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The American Revolution was sometimes called the “Presbyterian Rebellion”

May 18, 2018

The Founding

American colonial ministers and clergy who supported the Revolutionary War were often called the “Black Regiment” because of their black robes. Their pro-revolutionary sermons and preaching were a powerful influence and moral support for American colonists prior to and during the Revolutionary War.

Prior to and during the American Revolution, American colonists of the 1700s intensely debated and discussed whether it was biblical to defend their rights and freedoms and go to war with Britain. Those who opposed revolution were called “loyalists” or “Tories” of King George III and Britain. Those who supported revolution were often called “patriots” or “Whigs” after the pro-reform political party in England.

The Bible was often at the center of colonists’ discussions, sermons, and political writings regarding revolution. In addition, many widely-read historical and religious writings published prior to this period (including pseudonymed Stephen Junius Brutus’s 1579 Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants) and John Locke’s 1689 Second Treatise on Civil Government) supported the principles of right of resistance tyranny, natural rights, and popular sovereignty in American political thought based on the Bible. The Bible and Judeo-Christian ideas had such a strong influence on the American Revolution that some loyalists referred to the war as the “Presbyterian Rebellion.”

James Caldwell at the Battle of Springfield by Henry Alexander Ogden. Caldwell was a Presbyterian minister who played a significant role in the American Revolution.

Some loyalists referred to the revolution as a “Presbyterian Rebellion” after the Presbyterian church movement that came out of the Protestant Reformation. (The Presbyterians, as it were, governed their churches by a group of equal, elected leaders and representative courts.) While patriot colonists in the thirteen colonies comprised many different religious sects, some loyalists referred to the war as Presbyterian with a focus on the Presbyterian churches in New England where the Boston Tea Party occurred. The New England Presbyterians, along with many other religious groups in America, espoused the ideas of political resistance and popular sovereignty, of European religious and political reformers. Many such colonists, for example, favored the people’s right of resistance and religious tolerance, and they opposed the Divine Right of Kings and absolute rule.

As such, one loyalist, Rev. William Jones, told the British government in 1776 that the revolution was instigated by Presbyterians who were “Calvinists by profession, and Republicans in their politics” and that “this has been a Presbyterian war from the beginning.” Another loyalist in New York wrote in 1774 about the Presbyterians, “I fix all the blame for these extraordinary American proceedings upon them. Believe me, the Presbyterians have been the chief and principle instruments in all these flaming measures.”

American Founder John Adams later in 1821 reflected on and affirmed the influence of Reformed Christian political thought on the American Founding, writing in a letter,

Whether rightly or wrongly applied, the political principles of the American Revolution were, as Gary T. Amos observes in his Defending the Declaration: How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence, “an inheritance left to colonial Americans by earlier generations of Christian writers.” These principles included the people’s right of resistance, natural rights, and popular sovereignty as opposed to the Divine Right of Kings and absolute rule. This heritage of Western political thought had developed over centuries and laid the groundwork for the American Revolution and the founding of the new nation of the United States.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source:
Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Poster: Declaration of Independence

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 6, Part 1, Activity 3: Principles of the American Revolution, p. 205, 354-356. MS-HS.

Principles of the American Revolution

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the historical context of the American Revolution and the Bible-based principle of freedom that drove the colonists to support revolution against Britain.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 6 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections 6.1 and 6.2 in particular.
2) Essay/Handout: Principles of the American Revolution by Angela E. Kamrath found in the “Supporting Resources” of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 354-356, or in the “Miracle of America Snapshots” handout under member resources at americanheritage.org.
3) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Reading and Questions:
Have students read the “Principles of the American Revolution” handout and, as desired, relevant sections in Miracle of America sourcebook as indicated on the handout. (The Miracle book is high-level reading, so if you wish to have students read directly from the book, assign specific sections and then analyze and discuss the reading together as a class. You may wish to project some text on-screen. Answer questions, clarify vocabulary, and fill in other information as needed. The text analysis will help students grasp the terms and concepts, and it is great practice for having students read historical text.) After the reading, have students write answers to the questions that follow on the handout. See “Principles of the American Revolution” handout and review questions in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, pp. 354-356. Review questions are also found in Chapter 6 of the Miracle of America sourcebook, p. 175.

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To download this whole unit, sign up as an AHEF member (no cost) to access the “resources” page on americanheritage.org. To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the AHEF bookstore.

The Bible was the Most Cited Source of the American Founding Era

May 11, 2018

The Founding

The Bible had a definite influence on the American Revolution and on the founding of our nation. During the revolutionary era, colonists debated fiercely over whether revolution was acceptable according to the Bible. While some colonists opposed revolution as unbiblical, many colonists supported it as biblical. Those who supported revolution were often called “patriots” or “Whigs” after the pro-reform political party in England. Many patriot revolutionary leaders, congressional delegates, founders, clergy and ministers, and other colonists spoke and wrote in support of the cause of liberty from the Bible—educating, uniting, and mobilizing Americans for the cause and its principles.

In confirmation of this point, a groundbreaking study by Donald S. Lutz, as discussed in his 1988 The Origins of American Constitutionalism, shows that the Bible was the most frequently cited source in the political literature of 1760-1805 that influenced American political thought. This literature included both secular writings and ministers’ sermons. The secular European thinkers that Lutz found to be most influential to American political thought and writings were Charles de Montesquieu, John Locke, and William Blackstone. These thinkers all cited or drew from the Bible and/or a God-centered, Judeo-Christian worldview. Due to the frequency of biblical citations, Lutz observes,

The frequent use of the Bible in the public and private writings of the Founding era reveals the Bible’s strong cultural influence in society during that time. Americans’ frequent references to the Bible in public discourse, asserts Daniel L. Dreisbach in his 2011 essay “The Bible in the Political Rhetoric of the American Founding” in Politics and Religion, “reveals as much about the Bible’s place in the hearts and minds of their audiences as it does about them.” The Bible, he points out, was the lingua franca of the late 1700s, the “most authoritative, accessible, and familiar literary text in America.” Americans, Dreisbach elaborates, held a strong spiritual and moral belief in the Bible and viewed this book as relevant to all areas of life and society. They saw in the Bible a God who cares about mankind and human events, and they searched this book to understand how God might be involved in their nation’s development.

Thus, in addition to Whig revolutionary political thought and other influences, the Bible and religion were, as confirmed by statistical and contextual research, a significant influence—if not the most important influence—on the American Revolution and the new nation. The fact that the Bible was intensively debated and discussed among Founding-era Americans reveals its importance to and influence on the revolutionary generation and the revolution itself. Moreover, it reveals that Americans, after the revolution, looked to the Bible more than any other source for guidance on the founding, formation, and structure of our new nation, the United States of America.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Sources:
Lutz, Donald S. The Origins of American Constitutionalism. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State U Press, 1988.
Dreisbach, Daniel L. “The Bible in the Political Rhetoric of the American Founding.” Politics and Religion 4, issue 3 (Dec 2011): 401-427.
Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Poster: Declaration of Independence

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 6, Part 1, Activity 3: Principles of the American Revolution, p. 205, 354-356. MS-HS.

Principles of the American Revolution

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the historical context of the American Revolution and the Bible-based principle of freedom that drove the colonists to support revolution against Britain.

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The American Revolution: An Introduction

May 4, 2018

The Founding

The Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull, 1818-1819. U. S. Capitol Rotunda, Washington DC.

From the time they first settled in America, in what became the original Thirteen Colonies, the American colonists had enjoyed English rights under British law. These rights came from their colonial charters, the Magna Carta of 1215, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. What is more, colonists had also enjoyed minimal rule and supervision from Britain. They were therefore free to set up their own assemblies and govern themselves. By the 1700s, the American colonies had formed and lived by self-governed, elective, representative colonial assemblies for nearly 150 years. America’s changing relationship and circumstances with Britain in the 1700s, however, challenged the colonists’ way of life and led to events that would change the course of history.

In the 1760s and 1770s, tensions arose between colonists and Britain as King George III and British Parliament, failing to recognize the colonists’ governing assemblies, imposed regulations on colonial trade and commerce in America. While colonists tried to avoid conflict with Britain, they questioned Britain’s right to intrude in their affairs after a century of very little interference. As colonists protested, Britain only tightened its control, escalating conflict.

Opposition to British rule was strongest in Boston, Massachusetts. Following the Boston Tea Party of 1773, British Parliament attempted to revoke the charter of Massachusetts and submit the colony to British rule. Avid defenders of their rights, many colonists saw British policies and taxes as unjust violations of their rights and civil law. They had serious concerns about corruption, the loss of Rule of Law and their freedoms, the possibility of an enforced national church, and subservience to Britain. The rights violated by the British, colonists cited, included no taxation without representation, trial by jury, innocence until proven guilt, due process of law, freedom of travel in peacetime, no quartering of troops in private homes in peacetime, and no standing army in peacetime without consent. The church issue that concerned colonists was the possibility that Britain might impose the national Church of England in the colonies, for the church had proposed to appoint a bishop in America. Though not supported by the British government and never realized, the proposal was seen as a potential threat to the religious tolerance gained during the Great Awakening. The issue, say historians, added to anti-British sentiment.

Since colonists had no elected representative in Parliament, they had no say on laws enacted by Britain. As Britain’s policies became more intrusive in America, colonists’ lack of representation and lack of justification by British law or Crown to claim it, left them in a powerless position by which to assert themselves and their rights as free Englishmen. When Parliament denied violations of colonists’ rights and claimed that Americans were indirectly represented in Britain, many Americans responded in the same way that early American minister Rev. Stephen Johnson did: “‘Tis ridiculous to common sense that two millions of free people can be represented by a representative elected by no one of them.” The Americans, in fact, wanted more than representation overseas. They wanted to govern themselves.

In 1774, American representative delegates from each colony convened as the first national governing assembly in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia to represent and unify the colonies, create a militia, and repudiate Britain’s policies. Led by radical delegates Samuel Adams and John Adams of Massachusetts, and Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, the Congress issued a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances.” This proclamation declared that the colonists were entitled to life, liberty, and property based on the Law of Nature, the English constitution, and their charters and compacts. They did not forfeit English rights, they asserted, when migrating to America. Nor did they give power to any earthly authority to remove these rights. Further, they had a right, they declared, to participate in legislative councils that enacted laws in their colonies. They were entitled, in fact, to exclusive power in their colonial assemblies over internal policies and taxation. All legislation and taxes should be enacted by themselves and with their consent. King George III, however, rejected this proclamation and responded, “The New England governments are now in a state of rebellion. Blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or to be independent.”

In a last effort to avoid full-blown war with Great Britain, the Second Continental Congress adopted the “Olive Branch Petition” in July 1775 that affirmed American allegiance to Britain and implored the king for a peaceful resolution. The king, however, rejected this petition as well. Its rejection sent a message to colonists that they had to choose between complete independence or complete submission to British rule. For their independence and freedom, the American colonists would have to fight.

Americans who favored independence thought much like colonist William Prescott of Massachusetts who expressed, …

The Americans would pledge their lives, fortunes, and honor for their cause.

Following the battles at Lexington and Concord between American colonists and the British army, and finding peace with Britain impossible, delegates to the Second Continental Congress–including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston–drafted the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and declaring the colonies a new, independent nation. The Declaration asserted that the colonists, as equals, had the natural, unalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” based on the “Law of Nature and Nature’s God.” It announced the formation of a new government based on the “consent of the governed.” The American colonies thus joined together to become the United States of America, beginning a new era in human history.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source for more information: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Third Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015, 2020. Third edition (2020) now available!

Poster: Declaration of Independence

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 6, Part 1, Activity 3: Principles of the American Revolution, p. 205, 354-356. MS-HS.

Principles of the American Revolution

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the historical context of the American Revolution and the Bible-based principle of freedom that drove the colonists to support revolution against Britain.

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How the Great Awakening Impacted American Unity, Democracy, Freedom, & Revolution

April 27, 2018

The Founding

The Apostle Paul exhorts believers in Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

The “Great Awakening,” the Christian evangelical revival that took place in colonial America in the mid-1700s, had political undercurrents that notably affected American society prior to the American Revolution. The revival impacted Americans’ views and values with regard to personal and national identity, unity, democratic equality, and civil freedom.

As America’s first inter-colonial or “national” event, say historians, the Awakening created a new national awareness and identity among colonists. Inter-colonial preaching tours, increased communication, and shared religious and spiritual experiences during the revival facilitated connections and solidarity among colonists. Previously, all colonies were fairly self-contained and had little contact with one another. Charter conflicts were addressed directly with England. (An exception was the 1643 New England Confederation of Puritan Colonies which united some colonies for safety.) However, when the revival came, itinerant ministers like George Whitefield traveled and preached throughout all the colonies for the first time. Colonists corresponded about and discussed revival with other ministers and residents in different colonies. Due to greater travel and communication among regions, revival decreased geographical separation. Though many churches and denominations became more fragmented, colonists in different regions forged a common identity based on their largely shared knowledge and experiences, beliefs and values—which led to a greater sense of unity as a people. Indeed, the Awakening made the American colonies more spiritually, politically, and geographically unified and distinct from Europe. The revival, explains Ellis Sandoz in his Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America, prompted the “experiential formation of the rudiments of an American community of shared convictions rooted in faith rising above and beyond colonial and merely British identities.”[1] In his History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, Mark A. Noll elaborates: …

As such, the revival was not only an awakening to God but to national consciousness.

The Great Awakening also influenced democratic ideas before and during the Revolutionary War. Revivalist beliefs that human beings are made in God’s image and equal before God supported human dignity, equality, and natural rights and thus more democratic thought. The empowering of the church laity at this time also encouraged democratic thinking. In America and England, H. Richard Niebuhr observes in his Kingdom of God in America, “the Christian enlightenment stood beside the rational enlightenment in the battle for democracy.”[3] Mark Noll et al. in Search for Christian America describe the Awakening as the “democratic republicanism of the 1770s.”[4]

Moreover, the Revivalists’ quest for spiritual liberty benefited the American move toward civil liberty and democracy. For Revivalists used terms in public discussion such as …

Indeed, the Great Awakening and the American Revolution—considered by historians to be the two most significant events in America in the 1700s—had important connections. Revival was, some historians argue, the primary influence in the revolution. It provided much of the philosophical, religious, and moral justification for the war. Indeed, the revolution, they say, could not have occurred without the Awakening’s religious belief and thought. The revolution was, as Paul Johnson asserts in his History of the American People, a religious event in its origins, a fact that would shape it “from start to finish and determine the nature of the independent state it brought into being.” The revival, he elaborates, was the “proto-revolutionary event, the formative event preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible.”[7] It helped to prepare colonists for the forming of a new kind of Christian nation.

To be sure, while the Great Awakening had unifying and democratic effects on the revolutionary-era colonies, it did not address, critique, or offer any Christian-oriented socio-political model for an increasingly diverse society in which no one religious sect ruled or dominated. Revivalists focused on evangelism and spiritual life rather than on a framework for civil governance. Revivalists “seemed to think,” says Noll et al., “that if they could be successful at evangelism, the problems of politics would take care of themselves. But they didn’t.”[8] The task of formulating a workable, Bible-inspired civil government for a new nation and a religiously diverse society would lie with the future American Founders of the United States.

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[1] Ellis Sandoz, Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America (Columbia, MO: U of Missouri, 2006), 17.

[2] Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992), 110-111.

[3] H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan U Press, 1988), 124.

[4] Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden, The Search for Christian America (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1989), 49.

[5] Noll, Hatch, and Marsden, Search, 55.

[6] Noll, Hatch, and Marsden, Search, 49.

[7] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 117, 116.

[8] Noll, Hatch, and Marsden, Search, 61.

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Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 2, Activity 5: Effects of the Great Awakening on American Society: Unity, Democracy, & Revolution, p. 195, 352. MS-HS.

Effects of the Great Awakening on American Society: Unity, Democracy, & Revolution…

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the religious, social, and political effects of the Great Awakening, including effects on colonists’ views and values of personal and national identity, church and state, unity, democracy, freedom, and revolution.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction to 5.16 and p. 146-148.
2) Activity Chart: Causes and Effects of the Great Awakening, p. 148 in Miracle of America reference book.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Organizer Chart and Class Discussion:
Students organize notes/information on Great Awakening’s effects on American society. See “Effects of the Great Awakening on American Society” Organizer Chart in the “Supporting Resources” section of the Miracle HS Teacher Course Guide, p. 352. See also the Activity Chart, “Causes and Effects of the Great Awakening,” on p. 148 in the Miracle of America reference book. Teachers may also use a spider diagram.

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How the Great Awakening Affected Society: Education, Missions, Humanitarianism, Women, & the Gospel

April 20, 2018

The Founding

Phillis Wheatley by Scipio Moorhead, an enslaved African-American artist, c1773. Image appears on the frontispiece of Wheatley’s book, Poems on Various Subjects.

The “Great Awakening,” the Christian evangelical revival that spread across colonial America in the mid-1700s, had a number of important effects on American life, society, and culture. The revival, for example, continued the Puritans’ emphasis on education, propelled missions and humanitarianism, led to women’s increased participation in the church, and spread the Christian Gospel to many people.

Revivalists, like the Puritans, encouraged literacy and education in order to promote Bible reading, prepare ministers and missionaries, and train church laymen. To encourage Bible study, revivalist ministers often provided basic reading education to their congregations, especially in rural areas with few schools. The church Sunday School movement, initially a humanitarian endeavor, also began to grow. Since education was Bible-centered, and Bible study required reading, colonists equated Bible knowledge with general knowledge. Several evangelical colleges were founded in the mid-1700s for such Bible-based and missionary educational purposes including Princeton, Brown, Rutgers/Queens, and Dartmouth universities. As such, New England in the late 1700s had one of the highest literacy rates in the world at that time.

The Awakening and Christianity further stimulated missions and humanitarianism which emerged in colonial America in the early 1800s. Colonists who took up such humane causes often ministered to and helped the poor, sick, needy, and uneducated. Humanitarian causes, says H. Richard Niebuhr in his The Kingdom of God in America, “became the rallying point of ardent souls who had been kindled by the gospel of the kingdom of Christ.”

During and after the revival, as churches and denominations grew, colonial women became more active in church and religious affairs. Previously, women did not directly influence church life as men did. They did not conduct formal meetings or hold church offices. Such restrictions reflected secular life in which women could not vote and lost property rights upon marriage. However, by the 1700s, women made up the majority of church membership in all denominations. While men continued to exercise religious authority, women’s increased religious activities during this period led to greater participation of women in American churches. Some churches supported greater women’s activism, giving women more direct church roles, the ability to vote on congregational matters, and management of philanthropic groups.

Though the Great Awakening did not resolve the issue of slavery, it brought the Christian Gospel more directly to all classes and groups of people, including the Native Americans and African-Americans, many of whom were slaves. Some revivalists became missionaries to the Native Americans or evangelized among slaves. The revival’s emphasis on personal religious experience resonated with many blacks and even resembled African religions. Faith gave hope to slaves, some of whom found spiritual liberation even while in slavery. Churches by and for blacks gradually appeared. The first continuing black church was Silver Bluff Church in Aiken County, South Carolina, where African-American preacher David George established a congregation in 1773 or 1774. When revivalist preacher George Whitefield died, Phillis Wheatley, an emancipated slave and America’s first published black woman poet, wrote her first published poem as a memorial to Whitefield. It addressed the hope that Whitefield brought to African-Americans. An excerpt from Wheatley’s 1770 poem, On the Death of… Mr. George Whitefield, expresses Whitefield’s teaching about Christ: …

A major anti-slavery movement did not develop during the Great Awakening likely due to the impending American Revolution which occupied colonists’ attention and the growing use of slaves for crop labor. At the time, evangelicals focused more on freeing slaves and providing for their needs than on addressing the institution of slavery. Nevertheless, the Awakening, which supported human dignity and the idea that all men are equal before God, opened the Bible and Gospel to many African-Americans and helped to pave the way for freedom for all men.

The Great Awakening led to many positive and lasting effects in American society and culture, many of which are apparent in our time. It supported important, Bible-based values like human dignity, education, missions, humanitarianism, inclusion, and equality which are largely valued by many in American life today.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source for more information: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 2, Activity 7: Causes and Effects of the Great Awakening, p. 195. MS-HS.

Causes and Effects of the Great Awakening…

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the religious, social, and political effects of the Great Awakening, including effects on colonists’ views of personal and national identity, education, church and state, church organization, women’s roles in church, missions/humanitarianism, evangelism of the Gospel, free market, and revolution.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction to 5.16 and p. 146.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

4-Column Effects Chart:
Consider important ideas or events related to the Great Awakening or time period and their religious, social, and political effects. Write these effects in columns. This activity has students recognize some main ideas of the Awakening and analyze the religious, social, and political effects of the movement with regard to these ideas. See “Causes and Affects of the Great Awakening” 4-column chart in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, p. 353. (This activity is also found in chapter 5 of the Miracle of America text/sourcebook, p. 148.)

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How the Great Awakening Changed American Religion: A New Church Landscape

April 13, 2018

The Founding

George Whitefield Preaching

The “Great Awakening” was the first Christian evangelical revival that swept across colonial America in the mid-1700s. A spiritual and religious movement, the revival affected church, state, and society in the American colonies in a number of important ways prior to the American Revolution. One effect of this event was the creation of a new church landscape in America.

The Awakening revitalized churches in America. While it led to church upheavals and splits, say historians, it energized both old and new churches across all denominations. American churches fell into two broad groups—Old Lights and New Lights—with respect to the priority of the individual, church, society, and/or state. Each group viewed itself as a part of the dissenting tradition.

Old Lights, or traditionalists, sought …

Consequently, the revival weakened the state-church establishment and religious laws and promoted greater religious freedom and tolerance in the American colonies. Due to political protest and debate in Connecticut, for example, non-state religious groups gained more freedom to preach and minister. Revivalists who opposed paying taxes to the state church were exempted from such taxes. Though colonists disagreed about religion and politics, many agreed on having the freedom to define or choose their religious beliefs. Colonists began to see religious freedom as an individual right.

Ultimately, the Great Awakening, notes Paul Johnson in his History of the American People, gave American religion and all churches in the 1700s a renewed spiritual life and a more American flavor. With the growing number of religious groups and churches, American religious society became, observes Frank Lambert in his Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, more pluralistic and a free “marketplace of ideas.” Americans now had voluntary religious choices. Churches became more tolerant, evangelical, individualistic, pietistic, pragmatic, and egalitarian. These revived churches, says Mark Noll in his History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, pursued “security of structures and liberation in the Holy Spirit,” a combination of opposing forces that became “quintessentially American.” The Christian church experienced exceptional growth during this time. New, independent churches grew alongside state churches, and many denominations expanded without government support. Over time, as the colonies became more religiously diverse, colonists of all beliefs increasingly preferred non-state churches to state churches.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 2, Activity 4: Observing How Revival Impacted Society, p. 194. MS-HS.

Observing How Revival Impacted Society…

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about the religious, social, and political effects of the Great Awakening, including effects on colonists’ views of personal and national identity, church and state, church organization, missions/humanitarianism, free market, democracy, and revolution.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction to 5.16 and p. 146.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Historical Letter or Script:
Use may use either of these strategies or give students a choice between the two:
1) For the letter, the student will write a letter from the perspective of a colonist during the Great Awakening. In the letter, the student must show through concrete details and examples how he or she sees revivalism changing society. Through details and reflections, the student must demonstrate understanding of key concepts of this lesson.
2) For the script/dialogue, students may work independently, pair up, or work in small groups of three to write a script of a conversation between/among colonists during the revival. The script may be performed in class or turned in as a written script. Students must show revival effects on society through details and opinions.

Assess students based on the following: vivid details and pertinent commentary that show effects of revival on society (60%), grammar and usage (20%), creativity (10%), focus and clarity of written expression (10%).

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Great Awakening Principle: A Godly Purpose for Just Civil Government

April 6, 2018

The Founding

How Early Americans Viewed Civil Government

Jesus Among the Wheat Fields by J. R. Wehle, 1900. Depicts the scene in Mark 2:23-27 where Jesus and His disciples are walking through a grain field. When the hungry disciples pick heads of grain to eat, the Pharisees question their actions of working on the Sabbath. Jesus responds, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

The “Great Awakening,” the first Christian evangelical revival that occurred in mid-1700s America, was mostly a spiritual and religious movement. Yet some Revivalists occasionally wrote and taught on civil matters as related to the Christian life. Jonathan Edwards, a key theologian of this period, addressed at least one important civil principle–the purpose of just civil government–which would likely influence Americans’ views prior to the American Revolution.

God is concerned with civil government, Edwards believed, because mankind (His most beloved creation) needs civil order in society. Edwards writes in his Miscellaneous Observations,

Specifically, God ordains just human governments—personal and corporate, private and public—to defend and protect citizens’ rights and uphold justice.

Indeed, God ordained civil government, Edwards asserts in his The End for Which God Created the World, for the well-being or good of man. Edwards cited Mark 2 on the matter in which Jesus tells the Pharisees that the Sabbath, the seventh day of rest during the week, was created by God not for its own sake but for man’s well-being: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” From this verse, Edwards similarly saw that God created things like civil government to protect and defend the people, not to become an unfitting burden on the people. Government was created to serve and protect man; man was not created to serve the government for its own sake. The ultimate outcome of just government, Edwards believed, is that it allows man an opportunity to fulfill his God-given purpose—to have a relationship with God.

Incidentally, God also created just civil government, Edwards believed, to reflect and remind people of God’s heavenly government to come in the afterlife. Visible, just governments exemplify in some ways God’s heavenly rule of just rewards and happiness for the righteous along with punishments and misery for the unrighteous. Ecclesiastes 3, for example, says that “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” The day of God’s judgment, says Edwards in The End, will be “the time appointed for the highest exercises of God’s authority as moral governor of the world…and the consummation of God’s moral government with respect to all His subjects.” Civil government, therefore, gives man a concrete illustration to understand God’s heavenly justice.

In writing and teaching about God’s purpose for civil government, Edwards likely helped to shape early Americans’ views on the role of government in society prior to the founding of the new nation of the United States.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 9: Making a Personal Connection to the Awakening, p. 181. MS-HS.

Making a Personal Connection to the Awakening…

Purpose/Objective: Students make a personal connection to the Great Awakening by reflecting on their personal, social, and civic lives and on their views and perspectives regarding our nation’s moral roots.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction, 5.1-5.10.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Journal/Reflective Writing or Short-Paragraph Answers:
Students write on/answer the following questions:

The teacher can use questions to encourage students to reflect on ways in which the ideas studied in the unit relate to their own lives and to American society today. This activity may be used with Think-Aloud strategy. (These questions are also found in Chapter 5 of the Miracle of America sourcebook, p. 149.)

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Great Awakening Principle: Eternal Happiness Found in God

March 23, 2018

The Founding

The Ascension of Christ by Benjamin West, 1801

The first Christian evangelical revival that spread throughout colonial America in the mid-1700s, known as the first “Great Awakening,” renewed among early Americans various ideas and values from the Bible and Judeo-Christian teachings. One idea that was taught by Revivalists during this time was that eternal happiness can be found in God. Interestingly, the idea of happiness would later turn up in a key founding document of the United States.

The sense of happiness was a reoccurring theme in the writings and teachings of well-known, widely-read revival theologian Jonathan Edwards. Edwards taught that happiness is important in religious matters and has a spiritual dimension. Like love, happiness, he believed, is found in and part of God. Happiness may consist not just of a person’s own contentment apart from God but of a deep joy and pleasure found in God. Edwards elaborates in his Miscellaneous Observations on Important Doctrines: …

True, enduring happiness, Edwards believed, goes beyond the visible, temporal world and involves the eternal, spiritual one. It addresses a person’s eternal state with God and his need for salvation from his fallen moral condition and from eternal death separated from God. The purpose of human life, therefore, is to pursue eternal salvation as happiness. Humans are created, Revivalists believed, to seek and find eternal happiness in God. Regarding mankind’s call to seek God, Edwards cites Philippians 2 and Scottish Enlightenment theologian George Turnbull from his 1740 Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. Edwards writes in his Concerning Efficacious Grace, …

God in Christ Jesus, Edwards and Revivalists believed, is the key to eternal happiness. Christ’s suffering and death is for the happy redemption of man from sin and its punishment. Christ “procures a title to us for happiness,” says Edwards in his History of the Work of Redemption. “The satisfaction of Christ is to free to us from misery, and the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.” The chief happiness of mankind, Edwards affirmed, is salvation, knowledge, service, and enjoyment of the living God.

Clearly, many early Americans prior to the American Revolution recognized and understood happiness not only in temporal, visible terms but in eternal, spiritual terms regarding their pursuit of and relationship with God. It is thus fair to say that the unalienable right to the “pursuit of Happiness” written into the Declaration of Independence at the founding of the United States in 1776 held deep spiritual, religious, and philosophical meaning for early Americans.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 5: Jonathan Edwards Teaches Conscience, Morality, Individual Religious Conversion, Happiness, p. 179, 350. MS-HS.

Jonathan Edwards Teaches Conscience, Morality, Individual Religious Conversion, Happiness…

Purpose/Objective: Students learn about Great Awakening theologian Jonathan Edwards and his well-known teachings and writings on Christian belief, life, and doctrine regarding conscience, morality, religious conversion, and happiness which played an important role in educating colonists during the Great Awakening.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction, 5.1, 5.2, 5.6-5.10.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Close Reading Activity:
Students break into groups to analyze passages from Edwards that pertain to this section (see handout). Each group will share with the class a summary of the passage, an analysis of its philosophical and religious concepts, and an evaluation of how these ideas played out in society during the Great Awakening. The teacher can assess students’ grasp of Edwards’ message and its effects on the revival movement and society as a whole. See the “Jonathan Edwards Excerpts: Close Reading Activity” handout in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, p. 350.

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Great Awakening Principle: The Unalienable Right to Freedom of Belief

March 16, 2018

The Founding

Portrait of Elisha Williams

When the first Christian evangelical revival swept through early America in the mid-1700s, known as the “Great Awakening,” it strengthened many Bible-based principles and values among early Americans. One principle that it helped to reinforce was the unalienable right to freedom of belief. The early tolerance arguments of Roger Williams, William Penn, and John Locke—and the founding of tolerant colonies like Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—in the 1600s had blazed an uncharted path for religious tolerance in America. Now, half a century later, many Revivalists continued to support and advocate for religious freedom based on reason and natural rights.

Locke’s writings on religious tolerance and natural rights, for one, reflected and affected many Americans’ views on the issue of religious freedom. Locke’s first 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration, published in America in 1742, was often referenced by religious non-conformists who advocated for greater religious freedom. In addition, Locke had also published his 1690 Second Treatise of Civil Government which asserted the natural or God-given rights of human beings to life, liberty, and property. Adhering to the idea of natural rights, many Revivalists believed that since humans have a natural right to their persons and property, they also have a natural or God-given right to freedom of belief.

In 1744, Yale College rector and minister Elisha Williams published a notable pamphlet, The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants, defending freedom of belief as an unalienable (or unremovable) right. Directly echoing Roger Williams, Penn, and Locke, he affirmed that all people have an unalienable right to religious belief according to the Law of Nature or God’s moral law. The right of belief, he affirmed, is a sacred right based on the nature of human beings as moral, reasonable, and accountable before God. This right is also based on the view that true religious belief does not exist without understanding and choice. All people, therefore, have an ability as well as a right and responsibility to freely explore and choose their own beliefs. If an earthly authority tries to regulate and judge the consciences of other people, it negates the God-given nature of people and assumes a role meant only for God. Elisha Williams writes,

With such assertions, Revivalists in early America helped to further articulate and reinforce a rational, natural-right basis for the principle of tolerance and religious freedom–a Lockean reasoning that would be shared by the American Founders. As such, they would help to pave the way for total religious freedom in the new nation of the United States.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source for more information:
Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 5, Part 1, Activity 6: A Natural Right to Freedom of Conscience (edited), p. 179-180. MS-HS.

A Natural Right to Freedom of Conscience (edited)…

Purpose/Objective: Students will learn about the writings of John Locke and revivalist Elisha Williams and their beliefs regarding natural rights and religious tolerance/freedom. Students will learn about theologian Jonathan Edwards and his teachings on Christian belief, life, and equality, which played an important role in educating colonists during the Great Awakening.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction, 5.1, 5.2, 5.4-5.6, 5.8.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).
3) The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants, 1744, by Elisha Williams

Close Reading Activity:
Students break into groups to analyze passages from Williams’s essay, Essential Rights, and compare with Locke’s writings. Each group will share with the class a summary of a selected passage from the reading(s), an analysis/synthesis of concepts of tolerance, reason, and natural rights, and an evaluation of how these ideas facilitated the move toward greater religious freedom in the new nation of the United States. The teacher may assess students’ grasp of Williams’s articulation and message, its connection to Locke’s writings, and its relevance in helping to strengthen the case for greater religious freedom in the United States.

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Great Awakening Principle: The Judeo-Christian Law of Love

March 9, 2018

The Founding

The Good Samaritan by Pelegrin Clave, 1838, based on the parable in Luke 10:25-37 and the principle to “love thy neighbor.”

The Christian evangelical revival that occurred in America in the 1700s, known as the “Great Awakening,” helped to support and spread foundational ideas from the Bible in society. One important principle that Revivalists affirmed was the Judeo-Christian Law of Love.

Revivalists found the Law of Love in the two “Great Commandments” of the Bible—the commands in which people are called to love God and others. Great Awakening theologian Jonathan Edwards, in his 1746 Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, cited these commandments from the New Testament in Matthew 22:37-40 where Jesus tells the Pharisees, “‘‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’’” The second law is often referred to as the “golden rule,” of treating others as one wishes to be treated. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says, “‘Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.’” These two great commandments are originally found in the Old Testament (in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18).

In light of the Law of Love, Revivalists embraced religious affection and actions that express Christian love in worshipping God and serving others. Godly affection is desirable, Edwards thought, since true faith produces affections of the soul, and man’s affections are “the spring of men’s actions.” Edwards thus supported church practices of singing, praising, and prayer because he saw that they can affect the heart. In addition, Revivalists believed that love is expressed not only by affection but by action. “Love is an active principle,” Edwards declared in his 1738 sermon Charity and Its Fruits. “Reason teaches that a man’s actions are the most proper test and evidence of his love.”

Interestingly, a more rational acknowledgement of the Law of Love came from Enlightenment-era philosopher John Locke who was influential to founding-era Americans. In 1689, Locke had published an important treatise on civil governance—his Second Treatise of Civil Government—widely read by early Americans. In this treatise, Locke cited English Anglican theologian Richard Hooker’s 1593 work on church governance, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, to present a reasoned version of the golden rule. From the standpoint of Hooker, mutual love and respect among people in society is supported by the equal nature that all men share. Since all human beings have the same nature, people have a duty to love and respect one another. Locke writes in Second Treatise:

During the Awakening, Edwards and the Revivalists in America taught the Bible’s Law of Love as the foundation of godliness and virtue. Any religious or moral philosophy, Edwards believed, that lacks regard for God and others as its basis of virtue is flawed.

This Judeo-Christian principle of love would be upheld not only in American religion but later in the founding documents of the United States in their regard for the unalienable and equal rights of all people, Rule of Law, Due Process, and just civil governance.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source: Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

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Jonathan Edwards Teaches Conscience, Morality, Individual Religious Conversion, Happiness…

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 5 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections Introduction, 5.1, 5.2, 5.6-5.10.
2) Related blogs/videos (see above).

Close Reading Activity:
Students break into groups to analyze passages from Edwards that pertain to this section (see attached handout). Each group will share with the class a summary of the passage, an analysis of its philosophical and religious concepts, and an evaluation of how these ideas played out in society during the Great Awakening. The teacher can assess students’ grasp of Edwards’ message and its effects on the revival movement and society as a whole. See the “Jonathan Edwards Excerpts: Close Reading Activity” handout in the “Supporting Resources” section of the course guide, p. 350.

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