America 250: Pastors in politics shaped American Revolution and policies today

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of independence, many also are celebrating the critical role pastors played in the American Revolution and are still playing today.

During the Revolutionary War period, pastors played a key role in influencing congregants to defend liberty.

“The preachers did not confine themselves to a dissertation on doctrinal truths nor more exhortation to godly behavior. They grappled with the great question of the rights of man, and especially the rights of the colonists in their controversy with the mother country,” Joel Tyler Headley explains in New England Clergy and the American Revolution.

Revolutionary War sermons were “like the hands of a clock that, at regular intervals, tell the time of day.” Sermons were published in pamphlets and distributed and “became the textbooks of human rights in every parish. They were regarded as the political pamphlets of the day.” Newspapers were not yet widespread and the pulpit “was the most direct and effectual way of reaching the masses,” Headley adds.

Pastors also led and fought with their congregants, including David Avery of Vermont and Stephen Farrar of New Hampshire, who combined led scores of parishioners into battle, according to accounts described in The Chaplains and the Clergy of the Revolution and The History of New Ipswich, New Hampshire.

Other influential pastors were Samuel Cook of Second Church of Cambridge, Mass., and John Tucker, of the First Church of Newbury, Mass., who encouraged patriots in 1770 and 1771.

After learning that the Battle of Bunker Hill had begun, Rev. David Grosvenor reportedly leapt from the pulpit, rifle in hand, and went to fight. Pastors Johathan French and Joseph Willards also led full companies into battle.

In Philadelphia, Rev. Thomas Reed fought against the British; in Norwalk, Conn., Rev. Isaac Lewis led a resistance. In September 1775, ahead of 1,000 men deploying from Massachusetts, Rev. Samuel Spring preached that God was with them, leading them to battle. In Christianity in the United States from the First Settlement Down to the Present Time, multiple pastors are listed who were captains of regiments who fought for freedom.

In Christianity and the American Commonwealth, Carles Galloway described pastors and their congregants as acting as “the hand of God” fighting for liberty.

“Mighty men they were, of iron nerve and strong hand and unblanched cheek and heart of flame. … Heroes of … lofty courage to be the voice of a new kingdom crying in this western wilderness. Such were the sons of the mighty who responded to the divine call. … They were religious men, swayed by religious principles, who feared God and him only. To them the Bible was everything: ‘the source of religious principles, the basis of civil law, the supreme authority and matters of common life.’”

Nearly 250 years later, American pastors would fight against a new form of tyranny: COVID-era lockdown policies. Many blue states designated churches as nonessential, banned public worship, ordered churches to remain closed or face millions of dollars in fine or imprisonment.

Pastors from California to Maine refused to comply.

In Maine, Calvary Chapel of Bangor Pastor Ken Graves defied orders, saying, “The government wrongly presumes to have the authority to violate our constitutionally guaranteed and God-given rights to freedom of religion and peaceful assembly.”

In California, by October 2020, at least 32 lawsuits had been filed against Gov. Gavin Newsom, arguing his orders were unconstitutional and violated the religious liberty clauses of the California Constitution. Many cases were appealed and eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, The Center Square reported. Newsom also banned singing in houses of worship. The Supreme Court regularly ruled against the Ninth Circuit and Newsom, chastising them both.

As lockdown policies continued, pastors didn’t back down. Leading the fight were San Diego-based Abiding Place Ministries, South Bay United Pentecostal Church, Calvary Chapel of Ukiah, Calvary Chapel San Jose, Calvary Chapel of Fort Bragg, Godspeak Calvary Chapel of Newbury Park, River of Life Church, Harvest Rock Church, Grace Community Church, among others.

Godspeak’s former pastor, Rob McCoy, said they stood firm because “Liberty is not man’s idea. Liberty is God’s idea.” Calvary Chapel San Jose’s legal battle is ongoing.

In New York, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s color-coded zones restricting worship were struck down by the Supreme Court, which ruled banning “many from attending religious services strikes at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that while the coronavirus posed “many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques.”

Pastors are also running for office, encouraged by the American Renewal Project. Its founder, David Lane, argues Christians must run for office and vote. If they don’t, “candidates who oppose biblical values will win and draft and pass legislation to codify into law their values. We’re asking the living God to move into the public square of America.”

“The founders did not retreat from involvement in society and politics,” he added. “They did not surrender the ministry of civil government to those who are in rebellion against God. The cornerstone of political freedom in the United States is rooted in the Bible, which shaped the state constitutions and charters of the first 13 colonies. Our goal is to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage and reestablish a biblically based culture.”