Pastors influence had extraordinary effect in the lead up to and after the Revolutionary War but are they now restricted in having an influence in today’s culture.
When you go back to the Revolution and look at people who were actually there and participated–like John Adams–from start to finish, he signed the Declaration, he signed the peace treaty to end it. John Adams, in 1816, when giving a list of who is most responsible for independence in America, went through and said, “Well, you’ve got the Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper, the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew, George Whitefield, Reverend Charles–” Preachers?
Not only Adams point to it, the British did as well. The British were the ones who named the American preachers “The Black Robed Regiment.” And, the British said, “If it hadn’t been for the preachers, America would still be a happy British colony.”
The British called them the Black Robed Regiment, a military name and also went after them in a military manner. When they came to America and were going through the various states, the British burned church after church after church. They went to New York City, 19 churches burned, 10 to the ground. The British went across New Jersey burning churches, then across Virginia burning churches. We lost 4,300 soldiers to British bullets and lost 11,400 soldiers to prisoner of war camps; but, when a preacher got put in a prisoner of war camp, you can just about count that off, they were killed as traitors quickly, because they blamed them for the Revolution.
They specifically blamed them for the Revolution. Later John Adams would point to preachers as the root source of strength and catalyst for the Revolution. And, historians have documented that every single right set forth in the Declaration of Independence had been preached from the American pulpit prior to 1763. That means the Declaration Independence is nothing more than listening to the sermons we’d be hearing in church leading up to the Revolution. Now, we used to study that; here are some old books. This is one called The Chaplains and Clergy of the American Revolution. It’s an old book, 1860’s. You can find it online. People can read it at Google Books. It talks about all these preachers who built America. In The Pulpit of the American Revolution, also from 1860’s, includes the famous sermons that were preached that shaped America, listing the preachers and their sermons. A great example is a guy named the Reverend John Wise. He preached America in the 1680’s. He did two books in 1710 and 1717, talking about rights. He preached that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. He’s already preached that according to the Bible, when you look at taxes, taxation without representation is tyranny. He’s already preached that when you look at forms of government in the Bible, that the consent of the governed is what God prefers. In 1772, the Founding Fathers took his sermons and printed them in this book. This is from 1772; they spread this all over America. They wanted Americans thinking right. And so, they re-published his sermons; two years later they had to reprint it because it was so popular. Two years after that, they write the Declaration, and guess what. What he preached 100 years before were included in our Decoration of independence.
In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, religion did not get a lot of sound bites. It should be noted that without exception, the Framers were Christian or, at the very least, deists (generally, deists believe in a single god who set the universe on its course and then stepped back to watch; some deists believe their deity is the same God of Judeo-Christian tradition, some do not). There were no Jews or Muslims, no Hindus or atheists, and only two Roman Catholics. There were members of more than a half-dozen sects of the Protestant side of Christianity, though. Disagreements about style and method of worship between them were nearly as vast and incongruous as any seen today between, say, Jews and Muslims, such that the Framers wanted to ensure that no one sect could ever seize control of a government and start a theocracy.
The Framers thought that they had constructed a very complete and comprehensive document. But many people disagreed, and though the opposition had many issues with the Constitution, they focused on one in particular: the lack of a bill of rights.
Almost all of the state constitutions contained bills of rights — rights that the people of the states were guaranteed to enjoy regardless of any law or rule to the contrary. The supporters of the Constitution felt that a bill of rights was unneeded at best, because the federal government was not allowed to legislate on issues it had no direct mandate to do so, and dangerous at worst, because a list of rights could necessarily limit the rights of the people.
In the end, many supporters of the Constitution, including one of the most prominent, James Madison, agreed to support a bill of rights in the Constitution, if it could be ratified. Several of the states included suggested amendments, including rights of the people, in their ratification documents. The push was on for a bill of rights in the Constitution. Madison was true to his word — on June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison rose and gave a speech in the House where he introduced a series of articles of amendment. One concerned religious freedom:
The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.
So, you look at all these preachers and at what we had in the beginning. America would not be the nation it is with the rights we have if it hadn’t been for preachers. And, that’s why John Adams lists all these preachers as being responsible for what we enjoy in America today.
The First Amendment is not a secularized government in any way, shape, fashion, or form; it is to limit government from secular rights in society. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The only limitation in the First Amendment is what Congress can’t do; it’s not what pastors can’t do or what churches can’t do.
It’s not what religious individuals can’t do. It only says, “Congress, you can’t set up a national religion;” and, “Congress, you can’t stop anybody from expressing their faith.”
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