Gary L. Steward in Justifying Revolution: The American Clergy's Argument for Political Resistance, 1750–1776, challenges the conclusions of a number of scholars, including Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden, who assert that America's Protestant clergy embraced Enlightenment secularism and radical political philosophies in the lead up to the Declaration of Independence. They further claim that “a new American synthesis of Christian and secular ideas”(4) emerged shortly thereafter. “[T]hese historians are wrong,”(1) Steward writes. Instead of abandoning their biblical commitment to passive obedience to established political authority, found in such passages as Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, he argues that the revolutionary-era's clergy embraced continuity and justified their resistance to the British government based “upon a long tradition of Protestant biblical interpretation and Protestant resistance thought”(1). In six wide-ranging chapters, Steward explores how the American clergy consistently looked back to historical precedents and key scriptural passages when they proclaimed their support for the patriot cause. Although repetitive in its argument, there is much to praise in this book.
In chapter 1, the author looks at the well-known sermon published in 1750 by the Boston Congregationalist minister, Jonathan Mayhew, arguing for political resistance. Although some scholars claim that his conclusions sprang from the ideas of John Locke and England's Real Whig philosophers, Steward contends that this is simply not so. Mayhew, he says, pointed out that Protestant teachings had long held that Romans 13:1–7 did not compel obedience in all cases whatsoever. Instead “the Bible only gives Christians a general duty to submit to their governing authorities” (10). Therefore, whenever faithful citizens found themselves being governed by ungodly leaders ruling through violence and exploitation, they were duty bound to resist. Working chronologically backward, Steward traces Mayhew's arguments back through time. For instance, he notes that Mayhew explicitly drew upon points developed by the Church of England Bishop Benjamin Hoadly. Forty-five years beforehand, the bishop had defended the Glorious Revolution and the people's overthrow of the tyrannical James II. Similarly, other even earlier divines had defended the actions of the Puritan Parliament in its treatment of Charles I as well as those members of the Protestant clergy who had resisted the reign of Mary Tudor. Steward then concludes this chapter by asserting that Mayhew was hardly alone in his views in the years surrounding 1750, and the author notes several other, albeit less-well known sermons, which also argue against an absolutist reading of Roman 13.
Chapter 2 examines the clergy's response to the Stamp Act when they again reached back into history for precedents justifying resistance, this time to 1689 when New Englanders deposed James II's appointed governor, Sir Edmund Andros, after learning of the Glorious Revolution in England. Chapter 3 assesses their reaction to the American bishop controversy of the late-1760s. This latter debate, in particular, sparked fears among colonists that they were about to lose their long-standing and cherished ecclesiastical autonomy. Thus, Steward argues, most members of the Protestant clergy had by 1770 come to see “civil liberty and religious liberty as inseparably linked,” (68) and both appeared under direct assault by their British rulers. As discussed in chapter 4, crisis followed crisis during the new decade, further escalating tensions. With the clergy growing increasingly alarmed with each passing year, they became ever more radicalized. Indeed, by the time Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, they justified the need to resist as a simple expression of self-defense.
Steward tangles again with Mark Noll when he turns to the British clergy's views of the imperial crisis. Noll has argued that a distinctly American “’Christian Republicanism’ . . . together with the philosophy of Common Sense Realism,” lay behind the clergy's support for resisting the British. Steward points out, however, that there were “numerous clergymen in Britain who supported American resistance to British policy in the 1760s and 1770s” (92). Like their American counterparts, British ministers were taught that, while they had a duty to submit to established authority, they were under no obligation to acquiesce to unlawful commands. He then cites a number of divines from the Mother Country who made such arguments. Steward does admit, though, that most Church of England ministers supported passive obedience in all cases whatsoever, whereas most of Britain's dissenting clergy backed the colonists. Although the author states that liberal as well as orthodox dissenters supported the American cause, he does not adequately explain this dichotomy.
Gary Steward's Justifying Revolution joins a growing number of insightful monographs by scholars such as Daniel Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, which not only articulate the deeper historical and biblical roots of American resistance, but which also argue for the centrality of religion during the nation's founding era. Steward's prose is clear and accessible, although this writer thinks he tended to overquote his sources when he could have cited them in his own words. The research notes are thorough and provide several interesting insights into his evidence and argument. In sum, Justifying Revolution is a deeply researched volume that specialists in the American Revolution will find well worth reading.
