Are you enjoying this 250th Anniversary of our American nation? I hope you are as I am. I have taken every opportunity to think about our roots and appreciate the national leadership that would make America great again. I have sympathy for those who are unable to look through whatever clouds they find to see that it’s “morning in America,” as late President Ronald Reagan contended.
I found a marvelous book by Dr. Rod Gragg, award winning historian, professor at Coastal Carolina University, and producer of history programs for South Carolina PBS affiliate, entitled Forged in Faith: How Faith Shaped Birth of the Nation, 1607-1776. This book takes up some of the details of our nation’s formation up to the Declaration of Independence. What an enlightening job it will work on you as you see the vibrant Christian faith of these early settlers and their leaders!
Think of the founding documents of a few of the states: Massachusetts wanted to say their goal was to spread the “knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind and of the Christian faith.” The Mayflower Compact showed voyagers’ commitment to “the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut wanted an orderly government that would “maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.” Maryland’s charter declared an official goal of “extending the Christian religion.” Pennsylvania officially cited as motivation for their founding a “love of civil society and Christian religion.” The rest of the original 13 colonies go on in the same vein.
But weren’t there deists, humanists, and rationalists among some of the Continental Congress? Yes, and Gragg points to some, but says there were few. There were never so many as supposed. Harvard historian Perry Miller contends that “European deism, as an exotic plant in America, never struck roots in the soil.” The Great Awakening “checked some of these tendencies.”
The Great Awakening was a religious revival led by at least two Churchmen, Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards and Anglican minister George Whitefield. Through them, there came to be a “mighty wind of change” that swept through New England and then later to some of the other colonies. It was the “single movement that stirred the colonial heart deeply for three generations,” asserted Pulitzer Prize winning historian Vernon Parrington.
A not-very religious Benjamin Franklin observed, “One could not walk through the town in the evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.” To Franklin, it “seemed as if all the world were growing religious.” At this time, the most influential person in the community “was not a politician, merchant, banker, journalist, or performer.” It was the local church pastor. The church was the “center of family life” in the 18th century. It was at this time that a rash of colleges we call Ivy League were born, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Rutgers for the training of ministers.
Ministers were usually one of the most educated of the community and they made an impact, therefore, in surprising ways. One young lawyer seemed to stir legislators and courtrooms with the power of his eloquent arguments in the courtroom and state house. Patrick Henry’s youthful, rough-hewn appearance was deceptive and when he spoke in public “an astonishing transformation occurred.”
The instruction that “molded [Henry] most” was “instilled by a Presbyterian preacher named Samuel Davies.” As mentor Davies would “enact the solemn division on Judgement Day before his enthralled congregation,” so did Henry create a division when he called forth the separation with those too timid to speak against the hated Stamp Act adopted by Parliament, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give liberty or give me death!” School children of many generations learned these immortal words.
Days of fasting and preaching were held on the eve of the Declaration. There were two services scheduled for days before enactment of the Declaration, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Pastors had waged a “war of words” already and even likened the upcoming conflict against King George and the Mother Country to the battle between David and Goliath! Member of Parliament Edmund Burke, one of the few friends of the American cause, recognized the motivating influence of American resistance. The people are “Protestants and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion.”
Another of the influential members Continental Congress was the delegate from New Jersey and only minister present John Witherspoon, president of Princeton and fresh immigrant from Scotland. He joined the Congress in time for the independence vote and the making what was a powerful, impassioned speech in favor of independence. His eloquent and persuasive preaching had moved his constituency to send him. One leading member of Parliament reportedly remarked, “There’s no use crying about it. Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson.”
Following the vote, John Adams commented that this day should be celebrated with “pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this country to another and . . . solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
This book might not be your cup of tea but find one of many available and celebrate this incredible achievement of 250 years of freedom by hardship and sacrifice of so many brave individuals and families. Read and give thanks to God.
Robert Penny lives in Old Agency Village in Ridgeland.
