I. Introduction
This study will examine some political, social, religious, and philosophic understandings and beliefs regarding the relationship between the King in Parliament and the American colonists at the time between the end of the seven years’ war, 1763, and the beginning of the revolution, 1774. This knowledge will enable conclusions to be drawn regarding the influencing factors. Once findings are presented, the reader will be able to know the events and some of the beliefs of Patriots and evaluate the relative weight and value of the causes presented with respect to the initiation of the war.
There are many key factors and events that took place 1763 to 1774 that led to the revolution. We must examine their impact to each group and how they may connect to one another. We may be able to see causal relationships between the following concepts weighing on the minds of colonists and others, and on members of both houses of Parliament and the King of England. We must consider the various Acts of Parliament concerning the American colonies. The Sugar Act, The Stamp Act, The Declaratory Acts, Quartering Act, Townshend Act, the Boston Massacre, the Repeal of the Townshend Act, the Tea Act, difficulties policing the Trans-Appalachia region, the recognition of the Catholic Church in Canada, the fear, and rumblings about posting a Bishop of the Anglican Church in the Colonies, The Coercive Acts, all this and more was piling up against the colonial Patriot. The further interpretations of writers of the era, Locke, Sidney, Bolingbroke, and others regarding all this turmoil was incitement aplenty to go around.
How were all these events taken in and internalized by those affected? How deeply ingrained were legacy religious tenets and teachings? What role did the people’s religious faith play in their understanding of how to deal with all these political circumstances that so affected their lives? How important were religious beliefs and practices in molding American Patriot actions in this period? How widely were the political and religious philosophers of the era read, studied, and understood by the American Patriots?
As any historian will readily admit, a plethora of literature and data exists regarding this timeframe and the players involved. There are writings by many of the prime players. There are proceedings of all the governments involved, available in detail. There are contemporary Sermons on topic throughout the period. There are newspapers and broadsides and advertisements all speaking to the conflicts and concepts. Countless scholarly analyses have been undertaken and written to explain and connect the causal agents. Key theories in the literature revolve around economic, religious, political, and social historiographies. We must determine the best fit of these to understand which or which combinations may explain our theories.
From the knowledge base we have available we will not need to discover new factors of influence. Factors will need to be weighed in relation to each other to find how they were intermixed to move the population to revolution. Our thesis is that the deep Calvinist Christian religious beliefs of a great number of American Colonists was necessary to underpin the response of most Patriots. This influence emanated from 1620 and the Puritan Fathers and the French Huguenots of New Amsterdam, down through the ages, to the exhorters of the Great Awakening of the late 1730’s and 1740’s, and rang true to the Patriots of the 1770’s. This analysis will be a qualitative look at relevant factors and concepts. Enough connective tissue evidence exists to understand the ideals and sentiments over time of these Christian men and women. With this understanding we may see the religious DNA that flows from the reformation to early colonial times and on to the revolutionary era Patriots; from the ideas of Calvin and Luther with perfections wrought by Puritanism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, Evangelicalism, and Christians of every denomination that existed through that time.
This study will reintroduce the current generation to the actual thinking and beliefs of the 1770’s populace in the American Colonies. Once reacquainted with how the events of the day were interpreted by the people, considering their 200-year legacy of Calvinist religious resistance theology, the only viable alternative course of action was Revolution. Ultimately, we may conclude: John Calvin started the American Revolution!
II. The Inculcation of America; Calvinism
Lets’ start with the facts as we know them. According to Daniel Dreisbach the “spread of Protestantism in the first half of the sixteenth century transformed Europe’s religious landscape. … The rapidly expanding influence of the reformation was met with Catholic opposition – an aggressive, often violent, Catholic Counter-Reformation.” This opposition began the militarization of the conflict and the end of the passive instincts of the early Reformers.[1] Protestant resistance theology became entrenched through a series of civil wars in France from 1562 – 1598 reaching a climax August 24, 1572 with the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of two to three thousand Huguenots in Paris.[2] The first settlers that arrived to populate the Colonies in New Amsterdam were mostly Walloon Huguenots fleeing religious persecution and trying to find a new life in a new world where they could worship as they wished in a tolerant government atmosphere. Likewise, the first settlers in Massachusetts at Plymouth were there motivated by freedom of religion as well as being free of interference from the government.[3] All these people were Calvinists fleeing from government and church oppression just trying to find space in the world to follow their conscience with respect to their families’ religious lives and to avoid a King who detested them. Calvinist belief was the core conscience of the first settlers. A belief in the sinfulness of man and the understanding that passion often triumphed over virtue, the dignity of labor that could structure and give meaning to life, came directly from Calvin’s teachings.[4] In the ensuing years new colonists in the hundreds of thousands trod the same path to the new world for essentially the same reasons.
III. The Lineage and Intersection of Religious and Political Thought
The Geneva Bible was the book they read and worshiped from. Imbued with Calvinist doctrine, Patriots had an extraordinarily strong belief in the natural rights of man endowed by God the Creator. Their beliefs ran to self-governance in church and state. The Church Compact was Governing Law, and the Ruling Elder or the Pastor was to make it so. Each Member of the Congregation had equal say in church affairs. This foundation withstood the growth of the colonies for the next 175 years along with similar precepts of government and religion. The Patriots of the revolutionary era largely adhered to the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, New Light, thinking that tended to validate God given natural rights that, when disrespected by authority, must be renewed by any means available. Throughout the next two hundred years religion was periodically renewed through revival and camp meetings. Many charismatic and eloquent preachers came along to revive the congregations and convert the nonbelievers. Until the revolution and beyond, most Americans had an extreme respect for God and the church that was directly inculcated by the original colonists.
Contracts, Covenants, and Compacts
The Mayflower Compact, signed by all the adult males on the Mayflower, is a clear forerunner of todays Constitution in that civilizations must have an agreement about how they will be governed, and all the people must agree for it to be valid.[5] Once landed, Puritan pilgrims began to tend the church and set forth the governing principles for all members. ‘The Puritan Way’ became the recognized standard as “the first generation of settlers began to believe they could achieve the total reform of life that had eluded them in old England.”[6]
Patents, Proprietorships, Self-Government
Plymouth and other original Plantations were usually Patented by the King to allow for some form of Self-government. The people set up the government and chose the Governor every year. In the New Amsterdam colony, government was through a director appointed by the Government in the Hague. The Governor usually appointed a group of advisors to help administer the business of state. In most cases of Colonial Government there was also a Congress or Assembly of sorts that enacted laws for administration by the Governor. Some colonies were ruled by a Proprietor who functioned as a Lord and established rules for the Colonists to live by. [7] For over 150 years the colonies enjoyed a form of self-government and relative freedom from direct taxation. They felt like they enjoyed the benefits of Englishmen in sharing their constitution and common representation through local representatives, acting through the Governor.
IV. The Contribution of the Great Awakening to Revolution
Weather they followed Calvin or Calvin’s disciples like Henry Knox or John Winthrop, Gilbert Tennent and Johnathan Edwards, George Whitefield and John Wesley, the reasoning and conviction was the same[8]. Evangelical fervor in the colonies cemented and inculcated Protestant resistance theology set loose by the Catholic Church Officials, Monarchs, and Oligarchs of Europe between 1564 and 1598.
Puritanism, Congregationalism, and Presbyterianism
The early Puritan John Winthrop, a man of devout conviction and also Governor of Massachusetts for most of the first two decades of the colony’s existence, set the tone of not only church membership but also passing laws in the colonies to ensure faithfulness of the population.[9] The Cambridge Platform of 1648 was called together by the Massachusetts legislative assembly to ensure a positive statement about Congregationalism was made to cement a Calvinist view through the affirmation of the Westminster Confession that had just been prepared in England. The church fathers in the colony were alerted to a few residents who made a case for Presbyterianism. This Cambridge Platform is the early Puritan’s authoritative statement about how Congregationalists thought their churches should be governed. Again, this was societies way to embrace Calvinism as their way of life in religion as well as politics.[10]
Whitefield and Edwards
George Whitefield was the most famous person in the colonies in the 1740’s and 1750’s. Preaching out of doors “directing the message of salvation to common people neglected by the established churches.”[11] In the seminal event of the ‘Great Awakening’ in the fall of 1740, Whitefield preached to crowds of 8 to 10,000 people nearly every day for a month. Whitefield returned often through the years to renew the American Calvinist ethos, finally passing in 1770 during another American preaching tour.
Johnathan Edwards may have been Americas most important Theologian and Apologist of the Great Awakening era. Edwards espoused a view of man’s true conversion or relationship with God being not good works in society, but rather the special feeling in the heart to love God and do his work on earth. In his book Freedom of the Will in 1754, reinforced the teachings of Calvin about the nature of man.[12] Edwards was instrumental in bringing thousands to a more perfect relationship of the heart with God. His understanding and exposition of Calvinist beliefs in the morality of man coming directly from and only from a heartfelt connection to God and the Bible was a foundational understanding of New England society.
Revivalism and Evangelicalism thru the 1770’s
The precursor of modern American politics was certainly the revival. Randal Balmer in his book The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond, describes Evangelicalism as a combination of “Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, Continental Pietism, and the vestiges of New England Puritanism.”[13] From the 1730’s and yet today, Evangelicalism is marked by a belief in the infallibility of the bible, the crucifixion of Jesus, being ‘Born Again’ in Christ, and actively recruiting for the faith. Revivals and Camp Meetings served as a vehicle for Evangelicals to practice their faith. Meetings, torchlight parades, tents pitched in the countryside, urgent calls for conversion, demonstrations of Godly communications, fervent commitment to cause, all served as a template for political activism then and forward through time in America. Most of these same attributes are ascribed to the political meetings of the revolution.[14] Current political conventions mimic many of the trappings of Evangelical Revival of the 1700’s.
VI Conclusion
Every Citizen performs actions based on her conscience. The conscience is built on the most tightly held beliefs about the subject of the act. In the case of participating in the Revolution, Patriots acted on their most basic beliefs. The belief in Providence as well as the belief that God did not want a tyrant to trample on the natural rights that He provided to all. The belief that their obligation to God was resistance to such a Tyrant. The culture of these Patriot colonists from the first Puritans and Huguenots to the Scotch, Irish, German, and Dutch who came to populate these shores was steeped in Calvinism. These beliefs were renewed periodically through revival and evangelical movements of New Light and New Side believers through the close adherence to church precepts in the 1600’s, and the renewal of devout feelings and relationship with God of the 1700’s. American Patriots of the Revolution felt justified in rebellion because of their Calvinistic Protestant faith in God and his teachings. John Patrick Diggins puts forth the Neo-Lockean view. Understanding the intersection of Calvinism and Lockeanism; natural rights preservation, governments based on the consent of the governed, equality of man, explains the near unanimity of belief for the Patriot masses.[15]
Once they came under fire of parliament in a string of Acts designed in their minds to subjugate them to an unjust power without benefit of representation, the ‘covenant’ with the King in Parliament became irreparable. This string of wrongs perpetrated by Parliament, as we discussed earlier, the Sugar Act, The Stamp Act, The Declaratory Acts, Quartering Act, Townshend Act, the Boston Massacre, the Repeal of the Townshend Act, the Tea Act, difficulties policing the Trans-Appalachia region, the recognition of the Catholic Church in Canada, the fear, and rumblings about posting a Bishop of the Anglican Church in the Colonies, The Coercive Acts, all this and more was piling up against the colonial patriot. It would not have had influence if these indignities were more, less, or other. The fact was, they were forced on the Patriots without the benefit of representation. Their rights as Englishmen had been infringed (The Magna Carta, The English Constitution of 1688). Slavery to the Crown, or Revolution, were the only choices the Colonists could make. Most of the Colonists were of one mind regarding the obligation of religious resistance. They all had access to the same broadsides and newspapers. They heard similar sermons from the pulpit. They read the same news from England and Parliament. They had universal respect for leaders in Congress and their opinions. These Congregational leaders held positions of authority as great or greater than the local Pastor. So, when they wrote, ratified, and published the Declaration of Independence, to the majority of American Patriots, it was as if John Calvin had written it himself. The Colonists were commanded by their religious culture and Calvinist beliefs to resist a Tyrannical King.
[1] Daniel L. Dreisbach, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2017), 116
[2] Ibid., 118
[3] Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), xiv
[4]Alan Ray Gibson, Interpreting the Founding: Guide to the Enduring Debates over the Origins and Foundations of the American Republic (Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 17
[5] Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 281
[6]Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992), 37
[7] Colonial Records (State, 1838), 486-94
[8] Dennis Barone, “James Logan and Gilbert Tennant: Enlightened Classicist Versus Awakened Evangelist,” Early American Literature 21, no. 2 (September 1986): 103, https://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=5412127&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
[9] Noll, A History of Christianity, 38
[10] Ibid, 39
[11] Ibid, 81
[12] Philip J. Fisk, “Jonathan Edwards’s Freedom of the Will and His Defence [Sic] of the Impeccability of Jesus Christ,” Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 3 (2007): 309–25, http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1017/S0036930607003304.
[13] Randall Balmer, The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond (Baylor University Press, 2017), 2
[14] Noll, A History of Christianity, 527
[15] Alan Ray Gibson, Interpreting the Founding: Guide to the Enduring Debates Over the Origins and Foundations of the American Republic (University Press of Kansas, 2006), 17-8
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