This is the second installment of “Twenty Five Inconvenient Realities” which document twenty five facts that characterized our nation’s pursuit of Independence during the Revolutionary War.

Ours is a unique history because of the way we depended on God and based our approach to government on Biblical Absolutes.

While it can be a lively debate, it’s nevertheless an obvious truism that our nation’s beginnings were decidedly influenced by the Christian doctrine once you stand back and let the facts speak for themselves.

What follows is another five facts. You can read the remaining 15 by clicking here.

If you want to test your knowledge, click here to access the “Muscular Christianity Campus” and take the quiz!

Our national motto is derived from the third verse or our National Anthem:

Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”

Yet again another example of how many recognize that the “separation” of church and state doesn’t mean the elmination of the church and its influence on the state.

Thomas Jefferson’s orthodoxy wasn’t at all with what most would regard as doctrinally sound. While he believed that Jesus represented the greatest expositor of moral standards ever, Jefferson did not subscribe at all to His Deity.¹¹

In a letter to Thomas B. Parker in 1819, he said:

…my fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin’s, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.¹²

But while his convictions pertaining to the Gospel of Jesus Christ may have been questionable, he still saw religion as being a necessary component to the philosphical foundation a government had to be based on in order to define and defend an individual’s rights.

You see this in a letter he wrote to P.H. Wendover in 1813. Jefferson, referring to the discourses of a Mr. McCloud, says…

I feel my portion of indebtment to the reverend author for the distinguished learning, the logic and the eloquence with which has proved that religion, as well as reason, confirms that soundness of those principles on which our government has been founded and its rights asserted.¹³

In addition, while serving in the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson worked alongside Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee to craft a resolution for the state of Virginia to set aside a day of fasting and prayer. He said…

We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and alarm their attention.¹⁴

Later, he wrote that the reaction was like a “shock of electricity…”

We returned home, and in our several counties invited the clergy to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of June [actually at various times in June and July], to perform the ceremonies of the day, and to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The people met generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day thro’ the whole colony was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man and placing him erect and solidly on his centre.¹⁵

The bottom line is that Thomas Jefferson saw in Christianity a reliable and needed foundation that, while it could not be coerced, could nevertheless support a legitimate assertion of individual rights and justify a national pursuit of independence.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson corresponded frequently after they had both retired from public life. In one particular letter, Adams and Jefferson were discussing a recent comment that had found its way into print that suggested that “Science and Morals are the great Pillars on which this Country has been raised to its present population, Opulence and prosperity, and these alone, can advance, Support and preserve it.”¹⁶

In his letter to Jefferson, Adams disagreed and he articulated his position in part by saying…

The general Principles, on which the Fathers Achieved Independence, were the only Principles in which, that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were United…¹⁷

Among those that comprised the Second Continental Congress you had men that owned slaves and those that despised the slave trade. In addition, you had varying temperaments, vocations, as well as different philosophies when it came to loyalty to the crown.

Adams was part of the five-man team tasked with writing the “Declaration of Independence.” Whatever was getting ready to be sent to King George had to be both substantial and unanimous. But how do you unite a group of statesmen with such different backgrounds and perspectives given the risks that were involved?

As one who was there to witness it first hand, Adams could confidently say that it was because of the way each of the delegates could come together beneath the umbrella of their Christian faith that they were able to outline our country’s position with one voice.

Anytime your relationship with Christ becomes defined more by a routine and an institution as opposed to a personal rapport with your King, your perspective on yourself and the world around you suffers. You see yourself exclusively in terms of your circumstances and the Purpose, Peace and Power that flows from an intentional focus on God and His Truth is overshadowed by the thought of who you are as opposed to Whose you are (Is 43:1; Matt 10:30-31; Phil 2:13; Rev 20:15).

From 1735-1743, preachers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were able to profoundly impact the colonies by proclaiming the Gospel in a way that emphasized the personal aspect of an authentic relationship with Christ. As opposed to sacraments and religious gestures, ministers like Whitefield and Edwards directed their listeners to the Gospels where it could be readily seen that it was a personal decision to believe in the empty tomb that secured one’s salvation.

The basic themes of the Great Awakening included:

• All people are born sinners (Rom 3:23)
• Sin without salvation will send a person to hell (Eph 2:8-9)
• All people can be saved if they confess their sins to God, seek forgiveness and accept God’s grace (Rom 10:9-10)
• All people can have a direct and emotional connection with God (Gal 3:28)
• Religion shouldn’t be formal and institutionalized, but rather casual and personal (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6)¹⁸

While the essential doctrines being espoused may not have directly impacted the colonies’ collective dispostion towards Independence, between 1700 and 1740, an estimated 75-80 percent of Americans were actively attending churches which were, “…being built at a headlong pace.”¹⁹ This was a result of the Great Awakening and it was this ever growing constituency of believers that provided the material and philosophical support for the Revolution because of the way they were now rethinking the manner in which their rights were, in fact, guaranteed by God and not dispensed by a monarch.

This change in their perspective was due in a large part to the way in which Revolutionary War era ministers were endorsing America’s resistance to the crown as a biblically sanctioned cause. And  because you had such a large majority of colonists now attending worship services, the result was a unified group of patriots that were linking arms across those borders previously defined by state sanctioned churches and vivid denominational differences.

Dr. James Hutson from the Library of Congress explains…

The plain fact is that, had American clergymen of all denominations not assured their pious countrymen, from the beginning of the conflict with Britain, that the resistance movement was right in God’s sight and had His blessing, it could not have been sustained and independence would not been achieved. Here is the fundamental, the indispensable, contribution of religion and its spokesmen to the coming of the American Revolution.²⁰

While serving as President, he made a point of attending church every Sunday and he made available Federal Buildings and the Marine Band for worship services. Dr. James Hutson, in his book “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,” states…

It is no exaggeration to say that, on Sundays in Washington during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, the state became the church.²³

Today’s interpretation of the “separation of church and state” does not square at all with Jefferson’s allocation of state resources for expressly Christian worship services. In order for his adminstrative acts to not conflict with his letter to the Danbury Baptists, it is logically mandated to rethink the notion that the First Amendment refers to the elimination of all reference to Scripture as a basis for our laws and political philosophy.

The issue was not the Authority of the Word of God. Rather, the issue of the separation of church and state was whether or not the government could impose a uniform approach to the Throne of God. It was the way that different states and their sanctioned churches could tax their constituents and take from those monies a portion to support a specific denomination, or the manner in which certain states required you to be a member of a particular church in order to run for public office. This was the sort of politically mandated spirituality that permeated 18th century America. The “separation of church and state” had nothing to do with whether or not you could legally kill your child before it was born or if it was legally feasible to redefine the institution of marriage.

11) “Jefferson, Thomas and Religion”, “Encyclopedia Virginia EMA, Virginia Humanities”, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/jefferson-thomas-and-religion/, accessed April 4, 2023

12) “Thomas Jefferson to Thomas B. Parker, 15 May 1819”, “National Archives Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-14-02-0292, accessed April 4, 2023

13) “The Complete Works of Thomas Jefferson, the Third US President”, Thomas Jefferson, edited by Henry Augustine Washington, DigiCat, 2022, https://books.google.com/books?id=MS-cEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT2921&lpg=PT2921&dq=%22Religion,+as+well+as+reason,+confirms+the+soundness+of+those+principles+on+which+our+government+has+been+founded+and+its+rights+asserted.%22&source=bl&ots=jvCeLSmjCd&sig=ACfU3U1-4FsCJ2Gwx8s2xkAUHIojqOIvSA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii0PWm2JD-AhXgmWoFHYOFCs0Q6AF6BAgnEAM#v=onepage&q=%22Religion%2C%20as%20well%20as%20reason%2C%20confirms%20the%20soundness%20of%20those%20principles%20on%20which%20our%20government%20has%20been%20founded%20and%20its%20rights%20asserted.%22&f=false, accessed April 4, 2023

14) “Resolution of the House of Burgesses Designating a Day of Fasting and Prayer, 24 May 1774”, “National Archives, Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0082, accessed April 4, 2023

15) “Thomas Jefferson and John Walker to the Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Anne, [before 23 July 1774]”, “National Archives, Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0087, accessed April 4, 2023

16) “John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813”, “Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0208, accessed February 13, 2023

17) Ibid

18) “Great Awakening”, https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/great-awakening, accessed April 5, 2023

19) “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html, accessed April 5, 2023

20) “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”, Dr. James H. Hutson, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1998, p40

21) “Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People”, Jon Butler, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MS, London, England, 1990, p188

22) “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”, Dr. James H. Hutson, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1998, p35

23) Ibid, p91

When you set out to write a devotional based on our nation’s history, there’s a temptation to try and word things in a way that’s similar to the style you might use when you’re trying to make a point…

When I first sat down with my buddy who would go on to encourge me to write “The American Devotional Series,” he gave me some good counsel by saying, “Don’t argue. Just let the content speak for itself.”

In the end, it’s so much more than just the debate surrounding the Separation of Church and State. The amount of content and documentation that exists which points definitively to a population that understood, not only what was at stake, but how important it was to be basing their stance on something more than a political philosophy…

It’s overwhelming and utterly compelling.

You don’t commit High Treason nor take up arms against your sovereign based on a mere complaint. Our cause was preached from behind pulpits and not just proclaimed in the public square.

However critics and academics want to dismiss the Revolutionary War as a secular enterprise, vaguely supported with no real principle or ideal behind it apart from a collective disdain for King George, the documents and the commentary coming from that time period from the people who lived it, tell a much different story.

Here’s a list of some “Inconvenient Realities” that reveal those who insist on a humanistic foundation for the Revolutionary War and the United States in general as people who don’t have a point as much as they have a resolve to ignore what’s true in order to validate a world where they are their own Absolute.

Enjoy!

The Separation of Church and State is a phrase often used by people who want to insist that Christianity had no real role in our nation’s founding – cerntainly nothing that had any significant influence on those that articulated our cause, created our Constitution and fought the battles that culminated in the surrender of Great Britain.

You see this in comments like what you see below from the “Freedom From Religion” website:

The Christian Right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States, as part of their campaign to force their religion on others who ask merely to be left alone. According to this Orwellian revision, the Founding Fathers of this country were pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.

Not true! The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New Testaments.

You have to be very selective in the information you use to validate such a statement. At the same time, you have to be willfully oblivious to the specific references to God and Christ that punctuate the relevant events and documentation that established the United States.

Below is a brief yet potent list:

What qualified our statement to King George as a legitimate cause as opposed to a mere complaint is the way in which our Founders showed how his monarchy violated Divine Absolutes. However unjust or belligerent his adminstration may have been, it was the manner in which his rule restricted rights that were not his to dispense as much as they were God’s to guarantee – that is what gave our cause the Substance it needed to resonate as something that was True and not just preferred.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.¹

That is the starting point. The rights we have are God-given and the governments that are established by men to ensure those rights, but…

…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.²

We are founded on a Biblical Absolute and not a legal argument.

During the seven years we were at war with Great Britain, Congress proclaimed a National Day of Fasting, Prayer and Humiliation 16 different times. You can view an image of those proclamations as they are preserved in the Library of Congress as well as a readable transcription by clicking here.

The verbiage of these proclamations is not conducive to an all-inclusive dynamic as far as it being something that accommodates all faiths. Rather, it specifies Christ and a need to seek His Forgiveness and Direction.

For example, a portion of the Proclamation from March 20, 1781 reads as follows:

The United States in Congress assembled, therefore do earnestly recommend, that Thursday the third of May next, may be observed as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits of our blessed Savior, obtain pardon and forgiveness:

There’s a couple of things that are worth noticing: First, the commitee that was tasked with drafting this proclamation included James Madison who many want to believe to be a Deist. Someone with that kind of spiritual temperment would not be advocating Christ as “our blessed Savior.”

Secondly, to characterize Congress as a humanistic enterprise that placed no priority on the Reality and the Necessity of Divine Intervention requires a willful disregard for the repeated directives that came from their collective pen that recommended an intentional timeframe dedictated to an intensely focused and humble posturing before Jesus Christ.

In 1854, James Meacham, the Representative from Vermont, delivered a report pertaining to an issue involving the First Amendment. At one point, he said this:

Down to the Revolution, every colony did sustain [the Christian] religion in some form. It was deemed peculiarly proper that the religion of liberty should be upheld by a free people. Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have strangled in its cradle. At the time of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, not any one sect. Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation.³

In the same report, Meacham concluded by saying:

In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. That was the religion of the founders of the Republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.⁴

The first words of the Treaty that represented Great Britain’s surrender to America in 1783 were:

In the Name of the most Holy & undivided Trinity.⁵

The Liberty Bell was used to summon delegates to Pennslyvania Hall to discuss the matters of the day. Benjamin Franklin wrote to Catherine Ray in 1755, “Adieu, the Bell rings, and I must go among the Grave ones and talk Politicks.”⁶

It’s most famous tolling, however, was on July 8, 1776 when it was used to summon the townspeople to hear the public reading of the Declaration of Independence.⁷

Yet, up until that point, the bell wasn’t seen as an icon as much as it is today because of the way the text that’s inscribed on the bell was applied to the issue of slavery in 1844.

The inscription is Leviticus 25:10:

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. (Lev 25:10 [KJV])

William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator, reprinted a poem written by H.R.H. Moore which represented the first documented use of the name, “The Liberty Bell.” Garrison saw it as an appropriate and effective way to combine the Biblical substance of the verse inscribed on the bell with the poetry of Moore which included the line, “Ring it, till the slave is free” and let the collective meaning serve as a rebuke against those who supported slavery.

In an article printed in Time Magazine, Dr Ben Carson tells of how when the body of Abraham Lincoln was laid in Independence Hall, he was placed in a manner where the Liberty Bell and the inscription was directly overhead. During the 20 hour public viewing, over 150,000 people paid their respects to the Great Emancipator.

In the article penned by Dr Carson, he concludes by saying:

Whether you’re black or white, Democrat or Republican, The Liberty Bell’s true story reminds Americans of all stripes that our nation’s history—and future—belongs to us all. It challenges us to tear down systems that hold us captive and honor the price great men and women have paid to cast and re-cast the American mold to form a more perfect union.⁸

The story of the Liberty Bell and the nation it represents possesses the profound and essential content that it does because of how it points to a Divine Absolute and not just a desired political climate.

On May 2, 1778, General Washington issued the following General Orders:

The Commander in Chief directs that divine Service be performed every Sunday at 11 o’clock in those Brigades to which there are Chaplains—those which have none to attend the places of worship nearest to them—It is expected that Officers of all Ranks will by their attendance set an Example to their men.

While we are zealously performing the duties of good Citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion—To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian—The signal Instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete Success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of Gratitude & Piety to the Supreme Author of all Good.⁹

George Washington made frequent references to the Power and Goodness of God throughout his career as the Commanding General of the Continental Army as well as his time as Commander in Chief.

The fact that he made a point of ensuring that Christian worship services were held throughout the army he commanded and made it clear that he expected his officers to lead by example by being both present and engaged reveals the priority he placed on the acknowledgement of the “Supreme Author of all Good.”

While enduring the hardship and lethal challenges of the winter spent at Valley Forge, Washington directed his troops to set aside a day for thanksgiving and fasting. On December 18, 1777, Reverend Israel Evans delivered one of the sermons and Washington later wrote him to thank him. In that letter, he said:

…it will ever be the first wish of my heart to aid your pious endeavours to inculcate a due sense of the dependence we ought to place in that all-wise and powerful Being, on whom alone our success depends.¹⁰

1) “Declaration of Independence”, America’s Founding Documents, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript, accessed June 27, 2022

2) Ibid

3) “H. Rept. 33-124 – Chaplains in Congress and in the Army and Navy. March 27, 1854. Ordered to be printed, Committee on the Judiciary. March 27, 1854”, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-00743_00_00-004-0124-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-00743_00_00-004-0124-0000.pdf, accessed April 1, 2023

4) Ibid (you can also see this report referenced on the online copy of the Congressional Record of the Proceedings and Debates of the 87th Congress in Volume 108 – Part 13 that covers the activity from August 20, 1962 to August 30, 1962. It’s on page 17597 and can be accessed by heading out to https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional_Record/dKHcR9moGwkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=1854

5) “Treaty of Paris (1783)”, “Milestone Documents”, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-paris, accessed April 1, 2023

6) “National Park Service”, “The Liberty Bell”, https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/stories-libertybell.htm, accessed April 1, 2023

7) “Liberty Bell Tolls to Announce Declaration of Independence”, “History”, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/liberty-bell-tolls-to-announce-declaration-of-independence, accessed April 1, 2023

8) “Ben Carson: What You Don’t Know About The Liberty Bell”, Time Magazine, Dr. Ben Carson, August 24, 2016, https://time.com/4464934/ben-carson-liberty-bell-history/, accessed April 2, 2023

9) “General Orders, 2 May 1778, George Washington, “Founders Online”, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-15-02-0016, accessed March 7, 2023

10) “The Writings of George Washington, Volume V”, Jared Sparks, Russell, Odiorne and Metcalf & Hilliard, Gray and Company, Boston, 1834, https://books.google.com/books?id=UatV3YPhGVAC&pg=PA276&lpg=PA276&dq, accessed April 2, 2023

Those words penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow helped to immortalize the efforts of Paul Revere when he rode to Lexington, Massachusetts from Boston to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were on the move and enroute to arrest them as well as impound the cannon, gunpowder and ammunition stockpiled in Concord.²

Both Hancock and Adams were staying with the Reverend Jonas Clark.³ Clark’s home was familiar territory in that Hancock was the cousin of the young pastor’s wife.⁴ In addition, Clark was a passionate supporter of America’s quest for freedom. His sermons often referenced the tyranny represented by King George and how America’s pursuit of liberty was something that could be validated as a Biblically-based perspective.

You can hear that in the sermon he published the day after Revere completed his journey entitled, “The Fate of Bloodthirsty Oppressors, and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.”

On the 19^th of April, 1775, many of the minutemen that had squared off against His Majesty’s soldiers were members of Clark’s congregation. When the smoke had cleared, eight were dead and another ten were wounded.⁵

Pastor Clark’s text was Joel 3:19-21. He began by saying:

Next to the acknowledgement of the existence of a Deity, there is no one principle of greater importance in religion, than a realizing belief of the divine government and providence, to realize that God is Governor among the nations, that his government is wise and just, and that all our times and changes are in his hands…⁶

In other words, God is in charge. And it’s because of His Supervision that we can trust that His Justice will ultimately prevail, even when circumstances would suggest otherwise.

By referencing God’s Sovereignty, Clark wasn’t merely offering some general, pastoral comfort. He was reminding his congregation that however evil might be able to function despite the laws and ethics that would otherwise prevent it from happening, oppressors are ultimately defeated by God’s Divine Power and Justice.

In his sermon, Clark referred to the British as having shed innocent blood and calls them “sons of oppression and violence.”⁷ He then went on to say that the word spoken by the prophet Joel could be applied to the United States.

How far the prophecy before us, may be applicable, upon this solemn occasion, and with what degree of truth, or probability, it may be predicted, in consequence of the present unjust and unnatural war, “that Great-Britain shall be a desolation, and England be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of America, because they have shed INNOCENT BLOOD in their land: But America shall dwell forever, and this people from generation to generation. And the LORD himself will cleanse their blood, that he hath not already cleansed.” —How far (I say) this prophecy may be applicable, in the present interesting contest, and how far it may be accomplished in the issue thereof, God only knows, and time only can discover.—But of this we are certain, if we “humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God upon us, we shall be exalted, in his due time:” and if we rightly improve his dealings, “accept the punishment of our sins” and religiously trust in his name, we shall see his salvation. ⁸

There are times when a church sanctuary functions as an Emergency Room, where wounds are treated, and victims are placed on the road to recovery through the restorative Power of the Holy Spirit (Ps 6:2; 34:18; Jn 14:27; Jas 5:16).

But there are other instances where it’s a Locker Room, where strategies are being rehearsed, mistakes are being addressed and players are being encouraged so they’re sufficiently equipped to take the field and make a difference (2 Sam 5:24; Dt 31:6; Mk 11:23; Jn 14:12).

In his sermon, Clark would not merely utter spiritual sounding condolences nor would he advocate for a forgiving disposition to be extended to the British. Rather, he would reinforce the Scriptural Substance upon which America’s resolve to be free was based and it was that Foundation that would provide both the courage and the endurance necessary to win the Revolutionary War.

There is a time for all things (Ecc 3:1). There is a time to weep (Ecc 3:4), there is a time to wait (Ps 27:14) and there is a time to win (Ex 17:15; Josh 6:5; Lk 10:19; 1 Jn 4:4).

Do not miss the victory that is yours to claim because you’re focused more on the way you would define your circumstance according to what you can do rather than the way God defines it based on what He can do.

1. “Paul Revere’s Ride”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, https://poets.org/poem/paul-reveres-ride, accessed February 20, 2023
2. “The Real Story of Paul Revere’s Ride”, paulreverehouse.org, https://www.paulreverehouse.org/the-real-story/, accessed February 20, 2023
3. “Paul Revere’s Letter to Jeremy Belknap, ca. 1798 (abridged)”, “The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History”, https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Revere%20to%20Belknap%20abridged.pdf, accessed February 20, 2023
4. “Jonas Clarke – The Pastor Who Fired the Shot Heard Around the World”, “Christian Heritage Fellowship”, https://christianheritagefellowship.com/the-pastor-who-fired-the-shot-heard-around-the-world/, accessed February 20, 2023
5. “The Battles of Lexington and Concord”, Isaac Merrill, “Digital History”, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=129, accessed February 20, 2023
6. “Sermon – Battle of Lexington – 1776”, Wallbuilders, https://wallbuilders.com/sermon-battle-of-lexington-1776/, accessed February 20, 2023
7. Ibid
8. Ibid

Originally from Pennsylvania where he helped his father fill the pulpits of several Lutheran churches scattered throughout the area that didn’t have a full-time pastor, Peter Muhlenberg accepted a pastorate in Virginia in 1772.

By 1774, the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain was at a breaking point. The people of Dunmore County saw in their new pastor, not only a capable parson, but an exceptional leader and they nominated him to represent them in the House of Burgesses. Among this group of delegates was Colonel George Washington, representing Fairfax County and Patrick Henry, who in 1775 would deliver the iconic speech that concluded with the words, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

The sessions continued through January of 1776 and it was then that the appointment of officers in the newly formed Continental Army were announced.

At 29 years of age, with very little military experience, Peter Muhlenberg was nevertheless appointed a Colonel and given a command.

While he had served briefly in the British army, his appointment was due more to his capacity to lead than it was his knowledge of military tactics.

It proved to be a good decision, however, in that by the end of war, Peter Muhlenberg was a Major General.

What makes this significant is that Muhlenberg didn’t just pray for the soldiers in the Continental Army, he became one. And he didn’t just encourage them in battle, he led them in combat.

He and his men would see action throughout the war. They would be with Washington at Valley Forge, and it would be Muhlenberg who would assist in keeping Cornwallis contained at Yorktown which would ultimately lead to the surrender of the British army.

Faith in the absence of action is considered to be “dead” according to James 2:17.

There is a time for all things, even a time for war (Ecc 3:8). Joshua had to defeat Jericho, David had to fight Goliath and God made certain that those in Israel who had not participated in the Conquest of the Promised Land would still have to contend with sinister nations in order that they may learn how to function in a combat situation (Jud 3:1-2).

Muhlenberg saw the holy task represented by standing in the gap between tyranny and the populace it would subjugate. He didn’t regulate Christ’s reference to a sword in the New Testament as a metaphor but as a reinforcement of the way in which God sometimes both condones and empowers violence in order to defeat evil.

Obedience is not always convenient and sometimes it requires a significant amount of courage (Josh 1:9).

There is a time for war and when that time comes, you want to take your cue from Muhlenberg and those like him in that you don’t keep your distance from the battle and call it piety…

Rather, you run to the battle line and call on Him.

“The Fighting Parson of the American Revolution: A Biography of General Peter Muhlenberg” Edward Hocker, Lawrence Knorr, Sunbury Press, Inc. Mechanicsburg, PA, 1936, 2019