Season 3, Episode 2 | The Black-Robed Regiment: The Preachers Who Fought for Independence

What if the American Revolution didn’t begin in the halls of Congress, but in the pews of colonial churches? 

In this episode of This Constitution, hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon uncover the spiritual and intellectual fire that helped ignite the Revolution. Before muskets were fired at Lexington and Concord, preachers across New England were already preparing their congregations for rebellion, not just politically but theologically.

From the sermons of Reverend Jonas Clark to the democratic church governance of the Puritans, and from Jonathan Mayhew’s biblical case for resistance to tyranny to Peter Muhlenberg’s dramatic call to arms, Savannah and Matthew trace how America’s revolution was born in the pulpit long before it was fought on the battlefield.

Together, they explore how this Black-Robed Regiment of clergymen bridged faith and politics, shaping the moral vocabulary of liberty that defined the nation’s founding.

In This Episode

• (00:17) Introduction and overview of “The Black Robed Regiment”
• (00:53) Reverend Jonas Clark and the Battle of Lexington
• (04:37) Puritan origins of political liberty and separation of church and state
• (07:14) How congregational church governance shaped early democracy
• (10:21) Thomas Hooker, Connecticut, and the first written constitution
• (17:00) Jonathan Mayhew’s sermon and the theology of rebellion
• (23:19) Samuel Cook’s fearless sermon after the Boston Massacre
• (27:29) Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, and the moral force of the pulpit
• (32:58) John Witherspoon and Peter Muhlenberg — faith in action
• (38:06) Takeaway: The Revolution began in the pews

Notable Quotes

(00:08:44) “Democratic governance in America didn’t begin in politics. It began in the church.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

(00:24:45) “The bravery it took for Samuel Cook to stare down the loyal governor and call him a tyrant… that’s a different kind of courage.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

(00:25:09) “People say religion and politics should be kept separate. But that view ignores our founding. Religion was the spark.” — Savannah Eccles Johnston

(00:20:36) “If obedience to rulers who govern on God’s behalf is obedience to God, then obedience to a tyrant would be obedience to the devil.” — Matthew Brogdon

(00:23:40) “It’s a dangerous thing when theology fuels revolution, but without it, we wouldn’t have political progress.” — Matthew Brogdon

(00:27:55) “Religion in America has always shaped politics—not through force, but through conscience.” — Matthew Brogdon

Transcript

Intro:

[00:00:05 - 00:00:18]

We the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:18 - 00:00:20]

Welcome to This Constitution. My name is Savannah Eccles Johnston. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:20 - 00:00:22]

And I'm Matthew Brogdon. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:22 - 00:00:44]

And today we're going to start our first of two episodes on the origins of the Declaration. We're going to argue that the Declaration wasn't just the result of high minded philosophical treatises, but a popular movement. And today, in this episode, which is called the Black Robed Regiment, we're going to argue that it was in the church pews that the American Revolution really starts. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:44 - 00:00:47]

It was. So who do we start with? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:48 - 00:00:49]

I think we should. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:00:49 - 00:00:53]

So we have preachers leading a revolution. So where do we begin? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:00:53 - 00:02:34]

Let's start with Reverend Jonas Clark. And you'll have known about him, maybe might have heard of him. This is the guy who Samuel Adams and John Hancock are hanging out with on the night of April 18, which comes April 19, when Paul Revere is making his famous ride. So eventually Paul Revere shows up at Jonas Clark's house and says, the British are coming, 800 or so troops. And John Hancock and Samuel Adams turn to Jonas Clark and they have a decision to make. Do you fight or do you flee? And they say, will the people fight? And this is his response. “I have trained them for this very hour, they will fight.” Which is really good. And I think gets to the point of this episode of clergymen training the population for revolution through sermons you and I were talking about just before cameras started rolling. Yes, the clergymen are the most educated people in the colonies. Right. These are educated men. They've read Locke, they've done all the things. But they are infusing these philosophical traditions with scripture and conveying it to the people. Not as treatises, although it is quite impressive. They're sermons, but in a way that the people can understand and grasp and really take to heart. So much so that they do. Actually, 80 people from his congregation show up to fight in Lexington. That's who the people are on the battle green in Lexington, April 19th. It's his congregation. And I think 12, 18 of them died during that battle. So he has trained them to fight. One year later, Clark gives this wonderful sermon to commemorate the battle of Lexington and Concord. Have you read this sermon before? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:34 - 00:02:35]

I have not. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:35 - 00:02:35]

Okay. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:02:35 - 00:02:36]

I'm not familiar with this. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:02:36 - 00:03:16]

I'm just going to give you one of the opening passages, if that's okay. Okay. One of the great designs of the present discourse is to rouse and excite us to a religious acknowledgment of the hand of God in those distressing scenes of murder, bloodshed, and war, we are met to commemorate upon this solemn occasion the passage before us, it is humbly conceived, is well suited to confirm our faith, to excite our trust and encourage our hope under such awful dispensations as it points out the method of God's government and the course of his providence toward the enemies and oppressors of his people and the fate of those that shed innocent blood. Later on, God himself will plead their cause and both cleanse and avenge their innocent blood. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:03:16 - 00:03:20]

That's intense. Any idea what's the passage he's referring to? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:03:20 - 00:03:40]

He is referring to. Oh, goodness. I know. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, for the Lord dwelleth in Zion. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:03:41 - 00:04:18]

Okay, so this is some. It's like a prophetic imprecation against these enemies of. Of Judah. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. I mean, these are men of action. The most remarkable thing to me whenever you encounter these colonial preachers is that they are learned. They are giving these sermons. They write books that get published in England and stuff. But it's incredible how engaged in the political life and then in the military affairs of the colonies they are. It's quite. In many ways, I think, quite foreign to our conception of what your typical American clergy would be doing. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:04:18 - 00:04:49]

But maybe it shouldn't be, because every major social movement in our history or political movement has been infused with the church in some way. And we see this. It traces back to the Puritans. Right. So let's talk about the Puritans for a little bit, because this is really where it all begins in New England with the Puritans, who are extremely concerned about the freedoms of the church in particular. So explain why. Why are they so serious about the freedom of the faith and how that connects to their political societies? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:04:49 - 00:06:25]

Well, first of all, New England Puritans have a really unique conception of the relationship between what they would call ecclesiastical authority and political authority, so between the governor and the local preacher. And they actually talked about a kind of separation of these two. For example, New England had pervasive rules for a very long time that forbade clergy from serving in political office. So you couldn't be governor or serve on the town council or what have you, or in the general court in Massachusetts and be a clergyman. Now, that's quite different from Us because we'd actually say that violates the First Amendment. Now, you can't exclude clergy from political office, but they did. However, that coexisted with the fact that those clergy were nonetheless tremendously influential in the way that the political order went about its business. And as you point out, the motive there is not so much to make sure that clergy don't become kings or something, but more to protect the church, to make sure that the church is not corrupted politically by the injection of political authority. So it's not a fear of influence. They don't fear the influence of the church on politics, but they do fear, I think, the meddling of the state in the church to some extent. And so you do have really politically active and influential clergymen who are leading things like this. I mean, they're really, we'd call them some like thought leaders, influencers, you know, but they are tremendously influential in every way. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:06:25 - 00:06:33]

So they are kind of primed because of the history of the Puritans to reject or react poorly to British interference in what they consider religious affairs. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:06:33 - 00:08:35]

Well, especially what they would call episcopacy. So the idea that you'd have some sort of centralized religious authority, bishops and so forth, and at the very end of the day, the idea of the king as the head of the church, that would sort of top down govern them overwhelmingly. Especially the more militant class clergy in the colonial era tend to be Congregationalists or Presbyterians. And these are just sort of not too far apart. And they're very. I don't want to climb too far into the theology of the thing, but it's a kind of democratic church governance. The whole idea behind congregational church polity, we call it church polity, the structure of the church's governance was bottom up. That was the congregation chose its elders and leaders. And then those elders and leaders might gather with other elders from other congregations to form associations or even the case of Presbyterians, more authoritative bodies. But the fact was all the people making the decisions there were actually chosen by their congregations. And so that you can see where that has a kind of consonants with democratic politics and would also have a deep distrust of any kind of royal authority coming in to tell the colonies. Actually you think of this as a kind of federalism, right, that you've got local communities are choosing representatives who then wind up forming some sort of more centralized body to deliberate on their common concerns. It's not hard to see how in certain ways structures of the American Constitution grow out of this tradition. They even make the argument in the other direction. This guy named John Wise in 1717 gives this. He's this preacher in New England, gives a sermon where he basically says, look, communities of believers have a right to choose their own leaders. And therefore, if that's good enough for the church, it also has to be good enough for the state. He actually argues from church polity to democratic government to say, if this works in the church, then the community, the political community, has to be allowed to choose its leaders too. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:08:35 - 00:09:14]

Right. So let's highlight two things here. One is that democratic governance and those kind of structures are coming from religious structures. First, it's not that we had a democracy, and then that infects the churches. No, no. It's first how the Puritans are understanding church governance. And then that then leads to political structures. And the second is, this is really New England. There's a reason why revolutionary fervor starts in Boston. The Puritans. Right. That tradition is New England first. You see it in the southern colonies as well. But this is really a New England tradition. That's where you see it, I think, the strongest. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:09:14 - 00:09:59]

Yeah. I think there's a reason that we've talked about Alexis de Tocqueville any number of times. You can't come around the center for Constitutional Studies for more than a hot minute without somebody quoting Alexis de Tocqueville. But Tocqueville argued that the origins of the real American Founding, he says, was in Puritan New England. He says that it's real. The moment of birth of American democracy is actually with the Puritans in New England, not with patriots in Philadelphia. And he doesn't mean by that that we didn't actually give birth to our Constitution and, you know, the Declaration, that's very important. But he's saying we really establish the mode of American self government. The way we understand ourselves as a democratic or republican people is really shaped most deeply by the experience of Puritans. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:09:59 - 00:10:09]

In New England and the idea of rights and equality before God. This is coming from Puritan experience, and less so among the plantation experience in the South. So let's. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:09 - 00:10:12]

This does contrast starkly with the slave economy. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:13 - 00:10:27]

Right. Though you'll see a clash of these two, which, of course, that final clash will be in the Civil War. So let's give some concrete examples here. Let's talk about Thomas Hooker, who is the founder of the Connecticut colony. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:27 - 00:10:30]

Well, no, you need that much background. Every American knows who Thomas Hooker is. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:10:30 - 00:10:40]

I don't think so, actually. No, I don't think so. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Give us some background. On Thomas Hooker, this Puritan reverend. And I've got a quote from a speech. So first give us some background, and then we'll talk about what he helps establish. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:10:40 - 00:14:10]

Hooker helped found Connecticut. So Connecticut grows out of, as a colony, Massachusetts Bay. Hooker's a preacher, but he becomes a kind of founder because he preaches. And he's the first pastor of what's now Cambridge, where Harvard University is. And he's dissatisfied with a number of things in Massachusetts Bay Colony. He's at odds with the two most important figures in the 1630s. I mean, we're talking about, like, just the first decade, first decade or two after the Puritans settled Massachusetts and had come over with people. John Winthrop, John Cotton. So he's at odds with these principal Puritan leaders like Winthrop and Cotton in Boston. And one of the issues is that Hooker wants an expansion of the franchise, suffrage. He thinks that any professing Christian of any denomination should be able to vote. And in Massachusetts Bay, it was the case that the only people who could vote were what were called freemen, which would be people who had membership in one of the New England churches. So this would exclude people who belong to dissenting congregations and that sort of thing. So he has a broader conception of the membership of the political community. Right. The citizenry is broader, he thinks, than the membership of the church. That's a very important step in the direction of American religious pluralism and the democratic political society that's distinct from and lives alongside a smaller church community. So that's one issue. The other really interesting thing that happens, he takes a hundred of his congregants, and he gets permission from the Massachusetts General Court to go plant a settlement that he calls Hartford in neighboring Connecticut area. And this is kind of unorganized. I mean, the important thing at this point is there are Dutch settlers there. There are some other English settlers there. So this is not just an English royal colony. There actually is no royal charter for a colony in Connecticut. He has no authorization from the Crown. Okay. The Massachusetts General Court says, fine, you people make a lot of trouble here anyway. Just go. So they go to Connecticut and they found this Hartford colony. And a few years later, Hooker is a central figure in assembling representatives from places around the colony what's becoming the colony of Connecticut, and writing what's called the fundamental orders of Connecticut. It's a constitution. It sets up a little government, little representative government. It sets out a bill of rights, certain liberties of the citizens and residents of the area. And they do all of this without any royal consent or authority. In fact, they operate under the fundamental orders of Connecticut from the 1640s until I think Charles II, 1662. Right, right. It's almost 20 years they spend self governing with their own written constitution without any kind of royal consent until they get a royal charter in 1662 which the Crown later tries to take away, interestingly. So it really is, I mean, he is founding the first American colony that is really independently self governing. And I don't want a discount. There was the Plymouth plantation in the Plymouth combination and it did constitute a kind of community, but it didn't go quite the length that this did. This set up a structure of government and a set of laws and rights, which was very fascinating. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:14:10 - 00:14:50]

Two things here. One key to these fundamentals is election. The legislators are elected and the governor is elected. He will say in this fabulously important sermon he gives in 1683, this is a quote from it. The foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of the people. So again, he's a Puritan. He believes the Bible is the foundation for society. And it's clear to him that the Bible grants to the people the ability to choose their leaders and to hold those leaders accountable and create limits for those leaders. And then they go and do it. In these fundamentals, it's going to be legislators chosen by election, the governor chosen by election. Second question for you. What year is Providence? Do you know what year is Providence founded? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:14:50 - 00:15:35]

Providence is founded. I mean we're talking about like Isaac Backus and Roger Williams. Yeah, we're talking about Roger Williams, Rhode Island Colony. And it was in the 1640s as well. Okay, so it's right in that same period. Massachusetts Bay is generating a lot of disagreement and much of that they deal with. I know famously we think about things like the trial of Anne Hutchinson and the expulsion of Roger Williams and that makes them sound very intolerant. But the fact is they did have a republican form of government that was representative. A lot of people didn't like the laws that were being generated by that community. And one of the responses is to, well, gather up like minded people and go start a new community. And that happens with Rhode Island. It happens with Connecticut. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:35 - 00:15:41]

Yeah, it's 1636 by the way. 36, yeah, yeah, yeah. The great Hank off camera has. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:41 - 00:15:43]

I was gonna say, did somebody feed that to you through your earpiece? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:43 - 00:15:44]

Yep, yep, yep. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:15:44 - 00:15:46]

You've got AI in there telling you what. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:15:46 - 00:16:10]

But no, but I think this is useful that you have Thomas Hooker, Connecticut, you've got Roger Williams, Rhode Island. You've got the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which is itself an attempt to create a wilderness Zion, to kind of democratically self govern in religious affairs. We've got a hundred years of this in New England before we ever get to a declaration. Yeah, and that's. There's a straight line there. It's really not that different. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:10 - 00:16:50]

We're also learning something very important, which is American, especially American religious pluralism has not always been about a whole bunch of people who disagree living in one little spot and figuring out what laws they can agree on. It quite often has been what we now would call a federal solution, where people do sort of divvy up into different communities so that they can self govern under laws that they agree to and think are good laws, but then join into some larger association of those communities. And that is. I don't think you get the breadth of American religious pluralism that we have without something like that. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:50 - 00:16:54]

By the way, we are recording this from Utah. That is the history of the state of Utah. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:16:54 - 00:16:55]

I hadn't thought of that. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:16:57 - 00:17:44]

Right. All right, so let's. So that's it. We've got that first hundred years, New England, starting this American tradition. Let's jump ahead to the 1750s to a man named Jonathan Mayhew. So Jonathan Mayhew is a prominent Boston minister. The Boston West Church is the name of his church. And he's really famous for giving these political sermons and for insisting on colonial rights against, you know, British intrusions. He's gonna give this frankly, bold speech on the hundredth anniversary of the execution of King Charles I. It's called A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non Resistance to Higher Powers. And that title is a little bit confusing. What he's actually saying is you don't have to give unlimited submission. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:17:44 - 00:17:54]

And this also counted as a short and pithy title for the 18th century. I mean, sometimes these things would stretch out, you know, they'd have semicolons in them and. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:17:54 - 00:18:33]

Right. So he's going to argue that instead of trying to recast Charles as some kind of martyr, which is what was happening in London at the time, he's going to make the case that actually Charles was a tyrant who violated traditional English liberties and that completely justified rebellion and eventually his execution. Here's a quote from it. We shall find it to be such an one as concludes not in favor of submission to all who bear the title of rulers in common, but only to those who actually perform the duty of rulers by exercising a reasonable and just authority for the good of human society. Ten Years later, this sounds a whole lot like revolution is justified when rights are trampled on. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:18:33 - 00:20:38]

Yeah, we always think about taxation without representation as being the sort of, like, slogan of the American Revolution. And there is a good bit of that. But maybe the much more important slogan of the American Revolution is resistance to tyrants. Reverence is obedience to God. Yes, because it was an incredible. Sometimes modern Americans don't recognize the biblical and theological impediments to arguing for political revolution. In that sermon, Mayhew is preaching his text. He's good Puritan, so you always have a text you're trying to exposit. The text he's expositing is Romans, chapter 13, which tells you to be subject to the governing powers, for the powers that be are established by God. And so resistance to them is disobedience to God. And Mayhew has to deal with this text. How do you reconcile this with arguing for armed resistance to what is the established government? And this was not new. Luther had to struggle with this. Calvin, the reformers, because quite often they were setting up churches in opposition to the existing laws, which forbade dissenting churches and things. So Puritans and Reformed Protestants had been arguing about these biblical texts for well over 100 years at this point. But Mayhew's contribution is that he puts this in a specifically American context. And he argues, look, if you look closely at the passage, what it says is that, yes, the authorities that govern are established by God. But then it gives some descriptions of what it looks like. Says like, you know, the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. So he's like, so if you're actually ruled by somebody who's forbidding good stuff and encouraging people to do evil things, well, that's not the ruler that's being described. And in fact, he has this. He turns things around. He says, if obedience to rulers who govern on God's behalf is obedience to God, then obedience to a tyrant would be obedience to the devil. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:20:40 - 00:20:42]

He's really found a loophole. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:20:42 - 00:21:21]

The Apostle Paul means here that can't fly. And the point is not whether that's the best understanding of Romans 13. And again, various sects of Christians have dealt with this text in a lot of different ways. And go ask your clergy. But this was a powerful exposition. This became highly influential. And other American clergy over the ensuing two decades adopt this similar reading and come sometimes by different reasoning to the same conclusion. And that is really important because most Americans do take very seriously their duty to take their guidance from Scripture. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:21 - 00:21:21]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:21 - 00:21:41]

And if you're arguing for a political philosophy or a course of political action that directly violates the Bible, you're just not going to get very far with a lot of Americans. So it was important that the clergy come up with convincing arguments for their parishioners to explain to them why they could take these courses of action. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:21:41 - 00:21:55]

And again, this need to couch your political arguments in scripture. You see this in the suffrage movement, you see this in the abolition movement, you see this in the labor movement, you see this in the civil rights movement. It comes over, we're still doing it, we're still couching. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:21:55 - 00:22:30]

And it works both ways. Sometimes it's, can you find warrant for the things people want to do? Can you find a warrant for the right revolution? Sometimes it becomes its own independent source of political action. Like with abolition. Right. You know, the most important slogan of abolitionists like the, you know, Methodists and Quakers in the same period, 1740s and 50s and 60s, people like John Wesley, who's preaching on both sides of the Atlantic, they're looking at biblical texts and saying, how do you square slavery with this? There's this famous line in the Book of Acts that of one blood God hath made all nations of men. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:30 - 00:22:31]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:22:32 - 00:22:56]

Said you can't square this with the idea that some other human person is not your equal. So this is a very important source of self understanding, of political action, of giving people permission and reconciling them to a course of political action. And that does come through these clergy members, this black robed regiment we're dealing with. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:22:56 - 00:23:20]

Oh, way to bring us back to the title. So it's one thing for Jonathan Mayhew to be preaching against a king killed a hundred years ago. It's another for him to start inciting riots against the stamp act in 1765, which he's credited with doing. Right. So now it's not just talking about dead kings. It's actually. No, the current king is a tyrant. And inciting riots soon. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:20 - 00:23:21]

This is dangerous stuff. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:21 - 00:23:22]

This is dangerous stuff. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:23:22 - 00:23:40]

I mean, I mean that quite literally. It is a quite dangerous thing whenever you start inciting people on the basis of theological arguments to engage in what can become violent political action. But without that kind of thing, we don't get most of what we think of as political progress. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:23:41 - 00:24:49]

Right, right. Okay, so just to one up Mayhew here in terms of the clergy's courage. I wanna talk about Samuel Cook for a second. I didn't know Samuel Cook before doing the research for this podcast. He's a preacher in Boston and he has in his congregation, Thomas Hutchinson, who is the loyal governor of Massachusetts. So this is who he's preaching to on Sundays. And he is going to give a sermon right after the Boston Massacre. And sitting there in the pew right in front of him is Thomas Hutchinson. This is what he's going to say. His chosen scripture is 2nd Samuel 23, which says, the God of Israel said the rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. Then he's going to expound upon this scripture. This is what he's going to say again. Thomas Hutchinson is right in front of him. When a people are in subjection to those who are detached from their fellow citizens under distinct laws and rules, supported in idleness and luxury, armed with the terrors of death, under the most absolute command, ready and obliged to execute the most daring orders, what must, what has been the consequence? Can you imagine giving? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:24:49 - 00:24:50]

That's incredible. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:24:50 - 00:25:23]

Isn't that right? I am blown away by this and this. Why I think this is useful is I often hear from my students because we live in 2025, either religion and politics ought to be separated entirely. Kay Fine. And also that America's religious past has largely been a detriment to us. I think that view is completely ignorant of, especially the founding of this country. Right. The kind of bravery it takes for a Samuel Cook to stand up and look at the loyal governor and say, basically, you're a tyrant. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:25:24 - 00:26:13]

I mean, it is the fact that most, most human beings hold some kind of belief about their relationship to God or eternity that is a guide to their decisions, actions, judgments about what other people do, what's right and wrong, and to expect that somehow that would remain irrelevant to the important decisions that people undertake, including their political decisions in their life, is just ignoring human nature. It's not a tenable. I mean, it's not even a question of should it be such and such, like, is this a good thing or not. But I don't think it's actually possible to ask people to disentangle what they think about justice, what they think about the common good, from their religious convictions. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:26:13 - 00:26:15]

It's your comprehensive worldview. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:26:15 - 00:27:12]

And so people can sort of divide themselves into two people and do this. It's not going to happen. And there are a couple of lessons we could take away from that. One is, as you look abroad in the world and as we deal with other countries and look on other people who have undertaken their own political revolutions and are undertaking their own political development, to think that you can just take a political theory or a form of government and just place it in merely secular terms and then relocate it to a people that have different foundational beliefs is naive, to say the least. It's not to say that those forms of government can't proliferate, but it is crucially important that if you want to take Republican government or the, you know, the kinds of liberalism that we enjoy, that is government that's aimed at the protection of rights, you're going to have to explain to, for example, to Muslims how this fits with and is consistent with Islamic theology. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:27:12 - 00:27:12]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:27:12 - 00:29:58]

To say otherwise is to pretend as though it's not important whether people can fit their laws with their convictions. And that's just not. It's not plausible, it's not a responsible. And it's not an effective way to go about political change. One other observation I want to make about this before we move on is that we started out talking about this rule that New Englanders had about clergy not serving in political office, Right. And I think it's a crucially important observation that these folks occupy an interesting position because they are. They are guiding the community and making open arguments about what ought to be done, but without themselves wielding the civil authority. So there's a kind of distinction they maintain for a long time. Now we're going to see a difference in this because we're going to get to Witherspoon, who winds up holding office. This is going to change. But Tocqueville later go back to Tocqueville, says this is actually really important because he says what the American tendency to have influential religious figures who don't hold political office and wield power themselves. Those who don't actually have the executive power sit in the legislature, he says actually makes them more powerful and influential. He says this in a chapter in Democracy in America that's called How Religion is an Institution in American Politics. And he says that it's an important kind of institution because it never actually wields the power of government, but it's constantly influencing and informing the views of citizens, the views of policymakers. And I think you see that with these clergy. It's interesting to me you had mentioned that at sort of every phase, clergy in America played this role. And what always comes back to me, something Frederick Douglass says in the run up to the Civil War, he says slavery could not survive a moment if it was denounced from the American pulpit. And he. Thus he sort of holds. He actually, in this speech, I think it's in the what to the slave is the fourth of July speech. He actually sort of holds American clergy responsible for saying, if you spoke up about this, all the people who sit in your pews would feel like they needed to abolish slavery and the institution would come to an end. In other words, he thinks that the clergy, the pulpit, could accomplish something that legislatures couldn't at that time. And he might be empirically right, but it does raise a question. Is that a good thing? Is he right that the, you know, whenever we find the presence of some social or political evil, that the clergy should speak up, denounce it, urge their parishioners to act against it? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:29:58 - 00:29:58]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:29:58 - 00:30:08]

Or is that something that they should be avoided? And we tend to put it in terms of, oh, slavery or, oh, you know, the American Revolution. That sounds great, but what. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:08 - 00:30:18]

What about abortion or the curse of ham in Southern Christianity, which upholds slavery. Right. So it can go away. You don't like if the clergy get involved. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:18 - 00:30:18]

Oh, that's true. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:30:18 - 00:30:44]

Using the Bible. Let's jump back to John Witherspoon. You make the point. We kept them separate. Now they're not separate anymore. John Witherspoon is our one and only active clergyman and founder of the College of New Jersey, which would later become Princeton, who signs the Declaration and is serving in the Continental Congress. What changes? How do we get from, no, they have to be separate to actually, John Witherspoon is totally cool to be active clergy and signing the Declaration. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:30:44 - 00:31:34]

Well, I think it actually has to do. It actually has to do with the advancement of, I think, the separation of church and state near this period of time. That is, you do have a growth of religious pluralism. That is, there are more and more religious sects and denominations operating in American politics. I think we get more distant from our British experience. Just, you know, the American colonists had been gone from Anglican church polity for a long time. Even Americans who are Anglican don't actually operate under a sort of physically present bishop. That is, the Church of England never actually sends a bishop to North America. And the southern colonies, which are by and large Anglican, are opposed to it. So even Anglicans in North America are. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:34 - 00:31:41]

Like, that might have been a mistake. By the way, we don't want any bishops. Maybe what would have changed if they had actually sent an Anglican? Maybe if things would have been different. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:41 - 00:31:57]

Who knows, it might. It also might have just produced more reaction. I mean, I think the fear was the Church of England was that if you sent a bishop to North America, there's a lot of evangelism going on from alternatives in this period. You Might see a lot of Southerners suddenly become Presbyterians. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:31:57 - 00:31:58]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:31:58 - 00:32:21]

Or some other sect if that happened. So I think there is a distance from that kind of fear of a religious hierarchy. American religion is deeply decentralized. And so the fear that, oh, this pastor, if he joins the legislature, also controls this. No, he's the pastor of a congregation somewhere. He doesn't wield that much power. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:32:21 - 00:32:22]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:32:22 - 00:32:36]

And so I think that the fear of religious authority and ecclesiastical hierarchy that had marked Puritans when they left England had sort of dissipated in the midst of American religious pluralism and decentralized religion. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:32:36 - 00:33:17]

Right, okay. And so not only are they now signing the Declaration and serving in. In Congresses, they're serving on the battlefield as well. So actually, this is the last story I wanted to. To give that. You have these ministers who aren't just preaching, they're actually practicing what they preach occasionally by serving in Congress and by serving on the. On the battlefield. This is a non England, non New England story. So we had to throw one of these in. This is Peter Muhlenberg. Have you heard of this guy? So this is a great story. He's an Anglican priest. As you said, the south is predominantly Anglican, but he's actually serving in a Lutheran church. He was required to be ordained in the Anglican Church because it's the state religion of Virginia at this point, but he's serving in a Lutheran church. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:33:17 - 00:33:22]

So a Lutheran theologian went and got ordained in the Church of England so he could pastor his own Lutheran congregation. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:33:22 - 00:33:25]

Exactly. That's exactly what happened. So then he has. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:33:25 - 00:33:39]

This is one of the ways in which American religious establishments are not real. The democratic force of religion in colonial America is such that even though there are formal religious establishments, they don't really have that much authority. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:33:39 - 00:34:30]

Right, Right. So he has recently been appointed the colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment, which is in the Shenandoah Valley. And this is kind of the back country. It's what they called it in the 1830s. There's this diary that calls it the mean country. Right. So it's still backwoods. And a whole area has shown up to listen to him give his farewell sermon. And he's going to throw out the theatrics here, or I guess he's going to put on the theatrics here. Here's what he's going to say from the pulpit. There is a time to pray and a time to fight. And that time has now come, at which point he strips off his robe to reveal an army uniform and calls for the drums to be beat. So that other men will stand up and come and join him. And by the way, he's given the sermon wearing a sword, or so the Legend says. And 300 frontiersmen enlist as a result, and they march off. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:34:30 - 00:34:32]

And this is not the spiritual sword. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:32 - 00:34:58]

No, this is a literal sword. Now, whether or not he actually had a sword in church, it's a great story. So we're going to go with it. In fact, this moment is immortalized in a stained glass window at a church in Harrisonburg in Virginia. Yeah, you have him standing at the pulpit, he's got his sword and he is still wearing his robes. This is before he strips off his robes and says, now's the time. Let's go march to war. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:34:58 - 00:34:59]

I need a field trip. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:34:59 - 00:35:00]

Isn't this so good? 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:35:00 - 00:35:01]

I can see this. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:35:01 - 00:35:37]

Right, so this, we're just trying to really drive home the point here, which is this revolution in many ways starts in the pews and it's this black robed regiment. It's these clergymen who are leading the way, both through sermons, convincing the people that actually God has given it to you to choose your leaders and if necessary, to remove them when they're being bad. That's obedience to God. As you said at times serving in politics like John Witherspoon, and in many cases serving on the actual battlefield of the Revolutionary War. This is the black robed regiment. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:35:37 - 00:36:57]

I mean, it is interesting, even if we think about it, we phrase this in terms of the sort of popular origins of the American Revolution. This is not sort of philosopher kings sitting around and deciding, we're gonna go to war and throw off British power. But ideas do play a huge role here. The reading of books and conferring ideas and their propagation is really important here, but it's important the way it happens. Harvard and Yale colleges in the colonial era, you could basically choose to pursue the study of law or theology, right? And so it's lawyers and preachers in the American colonial era. They're the ones who are reading John Locke and John Calvin, right? And to the extent that those ideas proliferate through America, Locke's theories of property or his ideas about social contract and separation of powers, they're coming through these individuals and into democratic politics. So it wasn't that every family in America had a copy of John Locke's two treatises that on the shelf, but they had heard the ideas from their clergyman and they were hearing the ideas on juries in courtrooms from lawyers. And so this does really. It's sort of a both and situation. I think the ideas are immensely important, but it's the way that people come into contact with those ideas. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:36:57 - 00:37:21]

And it's ideas that are mediated by these clergymen. They're not coming as pure John Locke. Pure John Locke is not preached to the American people. It's a deeply mediated kind of sparks note version of John Locke meshed with a lot of scripture. That's really what they're getting. You don't really need the highfalutin stuff. You need it translated into something the American people can take and run with. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:37:21 - 00:37:23]

And reconciled and synthesized. Right? 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:37:23 - 00:37:24]

Yes. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:37:24 - 00:37:37]

Taking those ideas, which can be fairly philosophically and politically radical and explaining as you articulate those ideas, you're articulating them in a way that's meant to fit with your theological assumptions. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:37:37 - 00:37:38]

Right. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:37:38 - 00:38:06]

So they're really doing an important work of synthesizing, which is really sort of uncomfortable for some of our political philosophy colleagues who, you know, want to sort of parse Locke. They are not careful philosophical readers of Locke. They're reading it and taking the ideas that work and then reconciling them with theirs. With Christianity and then explaining that package Right. To their parishioners. I think that's the kind of process that you see. So really interesting. 

Savannah Eccles Johnston:

[00:38:06 - 00:38:49]

So here's, here's what we want to take away from this episode. What do we want our listeners to understand? And it's one that the revolution starts as much in the pews as it does anywhere else. And that churches have always been this immensely powerful force in American politics insofar as they expound upon the American political tradition. They're explaining to us, what does this mean? Natural rights. That all men are created equal. And they've played that role throughout our entire history. And perhaps most importantly, at the very creation of the nation. They are giving meaning to what the nation is. They helped to birth this declaration which became the foundation of American identity that starts first in the pews black robe regiment. 

Matthew Brogdon:

[00:38:51 - 00:39:32]

The Constitution is more than parchment under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self government that shapes every part of our civic life, from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document. This Constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions to keep together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.