10 Truths About America's Christian Heritage

Coral Ridge Ministries
Dr. D. James Kennedy, Founder
From the 10 Truths Series
TRUTH # 3 - Christian Zeal Fueled the American Revolution

Just prior to the Revolutionary Period, from around 1730 to 1770, our nation saw a radical Christian revival known as the Great Awakening.

Benjamin Franklin recalled the effects of this massive spiritual resurgence in his autobiography:

It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.

The case has been made that it was this dramatic stirring of spiritual vitality that gave rise to the colonists’ zeal for political liberty. Historian Paul Johnson wrote in his book, A History of the American People, “The Great Awakening was …the proto-revolutionary event, the formative movement in American history, preceding the political drive for independence, and making it possible.”

President John Adams, who was contemporary to these events, explained as follows:
The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the mind and hearts of the people; and [the] change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations…. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution. The fact that the Great Awakening made the Revolution possible has been affirmed by loyalists of the British Crown, our nation’s Founders, and historians. Still, some secular historians claim that “religious influences and movements, including the Great Awakening, had no influence whatsoever on what the men of the Revolution did or thought.”

Resistance to Tyranny: A Christian Duty
In 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress declared, “Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual.” The Congress also urged the residents of Massachusetts to “continue steadfast, and with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.”

Perhaps the most famous speech of the Revolutionary era was delivered at St. John’s Church, when Patrick Henry galvanized the resolve of fellow patriots, proclaiming:
Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the Holy cause of Liberty … are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us…. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

This “holy cause of liberty” led Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament, to warn that the Christian zeal of the Americans would never abide under tyrannical rule. Burke urged Parliament to avoid war, noting that the colonists could never be subdued. “The people are Protestants,” he explained, “and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to Liberty, but built upon it.”

During the British debates in Parliament, Sir Richard Sutton read a letter from a Crown-appointed governor in New England, which warned, “If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ.” This was a sentiment that resounded throughout the colonies. The various committees of correspondence often included a familiar rallying cry in their letters: “No King but King Jesus.”

Consequently, Britain’s King George III and the British Parliament often claimed that the American Revolution was little more than “a Presbyterian rebellion.” Peter Oliver, a British loyalist from Massachusetts, blamed America’s uprising on fiery preachers, whom he called “black-coated mobs.” Their sermons were so stirring that America’s clergymen gained the nickname “the Black Regiment,” because of their black ministerial robes.

True Religion and Civil Liberty Are Inseparable
One of these ministers, Reverend John Witherspoon, the president of Princeton University, was selected to serve on more than one hundred committees of the Continental Congress. As a delegate from New Jersey, he urged the Congress to vote for independence. “Gentlemen, New Jersey is ready to vote for independence,” he proclaimed. “The country is not only ripe for independence, but we are in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it.…” When the opportunity came, Reverend Witherspoon proudly signed his name to the Declaration of Independence. Just weeks earlier, he had proclaimed: It is in the man of piety and inward principle, that we may expect to find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier. God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable….

Witherspoon’s influence was substantial. Princeton University still boasts of its illustrious alumni who studied under Reverend John Witherspoon. list includes President James Madison, Vice-President Aaron Burr, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one United States senators, thirty-nine members of the House of Representatives, three justices of the Supreme Court, twelve governors, and numerous delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Witherspoon was so successful in stirring the souls of America’s patriots and fellow preachers that, soon hearing of “the shot heard around the world,” Britain’s Prime Minister declared to Parliament: “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson."

“Conspicuous” Help From God
The religious fervor born of the Great Awakening ignited the passions of Americans, who clearly understood that true liberty can only exist in a nation” under God.” Thus at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams, labeled by his contemporaries as the “Father of the American Revolution” announced, “We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.”

Historians would have to revise history to claim that America was founded by men who were seeking to separate the influence of the Christian religion from government. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, at least 24 held seminary degrees.” Five days after the Declaration was adopted, the Continental Congress approved the use of public funds to hire military chaplains. General George Washington then sent out a letter to the various regiments, which stated, “The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”

Acknowledging that God had helped them win their freedoms, George Washington reflected in a letter to Brigadier-general Thomas Nelson, The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this [the course of the war] that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations [to God]. The Founders viewed the struggle for liberty as a Christian compulsion. By the grace of God, against all human odds, the colonists defeated the most powerful empire of the day. They expressed their gratitude to Him for their victory in the peace treaty with the British, which began with the words, “In the name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity....”
At the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, declared, The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

In the following chapter we will see how this “indissoluble bond” was forged in our constitution government.