America at 250, what we are celebrating is the 250th anniversary of the acceptance by voice-vote of the final wording of the Declaration by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
America began long before July 4, 1776. And in different ways, ministers of the Gospel helped pave the way.
One of our Foundation programs is titled “The Road to Independence,” and one of the facets of this program is the role of the church, officially and unofficially, in the whole push for American independence.
When this documentary was first released, it caught the attention of a notable Christian leader. On March 1, 2023, I was privileged to be interviewed by the late Charlie Kirk on his radio show.
He opened that program, saying, “Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, Dr. Newcombe joins us. He has an amazing film, ‘The Road to Independence,’ Is America a Christian nation?”
The film shows how preaching on political subjects was nothing new to the ministers of New England. Elections were usually annual events, and before the ballots were cast, a minister would preach an “Election Day” sermon.
Rev. Dan Fisher, a Baptist minister and author in Oklahoma, has even written a whole book on the role of ministers, titled, “Bringing Back the Black Robed Regiment.”
Fisher remarks in our film, “There never was an official regiment of black robed preachers, but the black robed regiment is the name that the British gave for these, what we often call, patriot pastors, these pastors that preached patriotism. They founded – they believed in Scripture, and so, they were the ones recruiting the men to go and fight. And they would typically preach in black robes on Sunday mornings.”
In Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Patriot,” he has a scene where a minister takes off his robe in the pulpit, revealing he is actually dressed in military garb, and he recruits men in the church to join the cause of freedom to defend their homeland.
That scene is based on a true story that took place in a church in Woodstock, Virginia, on Jan. 21, 1776, when Rev. Peter John Muhlenberg preached on Ecclesiastes 3, saying, There’s a time and a place for everything – and now is a time for war.
And yet, Peter’s older brother, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, serving as a minister in New York, rebuked Peter in a letter exhorting him to stay out of politics. Interestingly, the older brother had a change of heart when the British invaded New York City and desecrated his church.
Later, both brothers served as U.S. congressmen, despite being ministers, and Frederick went on to become the first Speaker of the House of Representatives. It is his signature on the First Amendment (as well as John Adams, representing the Senate).
This example is just the tip of the iceberg of ministers being involved in early American politics. One of their favorite texts was
Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
