Convictions and to justify the revolutionary war. This top was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible here in washington d. C. Its 45 minutes. Our Third Session today is the bible of the American Revolution with james bird. And this presentation, based on his latest book, james bird shows that the bible was a key text of the American Revolution, and when war came to the colonies, preachers and patriots alike turned to the bible, not only for solace but for expectations to fight. Such scripture helped amateur soldiers overcome their natural aversion to killing, can furred on those who died for the revolution, the halo of martyrdom. And he gave americans a sense of the Divine Providence of their calls. In this session, doctor bird will examine specific biblical texts and how they were used, especially in making the patriotic calls for war. Case reward. Transporters chair of the graduate department of religion an associate professor of american religious history at vanderbilt university, his latest book is sacred scriptures, sacred war, the bible and the American Revolution. Hes currently working on a book on the bible and the american civil war. Please join me in welcoming, dr. Bird. Well, thank you. Im so pleased to be here and to be joining in this important conversation at the museum of the bible and im very honored to be sharing the podium with professor strides back and kid, two scholars that have admired for years. And especially thank the team here at museum of the bible all of you for putting this together, im just very honored to be participating. My focus and my ankle on this, specifically deals a little more with the war itself. And in doing this i have two topics that i try to bring together. One is the history of the bible in america and the history of war in america. So, i do a little extensively with war and violence and how the bible has been part of our justification for going to war and our protests against it. So i got interested in this a few years ago, just curious and all of our projects began with a certain kind of curiosity, curious about how the bible was included in the American Revolution and being kind of a computer geek myself, i decided that i would just design a database and try to pick out all the biblical texts and then sort them, and then i would have the answer. That may have been a mistake because it took me a few years to do this, before i could even write the book. So i thought, okay, ill get the database together, then ill write the book based on the database and thats what i did, but that involved going to a lot of texts, most of which are not in modern bones, let me tell you who are our modern spelling. And going to each page and bonding each little bible verse, and many times they cite the bible verse, sometimes they dont. So involve me scanning through, sometimes i actually grew up learning the bible a bit and we did in sunday school, reached the draw swords bible exercise. And so general longrange there, and just using the citations that i could find, i put together a database and then at the end of it, i just printed them all out and said, well, these are the big tax. And then i went through an elastic analysis of this tax and thats with the book turned out to be. So i want to talk about some of these tax today and how they were represented, why they were important and revolutionary america, specifically dealing with the war. So, the next one the next book is on the civil war and it involves a lot more in terms of, and like the bible and a lot more text to deal with. And this one is kind of a involving a little bit more Computer Programming to get to. Okay, i want to start by talking about thomas payne. Tom is an interesting character. And one of the most interesting insights that he brings us on the bible comes from common sense. Most of you have probably read common sense, it was probably the most red pan flip in revolutionary merica. Common sense was written for a particular reason in 70 76. It was written to argue that declaring independence, which they later did in 1776, was just common sense. So he was attempting to deal with arguments that everyone could agree on. He was attempting to take the pulse of the society and to make a persuasive case for declaring independence because let me say, that going to war against britain and one way was one thing, but declaring independence was something altogether different. For not many people, they didnt nursery want to declare anything. They were hoping to get a better parliament, perhaps a better king, a better situation. But pains arguing that its only common sense to declare independence. And he uses scripture to do that. He uses specifically the Old Testament and one particular chapter, chapter eight, that i want to talk about a bit. You might remember first angle, chapter eight. The profit samuel was getting a little old, the people start to think about new leadership. And in so doing, they come to samuel and they say, hey, your sons arent all that impressive, how about you give us a king, so that we can be like other nations . Now, just as an aside. If you read the hebrew viable, anytime the people want to be like the other nations, thats not a good thing. So, hes wrestling with this and we ask god and god says, all right, give them the cane but in so doing so, there are not just projecting you, the rejecting me as they have done since then led them out of egypt. So, god gave them a king. , not because it was a good thing to do, but because they wanted it and they demanded it, but in so doing, samuel argues that the king tells emerald so how congress can impress them, the king is just going to be terrible to them and theyll be sorry the lever ask for king. Well, thomas payne pulls us out and he uses it as an argument against the king. An argument for independence. To say, that its not just that a new king will help, any king is bad. We need to turn against all kings. Monarchy is not the way to go. And this draws on that tradition that professor dreisbach was talking about a. He break republicanism. So pain quotes scripture in immaculate sense. But he did he believe it . Later on, and another publication, age of reason, payne actually says some rather bad things about the bible, he says the Old Testament is more the word of the demon than the word of the guard which is, pretty bad. And, yet, he quote scripture like billy graham here, he knows his bible. John adams actually, when he encountered pain and had a conversation about this, about drawing on the Old Testament and common sense, pain sort of brushed aside and, said i got this for milton. So this is an argument about how the bible was influential in various ways, regardless of whether or not to people quoting it actually believed that the bible was the real word of god in a specific way. This is a quote from gordon would, one of the most imminent american religious historians, specifically in the revolutionary area. He said it was the clergy who made the revolution meaningful for the most Common People because for every gentleman who read a scholarly pamphlet and delved away a wig for an explanation of events, there were dozens of ordinary people read the bible and look to their ministers for an interpretation of what the revolution meant. So the bible was part of the language. It was part of the symbolism. I was part of the narrative that everyone knew. If anyone owned a book, and this is the case for the 19th century as well, and their families, it was probably global. So im talking about the bible uss patriots. But in so doing, in using the bible to wage anymore, they had to overcome certain obstacles. Because the bible wasnt just a militant, violent document. Theres a lot in the bible that speaks against violence, so arguing to commit overcome a few obstacles. I just want to name a few. One is the pacifist text seem to exist and scriptures, i mean there is the dow child not kill. There is the sermon on the mount, matthews five through seven. Where jesus says turn the other cheek. Well, your neighbors yourself that kindness so the idea that nonresistance to evil is part of scripture is true too, so its not just that the bible is a militant text, there was also an obstacle in the sense that a lot of christians, because of their faith, because of their love her neighbor resisted going to war. One of the most prominent civil wars has argued that killing or trying to get christians to kill for their country was harder than trying to get them forward to die for their country. The argument was, that christians have all along typically had the sense of self sacrifice. But getting someone to actually take up arms and kill, that was the harder courage. That was the harder obstacle to overcome, for a lot of people in the civil war era and thats the same case in the revolutionary war era. In front of situation. And there was the fact that there was a lot of loyalists, and you know how to quote scripture really well. Including those methodists. They do scripture pretty well and they were, for the most part, like john wesley, most part loyalists. So i want to talk about a couple of frameworks, her kinds of ways to frame the way people look at the bible and the revolutionary period because as our argue, cannot exist awards without assessing scripture. We will talk about that in a second. When people were dealing with going to war, dealing with a new kind of nation, they naturally appealed to scripture because scripture was not only the authority of all life for many people, but also a consoling text. People went to scripture and all kinds of trial, the death of a loved one, any kind of crisis. It was natural that people who were thinking about war would appeal to scripture. When they appealed to scripture, they could not comprehend scripture without referencing war. By that i mean as they read scripture, they were very proficient. They saw there was a lot of war in the bible. There was a lot of conflict in the bible in various ways. So a society knew the bible was full of war, and understood it. A couple frameworks they also took with them, one is republicanism. We talked about this already a bit today, but republicanism is this kind of respect for ancient republics as pivotal models for politics, taking those models. We are in the great city of washington, d. C. When you look around at the architecture, do you notice a certain neoclassical influence . Its subtle, but you can see it. The idea that the ancient republics valued virtue and liberty, virtue and liberty came together like we talked about, without virtue, liberty just dies. It doesnt exist. Vice and tyranny go together. Governments, like people, are prone to corruption, especially when you have too much power involved. They found republican ideas throughout scripture. Think about the Old Testament, when a king comes forward. Good kings and bad kings are fairly easy to identify. The kings that do good things usually prosper. The kings who do bad things usually dont prosper and thats the case with other figures. You can see how it would fit very well in a republican world view. Another idea, in addition to republicanism, is martyrdom. One of the most popular books that protestants red throughout history was fox book of martyrs or acts of monuments. Probably some of you have seen this or read it. Dont try to download it on your kindle. Its a group of narratives of martyrdom, specifically martyrdom the catholic supposed on protestants earlier on in the rain of queen mary. Its itself brings together this value that christianity is worth dying for. The idea of sacrifices something thats value, that they find throughout scripture. Pretty soon, one historian says that colonial americans have a martyr complex, they see martyrdom everywhere, the idea comes across through the war when you see washingtons soldiers and preachers interpret their deaths as martyrs for the country. Wartime death is seen as martyrdom. The idea is pretty critical. This one i saw everywhere, just everywhere, it saturated the documents, saturated the sermons. Thats the concept of military and spiritual warfare. As i said, when people look to the bible, they found war and conflict everywhere. The bible is a book of war. But it wasnt just a book of military warfare. They saw spirituality as warfare. Do any of you remember seeing Something Like this in scripture, even in the new testament . Spirituality is a war against good and evil in the, soul a constant conflict within, us good versus evil going on. This kind of spiritual warfare and military warfare merged in some of these sermons especially, where people saw that spirituality and military patriotism, military courage, went hand in hand. Another aspect of this had to do with means, means. The means of waging war. When declaring war, if people believed god was on their side in, or there could be a tendency to ask do we really need to fight. Do we all really need to join . Do we really need to battle if god is on our side . Preachers would say, you wouldnt say in your Spiritual Life that if god loves me i dont have to go to church, i dont have to read scripture, dont have to pray. We always have to use means. God gives us the means to wage warfare. God gives us some means to wage spiritual warfare against satan. So we should not depend on god to do it all. We should use the means that god provides us in the spiritual and military warfare. There is also a sense that especially ministers in the revolutionary period tend to think, some believe, some christians, believe that if christians go to war they will not be the best soldiers. There was a real argument that christians are the best soldiers. That if you are really a christian, you will be the best military soldier ever. Ive got a quote from minister eli thorough of massachusetts and 1771, not yet the American Revolution. Still, its kind of in the era. I would not intimate that every good christian is of consequence, a good soldier, an accomplished man of war. This i will venture to say. There cannot be a good soldier, an accomplished man of war, destitute by the principle and practice of christiana day. I want to specifically talk about a biblical character here that seemed to exemplify that. Thats david. David is just fascinating. In so many different ways. Think about the story of david. He had them all. He was handsome, strong, courageous. As a child, that was one of my favorite biblical texts, when david slayed goliath with the slingshot. Who could have any problem with david. He was amazing. He had it all going on. And of many sermons that talk about david, here is one from the prerevolutionary period talking about david as a man after gods own heart, which is what scripture off terms david as. David was a man after gods heart, yet he was a man of war, skilled in the bloody art and burdened above the common standard with war. He informs us that he was taught of god. David was both spiritual and a courageous warrior. He could go write a solemn about spirituality and the depth of his relationship with god, and then go sleigh 100 philistines. He was a fascinating hero of the scriptures. They bring hero is a man spirituality together. But david was also interesting and another way. Think again about the republican world view of the revolutionary era. Think again about the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, the need for balance of powers. Then lets think of the david story. David had it all. David was mighty in faith and mighty with the sort. David was a military leader, a great kang. If anyone could be the perfect king, it would be david. And yet, when david became king, what happened . There was the incident with bathsheba, the incident with your idea. He gets all the power and before you know, it he is committing adultery with bathsheba and having her husband murdered. Could you find a better republican argument that absolute power corrupts absolutely . Giving someone too much power will corrupt that person, no matter who they are, even david. He was corrupt a bill if given too much power. Now i want to talk about some specific biblical texts. I must confess, i did not know about this growing up. This is a story that i did remember, but just vaguely. Its a story in the book of judges, specifically about a judge named debra. The first that gets quoted over and over again in various contexts, in revivalist contexts, in war context, especially in war context, is the curse of morass. The icarus, courtesy bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they come not to the help of the lord against the mighty. Okay. Lets break this down a little bit. First of all, where was this . I asked one of my colleagues who happened to be writing a commentary in the book of judges. I asked him and he said we have no idea. They really didnt know that much in the revolutionary period, but they did no debris issued the curse from god because the people, wherever they were, would not fight forgot against the canonize, would not join the fight. One person who did join in the fight was jailed. Some of you may remember her story. She was the one who fought for israel and by slaying and army general for the candidates. She kind of lured him into the tenth and when he went to sleep she took a tent peg and drove it through his skull. That is a good biblical text. In doing so, she exemplified courage. This played fairly well in the revolutionary period. People picked up on this and often connected deborah and jael as to women, who would fight, and who were mighty in battle. Based on what i could find, the curse was the most cited biblical verse for 100 years from the King Phillips war in 1675 through the American Revolution, over 100 years. This is from jeremy via. Kirsten to be here who do the work of the lord deceitfully, and cursive b that keep it back his sword from the blood. If thats not a holy war text, it will do. I want to specifically talk about peter and paul a little bit. Among the various texts in wartime, there was a lot of Old Testament narrative. That makes sense, because there is a lot of war in the Old Testament. There are a lot of battles, a lot of armies, a lot going on there. In so doing, people drew on these texts over and over and had something that was ripe for the pickings. But pacifists tended to point that out, and not only pacifists, but those opposed to a certain war. What about the new testament . This is also the case in the civil war, high find. More and more arguing over testaments. How relevant is war for the new testament . There were several ways in which people who wanted to argue against war could make that move, and one we mentioned is the sermon on the mound where jesus says turn the other cheek, which is non resistance. It seems to be non resistance. It could be read as passiveism. Thats quoted over and over. Because its quoted so much, its one of the top ten cited texts in the revolutionary era. Those who wanted to support warhead a burden of proof to overcome, so they often cited that text to argue against, it just like they cited thou shall to not kill, another text. It was most probable to them to show how the new testament also spoke about war. And they did this in a few different ways. One way had to do with the book of revelation. You probably knew i was going to mention the book of revelation. If youve read anything about the colonial era, oftentimes people speak of millennialism and apocalyptic system, many times millennial ideas coming out of the book of revelation, but not just the book of revelation. So many people see this millennium idea because its fairly warlike. If youve read it lately, theres a lot of fighting there. Theres a lot of evil beings to fight symbolism, which is quite violent throughout. So, sometimes, ministers would point to the book of as a new testament text that endorses war. And specifically, they would look at revelation chapter 19 where jesus rides in as a warlike figure. So even jesus goes to war and the book of revelation. So the book of revelation is a key text but even more prominent were text from peter and paul. Because the idea being, you know, when the apostles support war . And what would they do . About going to war. And specifically, where peter and paul, the greater parcels, would they side with the loyalists or would they side with the patriots . And there was a lot of ink spilled over that question. So, i want to read you a couple of checks and will just read these text and lets just see which side they tend to fall down on. Loyalists or patriot . Ill start with peter. Peter, first peter chapter to fiercest 13 17, this is part of that. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord sake as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as servants of god. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear god, honor the king. Well heres one from paul. Which is the most sighted text in the revolutionary era. Romans chapter 13 and let me say, its a lot of play in the civil war as well. Let every soul be subject into higher powers. For there is no power, but of god, the powers that be our ordained of god. Whosoever therefore resisted the power, resisted the ordinance of god. And made those who resist shall receive to themselves damnation for he is the minister of god to the for good. But if thou do that which is evil be afraid, for he berreth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of god, a revenge or to execute rat on him that do with evil. So, obey the king, obey the higher powers because they are ministers of god, they represent god. Some of the loyalists like these texts, quite a bit. Among those were methodists like john wesley and John Fletcher and other anglican ministers, charles anguished but before the revolution and during the revolution and you can see why. I mean, peter saying fear god honor the king to oppose the king is to pose god, the guard was akin, god put kings in power. That the king is the revenge or of god. The king does the work of god. And going back specifically one more part of that text, i want to say as it talks about freedom and liberty. Because one of the things that look loyalists were arguing was that patriots were using this terminology of liberty in the wrong way and the specifically says, as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, you know, not taking your liberty too far, not misunderstanding your liberty. That almost seems tailor made for the loyalists. Tailor made for that argument. So the loyalists argument is this. Lets read these text from the apostles and lets consider the political situation. The political situation was, they were under the control of the roman empire. And being under the control of roman empire, they had to deal with jews, they had to deal with their own churches and they had to deal with the fact that the roman empire controlled everything. And as was typical in many cases, a lot of people tended to bill lame the jews. Theres a lot of anti jewish rhetoric and in the colonial period, some creatures, including some loyalists were saying well, the problems was that the jews were stirring up a lot of problems, the jews were stirring up insurrections. And paul and peter were really worried that the christians would cause problems to, that they would join in these insurrections and become these radicals and politics and start all these wars. So, the problem was that christians were getting a bad reputation. People were thinking they were disloyal. So peter and paul commanded them to obey roman government. That they commanded that they could become citizens, join in the government in any way. Now, lets think about the roman government for a second. Wet was the roman government doing in regards to christians . They specifically were thinking about emperor narrow and members who are prosecuting christians. So, they point out to these pictures and they, say well look how tyrannical the roman government was. Much worse than king george the third. I mean, say what you want about king george the third, but hes not killing christians. He can say as much for narrow. Neera tormented, he executed christians. And yet, even though they were living under a hostile roman government, including roman emperors who were killing christians, persecuting christians, peter and paul say, if youre god, on are the king. Peter and paul still say that the king is the minister to all. The minister of god. A revenge or on those until you. So the message, some of these loyalist said was obey all orders, even the bad ones. Respect authority because god put them in authority for a reason. So what you call patriotism is really just ambition. Its selfishness and disguise. And all patriotic revolts do is create more violence. Now, what about the patriotic argument . But are the patriots going to do when tex like forgot and on of the king. One of the patrons going to do with texts that say the Civil Authority are the revenge years of god from or wrongdoing style pay them just as if you are being god, what can you do with that . Is there any way you can go with that . Well of course. Lets see. Jonathan make you, long before the revolution concerning on the minute submission that title was really helpful. And people like john adams cousin argue, use this text and many others. And lets think about their argument. They say, look again at the historical context. Peter and paul, what they were really doing was making general statements about respecting authority. Submission didnt mean unlimited submission to any king or any authority. The problem with saying that they were endorsing unlimited suspicion to any king, there are too many biblical text that show people of god disobeying kings revolting against gangs, i mean anybody remember exodus in pharaoh . Anybody remember darius and daniel . There were bad kings. And the people of god did not have to just take it from any backing. So it couldnt have been about unlimited submissions to any king. Lets look at polls situation. Paul specifically, writing to the romance, he was dealing with christians who were just taking a little too literally, the idea that hes not of this world. Sometimes christians think that a little too literal. Doesnt mean this world is gone. It means you still have to live in the world but live in a different way. So paul is saying, the key to understanding this is one specific adverse, one specific section of rivers that people tend to overlook and that is, paul said that the ruler was the minister of god to the for good. So if the ruler is not acting in peoples best interest, if the ruler is not gods minister for the peoples good, then christians should resist, christians should rebel against that minister who against that king. Part of this then means, the patriots said, we have to have some common sense when it comes to approaching scripture. These commenced fear, god honor the king, these can immense regard for honoring the king and guards minister, their basic commandments that deal with authority. The bible tells children to obey parents, but does that mean that the bible want their children to obey a parent who throws a mad at them and tries to cut all of his childrens throats . Speeches and sermons can be really sometimes more interesting back then, with the graphic details. So the idea then is respect the king, but based on how the king performs the kings duties, and not specifically for, just because the king is ticking. So evaluate leadership, so what the patriots are arguing against the loyalists, its really are proof testing without understanding the two context. And you had to read the truth context to understand it. But what it really becomes is an argument over with that context is. The loyalist have you, the patriots have a view of what that context is overall. So some conclusions on this. The revolution, its arguable was the most important event in American History. The revolution, i mean it creates the nation, sets the nation in motion and the revolution becomes like we see the revolution becomes an enduring symbol for weather nation is all about, fighting for liberty. There are many different ways and which fighting for liberty takes itself, it manifests itself. Even in the civil war, the revolutionary period is almost like a biblical text of its own, because both the confederates and the unionists are arguing that they are the ones who are best following the footsteps of the revolutionary patriots. So we could seriously make this case that the American Revolution was the most pivotal event in American History. And, the bible was arguably the most influential book in the revolutionary period. Its the book that the most people knew about. The most people read. Most people honored as a guard. There are some differences in the way the people read the bible then and the way the people by read the bible now. People read the bible then, this was before a lot of higher criticism in arguments over different ways of reading the bible from historical perspectives and other perspectives. More or less, and people read the bible, they read the bible as it was and pretty much took it as it was. Thats not to say that there werent skeptics on there. Certainly some, of the founders and others in an enlightenment era were skeptical about particular views on the bible. There was some biblical skepticism. Before by study, i believe a biblical skepticism did in norway interfere with the buckle patriotism. Some of the same people who were rather skeptical about scripture as authoritative, as all the word of god is completely true, also new scripture and understood scripture to make claims about patriotism, loyalty, sacrifice, morality. So, regardless of any kind of skeptical views of scripture as revelation, scripture was still politically significant. So, through the revelation then, they became patriotically american. And so did the bible. One of the things that i find, reading through especially into the 19th century, i mean it really wouldve helped it i had written a civil war book first then i wouldve understood the revolution a little better, but then i had to write the revolution book to understand the civil war better. Its a vicious cycle we, probably have to go and we write or books. But one of the things that i see over and over through the civil war from both sides, and honoring the patriots and honoring the revolution, honoring scripture goes hand in hand. And as part of that, there is this sense that the bible itself is the nations book. The bible that the nation itself has a biblical kind of aura around it. Thats a biblical nation, although they disagree radically over what that means. But it did when i say that, the bible became patriotically american, in many cases, people see it as a patriotic book. That the bible preaches patriotism. If the bible did preach patriotism, or teach patriotism, its a militant patriotism. One of the things that we cannot ignore Going Forward is the militancy of scripture. Thats something we really have to come to terms with. One of my favorite sections of professor george morrisons book on Jonathan Edwards, he makes the comment, and Jonathan Edwards is one of my other interesting favorite people to read. I dont agree with everything he says, all the images he preached, but Jonathan Edwards lived in a world that was very much like the world we see in lord of the rings and star wars, just this idea that we are in this kind of enchanted world and its good versus evil, that what we see in our daily life is not just what we see. There is more to it than that. There is good versus evil everywhere, and we are always in the midst of it. Its a very meaningful struggle. I think we need to remember that. That has to be part of any understanding of this time, and understanding of scripture. Scripture is read in that context and thats where we get to military and spiritual warfare and the violent imagery there. Im not saying its good or bad. I am saying we need to think of it as part of the tradition. Look through hims in churches if you have him books in the pew. Notice all the imagery thats militarist a chemistry. Its part of scripture. Its their. That leads us into conversations about religious violence and the extent that is still a conversation. We have to come to terms with how we view the militarist again edges in scripture, in which contexts should they be interpreted. There is also this just war and sacred war kind of question. Inevitably, people ask, and the email correspondence ive received on the book from the people who asked, was the revolutionary war a just war or a holy war . Were they fighting a holy war . Or were they fighting adjust war . My answer is always yes. By that i mean, we live in a world where just war theory was prominent, specifically. They believed they were not to be fighting wars of the engines, wars in which godsend them to war and they were to annihilate everyone like in the hebrew Old Testament passages. They argued specifically, many times they would say just wore terminology. At the same time, they could not also help talking about a just war that could also be a godly war, because god was a god of justice. Its not really a stark division. I like another quote from george morrison, in a writing he is talking about just war theory and said the problem is the theory. Its too theoretical and doesnt always deal with how people behave. I also find that case and reading these text on the bible and the American Revolution. Thank you. I really appreciate this. Its been a great opportunity. [applause] [applause] he speaks about natos role today and the idea of a peace dividend American History tv continues with historians looking at the bibles influence on the founding fathers, including their views on democracy and the american republic. This discussion was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. Its about an hour. Thank you, danielle. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time at lunch and in the museum. If you will please take a moment to silence your cell phone or any other device you