Was the American Revolution a Holy War? By James P. Byrd. Washington Post, July 5, 2013. Also here.
Byrd:
Holy
war can seem like something that happened long ago or that happens far away —
the Crusades of medieval Europe, for example, or jihadists fighting secular
forces today. But since their country’s founding, Americans have often thought
of their wars as sacred, even when the primary objectives have been political.
This
began with the American Revolution. When colonists declared their independence
on July 4, 1776, religious conviction inspired them. Because they believed that
their cause had divine support, many patriots’ ardor was both political and
religious. They saw the conflict as a just, secular war, but they fought it
with religious resolve, believing that God endorsed the cause. As Connecticut
minister Samuel Sherwood preached in 1776: “God Almighty, with all the powers
of heaven, are on our side. Great numbers of angels, no doubt, are encamping
round our coast, for our defense and protection.”
Several
founding fathers were more theologically liberal than the typical evangelical
Protestant of their day. Still, few were anti-religious, and the nation’s
architects often stated that religion supported virtue, which was essential to
patriotism. “A true patriot must be a religious man,” wrote Abigail Adams, wife
of America’s second president.
George
Washington believed so strongly in the religious case for patriotism that he
demanded chaplains for the Continental Army. He appealed to the Continental
Congress for higher pay for chaplains, and when one chaplain impressed the
general, Washington went to great lengths to retain him.
That
chaplain was Abiel Leonard of Woodstock, Conn. Washington wrote letters to the
governor of Connecticut and to Leonard’s church, hoping they would support the
pastor’s extended service in the Army. In his letter to the governor,
Washington wrote that Leonard had proved to be “a warm and steady friend to his
country and taken great pains to animate the soldiers, and impress them with a
knowledge of the important rights we are contending for.”
For
Washington, chaplains not only supplied moral guidance but appealed for God’s
support in battle, which was vital. He believed that the war’s outcome rested
in God’s hands, and he ordered his soldiers to attend “divine service, to
implore the blessings of heaven upon the means used for our safety and
defense.”
We
cannot fully understand the revolution without recognizing such appeals for
God’s favor on the battlefield. Both the founders and ministers understood
these ideas because they knew scripture, one of the major sources of American
patriotism. Colonists fought the Revolutionary War in a society in which the
Bible was the most read, most owned and most respected book. John Adams once
told Thomas Jefferson, “The Bible is the best book in the world.” Perhaps more
important, Adams also called the Bible the world’s “most Republican book” —
scripture inspired morality, but it also fueled patriotism.
Even
those colonists who normally had no use for the Bible found it helpful during
the revolution. Thomas Paine would attack Christianity and call the Old
Testament “a history of wickedness,” more appropriately judged “the word of a
demon than the word of God.” But he did not publish these radical statements
until after the revolution. In 1776, Paine quoted scripture like a revival
preacher. His “Common Sense,” the most influential patriotic pamphlet of the
revolution, had the feel of a sermon, deploying the King James Bible against
King George’s tyranny. Scripture, Paine argued, clearly revealed God’s “protest
against monarchial government.”
Paine
knew that “Common Sense” had to make biblical sense. He relied especially on 1
Samuel 8, which tells of the Israelites asking for a king. In that passage, God
relents and gives them King Saul, but the prophet Samuel warns that their
demand signals their rejection of God. Accordingly, Paine asserted that
“monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins” of the Israelites that
would later bring curses from God; if Americans would obey God, therefore, they
must reject British monarchy. The war for independence was a sacred duty.
The
views of the founders notwithstanding, ministers translated the revolution’s
meaning to colonists who knew much more about the Bible than political theory.
Revolutionary War sermons were convincing because they spoke in ubiquitous
stories and images from scripture.
Patriotic
ministers did not shy away from biblical violence. They embraced it, almost
celebrated it, even in its most graphic forms. For example, they cited the
story of Deborah in Judges 5, about God’s condemnation of those who refused to
fight his enemies. This text also includes the heroic story of Jael, a
tent-dwelling woman who assassinated a Canaanite general by driving a tent peg
through his skull. Ministers often quoted this story with an equally gruesome
curse from the prophet Jeremiah: “Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from
blood.”
There
were hundreds such sermons — tools for combating the chronic problems of
soldier recruitment and morale. In one example, Israel Evans, a favorite
chaplain of Washington, praised fallen patriots as “martyrs for the cause of
freedom” and called on the remaining troops to “finish the glorious work of
liberty! Arise, and lead on your brother soldiers to dreadful deeds of death
and slaughter, until the ruthless hand of Britain shall no more disturb the
peace of men.”
Likewise,
preachers often called patriotic service in war a sacred virtue. As
Massachusetts Congregationalist Eli Forbes proclaimed, not every “good
Christian is of consequence a good soldier,” but one could not be a good
soldier without “the principle and practice of Christianity.” Peter Thacher of
Malden, Mass., insisted that “we are fighting . . . for
our religion, that religion which the word of God hath instituted and
appointed.” So Thacher charged patriots to “fight to the last drop of your
blood in this glorious cause.”
Talk of
glorious causes has persisted from the revolution through the war on terror.
Some Americans think of the United States as “God’s New Israel,” a nation on a
divine mission, its wars blessed by God. Sometimes rhetoric makes this view
obvious: Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, for example, the White House apologized
after President George W. Bush used the word “crusade” to describe the battle
against terrorism.
But
references to religion can be subtler, or even obligatory, in political
speeches. Consider President Obama’s July 4 speech from last year, in which he
praised military sacrifices and ended with: “God bless you. God bless your
families. And God bless these United States of America.”
We pass
over such niceties as commonplace, almost dutiful, in political speech, but
they are religious statements. Their roots go back to the revolution, when
colonists — from evangelical preachers to founders such as Washington — asked
for God’s blessing. Whatever century it is, our leaders often include some
suggestion of the same biblical themes that filled revolutionary-era sermons,
including sacrifice, courage for the fight and appeals for God’s providential
blessings on America.
We are,
it seems, one nation under God after all.
The Racism of New York Times’ “Muslims are not ready for Democracy.” By Omid Safi. What Would Muhammad Do? Religion News Service, July 5, 2013.
Egypt’s Revolution Part II. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, July 4, 2013.
The Arab world and Egypt’s divide. By Zvi Mazel. Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2013.
Egypt’s revolution strikes back. By Avi Issacharoff. The Times of Israel, July 4, 2013.
Defending the Coup. By David Brooks. New York Times, July 4, 2013.
David Brooks’s Unconvincing Coup Defense. By Isaac Chotiner. The New Republic, July 5, 2013.
David Brooks is Mentally Unprepared for Egyptian Democracy. By Max Read. Gawker, July 5, 2013.
The Humanities in Crisis? Not at Most Schools. By Scott Saul. New York Times, July 3, 2013.
