Was the American Revolution Consistent with Calvinism?
Jonathan Rowe on Aug 19th 2006 03:17 pm |
In a word, no. This is one of the points made in Gregg Frazer’s Ph.D. thesis on The Political Theology of the American Founding. Calvinism actually better fits with the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings. Frazer cites George Willis Cooke, who, in 1902, wrote:
The doctrine of degrees, as taught by the Calvinists, was the spiritual side of the assertion of the divine right of kings. On the other hand, when the people claim the right to rule, they modify their theology into Arminianism. From an age of the absolute rule of the king comes the doctrine of human depravity; and with the establishment of democracy appears the doctrine of man’s moral capacity.
Frazer goes so far as to assert that “Each of the so-called five points of Calvinism offended liberal democratic sensibilities.” Calvin himself, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, apparently addressed the question of Revolution and, according to Frazer, “made it abundantly clear that rebellion was never justified. He declared ‘whatever they are and however they govern,’ magistrates derive their authority ‘from [God] alone.’ And:
If we keep firmly in mind that even the very worst kings are appointed by this same decree which establishes the authority of kings [in general], then we will never permit ourselves the seditious idea that a king is to be treated according to his deserts, or that we need not obey a king who does not conduct himself towards us like a king.”
Also, “we must honour [even] the worst tyrant in the office in which the Lord has seen fit to set him.” And “if you go on to infer that only just governments are to be repaid by obedience, your reasoning is stupid.” Finally, “make no mistake: it is impossible to resist the magistrate without also resisting God.”
All of these are direct quotations taken from John Calvin, “On Civil Government,” Book IV, Chapter 20 of Institutes of the Christian Religion in Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, trans. & ed. Harro Hopfl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
No wonder Jefferson and Adams ridiculed, often viciously, the doctrines of Calvinism. Clearly Calvin could not be used to justify revolt or rebellion. So the Founders had to turn to Locke. Indeed, John Witherspoon, an orthodox Christian and a Presbyterian minister, explicitly spoke in Lockean, not Calvinist terms when arguing for the Revolution.
Locke and the Enlightenment had to be where the Founders — whether they were orthodox Christians, Deists, or Theistic Rationalists — turned to justify the Revolution because the Bible itself is insufficient for establishing the principles upon which we declared independence and constructed the Constitution.
Here is where we get to an interesting and under-appreciated nuance of Founding theory. Churches, very important social institutions during the Founding era, played an important role supporting the Revolution. Because Unitarianism swept through Massachusetts Congregational Churches during the Revolutionary era, such Churches could effectively integrate pro-revolutionary messages into their sermons, and were thus particularly influential. Like the Unitarians of today, the Founding era Unitarians had a penchant for novel and unorthodox readings of the Bible.
Indeed, this blog has noted how theological unitarianism dominated the minds of the key Founders, many of them Virginia Anglicans. But let me now stress that the Unitarian ministers of the Unitarian Congregational Church in Massachusetts played a vital role in making theological arguments from the pulpit in favor of the Revolution. And they did so by integrating anti-Calvinist Enlightenment principles, which justified revolt, into their interpretation of the Bible.
There is a myth circulating that very few Unitarians existed among the Massachusetts Congregational Churches until sometime in the 1800s, well after the Founding. Apparently, this misconception existed in John Adams’s time as well, and Adams himself addressed the matter:
I thank you for your favour of the 10th and the pamphlet enclosed, “American Unitarianism.” I have turned over its leaves and have found nothing that was not familiarly known to me.
In the preface Unitarianism is represented as only thirty years old in New England. I can testify as a Witness to its old age. Sixty five years ago my own minister the Reverend Samuel Bryant, Dr. Johnathan Mayhew of the west Church in Boston, the Reverend Mr. Shute of Hingham, the Reverend John Brown of Cohasset & perhaps equal to all if not above all the Reverend Mr. Gay of Hingham were Unitarians. Among the Laity how many could I name, Lawyers, Physicians, Tradesman, farmers!
John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, May 15, 1815. Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 122, Library of Congress.
Calvin’s anti-Revolutionary theology arguably was far more Biblical than the Unitarians’ pro-Revolutionary theology. As Frazer comments on the Unitarian ministers:
When reading these sermons carefully, one is struck by the frequency with which passages of Scripture are interpreted in a manner convenient to the argument being made, but unrelated or opposed to their clear sense. Whether expounding upon a historical example or a statement of doctrine, the ministers were little concerned with standard rules of interpretation; such as adherence to context, comparison with similar passages, and fidelity to the clear sense of a passage when the terms are not ambiguous.
The controlling Biblical text on the right to revolt is Romans 13. Frazer notes Founding-era preacher Samuel West in one such sermon, “had to conclude that the apostle Paul meant the opposite of what he said.” Frazer quotes Harry Jaffa’s analysis, in A New Birth of Freedom, where Jaffa notes: “for more than a millennium and a half of the history of the Christian West, the prevailing opinion was that political authority descended from the top down, from God to kings and rulers, and that the obligation of the ruled was simply to obey.” Another scholar noted:
Basing a revolutionary teaching on the scriptural authority of chapter 13 of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans must rank as one of the greatest ironies in the history of political thought. This passage…served as the touchstone for passive obedience and unconditional submission from Augustine and Gregory to Luther and Calvin….The medieval church fathers as well as the reformers and counter-reformers of the sixteenth century all invoked this doctrine in denouncing disobedience and resistance to civil authorities.
And of course, the ministers who remained loyal to Great Britain argued their case from a literal reading of Romans 13 and Peter 2.
The Lockean notion of a right to revolt was discovered by “man’s reason.” This is one reason why our Theistic Rationalists Founders, though they believed some revelation was legitimate, had to elevate man’s reason over Biblical revelation, because if revelation were supreme, then the philosophical case for the American Revolution would be greatly weakened.
Finally, a word on civil liberty and the Bible. As Frazer notes, “the Bible never discusses political freedom. Tory minister Jonathan Boucher correctly noted: ‘The word liberty, as meaning civil liberty, does not, I believe, occur in all the Scriptures.’” What the Founding era preachers did was use the passages in the Bible which extol spiritual liberty meaning “freedom from sin” and substitute that with the notion of political liberty. Frazer writes, “God’s purposes were to free His people to worship Him (e.g. Exodus 4:23; 5:1 & 3; 7:16) and to force Egypt to recognize Him as the true God (Exodus 5:2; 7:5 & 17; 10:2).” Indeed, as Robert Kraynak observed, “the Bible shows that God delivers the people from slavery in Egypt and supports national liberation, not for the purpose of enjoying their political and economic rights, but for the purpose of putting on the yoke of the law in the polity of Moses…the content of the divine law revealed to Moses consists, in the first place, of the Ten Commandments rather that the Ten Bill of Rights, commanding duties to God, family, and neighbors, rather than establishing protections for personal freedom” and such laws “regulate all aspects of religious, personal and social life.”
In order to find “political liberty” in the story of the Israelites, their history had to be “radically rewritten.” Frazer’s point, drawing from various scholars, was that the Unitarian ministers, who were more likely to throw out orthodoxy and adopt a more cafeteria like approach to Biblical interpretation, were better suited to argue that the Bible supports political liberty than the orthodox preachers.
But whether the interpretations were sound, the Bible was used to support the Revolution. Thus, Frazer’s analysis might shed light on the “study” put forth by Donald Lutz, which I often see bandied about by the “Christian Nation” crowd. Here is a description of Lutz study:
Dr. Donald S. Lutz, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Houston, conducted a massive groundbreaking study in which he examined some 15,000 documents written during America’s founding era. He and his research associate, Dr. Charles Hyneman, found that a third of the quotations in these documents were from the Bible. ‘Deuteronomy is cited more than John Locke or anyone else,’
From this, the “Christian Nation” crowd concludes that we were founded on Biblical principles and the Declaration and the Constitution are “Christian” documents. Now, the odd thing is neither the Declaration nor the Constitution cite the Bible, Scripture, or Jesus (except in the Constitution as the customary way of stating the date, In the Year of Our Lord). Indeed, the Constitution doesn’t even mention God, and the Declaration speaks of a generic “Nature’s God” and doesn’t otherwise cite Scripture. One might argue, though, because of the brevity of those documents, there wasn’t room to explain the connection between the ideas contained therein and Scripture. But the Federalist Papers, which explicate in detail the principles behind our Founding, would seem the perfect place to explain the connection between the Bible and Founding ideas. But the Federalist Papers similarly ignore the God of the Bible and Scripture.
So, the context behind Lutz’s study, which I believe argues that “sermons” comprise most Founding era documents, may be the attempt of ministers to take the Revolution and Founding principles, which came predominantly from Enlightenment thought, and argue in their sermons that such were consistent with the Bible and Christian principles. Indeed, this supports the theory I’ve posited, similar to Bernard Bailyn’s, that our Founders drew from a variety of intellectual sources including 1) Christian/Biblical, 2) Pagan/Greco-Roman, 3) Traditional Rights of Englishmen/Common Law, and 4) Natural Rights/Enlightenment. But it was the last one, the Enlightenment, which dominated and was the lens through which all sources were to be viewed.
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“it was the last one, the Enlightenment, which dominated and was the lens through which all sources were to be viewed.” Yes, I agree with this point, as far as the “Founding Fathers” were concerned. I don’t believe that you should write off the revolutionary tendencies in the Calvinist tradition that easily. I have touched on this matter in my own “CLASSical Liberal” blog on and off, and you do not have to go very far from Calvin within the Reformed movement to find rebellion and revolution spoken in Calvinistic terms, not simply in unitarian language.
I do like the term “Theistic Rationalism” for use in this context that you describe. Deism, as a movement, was pretty amorphous and I’ve frequently used a “left-right spectrum” to describe the deists. The problem with grouping many deists is that there are a broad set of assumptions underlying their beliefs. Some believed in a heaven or an afterlife, whereas others rejected such notions; some believed in “miraculous” events, others didn’t; and so on. I don’t believe that you can expect unanimity in their respective faiths, if we can ever know exactly what it was.
Cheers!
Just Ken
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/
http://spencerheath.blogspot.com/
Thanks!
I’ll check out your cites, as I have before.
I’m not sure I quite follow the argument in the first part of the post; it reads as if you are conflating ‘Calvinist’ in the sense of ‘of or pertaining to the theology of John Calvin’ with ‘Calvinist’ in the sense of ‘of or pertaining to theologians in the tradition of John Calvin’. The two are not the same, and, important as the works of Calvin have been for Calvinists, it can’t be assumed that the Calvinism of late eighteenth century Calvinists, living post-Arminius, post-Cromwell (a Calvinist revolution if there ever was one), and during the long series of political disputes between Evangelicals and Moderates in the Kirk (including the influence of Hutcheson, who was both Calvinist and Lockean), simply equates to that of Calvin himself. Later Calvinists were far from slavish in following Calvin. Indeed, even within Calvin’s lifetime there were Calvinists who had reflected on the conditions for legitimate revolution; Goodman’s How Superior Powers Ought to Be Obeyed (1558), for instance, also discusses cases in which it is right to resist the magistrate. Further, Calvin in his discussions appears to be talking only of subjects; but influential Calvinists like Beza distinguished between subjects, who are obligated not to resist, and ’subordinate magistrates’ who sometimes have a duty to resist higher magistrates. So it’s not enough to quote Calvin as evidence of some conflict between Calvinism (in the second sense above) and revolution.
Raising Cromwell’s a good point Brandon. It seems this theoretical approach has to account for that somehow.
You might want to look into these:
“Benjamin Franklin, Politician” (NY: WW Norton,1996) by Francis Jennings. There is an excellent discussion on the turnover in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution from Quaker dominance to the Calvinist scotch-irish control.
Prior to the AmRev, the Quakers and Anglicans held about 80% of the provincial and state assemblies; by1777, it was 82% Calvinist!
See also O.S. Ireland’s “The Crux of Politics: Religion and Party in Pennsylvania, 1778-1789″, William and Mary Q, Oct 1985.
Cheers!
Just Ken
Thanks. You raise great points. I’m going to respond, even if I don’t do so right away.
As well as Cromwell there was also the 16th Century Dutch Revolt, the overthrow of Mary Queen of Scots, and the 1688 Revolution in England. Calvin was certainly opposed to revolution but not all of his followers were. The books of Samuel and Kings can be read as an implicit critique of the institution of monarchy as the institution of kingship was only instituted by Samuel with awful warnings as to the bad consequences of such a decision and most of the Kings of Israel and Judah were generally bad things, a point noted by both seventeenth century Puritans and Thomas Paine. In seventeenth century England the divine right of Kings was a High Church doctrine – Calvinists generally took a lower view of monarchy. Clearly the American Revolution owed rather more to Locke than it did to Calvin but, to paraphrase the old chestnut about Erasmus and Luther, it could be argued that the Calvinist revolts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries laid the egg that the Founding Fathers hatched.
Putting aside the conundrum of referring to a position explicitly and firmly rejected by Calvin as Calvinism, we run into all sorts of difficulties when people self-identify with systems with which they disagree (e.g. American Catholics who reject most of that church’s teachings; Jefferson who rejected virtually every doctrine of Christianity, but called himself a Christian).
Be that as it may, the key points are that: a) “Calvinists” had to reject Calvin in order to support revolution; b) that there was so much concern in Calvinist churches in America that Mayhew was dubbed the “Morning Gun of the Revolution” because he provided a way around Calvin’s position on Romans 13; and c) that generic Calvinism was further rejected because all five points ran counter to American concepts of liberty and republicanism. Since a majority of Americans were in Calvinist churches (particularly in the hotbed of New England), this obstacle had to be removed in order to recruit masses for the Revolutionary armies.
Finally, Americans during the Revolutionary period did not make the “lesser magistrates” distinction that Beza made and that is so popular today among those wanting to connect Calvinism and revolution. [Calvin certainly didn't, either, for those who were wondering] This is further evidence that American Calvinists were more attuned to Calvin than to “Calvinists.”
Calvinists who allowed for (some sort of) revolution didn’t have to reject Calvin to support revolution; they just had to interpret him (a la Beza and others) as talking about subjects without considering all the finer details. After all, Calvin was writing scriptural commentaries and basic theology textbooks, not rigorous examinations of political philosophy. This is fairly standard for how traditions work — the originator lays the groundwork, those that follow develop it, sometimes diverging from it, but taking the originator’s basic ideas as guide. Although I haven’t looked much at this in particular, and would have to defer to Rowe on it if he discusses it in his later response, I take it that the real question with regard to American Calvinists was whether they allowed for revolution under less restrictive circumstances than we find with their contemporaries; a more common view among Anglophone Calvinsists, for instance, would have been that which George Campbell in Scotland expounded in a sermon shortly after the Revolution started: revolution is obviously allowed in severe cases (and sometimes may be a duty for subordinate magistrates), but it’s not something you do when you live in a society with restricted monarchy, representation of the people, and a tradition of rights, however unsatisfying certain aspects of that life might be. (It’s noteworthy that Campbell, although he is writing against the American Revolution, claims that the idea that Romans 13 allows for no exceptions is absurd; obviously it can, as most general principles used in practical life can, at least on rare occasions. His claim is that this is not on its own enough to justify any particular revolution.)
But I didn’t have a problem with the rest of the argument; I just think the first part is either confused, or, if not, it’s stated in a confusing way, since one can’t assume that eighteenth century Calvinism was in these cases just copying Calvin.
I really did enjoy reading through this blog and these responses. It is an interesting subject to me. I am a Reformed Presbyterian who teaches American History. I am troubled by the whole concept of the masses makes right mentality in American Politics. However, I do believe that just as the King’s heart lies in the hand of God, so does the heart of this republic (whether it is a more biblical government or not). The truth still stands that the nations will be punished or rewarded with the government that is granted to them because of their level of obedience to God. I would rather that we never seperated from England and I do believe that it might have been rebellious unto God to do so. It was none other than a seperatist (congregationalist) movement. Although seperatists were calvinists, they were not Puritans as our history books most of the time state. For a Puritan is one who was trying to purify the church of England and not one who leaves it. So although many were 5-pointers, they were congregationalists which means that the vast majority of American Calvinists were already inconsistent in their view of church government. Thus it is not surprizing that a debate among the Puritans concerning church government would lead these seperatist (congregationalists) into supporting the revolution. Secondly, since they were so eager to divide the church over the issue, which is the greatest error (in my opinion), why not support the enlightenment in the political sphere too? I do know that the Reformers feared this splitting the most. For that reason, the anabaptists and others were a common enemy with the church of Rome.
Lastly, I am glad that someone mentioned the Dutch. I do like most of Kuyper’s teachings which was in a different time and place, but he and Bavinck might have many good things to say about a republic and consistent Calvinism. Finally, Machen might be a good source too. For he was a conservative libertarian and did engage in matters of American Politics. I would definately charge Machen with being consistent to Old Princeton and historic Calvinism. If anything he is a key voice in the tradition.
I also might add that the American philosophy of government and the current dualism of God and country often mixes our philosophy of government with our Christian Faith as being one and the same. It is an ultimate authority issue. That is why two rows of people walked out of Derek Webb’s concert one time when he sang, “A King and a Kingdom,” in which he does not say that he does not have any allegiance to this nation, but rather that his ultimate allegiance is not to America but to Christ. This was not well received and it is one example of how many people have been taught this erroneous doctrine of dualism. In addition, I believe that democracies do stem from enlightenment doctrines of man. The democratic spirit and the Armenian spirit coincedentally or providentially appear to be the same in most senses. Reformed theology is unAmerican to most Armenians. It was to me in my first hearing of it. But I had considered it over and over again to be a different matter and put it on the back burner. Yet I still struggle over the issue, but I think that a monarch is the most biblical form of government. For here in America we are indocrinated to believe that the American form of government is the only way and other ways are evil even if they are capatalistic. Alas! People are basically good and are not fallen! That is the foundation of the government of the people! When Israel turned against Samuel did God grant them a democracy? I do not think so. So here we “Christians” are in a nation that believes wrongly about the supremacy of God and the falleness of man. We live in a foreign world to Reformed theology. However, like Machen we must adapt to American politics as best as we can with full participation (Rom. 13) and not make the same rebellious mistake that our American fathers made. I believe that we can still be patriots without fully believing in it’s questionable foundation. I believe that we can advocate our Reformed worldview as best as possible for ourselves and our posterity.
While arranging my resources for a series of posting on the impact of the Reformation on Western Civilization (http://polymathis.blogspot.com/ ), I came across your website. Reading your article with much interest (as I am an old fashion Calvinist, Presbyterian minister), I was dismayed at Frazer’s handling of the historical resources, especially of Calvin.
In contrast, Calvin actually wrote, after strongly encouraging obedience:
“I am speaking all the while of private individuals. For if there are now any magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings (as in ancient times…[Sparta, Rome, and Athens]…and perhaps, as things now are, such power as the three estates exercise [in France]…), I am so far from forbidding them to withstand, in accordance with their duty, the fierce licentiousness of kings, that, if they wink at kings who violently fall upon and assault the lowly common folk, I declare that their dissimulation involves nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.” [Institutes, 4.20.31, McNeill, 1960]
On the next page he reiterates that men ought to obey God rather than man. In his commentary on Daniel 6:22, he emphatically wrote:
“For earthly princes lay aside all their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to being reckoned in the number of mankind. We ought rather utterly to defy [spit on their heads] than to obey them whenever they are so restive and wish to spoil God of his rights…” [Vol. 12, p. 382, Baker, Reprint 1979]
I don’t agree with the historical assessment. I could cite (besides covenant theology itself):
1) The French-Calvinist’s work Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (late 1500s)
2) Johannes Althusius’ work Politica (1603).
3) Revolution & Religion: American Revolutionary War & the Reformed Clergy, Keith Griffen.
4) Even the newest work on Calvin (Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, Philip Benedict (who acknowledges his non-Reformed Jewish background)) acknowledges Calvin’s political resistence view (p. 141ff.).
I am not a professional historian; I don’t expect much change in opinion over the historical matter, but as a theologian/minister I had to bring the fulller understanding of Calvin to the forefront of discussion.
thank you for your consideration,
Sincerely,
I have a couple questions. I’m a Revolutionary Era scholar, as well as a student of early-American Theology, and find this fascinating. My questions are:
1) What if a government is actively denying the proper worship of God and denying freedom of conscience to worshop God (the Anglican establishment in the American south was notorious for torturing dissenters)? Is that grounds for an overthrow of government? (not that I’m assuming that that is what the Revolution was about, but just wodnering what people’s thoughts are).
2) What if the government codifies the right of the people to revolt? The 10th Article of my homestate’s constitution gaurantees the right of the people to change their government ~ by violent means as a last resort ~ if it becomes destructive to the people.
3) What if a government becomes so perverted (such as by a Hitler or a Stalin) and begins mass-exterminations? Do the people have the Biblical foundations to overthrow that government?
Thoughts?