Justifying Revolution: The American Clergy’s Argument for Political Resistance, 1750-1776, by Gary L. Steward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 221 pp. $74.00.
The alleged Christian origins of the American Revolution have and will continue to be a subject of significant controversy among scholars. One important aspect of this discussion is the role of the colonial clergy in promoting political resistance to encroachments by the British government, thus fueling the American War of Independence. According to historians such as Nathan Hatch, Mark Noll, and George Marsden, such advocacy by these ministers represented a significant departure from biblical teaching and the traditional Protestant doctrine of obedience to civil authorities. These preachers simply appropriated the contemporary political ideas of the Enlightenment. Until relatively recently this has been the prevalent thesis among American historians, including those who identify as evangelicals like the ones mentioned above. However, there is an increasing body of scholarship that has challenged this longstanding narrative, contending that these ministers operated within a specific theological framework in propounding their political ideas. A valuable contribution to this scholarship is Justifying Revolution: The American Clergy’s Argument for Political Resistance, 1750-1776 by Gary L. Steward. In this important work, Steward, concentrating on the crucial twenty-five-year period, leading to the Declaration of Independence, argues that the colonial clergy, preaching stridently against the Crown and Parliament’s unwarranted intrusions on the rights of the colonies, did so by drawing considerably from a substantive political theology that contained a vigorous resistance theory which has its source in the Reformation. Steward supports his thesis by means of close examination of a wide range of representative sermons within their immediate political, cultural, and intellectual context. Steward furthermore traces the content of these sermons to their confessional theological sources.
Chapter 1 analyzes the political resistance theory of the Boston Congregationalist minister Jonathan Mayhew. Mayhew argued for his resistance theory in his 1750 sermon, Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. This sermon significantly influenced John Adams and other participants in the Revolution. Throughout this chapter, the author analyzes Mayhew’s arguments both in the light of eighteenth-century discussions in Britain and the antecedent theological tradition that Mayhew appropriated. In so doing, Steward argues that Mayhew did not depart from this longstanding Protestant theological tradition. In essence, the sermon is a reassertion of ideas that derive from the Reformed Protestantism of the sixteenth century. Even though Mayhew held generally to an unorthodox theology, yet his political theology accorded almost identically with that of contemporary orthodox ministers.
Chapter 2 examines the clergy’s doctrine of resistance as directed against the Stamp Act in 1765. The clergy’s advocacy of resistance towards this Act of Parliament developed against the background of clerical arguments advanced after the removal of Governor Edmund Andros in 1689. Andros’s tyrannical reign over New England was still quite vivid in the collective memory of the colonists, and allusions to him by ministers in their sermons served to fuel even more fury against the Stamp Act. The pre-Revolutionary resistance to Andros, Steward observes, provides the necessary context for understanding how the clergy themselves perceived not only the ethical legitimacy, but moral duty to resist political authorities when they transgress the rights of those whom they govern. These considerations thus provided the basis for colonial resistance to British agents endeavoring to enforce the Stamp Act.
Chapter 3, probably one of the most fascinating chapters of this work, explores the fears felt by many American clergy regarding religious liberty on the eve of the Revolution. Colonial clergy were especially troubled by rising political absolutism in England that posed, in their estimation, a formidable threat both to civil and religious freedom. In this regard, Steward argues very persuasively based on careful study of primary sources that religious issues factored prominently in the final severance of the colonies from Great Britain. Of particular interest is Steward’s engaging discussion of the consternation generated over fears of British plans to impose Episcopal bishops upon the colonies. Especially enlightening is Steward’s examination of the arguments given by the Anglican clergyman, Thomas Bradbury Chandler, in support of a strictly pastoral bishop for parishes in the colonies who would exercise no political jurisdiction as was the case with prelates in Britain. This aspect of the chapter coincides very well with S. Scott Rohrer’s recent study of Chandler published by Penn State University Press. Coupled with an emerging Roman Catholic presence in North America, calls for resistance to the British government by clergy only intensified.
Chapter 4 examines the arguments by American clergy for political resistance throughout the 1770s, especially in response to Parliament’s passage of the Intolerable Acts. As major sectors of colonial society suffered immensely because of these Acts, particularly in Massachusetts, the clergy’s justification of political resistance turned to sustained theological validations for self-defense.
Chapter 5 calls attention to the increasing number of British clergy who affirmed the doctrine of political resistance in defense of the American cause throughout the 1760s and 1770s, drawing on the same political theology which had been firmly established within English Protestantism—even within the Anglican establishment.
Chapter 6 explores the political discourse of clergy at the time of the Declaration of Independence, focusing primarily on the thought of one of its signers, the theologian John Witherspoon. Throughout this chapter, Steward maintains that despite changes in political loyalties by 1776, the political philosophy of the clergy remained consistent. Highlighting Witherspoon in this regard, Steward contends that he steadily advocated political resistance in opposition to absolutism throughout his career, drawing heavily from his Reformed theological tradition, differing substantially from radicals like Thomas Paine. Hence, rather than representing a shift in his ethical and philosophical views, Witherspoon’s support of independence denoted an assertion of his theological heritage.
Chapter 7 concludes the work by highlighting the broader implications of the clergy’s thought regarding political resistance during this period. The clergy’s advocacy of political resistance cannot serve to support the idea of a shift in American Protestant thought but an assertion of a received theological tradition. Moreover, the clergy’s theories of political resistance show that the American Revolution cannot be understood in purely secular terms, confirming the religious nature of most people’s thought processes during this period.
Written in a lively and engaging style, Justifying Revolution is thoroughly researched, firmly establishing its argument on copious primary sources. Very importantly, this work takes seriously not only the political context of the American Revolution but also the substantial religious and theological factors that contributed to this event. In short, this work confirms the conveniently overlooked fact that America’s War of Independence was a theological as well as a political conflict. Justifying Revolution is suitable for upper undergraduate and graduate level courses in early American Christianity. It is a welcomed addition to the vast body of scholarly literature that is increasingly confirming the complicated, but nevertheless unambiguous, role Protestant Christian thought played in the formation of the United States.
