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Backus, Isaac

Isaac Backus (1724–1806) was the long-time minister of the Middleborough First Baptist Church in Massachusetts and, along with Roger Williams and John Leland, was among the most persistent and effective advocates for separating church and state. From 1777 to 1796, Backus published a three-volume History of New England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists (Wood 1977). A much shorter work is one that he wrote in 1773 on the eve of the American Revolution against assessments on behalf of the established Congregational Church. Somewhat like a sermon, the cover page referred to Galatians 5:13, which says, “Brethren, ye have been called unto Liberty; only use not Liberty for an occasion to the Flesh, but by love serve one another.”

Backus’s 1773 essay is prefaced with an introduction that denies any opposition between true liberty and government. Backus argues, “The true liberty of man is, to know, obey and enjoy his Creator, and to do all the good unto, and enjoy all the happiness with and in his fellow-creatures that he is capable of; in order to which the law of love was written in his heart, which carries in it’s nature union and benevolence to being in general, and to each being, in particular, according to it’s nature and excellency” (1773, 331). Recounting the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Backus believed that adherence to law actually preceded the fall of man, and that according to 2 Peter 2:18, continuing obedience to law is necessary to secure human flourishing.

Citing 2 Peter 2:13–14, Backus acknowledged the obligation of Christians to follow governmental authority while also pointing out that Colossians 2:20, 22 warns against being “subject to ordinances, after the doctrines and commandments of men” (335). Civil offices should foster responsible behavior toward neighbors whereas “church government respects our behavior toward God as well as man” (336). The Bible thus distinguishes between behavior toward the king and the state and behavior toward the church and toward Christ. As Backus interprets Matthew 23:1–6, Luke 22:25–27, and John 18:36–37, God’s kingdom is not of this world, and is therefore not subject to human authority. In words that would probably resonate beyond fellow Baptists, Backus traced the decline of the church and the rise of “hellish tyranny” under the popes, which Protestant reformers had resisted to developments in the aftermath of the decision of Constantine to make Christianity the official religion of Rome (338).

Whereas the colonial legislature claimed the power to compel every town to support public worship by paying taxes for the support of ministers, Backus noted that such support went only to “pedobaptists,” that is, to those who, unlike Baptists, supported infant baptism. Disputing the tie that the established church drew between this covenant and Old Testament circumcision, Backus’s 41main point was that each church should be able to appoint its own minister, with greater regard to their spiritual gifts and calling than to their formal theological education (340). Those who serve as pastors are not the “king’s minister[s]‌,” but God’s (42). Nor does the majority have the right, with regard to such matters of conscience, to dictate to the minority. Backus effectively accused the Puritans of treating dissenters with the same kind of contempt as the Anglican Church had treated the Puritans before they left for America (344).

In a final section of his writing, Backus detailed the way that Baptists have suffered under such rules, with some of them actually being imprisoned for either refusing to pay the tax for preachers of other denominations or refusing to register themselves, or being unable to get recognition of their ministers, in order to get special exemptions. Again speaking in language that might appeal to a wider audience, Backus claimed that it is “high time now to awake, and seek for a more thorough reformation” (356). Churches should be accountable only to Christ, the head of the church, and not to civil authorities.

In his conclusion, Backus appealed again to “equal liberty of conscience” (32). Moreover, he tied the cause of Baptists to the developing colonial case against Great Britain: “as the present contest between Great-Britain and America, is not so much about the greatness of the taxes already laid, as about a submission to their taxing power; so (though what we have already suffered is far from being a trifle, yet) our greatest difficulty at present concerns the submitting to a taxing power in ecclesiastical affairs” (364). The money set aside for pastors should be “sacrifices” (Hebrews 13:15–16) rather than governmental compulsions (366). Noting that the New England fathers are not the only ones to have sought such taxation, he observed that “our veneration for their memory, is so far from reconciling us to [them?], that it fills us with greater detestation of, that mystery of iniquity, which carried them into such acts or imposition and persecution as have left a great blemish upon their character” (367).

See also Baptists; Leland, John; Williams, Roger

For Reference and Further Reading

Backus, Isaac. 1773. An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, against the Oppressions of the Present Day. Boston: John Boyle. Reprinted in Sandoz, Ellis, ed. 1991. Political Sermons of the Founding Era, 1730–1804. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, pp. 327–68.

McLoughlin, William G. 1967. Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition. Boston: Little, Brown.

Richards, Peter Judson 2001. “‘A Clear and Steady Channel’: Isaac Backus and the Limits of Liberty.” Journal of Church and State 43 (Summer): 447–82.

Wood, Jerome H., Jr. 1977. “For Truth and Reputation: The New England Friends’ Dispute with Isaac Backus.” New England Quarterly 50 (September): 458–83.

Baptists

The nation’s largest Protestant denomination with over sixteen million members is the Southern Baptist Convention. It is only one of a number of Baptist groups, almost all of which take a high view of biblical inspiration and of the importance of the Bible as a guide to personal conduct. In contrast to both the Episcopal and Presbyterian traditions, Baptists reject any hierarchy above local churches. 42Similarly, Baptists generally eschew creeds, fearing that they might displace emphasis on Scriptures. Like the Restoration movement, often associated with Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ, Baptists try to replicate the early church, with the so-called Landmarkism movement within the group actually claiming that the early church was Baptistic rather than Catholic in orientation (Hudnut-Beumler 2018, 70).

Essentially an offshoot of Puritanism, Baptists had distinctive views of baptism, which they consider to be an ordinance that does not have saving value but that provides testimony to an inward conversion. Consistent with their view of Scripture, they believe that such baptism should be by full immersion in water (rather than by sprinkling) and that, because it is a symbol of an inward work, it should not be performed (as Puritans did) on infants but only on those who can make a conscious decision to follow Christ.

Although they were otherwise fairly theologically close to the Puritans, Roger Williams, who is often identified as the first Baptist in America, was expelled from the Massachusetts colony and went on to found the state of Rhode Island. Perhaps in part because they were members of such a minority, Baptists were among the first to advocate for separation of church and state, particularly with respect to an established church or using tax money for its support; they believed that such support invariably led to the corruption of the church’s mission, which was called, consistent with Galatians 1:4 and 2 Corinthians 6:17, to avoid worldliness. This view was forcefully articulated by John Leland and Isaac Backus and embodied in the establishment clause of the First Amendment. James Madison had been particularly appalled by the incarceration of Baptist pastors in Culpepper, Virginia, for preaching without licenses from what was then the established church of the state.

Baptists and Methodists—a movement founded by John Wesley (1703–1791), which, like Puritanism, was originally designed to refine the Episcopal Church rather than to establish a new denomination—were at the forefront of revivalist campaigns during the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century, which often depended on ministers whose qualifications centered on their perceived sense of calling to the ministry rather than on theological education. Although some Baptists were strict Calvinists who believed in double predestination (neither the elect nor the nonelect could change their eternal destinies), revivalists tended to lean toward the Arminian view that individuals had a choice as to whether to accept or reject salvation by believing in Christ. This has been true of subsequent Baptist evangelists like Billy Graham. Like other major denominations of the day, Baptists broke into Northern and Southern wings on the basis of biblical interpretations opposing or supporting slavery.

Baptists believe it is the duty of every Christian to help spread the gospel, and they have been active in mission movements. They have traditionally advocated strict modes of personal behavior and in earlier years often expelled members who fell short of such standards. Although some have since liberalized these views, Bill Leonard observes that their “sin-list” typically “included alcohol, illicit sex, gambling, card playing, dancing, motion pictures, tobacco, tattoos, rock music, and assorted other public and private evils” (2005, 232). In the 43nineteenth century, Baptists were strong advocates of temperance and often included a temperance pledge as part of their qualifications of membership. In the twentieth century, they have joined battles against pornography, sponsored a “true love waits” campaign designed to combat premarital sex, and generally have opposed same-sex marriage. Many have also opposed liberal abortion laws. Unlike many other denominations, Baptists put primary emphasis on the power of each individual congregation, and while associations of such churches may from time to time expel or disassociate themselves from a particular congregation, they cannot otherwise exercise power over it. Recent years have witnessed deep divisions within the Southern Baptist Church (Barnhart 1986).

In the 1970s, Baptist minister Jerry Falwell helped create the Moral Majority, which emphasized opposition to moral vices and a number of today’s megachurches are led by Baptist pastors. In more recent years, the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, a small independent Primitive Baptist congregation that believes that God has chosen his elect and brings judgment on all others, has garnered headlines by demonstrating at funerals of American soldiers and proclaiming that their deaths are a result of God’s condemnation of a nation that permits homosexuality and other behavior that its members consider to be immoral. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment shielded its members from civil liability for such actions in Snyder v. Phelps (2011). Its pastor Fred Phelps, who was also a civil rights attorney, died in 2014.

See also Backus, Isaac; Falwell, Jerry; Graham, Billy; Leland, John; Madison, James; Puritans; Williams, Roger

For Reference and Further Reading

Barnhart, Joe Edward. 1986. The Southern Baptist Holy War. Austin: Texas Monthly Press.

Barrett-Fox, Rebecca. 2016. God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Canipe, Lee. 2011. A Baptist Democracy: Separating God and Caesar in the Land of the Free. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

Hudnut-Beumler, James. 2018. Strangers and Friends at the Welcome Table: Contemporary Christianities in the American South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Leonard, Bill J. 1987. “Independent Baptists: From Sectarian Minority to ‘Moral Majority.” Church History 56 (December): 504–17.

Leonard, Bill J. 2005. Baptists in America. New York: Columbia University Press.

McLoughlin, William G. 1991. Soul Liberty: The Baptists’ Struggle in New England, 1630–1833. Hanover, NH: Brown University Press.

Rosen, Leo, ed. 1975. Religions of America. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 433 (2011).

Battle Hymn of the Republic

The Battle Hymn of the Republic is also among the nation’s most biblically inspired songs. It was adopted from “Say, Brothers, Will You Meet / On Canaan’s Happy Shore.” Described as “a Southern camp-meeting spiritual,” it was first published by the Methodist circuit-rider Stith Mead in a hymnbook in 1807 under the title “Grace Reviving in the Soul” (Stauffer 2015, 124). In its original 44form, it was structured as a call-and response with the question, “O brothers will you meet me, On Canaan’s happy shore?” met with the response, “By the grace of God I’ll meet you, On Canaan’s happy shore.” The chorus intoned:

We’ll shout and give him glory, we’ll shout and give him

glory,

We’ll shout and give him glory, for glory is his own. (Stauffer 2015, 124)

This song, in turn, underwent a metamorphosis into “John Brown’s Body.” One of the catalysts to the Civil War was a raid by John Brown and his sons (who had previously been active in Kansas) on the federal arsenal at what was then Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to spark a slave uprising. After he was captured and hanged, Brown became a martyr for the anti-slavery cause.

The 2nd Battalion, which was also known as the Tigers, was garrisoned in Boston at the start of the war. It included a Scottish immigrant, who was also named John Brown. His comrades, with whom he had formed a choral group, used to tease him about how he could be John Brown when Brown’s body was “mouldering in the grave” (Stauffer 2015, 128). After the Tiger regiment merged with the Massachusetts 12th Regiment, it adopted the John Brown Song as its anthem, an arrangement by C. B. March that C. S. Hall, a Boston abolitionist, published in 1861. The verses that praised Brown as “a soldier in the army of the Lord” proclaimed that “His soul’s marching on!” (130). Despite a very jaunty beat, the words were fairly coarse.

In November 1861, Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), a poetess and social activist who was married to Samuel Gridley Howe, who was a member of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, visited troops in Washington, DC. After she joined them in singing “John Brown’s Body,” her Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke encouraged her to write more appropriate words for the song. That evening in the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, she wrote out the lyrics to what is sometimes referred to by its opening line, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord,” but probably more often simply as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

There were a number of other contemporary army and battle hymns, including an “Army Hymn” by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Ein Feste Burg ist unser Gott,” which bore the same time as Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” (Gamble 2019, 56–57). Holmes’s hymn had included a reference to the pillar of cloud and of fire that had guided Moses in the wilderness (58).

Drawing from the biblical book of Revelation and other scriptural passages (Snyder 1951), as well as from “an extensive popular culture in which biblical imagery was omnipresent” (Fahs 2001, 79), the first verse proclaimed,

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on. (Gamble 2019, ix)

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In February 1862, the Atlantic Monthly published this and four other verses on its front page.

The song, which is one of the most religious of songs that are sometimes sung in a secular setting, takes its imagery of the winepress of wrath, and “the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,” from Revelation 14 and 19. This book, which describes the end of times, is particularly appropriate because it reflected the manner in which many individuals interpreted the Civil War in apocalyptic terms, the conclusion of which they hoped would bring about a new age of peace and prosperity (Stauffer 2015, 134). Gamble observes, “Protestant Americans, and Christians in general, would have understood Howe’s ‘coming of the Lord’ to mean the Second Coming of Christ. The more orthodox their theology, the more literal this coming in glory would be to them. Whether postmillennialist, premillennialist, or amillennialist, liberal or conservative, they would have imagined Christ the Lord returning to judge the world in righteousness” (2019, 53).

The second verse evoked the camps of the Union armies with the Old Testament image of an altar, which was a place of sacrifice:

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on. (Gamble 2019, ix)

The third verse continued,

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.” (Gamble 2019, ix)

This verse’s reference to the hero crushing the serpent’s head is a reference to Genesis 3:15, in which God, after condemning Satan for tempting Eve, said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Christians have traditionally interpreted this passage as the “protoevangelium, the first announcement of the gospel” portending Jesus as the seed of woman who would conquer Satan, although some of Howe’s friends thought that the hero to whom Howe referred was not Jesus but John Brown (Gamble 2019, 59, 62).

The fourth verse continued with images that evoked both the trumpets of battle and the trumpet that would call for a final judgment where God would judge all men:

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on. (Gamble 2019, ix)

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The last verse would have special appeal to most Christians. It proclaimed,

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on. (Gamble 2019, ix)

Stauffer observes that the song was at once “a heroic song, an inspirational song, a revenge song, and a comradeship song” (2015, 136). Although chiefly sung by Northern soldiers, many of whom also continued to sing “John Brown’s Body,” the song gained wider acceptance in the 1880s as the nation sought reconciliation. As Stauffer explains, “Southerners, too, believed that they had fought for God and freedom” (139). Gamble observes that the hymn has been published in more than “470 hymnbooks, gospel songbooks, Sunday School supplements, and patriotic collections for the use of churches” since the Civil War, and been used by a wide variety of denominations (2019, 67).

The University of Georgia later adopted the song as its battle hymn, as did the Progressive Party—Theodore Roosevelt wanted it to be adopted as the national anthem—and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The song was a favorite of evangelists Billy Sunday and Billy Graham as well as of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who quoted the first verse in his speech at the Alabama capital in March 1965 (Stauffer 2015, 140–41). It has special appeal among those who believe they are fighting for a holy cause, and is commemorated by carvings on seven pillars in the Lincoln Bay of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The African American singer Mahalia Jackson, who was active in the civil rights movement, did much to popularize the song with her varied renditions (Collins 2003, 58–61).

Arguing that it has become a kind of “unofficial anthem” for America, historian John Stauffer offers several reasons for its popularity. He believes that by distinguishing “us” and “them,” it makes a good song for war. He further argues that it exemplifies American civil religion, that it has been “immensely adaptable,” that it “exploits the millennialist strain in American culture,” that it is “aspirational,” and that it “is a musical masterpiece” (2015, 144–45).

Grant Shreve notes that the opening line of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is engraved on the base of a statue by Donald Harcourt De Lue at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Coleville-sur-Mer entitled “The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves.” Shreve observes that “De Lue’s use of the poem’s line transforms into a testament to the promises of internationalism after World War II” (2017).

See also Brown, John; Civil War; King, Martin Luther, Jr.

For Reference and Further Reading

Collins, Ace. 2003. Songs Sung Red, White, and Blue: The Stories behind America’s Best-Loved Patriotic Songs. New York: HarperCollins.

Fahs, Alice. 2001. The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861–1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gamble, Richard M. 2019. A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Lyons, John Henry. 1942. Stories of Our American Patriotic Songs. New York: Vanguard Press.

McConathy, Osbourne, Russell V. Morgan, James L. Mursell, Marshall Bartholomew, Mabel E. Bray, W. Otto Miessner, and Edward Bailey Birge. 1946. New Music Horizons. Fifth Book. New York: Silver Burdett.

Sanders, Mary. 2016. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our Battle Hymn of the Republic: Episcopal Liturgy and American Civil Religion in the National Prayer Service on 14 September 2001.” Anglican and Episcopal History 85 (March): 63–86.

Shreve, Grant. October 20, 2017. “The Long, Winding History of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’” JSTOR Daily Newsletter. https://daily.jstor.org/the-long-winding-history-of-the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic/.

Snyder, Edward D. 1951. “The Biblical Background of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’” New England Quarterly 24 (June): 231–38.

Spofford, Ainsworth R. 1904. “The Lyric Element in American History.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC 7: 211–36.

Stauffer, John. 2015. “’The Battle Hymn of the Republic’: Origins, Influence, Legacies.” Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, ed. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 123–45.

Stauffer, John, and Benjamin Soskis. 2013. The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On. New York: Oxford University Press.

Vile, John R. 2020. America’s National Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner in U.S. History, Culture, and Law. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. [Note: This essay closely follows the one in this book.]

Beecher, Catharine E.

Catharine E. Beecher (1800–1878) was a noted nineteenth-century educator who was the daughter of Pastor Lyman Beecher and the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Beecher became disturbed by William Lloyd Garrison’s call for immediate abolitionism, and by the lectures that Sarah and Angelina Grimke were giving on the subject to popular audiences. She wrote an essay specifically addressed to Angelina as to why she thought it was inappropriate either to join such an anti-slavery society or to advocate on its behalf. In so doing, she differed with the Grimke sisters not only on abolitionism but also on appropriate female roles. Although Beecher did not cite nearly as many Scriptures as Angelina had done in her Appeal to Christian Women of the South, she certainly relied heavily on what she believed was the general view of the Bible with respect to such roles.

Much of Beecher’s arguments centered on methods. She simply did not think that organizing in one part of the country against perceived sins in another was likely to accomplish much, nor did she think that calls for immediate abolitionism were either practical in and of themselves or likely to engender goodwill among slave slates. She contrasted the tendency of such rhetoric to result in partisan disputes with the way that William Wilberforce (1759–1833) and others had eliminated slavery within the English colonies. Pointing to the “party spirit” that abolitionists fostered, Beecher observed that “such objects as the circulation of the bible, the extension of the Gospel, the promotion of Temperance and other benevolent associations, good men can unite in, without throwing themselves into the heart of party conflict” (1837, 93).

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Beecher had serious reservations about women entering such a world. Her arguments are indeed quite close to those that John Winthrop made in his “‘Little Speech’ on Liberty” in 1645 and consistent with the observations of Catherine Gardner that “Beecher’s moral world is a strictly hierarchical world” (2004, 4). Without making specific reference to Scripture, Beecher thus observed that “it is the grand feature of the Divine economy, that there should be different stations of superiority and subordination, and it is impossible to annihilate this beneficent and immutable law” (1837, 97). Just as children are subject to their parents, students to their teachers, and servants to their masters, so too wives should be subordinate to their husbands:

In this arrangement of the duties of life, Heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other the subordinate station, and this without any reference to the character or conduct of either. It is therefore as much for the dignity as it is for the interest of females, in all respects to conform to the duties of this relation. And it is as much a duty as it is for the child to fulfil similar relations to parents, or subjects to rulers. (Beecher 1837, 99)

Noting that “it is Christianity that has given to woman her true place in society,” Beecher observed that “it is the peculiar trait of Christianity alone that can sustain her therein. ‘Peace on earth and good will to men’ [Luke 2:14] is the character of all the rights and privileges, the influence, and the power of woman” (99). Whereas men might participate in the hurly-burly of politics, “woman is to win every thing by peace and love; by making herself so much respected, esteemed and loved, that to yield to her opinions and to gratify her wishes, will be the free-will offering of the heart” (100). By contrast, “if petitions from females will operate to exasperate; if they will be deemed obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise, by those to whom they are addressed . . . then it is neither appropriate nor wise, nor right, for a woman to petition for the relief of oppressed females” (102–3). Recognizing that some might cite the biblical Queen Esther as a call to female political participation, Beecher responded, “When a woman is placed in similar circumstances, where death to herself and all her nation is one alternative, and there is nothing worse to fear, but something to hope as the other alternative, then she may safely follow such an example” (103). However, “in this country, petitions to congress, in reference to the official duties of legislators, seem, IN ALL CASES, to fall entirely without the sphere of female duty. Men are the proper persons to make appeals to the rulers whom they appoint” (104).

Beecher believed that women could take on the noble role of educating children while men educate older children and other men and participate in public affairs: “If the female advocate chooses to come upon a stage, and expose her person, dress, and elocution to public criticism, it is right to express disgust at whatever is offensive and indecorous, as it is to criticize the book of an author, or the dancing of an actress, or any thing else that is presented to public observation” (120). Following the spirit of 1 Corinthians 13 (the chapter on the virtue of love, or charity), women should “quietly” hold their own opinions and seek to promote “a spirit of candour, forbearance, charity, and peace” (128).

Acknowledging that the Bible sometimes calls upon individuals to serve the role of “reprovers” (145), Beecher said that Scripture “unequivocally point[s]‌ out 49those qualifications which alone can entitle a man to do it” (146). Men should themselves follow “the example of the Redeemer of mankind” (150), in imitating his gentleness, his pity, and his love (151).

See also City upon a Hill; Esther as Political Archetype; Grimke, Angelina; Grimke, Sarah M. (An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States); Grimke, Sarah M. (Letters on the Equality of the Sexes); Slavery

For Reference and Further Reading

Beecher, Catharine E. 1837. An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference to the Duty of American Females, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Henry Perkins; Boston: Perkins & Marvin.

Gardner, Catherine Villanueva. 2004. “Heaven-Appointed Educators of Mind: Catharine Beecher and the Moral Power of Women.” Hypatia 19 (Spring): 1–16.

Beecher, Henry Ward

Preachers have influenced thinking about politics in America from the time of the Pilgrims to the present. Some, like Jonathan Edwards, are original thinkers, while other are better at reflecting changes in contemporary opinions. One of the most influential nineteenth-century preachers was Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887), a Congregationalist who pastored the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and routinely spoke to Sunday audiences of two thousand to three thousand people. He was from a family of pastors and brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who authored Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

During the Civil War, Beecher published a series of sermons under the title of Freedom and War that showed his evolving thinking on the subject of slavery. Unlike some of his colleagues, Beecher began by taking a relatively moderate view of slavery, believing that it was a moral evil but uncertain how it should be eliminated and unwilling to put all the blame on the South. After Southern forces fired on Fort Sumter and sought to leave the Union, however, he became increasingly convinced that slavery needed to be eliminated, and he increasingly portrayed Northern forces as aligned with good and Southern forces with the devil.

At a time when sermons often lasted two hours, Beecher would often reason from a relatively obscure biblical passage to contemporary issues, typically bringing in arguments from natural law and from a variety of other sources as well (Chesebrough and McBride 1990, 278). The first sermon in his book was entitled “The Nation’s Duty to Slavery” and was taken from Jeremiah 6:16–19, which described how Jeremiah had sounded the trumpet of impending doom and the people had refused to listen (1863, 1). His specific subject was John Brown, whom Beecher believed had become transformed from a somewhat unbalanced prophet to a martyr for the cause of liberty.

Beecher’s second chapter was based on the description in Luke 4:17–19 of Jesus appearing in a synagogue and proclaiming that he was fulfilling Scripture that called for preaching deliverance and setting the oppressed at liberty. In this sermon, Beecher argued against compromising with the South in order to avoid war. His next sermon, built around the story of Jesus calming a storm on the Lake of Galilee in Mark 4:37–39, was something of a jeremiad in that it pointed 50to a variety of national sins including not only slavery but also American aggression against Native Americans and Mexicans. Like Lincoln, Beecher recognized that both North and South had been complicit in establishing and perpetuating slavery. His denunciation of certain interpretations of the Bible were harsh: “If men can make the Bible teach me to disown childhood; if men can make the Bible teach me that it is lawful to buy and sell man, that marriage is impracticable between slaves, that laws cannot permit any custom which would hinder the easy sale of such property,” then they should be driven from the temple (79). He further observed “that wherever you have had an untrammeled Bible, you have had an untrammeled people; and . . . wherever you have had a Bible shut up, you have had a shut-up people” (80). He ended this sermon by comparing the need to awaken liberty to Jesus’s raising of Lazarus from the dead (82).

Writing on the verge of impending war, Beecher drew from Exodus 14:15 urging the nation, which he likened to the children of Israel pressed up against the Red Sea, to move forward and resist Southern interpretations of the Bible as teaching “the religion of servitude” (98). Beecher was especially outraged by Southern deprecations of the flag at Fort Sumter, and “The National Flag,” perhaps the most impressive of Beecher’s essays, followed and was based on Psalm 9:4, which referred to fighting under a banner of truth. He even compared the sight of the flag to biblical prophecies portraying the Messiah as a light shining in the darkness (124).

A sermon based on Deuteronomy 23:14, which referred to God as being in the midst of the camp, reflected contemporary fears of the moral dangers of army life. The next sermon, based on an encounter between Elisha the prophet and Joash, the King of Israel as recorded in 2 Kings 13:14–19, argued for the continuing vigor of the administration of government.

Although the eighth sermon was entitled “Moses and Duties of Emancipation,” it began with a reference to the prophet Samson in Judges 14:8. Here Beecher quoted from a speech by Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States, in which Stephens, relying on a biblical analogy generally understood to refer to the Messiah, had argued that the belief in racial inequality was the cornerstone of that government (179). Beecher’s ninth sermon dealt with “The Church’s Duty to Slavery” and was based on Jesus’s teaching from Matthew 20:25–28, in which he contrasted Christ-like servant leadership with the way that Gentile princes ruled over their people (200). Although otherwise praising Abraham Lincoln, Beecher took a firm stance against recolonizing African Americans, unless they chose such a course for themselves.

Quoting from a Presidential Proclamation of May 19, 1862, in which President Lincoln expressed willingness to cooperate with states that were willing to begin a process of voluntary compensated emancipation, Beecher cited Isaiah 42:10–12 and compared this to “The Beginning of Freedom” because it demonstrated that a national leader had finally recognized the need to abolish the institution (223). Recognizing that the passage was filled with poetic imagery, in a sermon on “The Success of American Democracy,” Beecher began with a passage from Daniel 11:9–17, which referenced a war between a northern and a southern kingdom (248).

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Returning in the next chapter on “Christianity in Government” to Luke 4:18–19 (1863, 270), Beecher described the duty of Christian governments to provide for the weak and poor. Expressing reservations about whether emancipation would bring social equality, and using the N-word so predominately employed in the South at the time, Beecher said that Christ died as much for them as he did for whites (292). This was followed by a sermon taken from a single clause in 2 Peter 2:10 that warned against speaking evil of governmental officials (294).

While Lincoln often mused about whether God was using the Civil War as a form of national punishment, Beecher was much more explicit about this in a sermon drawn from 1 Chronicles 29:10–13, on “National Injustice and Penalty” (311). There he observed that “if it is possible for a nation to sin, it must be when it has been led systematically to violate all the natural rights of a whole race or people; and American slavery, by the very definition of our jurists, is the deprivation of men of every natural right” (318). He argued that slavery violated the right of individuals to their own labor, worked against stable family life, perpetuated ignorance, demeaned human life, ensconced an evil as a good, and brought God’s judgment on the nation (320–26). He concluded that “God is pouring out the vial of his wrath; and bearing witness, tremendous witness, by war, against slavery, and against the cruel wickedness of men that perpetuate it” (332).

Beecher drew his sermon “The Ground and Forms of Government” from Job 34:30, warning against the reign of hypocrites (341). Describing republican government as “the noblest and the best,” Beecher contrasted it to the aristocratic government of the Confederate States and to the despotisms of other nations (250).

As the war progressed, Beecher sharpened his attack on the Confederacy. Basing a sermon on “Our Good Progress and Prospects” on the story of Jesus casting out a demon from a boy in Mark 9:26–27, Beecher likened that demon to American slavery (368) and lauded Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. A sermon on “Liberty under Law,” which drew from Galatians 5:18, again also drew from natural law (396) to argue that no one should be subject to bondage to another.

As he reached the last sermon, Beecher evoked a long passage from Revelation 18:1–8 describing Babylon, which he applied to any regime that violated justice and emphasized commerce over human rights (420). The prospect of emancipation had finally revealed the wide gap between “the great cause of God in modern civilization and the cause of the Devil” (433). He ended with the hope that slavery “and those who uphold it” might perish (445).

See also Brown, John; Declaration of Independence; Lincoln, Abraham; Prophets and Jeremiads; Slavery; Stevens, Alexander H. (The Cornerstone Speech); Stowe, Harriet Beecher; U.S. Flag

For Reference and Further Reading

Beecher, Henry Ward. 1863. Freedom and War. Discourses on Topics Suggested by the Times. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

Cheesebrough, David B., and Lawrence W. McBride. 1990. “Sermons as Historical Documents: Henry Ward Beecher and the Civil War.” History Teacher 23 (May): 275–91.

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Benefit of Clergy

Although colonial codes of justice were often quite rigid by comparisons to those of today, judges and juries sometimes worked to avoid their more severe consequences, and there were a number of legal remedies that defendants could employ. One such mechanism was known as the benefit of clergy and was applied to some of the soldiers who had been convicted of manslaughter in the so-called Boston Massacre. After claiming benefit of clergy, they were branded on their hand and released.

The mechanism appears to have originated in England, where ordained clergymen could claim exemption from civil jurisdiction in preference for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In time, this privilege was extended to individuals, clergymen or not, who were convicted of a broad range of felonies. Originally, after they made the claim, they were asked to read a passage of Scripture (thus initially applying only to those who were literate), and then branded rather than given the stiffer punishment. Typically, one could only evoke the benefit of clergy for one offense.

This workaround appears to have been based on Psalm 105:15, which admonished, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (Skousen 2008, 7), but this tie arguably applied far more clearly to the benefit’s initial desire to exclude clergymen from ecclesiastical jurisdiction than of its later use in mitigating punishments.

Although originating in England, the practice was continued in the American colonies, with one scholar observing that it remained “a fundamental feature of the criminal law in Maryland and Virginia” up through about the end of the eighteenth century (Sawyer 1990, 67). He further observed that the colonies used the mechanism not simply because it was English but because it proved just as useful in mitigating the harsher elements of the law.

See also Criminal Law

For Reference and Further Reading

Sawyer, Jeffrey K. 1990. “‘Benefit of Clergy’ in Maryland and Virginia.” American Journal of Legal History 34 (January): 79–68.

Skousen, Lesley. 2008. “Redefining Benefit of Clergy during the English Reformation: Royal Prerogative, Mercy, and the State.” Thesis for MA in history at the University of Wisconsin.

Benezet, Anthony

Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) was a Pennsylvania Quaker who had immigrated to America from France. A friend of Benjamin Rush’s, Benezet served as a school teacher and reformer who advocated for the education of women and African Americans and was very active in the early anti-slavery movement. Even though Pennsylvania had been founded as a haven for individuals of all faiths, American Patriots often resented the refusal of Quaker neighbors who failed to take up arms against those that the Patriots considered to be common enemies.

In one of Benezet’s most important essays, his “Serious Considerations on Several Important Subjects,” which was printed in 1778, he laid out the case for 53Christian pacifism and other reforms. Mark Noll has observed that the work “devoted thirteen pages to slavery, in which Scripture was prominent; seven pages against drink, in which an appeal to Scripture was mostly absent; and about twenty-eight pages on warfare, again relentlessly biblical” (2016, 275).

As Noll indicates, Benezet’s indictment of war was particularly dominated by Scriptures. Believing that Christians were called to emulate Christ and to obey his commandment to love one another and follow his counsel in the Sermon on the Mount, Benezet contrasted this with the death and destruction that accompany war. Citing James 4, he further associated war with human lust and with the inability to trust God. Christians are called upon to love and pray for their enemies rather than destroying them, whereas war proceeds from man’s fallen nature and that which is carnal. Benezet was particularly concerned that deaths caused by war shortened the time that sinners would otherwise have to repent and receive redemption. It is further inconsistent with the prophecy in Isaiah 2:4 that describes God’s kingdom, for which Jesus urged Christians to pray, as one where nations have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Although Benezet’s words against slavery were also scripturally based, at the beginning of this section of his narrative, he quoted statements from the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights that indicated that all men are created equal while indicating that failure to live up to such proclamations “is likely to be one of the principal causes of those heavy judgments, which are now so sensibly displayed over the Colonies” (1778, 29). Whereas Scripture (Isaiah 1:17) called upon people “to seek judgment, to relieve the oppressed; to plead for the fatherless, and to judge for the widow” (30), slavery elevated the pursuit of profit over such ideals. Scripture (Jeremiah 34:17) thus condemned the people for not hearkening unto God “in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor” (32). If people continued to withhold love and compassion, and continue to act the part of “menstealers,” they would be judged like the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Benezet’s remarks on “spirituous liquors” (40) focused not on alcohol in general but on distilled beverages, which Benezet thought were especially detrimental to health and morals and which spiritually enslave men. In an interesting twist, he also associated the practice with other ills:

Besides that it would discourage the distillation of rye and other grain; a practice which is not only a great hurt to the poor in raising the price of bread but must also be very offensive to God the great and good father of the family of mankind, that people should in their earthly and corrupt wisdom, pervert their Maker’s benevolent intention, in converting the grain he hath given to us as the staff of life, unto a fiery spirit, so destructive of the human frame and attended with the other dreadful consequences already mentioned. (1778, 44)

Benezet was particularly skeptical of claims that distilled alcohol eased earthly labors, but pointed out that even if they did so, “they must nevertheless waste the powers of life, and of course occasion premature old age” (45). Benezet further cited Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 8:13 that “if meat make 54my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world stands, lest I make my brother to offend,” which he though equally applied to strong drink (47).

See also Declaration of Independence; Quakers; Rush, Benjamin; Slavery

For Reference and Further Reading

Benezet, Anthony. 1778. “Serious Considerations on Several Important Subjects.” Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=main;view=text;idno=N12457.0001.001. Accessed April 19, 2019.

Bruns, Roger A. 1976. “A Quaker’s Antislavery Crusade: Anthony Benezet.” Quaker History 65 (Autumn): 82–92.

Noll, Mark A. 2016. In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783. New York: Oxford University Press.

Beveridge, Albert J.

Albert J. Beveridge (1862–1927) was an Indiana Republican who served in the U.S. Senate from 1899 to 1911. A graduate of DePaul University, Beveridge became a leader in the Progressive movement and a strong advocate of American imperial expansion in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. He also established himself as a historian with a classic work on Chief Justice John Marshall.

In 1907, he published a work entitled The Bible as Good Reading, in which he tried to demonstrate that the English version of the Bible was one of the finest works of literature ever written. He put particular emphasis on short stories like the account of David killing Goliath, the story of Esther’s patriotism, the stories of Moses, and the life of St. Paul. He praised the wisdom of the laws of Moses and their superiority to all but the most recent systems. He lauded the wisdom of King Solomon as expressed in the book of Proverbs, the Jewish judicial system, and by what he perceived to be the Bible’s “tendency toward liberty—even toward democracy” (1907, 69). He was also impressed by the provision for a Year of Jubilee in which slaves were to be set free and “there is to be a new deal all around” (75). Beveridge presented the biblical Joseph not simply as a “dreamer” but also as a “doer” and praised St. Paul’s oratory, particularly as demonstrated by his speech on Mars Hill in Athens.

Perhaps as much as any twentieth-century politician, Beveridge took seriously the idea that America was a chosen nation with a unique providential destiny. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War (1900), he thus argued that “God . . . has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world,” and that this destiny involved holding the Philippines. Lambasting those who opposed the war against Filipino independence, Beveridge paraphrased one of Jesus’s sayings on the cross in Luke 23:34 to say “that our brothers knew not what they did.”

Whereas the vision of American revolutionaries was that of spreading liberty, Beveridge only wanted to do so in a limited sense because he did not believe the Filipino “children,” as “Orientals,” were capable of self-government. They had “not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom.” What America could give the Philippines “involves government, but not necessarily self-government. It means law. First of all, it is a common rule of action, applying equally to all within its limits. Liberty means protection of property and life without price, free speech 55without intimidation, justice without purchase or delay, government without favor or favorites.” Beveridge observed that “the Declaration of Independence does not forbid us to do our part in the regeneration of the world.” It “applies only to people capable of self-government.” The U.S. flag was on the march and should never retreat.

As he progressed, Beveridge continued to elevate the nation and its implied powers. Noting that “the written Constitution is but the index of the living Constitution,” he observed, “The nation alone is immortal. The nation alone is sacred.” The nation was, in turn, tied to race: “It is racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. NO! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.”

In a paragraph that ended with a quotation from one of Jesus’s parables as recorded in Matthew 25:21, Beveridge observed that God “has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are the trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the Master is upon us. ‘Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things.’” He subsequently referred to America’s duty as “a holy trust” and professed to see “the hand of God” in this destiny.

Perhaps paraphrasing Isaiah 41:1, Beveridge observed, “We will renew our youth at the fountain of new and glorious deeds.” Continuing, he observed that “where dwells the fear of God, the American people move forward to the future of their hope and the doing of His work.”

Beveridge managed to combine traditional notions of America’s destiny with a version of social Darwinism that showed how political progressivism could sometimes morph into expansionistic imperialism with a racial twist. Although not all supported American control over the Philippines, Lyman Abbott (1835–1922) and other progressive pastors of the day also associated American participation in the war as a way to fulfill its mission as God’s chosen nation to spread liberty and Christianity (Wetzel 2012). Other Progressive members of the clergy shared similar sentiments. In 1898, Pastor L. B. Hartman observed, “Thus without the least consciousness of presumption or extravagance we recognize our republic as the politico-religious handmaid of Providence in the aggressive civilization of the world” (quoted in McDougall 2019, 123). Similarly, an Episcopal rector named William S. Rainsford observed, “This war has not been cunningly devised by the strategists. America is being used to carry on the work of God in this war, which no politician could create, control, or gainsay” (quoted in McDougall 2019, 123).

See also City upon a Hill; Colonization

For Reference and Further Reading

Beveridge, Albert J. 1900. “U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge Speaks on the Philippine Question, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1900.”https://china.usc.edu/us-senator-albert-j-beveridge-speaks-philippine-question-us-senate-washington-dc-january-9-1900. Accessed April 17, 2019.

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Beveridge, Albert J. 1907. The Bible as Good Reading. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus.

Inabinet, Brandon. 2007. “Albert J. Beveridge, ‘March of the Flag’ (16 September 1898).” Voices of Democracy 1 (June): 148–64.

McDougall, Walter A. 2019. The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wetzel, Benjamin J. 2012. “Onward Christian Soldiers: Lyman Abbott’s Justification of the Spanish-American War.” Journal of Church and State 54 (Summer): 406–25.

Bible Balloon Project

One of the more bizarre initiatives endorsed by the U.S. national government was the Bible Balloon Project hatched by evangelist Billy James Hargis and Rev. Carl McIntyre, both right-wing fundamentalist pastors with broad radio audiences (Jordan 2013, 67). Begun in 1953 and continuing for the next four years, this project sought to float helium balloons from West Germany into Eastern European nations controlled by the Soviet Union with Bible tracts and Scriptures. It followed earlier messages of friendship that had been launched by balloon in August 1951, which, in part, conveyed what the New York Times described as “the frequencies and broadcast schedules of Western radio stations” (“Balloon Barrage Grows” 1951).

Although this would not seem to be a particularly effective method of propaganda, a later report noted that eight Russian planes had sought to shoot the balloons down (“Reds Shoot at Balloons” 1951). After reports that the Eisenhower administration had opposed including Bibles, Dr. James B. Conant, the U.S. high commissioner, sent a note indicating that the president considered the project to be “a laudable private undertaking” (“Bible ‘Airlift’ Lauded” 1953).

In 1951, President Harry S. Truman had created the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), which included the use of religious appeals in combating “godless” communism (Herzog 2012, 55–56). Eisenhower had continued this approach, which had included operating 165 “information centers” around the world for foreigners. One scholar notes, “Ample quantities of the Bible began arriving, along with subscriptions to religious periodicals like Christian Century, Commonweal, and Commentary. The State Department also sent periodic religious news dispatches to its embassies, complete with analyses of each event’s implications for Communists. The Voice of America (VOA) enlisted the aid of religious leaders, who broadcast messages into nations under Communist control” (Herzog 2012, 56–57).

Consistent with this emphasis, Congress added the words “under God” to the pledge to the U.S. flag in 1954.

In addition to the Bible Balloon Project, numerous private religious organizations in the United States and in Western European nations sought to smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations, although their efforts were often exaggerated (Boel 2014; Gouverneur 2007).

Apparently, balloons and smuggling are currently both being used to smuggle books into communist North Korea (McKay 2017).

See also Communism and Anti-Communism; Under God

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For Reference and Further Reading

“Balloon Barrage Grows.” New York Times, August 19, 1951.

“Bible ‘Airlift’ Lauded.” New York Times, September 5, 1953.

Boel Bent. 2014. “Bible Smuggling and Human Rights in the Cold War.” Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War: Agents, Activities, and Networks, ed. Luc van Dongen, Stephanie Roulin, and Giles Scott-Smith. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 263–75.

Gouverneur, Joe. 2007. “Underground Evangelism: Missions during the Cold War.” Transformation 24 (April): 80–86.

Herzog, Jonathan P. 2012. “From Sermon to Strategy: Religious Influence on the Formation and Implementation of US Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War.” Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective, ed. Philip E. Muehlenbeck. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 44–64.

Jordan, Richard Lawrence. 2013. The Second Coming of Paisley: Militant Fundamentalism and Ulster Politics. New York: Syracuse University Press.

McKay, Hollie. 2017. “Operation Bible Smuggling: How Christian Texts Infiltrate North Korea.” World. October 9.

“Reds Shoot at Balloons.” New York Times, August 28, 1951.

Bible Burnings

One way to express one’s disgust with a writing is to burn it. Burning manuscripts dates far back into antiquity, with some such burnings being intentional and others simply the result of war (Boissoneault 2017). The burnings of the library at Alexander in 48 BC and AD 640 are similar to recent attempts to destroy libraries in Mali and Timbuktu in 2012.

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides for freedom of speech and press, but it does not prevent individuals from burning holy books that they own any more than it would prevent them from burning flags. Early in the twentieth century, however, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice headed by Anthony Comstock (1844–1915) often burned books that they considered to be pornographic.

The emotional effect of burning a holy book can be particularly intense, and may thus draw disproportionate attention. There was a strong outcry when, in 2008, the U.S. military burned Bibles at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for fear that they would be used to proselytize Muslims in violation of military protocols (Starnes 2012).

The Catholic Church sometimes burned books along with heretics, including individuals like Giordano Bruno and Jan Hus, the former for his Copernican cosmology, and the latter for his attack on such practices as the giving of indulgences (Boissoneault 2017). They sometimes also burned translations other than the Latin Vulgate.

In 2009, the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, announced that it was going to burn English translations other than the King James Version of the Bible on Halloween. They also planned to burn books by other Christian authors such as Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and others (Chivers 2009).

In 2012, Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Church in Florida, who had previously stopped early attempts, publicly burned a Koran 58to protest the Iranian imprisonment of a Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani (Sheridan 2012).

See also Fundamentalists; Pornography

For Reference and Further Reading

Boissoneault, Lorraine. 2017. “A Brief History of Book Burning, from the Printing Press to Internet Archives.” Smithsonian. August 31. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-book-burning-printing-press-internet-archives-180964697/.

Chivers, Tom. 2009. “North Carolina Church Plans Halloween Bible Burning.” Telegraph. October 16. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6346662/North-Carolina-church-plans-Halloween-Bible-burning.html.

Corn-Revere. Robert. 2014. “Bonfires of Insanity: A History of Book Burnings from Nazis to ISIS.” Daily Beast. February 28 [updated April 14, 2017]. https://www.thedailybeast.com/bonfires-of-insanity-a-history-of-book-burnings-from-nazis-to-isis.

Sheridan, Michael. 2012. “Florida Pastor Terry Jones Burns Copies of Koran outside Church.” New York Daily News. April 29. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-pastor-terry-jones-burns-copies-koran-church-article-1.1069458.

Starnes, Todd. 2012. “The Day the U.S. Military Burned the Bible in Afghanistan.” Fox News. March 2 [updated May 7, 2015]. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/the-day-the-us-military-burned-the-bible-in-afghanistan. Accessed March 31, 2019.

Bible Signings

In March 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed Bibles at an Alabama church where he visited victims of a recent tornado.

The practice was not new to Trump, although he may have taken it up a notch by signing on the outside cover rather than on the inside. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the family Bible of Frank Murphy after he took his oath as U.S. attorney general. President Ronald Reagan signed a Bible that he sent to Iranian officials in 1986. Other presidents who are known to have signed Bibles include Harry S. Truman, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.

A lot of the controversy has centered on whether observers believe that the Bible signings were done for purely political purposes or as a way of connecting to those who asked for such signatures. Bill Leonard, the dean of the Wake Forest School of Divinity, observed that signing Bibles is a southern tradition, whereas Wayne Flynn, a professor emeritus at Auburn University, described Trump’s actions as “right next to a sacrilege” (Roach 2019). In an indication that his judgment may have been more about the signer than the practice itself, however, Flynn said, “If Jimmy Carter had signed a Bible . . . I would have no problems with that” (Roach 2019). Hershael York, from the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed that there was nothing objectively sinful about the practice, although some individuals would be more comfortable with it than others.

Although the practice is not quite the same, both Americans and their British forbearers have long used Bibles, which themselves detail numerous genealogies of the Jewish people, to record family births and deaths (Wulf 2012). Moreover, incoming justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sign the flyleaf of a Bible that John Marshall Harlan I donated to the court in 1906.

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See also Harlan Bible; Trump, Donald J.

For Reference and Further Reading

Mcdermott, Jennifer. 2019. “Some Cheer, Some Decry Trump’s Signing of Bibles.” The Tennessean. March 11, 16A.

Roach, David. 2019. “Trump’s Bible Signing Called Southern Tradition.” Baptist Press. March 11. www.bpnews.net/52551/trumps-bible-signing-called-souther-tradition.

Wulf, Karin. 2012. “Bible, King, and Common Law: Genealogical Literacies and Family History Practices in British America.” Early American Studies 10 (Fall): 467–502.

Bible Study Groups among Governmental Officials

From the time of the Reformation, Protestants have placed special emphasis on the study of the Bible. This emphasis has been accentuated during the Trump administration with the establishment of what is believed to be the first Bible study among cabinet members in the past hundred years.

Created by Ralph Drollinger (b. 1954), a former basketball player who has helped establish Capitol Ministries, which is now in forty-three U.S. state capitols and twenty foreign legislatures, Drollinger’s studies, which take a verse-by-verse approach to Scripture, have been contrasted with what he apparently considers to be the “candy floss Christianity—big, sweet, unsubstantial”—of the National Prayer Breakfast, which is run by The Fellowship (Amos 2018). The establishment of the cabinet study followed the establishment of similar studies in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Vice President Mike Pence sponsors the cabinet group and apparently helped select a core of initial members who have included former attorney general Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, former health secretary Tom Price, former secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen, and former energy secretary Rick Perry.

Critics have questioned Drollinger’s policy excluding women from directing such Bible studies as well as his criticism of same-sex marriage and of the Roman Catholic Church, which he is quoted as saying “is one of the primary false religions of the world” (Gander 2018). Drollinger has likened Pence to such figures as Joseph, Mordecai, and Daniel, who have exercised godly influences from the number two position in government, and Trump to Samson, the biblical strongman (CBN News 2017). One reporter has linked former attorney general Jeff Sessions’s justification of separating immigrant families at the border to one of Drollinger’s Bible studies, which emphasized both corporal punishment and the necessity of obedience to law (Seidel 2018). Responding to critics, Drollinger has said that he believes in the separation of church and state but does not believe that “institutional separation” requires “influential separation” (Amos 2018).

See also Corporal Punishment; Immigration; National Prayer Breakfast; Pence, Mike; Perry, Rick; Pompeo, Mike; Trump, Donald J.

For Reference and Further Reading

Amos, Owen. 2018. “Inside the White House Bible Study Group.” BBC. April 8. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43534724.

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CBN News. 2017. “Bible Studies at the White House: Who’s Inside This Spiritual Awakening?” July 31. https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2017/july/bible- studies-at-the-white-house-whos-at-the-heart-of-this-spiritual-awakening.

Gander, Kashmira. 2018. “White House Bible Study Led by Pastor Who Is Anti-Gay, Anti-Women and Anti-Catholic.” Newsweek. April 11. https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-bible-group-led-pastor-anti-gay-anti-women-anti-catholic-881860.

Seidel, Andrew L. 2018. “The White House Bible Study Group That Influenced Trump’s Family Separation Policy.” ThinkProgress. June 19. https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-bible-study-group-trump-child-separation-policy-24de236c4824/.

Black, Hugo L.

Hugo Lafayette Black (1886–1971) was one of the longest-serving and most notable Supreme Court justices of the twentieth century; he served from 1937 until shortly before his death in 1971. Born in Clay County, Alabama, Black established himself as a trial attorney, as a congressional investigator, and as a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs before Roosevelt appointed him to the court. Black appeared in a national radio address to explain, albeit not to deny, his prior membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and went on both to uphold many New Deal laws and to gain a reputation for being a champion of constitutional provisions, especially those in the Bill of Rights.

Black became known as something of a constitutional fundamentalist in that he believed that the Constitution should be interpreted quite literally and resisted what he believed to be calls to expand even civil rights and liberties beyond the constitutional text. After thus fighting to expand the right to counsel and other rights, Black dissented from the majority decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which recognized a constitutional right to privacy. Similarly, although Black outlined a fairly absolutist position with regard to protections for freedom of speech and press, in his later years, he opposed decisions that would have widened this protection to symbolic speech. Black, however, believed that the Fourteenth Amendment intended to apply, or “incorporate,” the provisions of the Bill of Rights to state as well as national governments, even though this amendment does not explicitly say so.

Black was known for his view, which he attributed to Roger Williams and to Thomas Jefferson, that the First Amendment established a “wall of separation between church and state.” He outlined this strict position in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), even though he did in that case allow a state to provide transportation for students attending parochial schools. Black strongly supported decisions banning public prayer and Bible readings from public schools.

Black led Bible classes at Birmingham’s First Baptist Church for fifteen years beginning in the 1910s, and he told his students that “the Bible penetrated the trackless forests with the pioneers and strengthened the sturdy character of our early settlers” (Newman 2017). Although Black had graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law, after he joined the Supreme Court, he bought numerous classics and engaged in an extensive course of reading and study that he believed to be essential for his new job. William Domnarski observed that “among his hundreds of opinions are dozens of references to figures 61such as Tacitus, Plutarch, Plato, Jefferson, Macaulay, Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Bible” (2006, 115).

Because he was such a strict separationist, Black sometimes received critical letters. In one case he apparently replied to an Alabama woman who condemned him to hell for his opinion on school prayer by observing that if she would consult the Bible, she would find that individuals were admonished to “pray in your own closet [from Matthew 6:6]” (Newman 2017). After Byron White was appointed to the court after the Supreme Court’s decision in 1963 banning devotional Bible reading, White quipped that “I had to borrow this Bible. The only one left in the Supreme Court was Potter Stewart’s” (Newman 2017), Stewart having been the only dissenter in that case.

One might argue that Black transferred much of his early faith in the Bible and in Christianity to the Constitution and the court. In 1968, Black gave a series of three lectures at the Columbia University School of Law, which were subsequently published in a book that Black titled A Constitutional Faith. After expressing gratitude for the opportunities that his public life had brought and the Constitution that had made it possible, he observed, “That Constitution is my legal bible; its plan of our government is my plan and its destiny my destiny. I cherish every word of it, from the first to the last, and I personally deplore even the slightest deviation from its least important commands” (1968, 66).

See also Abington v. Schempp (1963)

For Reference and Further Reading

Black, Hugo LaFayette. 1968. A Constitutional Faith. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Domnarski, William. 2006. The Great Justices, 1941–54: Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Levinson, Sanford. 1979. “‘The Constitution’ in American Civil Religion.” Supreme Court Review 1979: 123–51.

Newman, Roger. 2017. “When It Was Done Right: Justice Hugo Black, Religion and Alabama.” New American Journal. December 5. https://www.newamericanjournal.net/tag/roger-newman/. Accessed April 22, 2019.

Blasphemy Laws

See Updegraph v. Commonwealth (1824)

Booker, Cory

Cory Booker (b. 1969) is an African American politician. He was educated at Stanford University, the Queens College at Oxford, and at Yale Law School. A former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, he is now a U.S. senator from that state who is vying for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.

Although he identifies as a Baptist, Booker is quite familiar with Jewish theology, having had a number of friends who were Jewish rabbis. In thus responding to President Trump’s comment that Jews who voted for Democrats were disloyal, he responded, “Tzedakah, chesed,” and followed with, “Those are ideas about justice and decency and kindness and mercy. We need to get back to those values” (Medina 2019). At Oxford he joined Shmuley Boteach, an American 62rabbi reaching out to nonpracticing Jews, and became a member of the L’Chaim Society that Boteach founded (Medina 2019). Similarly, at Yale, he cofounded a similar society with a Hasidic rabbi named Shmully Hecht (Rosenberg 2013).

Booker has a stack of religious books on his desk that include “the New Testament, the Tanakh, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita”; he appears quite comfortable with religious diversity and carries both a Spanish prayer card and an index card with the text of Isaiah 40:31 likening those who wait on God to soaring eagles (Rosenberg 2013). He has been described as “a churchgoing Baptist who teaches Torah like an amateur rabbi. He abstains from alcohol like Muslims and Mormons. He is a vegetarian who meditates and quotes Eastern religious texts” (Rosenberg 2013).

Seemingly much more comfortable with both his own Christian upbringing and religious discourse in general than was Barack Obama, one journalist has described him as a potential “Candidate of the Christian Left” (Kilgore 2018). As a possible heir to the progressive politics of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he had advocated bipartisanship, indicating that “my faith tradition is love your enemies. It’s not complicated for me, if I aspire to be who I say I am. I am a Christian American. Literally written in the ideals of my faith is to love those who hate you” (Kilgore 2018).

See also Baptists; Judaism; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Obama, Barack

For Reference and Further Reading

Kilgore, Ed. 2018. “Is Cory Booker the Candidate of the Christian Left?” Intelligencer. December 17. http ://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/is-cory-booker-the-candidate-of-the-christian-left.html.

Medina, Jennifer. 2019. “The Yom Kippur Prayer on Cory Booker’s Lips.” New York Times. October 8. https://www.onenewspage.com/n/US/1zkk83f4ch/The-Yom-Kippur-Prayer-on-Cory-Booker.htm.

Rosenberg, Yair. 2013. “New Jersey Senate Candidate Cory Booker Knows His Torah, So What?” The Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/140767/cory-bookers-jewish-story.

Borowicz, Stephanie

On March 25, 2019, Pennsylvania state Republican representative Stephanie Borowicz delivered the opening prayer at a session of the state legislature that also marked the first time that a Muslim representative, Movita Johnson-Harrell, who had brought fifty-five guests with her (most of whom were Muslim), was being sworn into office with her hand on the Koran.

Borowicz’s prayer, which lasted about 100 seconds, was noted for citing Jesus at least thirteen times (Dicker 2019). It is also notable for including a number of Christian Scriptures in what some considered to be a weaponized way.

Borowicz began by saying, “I, Jesus, am your ambassador here today, standing here representing you, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.” She likely took the term “ambassador” from 2 Corinthians 5:20, which refers to being “ambassadors for Christ” and the designation of God from 1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, and Revelation 19:16, which also refer specifically to Jesus. After saying that America’s founding fathers had attempted to base the nation on “your principles 63and your words, and your truths” (quoted in Barillas 2019), she continued, “God forgive us—Jesus—we’ve lost sight of you, we’ve forgotten you, God, in our country, and we’re asking you to forgive us” (Thebault 2019). She followed by quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Although many Muslims would undoubtedly share in the sentiments expressed in this verse, it seems likely that some members of the audience might have interpreted the admission of a Muslim as the sin at issue.

Borowicz further praised President Trump for recognizing Israel. She ended with a quotation from Philippians 2:10, “I claim all these things in the powerful name of Jesus, the one who, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord, in Jesus’ name” (Thebault 2019).

Although the Supreme Court upheld the practice of prayer in state legislature in the case of Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the general expectation is that the individual giving the prayer will do so in a nonpartisan and nonsectarian manner. Although outsiders are instructed to pray in that manner, members are not apparently given the same instructions.

A number of fellow legislators considered the prayer to be Islamophobic, disrespectful, and inappropriate. Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell observed that “I came to the Capitol to help build bipartisanship and collaborations regardless of race or religion to enhance the quality of life for everyone in the Commonwealth.” Democrat representative Frank Dermody reacted to the prayer by saying, “Prayer should never divide us. It should bring us together.” Rep. Jordan Harris tweeted, “Prayer should never be weaponized, especially on a celebratory day” (quoted in Barillas 2019). As for Borowicz, she responded, “That’s how I pray every day . . . I don’t ever apologize for praying” (all three quotations found in Dicker 2019). At least one Christian news site portrayed the criticisms as a way of persecuting Borowicz (Barillas 2019).

See also Trump, Donald J.

For Reference and Further Reading

Barillas, Martin M. 2019. “U.S. Legislator Persecuted for Praying to Jesus before Swearing In of Muslim.” LifeSite News. March 27. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/u.s.-legislator-prays-to-jesus-before-swearing-in-of-muslim-and-is-accused-of-islamophobia. Accessed March 30, 2019.

Dicker, Ron. 2019. “Lawmaker’s Prayer Mentions Jesus 13 Times before Muslim Colleague Is Sworn In.” HuffPost. March 27. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/lawmaker-apos-prayer-mentions-jesus-113436078.html.

Thebault, Reis. 2019. “GOP Legislator Prays for Forgiveness before Pennsylvania’s First Muslim Woman Swears In.” Governing. March 27. https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/GOP-Legislator-Prays-for-Forgiveness-Before-Pennsylvanias-First-Muslim-Woman-Swears-In.html.

Boucher, Jonathan

Numerous historians have noted the effect that preachers had on stirring patriotic sentiments that led to the U.S. Revolutionary War, but it is important 64to keep in mind that pastors were split on both the legitimacy of the colonial cause and on the proper measures for them to take. Anglican priests often faced particular difficulties because their church was the official Church of England, and they were sworn to uphold the English king. Not nearly as many of their sermons survive as those of Patriot preachers, but those that do are quite instructive.

One of the most forceful Anglican priests who opposed the Patriot side in the American Revolution was Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804), who, after giving a series of sermons urging the cause of passive obedience and nonresistance, left for England at the beginning of the conflict but continued to survey the situation from afar. In 1793, he published a series of thirteen sermons that he had given in the years from 1763 to 1775 with respect to this topic, each with appropriate scriptural citations. They included the following discourses: “On the Peace” (Isaiah 2:4); “On Schisms and Sects” (Judges 17:5–6); “On the American Episcopate” (Isaiah 5:5–7); “On the Character of Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:33); “On the Character of Ahitophel” (2 Samuel 17:23); “The Dispute between the Israelites and Their Two Tribes and an Half, Respecting Their Settlement beyond Jordan” (Joshua 22:22); “On Civil Liberty; Passive Obedience, and Non-Resistance” (Galatians 5:1); and “A Farewell Sermon” (Nehemiah 6:10–11).

There is general consensus that the twelfth sermon, “On Civil Liberty; Passive Obedience, and Non-Resistance,” is the most relevant in expressing Boucher’s view on the Revolution. Moreover, it has the advantage of responding to a sermon by Jacob Duché, who (while he would later join the British side) had invoked God’s help in the First Continental Congress for the Patriot side.

One of the fascinating aspects of Boucher’s sermon is that he had lived in Virginia and Maryland and tutored George Washington’s stepson. Boucher admired and actually dedicated his discourses to George Washington even though they had been on opposite sides of the revolutionary conflict.

Boucher chose for his text the words of Galatians 5:1, which admonished Christians to “stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” This was a popular Patriot text, which Duché and other Patriot advocates had cited. Boucher believed that in so doing they had taken the text out of context, and he cited both the words of the catechism that promoted the duty of “honouring and obeying the king, and all that are put in authority under him” and St. Paul’s injunction in Titus 3:1 “to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, and to be ready to every good work” (1793, 498).

Recognizing that some individuals had complained about preaching about politics, Boucher observed that their real quarrel was not with politics per se but with “unpopular politics” (499), whose spokesmen called for obedience to existing governments. He linked those who called for violent resistance to ancient Jewish zealots, and he argued that Paul and other biblical writers had not used the word “liberty” to mean “civil liberty,” which Boucher thought was nowhere to be found in Scripture (505), but the liberty of “the spiritual or religious kind” (506). For Jews, liberty was liberty “from the burthensome services of the ceremonial law” while for Christians “it meant a freedom from the servitude of sin” (504).

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According to Boucher, the gospel writers “make no manner of alteration in the nature or form of Civil Government; but enforce afresh, upon all Christians, that obedience which is due to the respective Constitutions of every nation in which they may happen to live” (506). He further argued that “obedience to Government is every man’s duty, because it is every man’s interest: but it is particularly incumbent on Christians” and “is enjoined by the positive commands of God” (507–8). For Boucher such obedience was essential to the rule of law.

Opposing secular writers, especially John Locke (a favorite among revolutionaries), who would base government on conceptions of “the common good” (512), Boucher thought this was too vague and unstable a standard. He was equally dismissive of the idea, which the Declaration of Independence affirmed, that government was formed by a compact or that individuals were equal: “Man differs from man in every thing that can be supposed to lead to supremacy and subjection, as one star differs from another star in glory” (514–15). Government based on continuing consent carries “the seeds of it’s decay in it’s very constitution” (518). Siding with Sir Robert Filmer against Locke, Boucher thought that God had created men in society and that Adam, as “the first father[,]‌ was the first king” over both his wife and children (525).

Boucher further evoked the example of Jesus to argue against anything other than passive nonresistance—disobeying laws that commanded individuals from doing wrong but taking the appropriate penalty. In surveying Scriptures, Boucher therefore observes, “It no where appears, that either our Saviour, or any of his apostles, ever did interfere with the affairs of any government, or the administration of any government, other than by submitting to them” (540). Quoting Jesus’s dictum in Matthew 22:21 to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Boucher observed “that it is enough for the disciple to be as his master, and the servant as his lord” (342).

No government will ever be perfect, but by nature it is “absolute and irresistible” (345), and it is up to citizens to obey in order to avoid calamities. Government needs to be supreme and, in America, this supremacy is vested in “the King and the Parliament” (554). Moreover, it is unwise to revolt “on account of an insignificant duty on tea” (554), however irritating it might be.

See also Declaration of Independence; First Continental Congress; Revolutionary War

For Reference and Further Reading

Berens, John F. 1978. “‘A God of Order and Not of Confusion’: The American Loyalists and Divine Providence. 1774–1783.” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 47 (June): 211–19.

Boucher, Jonathan. 1793. A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution; in Thirteen Discourses, Preached in North America between the Years 1763 and 1775: With an Historical Preface. London: G.G. and J. Robinson. [Note: Readers may find an excerpted copy of Boucher’s sermon on Civil Liberty, Passive Obedience, and Nonresistance at the Constitution Society website at https:///www.constitution.org/bcp/nonresis.htm.]

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Frazer, Gregg L. 2018. God against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case against the American Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Noll, Mark A. 2016. In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492–1783. New York: Oxford University Press.

Boudinot, Elias

Elias Boudinot (1740–1821) was an early American statesman who was born in Philadelphia, attended the College of New Jersey (today’s Princeton), and studied law under Richard Stockton, who would later become his brother-in-law. He served on a Committee of Correspondence and as a member of the New Jersey provincial assembly and was appointed by General George Washington to serve as a commissary general for British prisoners. He also served in the Continental Congress, where Congress elected him president for the year 1783, and where he introduced a call for a national day of thanksgiving. He was elected to three terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, and headed the U.S. Mint.

Boudinot became an ardent Federalist who was strongly opposed to the secular forces unleashed by the French Revolution, which he feared would flourish in America with the election of Thomas Jefferson, whom he considered to be a Deist. More generally, Boudinot feared the decline of public virtue in the United States. In retirement, he helped found and served as the first president of the American Bible Society, through which he thought that the spread of the Bible and of Christianity might bring soon the return of Jesus to earth.

An orthodox Presbyterian, Boudinot had been baptized by George Whitefield (1714–1770) and grew up under the preaching of the revivalist Gilbert Tennent (1703–1764). Boudinot was clearly shocked when Thomas Paine, who had utilized the Bible in Common Sense, to argue against the institution of hereditary kingship, published The Age of Reason, in which he attacked the authority of the Bible and many other orthodox Christian doctrines.

Boudinot was especially concerned about how such infidelity might affect the morals of America’s youth. In a letter to his daughter, Boudinot observed, “I confess that I was much mortified to find the whole force of this vain man’s genius and art pointed at the youth of America. . . . This awful consequence created some alarm in my mind lest at any future day, you, my beloved child, might take up this plausible address of infidelity; and for want of an answer at hand to his subtle insinuations might suffer even a doubt of the truth, as it is in Jesus, to penetrate your mind” (DeMar n.d., viii).

Boudinot’s refutation is saturated with references to classical historians and contemporary thinkers as well as with scriptural references and scriptural quotations. Indeed, in his dedication, he refers to the Bible as “the Alpha and Omega of knowledge,” a term that the Bible (Revelation 1:8; 21:6; and 22:13) uses for Jesus (1801, xxii).

Paine sought to dismiss most biblical accounts on the basis that they were based upon hearsay by individuals who are not alive to be questioned. By contrast, 67Boudinot sought to argue that the biblical record, which had been based on hundreds of witnesses, was superior to most other historical accounts upon which scholars commonly rely and had been validated by prophecy. He thus sought to uphold accounts of the virgin birth of Jesus, the divine mission of Christ, the Trinity (which Boudinot believed had been shared by other early religions), the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the authenticity of the books of both the Old and New Testaments. In arguments that continue to be a part of modern apologetics, Boudinot believed it was contradictory to argue, as Paine had done, that the ethics of Jesus and his disciples were a great advance, while then denying the claims to deity that he believed Jesus had made and suggesting that his disciples had perpetuated a fraud when they argued for Jesus’s resurrection and ascension. Referring to a wide variety of statements that the gospels had attributed to Jesus, Boudinot rhetorically asked, “Can that man be a virtuous and amiable man—a preacher and practice of the most benevolent morality, not exceeded by any—and yet in the opinion of this writer, be guilty of imposing on his followers, by assuring them that ‘He was before the foundation of the world—that he was the birth born of every creature—that he was sent of God—came down from Heaven—that he was the only begotten Son of God—that God was his father’” (1801, 85). Boudinot observed that “the denial of the principal events and historical occurrences of the life of Jesus Christ, as recorded by the evangelists, necessarily implies a miracle equal to the affirmation of them” (91). Boudinot also challenged Paine, who remained a Deist, to explain evil without the doctrine of original sin (125).

Although The Age of Reason sold well in America, it would appear that many more Americans identified with the view expressed by Boudinot and other critics than with Paine, who died in relative obscurity and who continued to be a favorite whipping boy of those who opposed biblical infidelity.

See also American Bible Society; Common Sense (Thomas Paine); Jefferson Bible

For Reference and Further Reading

Boudinot, Elias. 1801. The Age of Revelation: Or, The Age of Reason Shewn to Be an Age of Infidelity. Philadelphia: Asbury Dickins. Reprinted by Power Springs, GA: American Vision Press.

DeMar, Gary. n.d. “Foreword” to Boudinot, Elias. 1802. The Age of Revelation: Or, The Age of Reason Shewn to Be an Age of Infidelity. Philadelphia: Asbury Dickins. Reprinted by Power Springs, GA: American Vision Press, pp. vii–xiv.

Den Hartog, Jonathan. 2014. “Elias Boudinot, Presbyterians, and the Quest for a ‘Righteous Republic.’” Faith and the Founders of the American Republic, ed. Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 253–76.

Den Hartog, Jonathan J. 2015. Patriotism & Piety: Federalist Politics and Religious Struggle in the New American Nation. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Flick, Stephen. n.d. “Elias Boudinot: Building America on Christ.” Christian Heritage Fellowship. https://christianheritagefellowship.com/elias-boudinot-building-america-on-christ/. Accessed May 9, 2019.

Keane, John. 1995. Tom Paine: A Political Life. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Staloff, Darren. 2014. “Deism and the Founders.” Faith and the Founders of the American Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 13–33.

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Bradley, Joseph P.

Joseph P. Bradley (1813–1892) was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the Supreme Court in 1870 and served there until his death. Raised in the Dutch Reformed Church, he initially studied for the ministry at Rutgers before pursuing the study of law and developing a national reputation in patent and railroad law. A selection of his writings published after his death contains a long section dealing with his view on religious and moral issues, in which he both articulated his admiration for the Bible and indicated that he believed that God continued to reveal himself through nature and through other extra-biblical writings.

In an opening letter in this section, he indicated that he did not consider the omission of an explicit acknowledgement of God in the Constitution to demonstrate “hostility to religion” but rather “as showing a fixed determination to leave the people entirely free on the subject” (Bradley 1902, 358). For this reason, he did not support the so-called Christian Amendment, which had been supported by his colleague Justice William Strong.

Bradley further explored such esoteric topics as the dimensions and layout of Noah’s Ark, the history of English translations of the Bible (despite his liberalism, Bradley was a strong defender of the elegance of the King James Version), and the likely year and date of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He also explicated the Lord’s Prayer and four points that he believed constituted “the whole essence of the Christian religion,” namely:

1 God’s existence, fatherhood and loving kindliness to all, and hence His attention to our wants and prayers.

2 The equality and brotherhood of all men, and hence the duty of Universal Charity.

3 The prime importance of our spiritual nature, and hence the secondary importance of sensuous and material things.

4 The need of God’s forgiveness and help, and hence the hopelessness of an unforgiving spirit. (Bradley 1902, 369)

In writing about the Bible, Strong described it as “a valuable repository.” He specifically commended “the devotional fervor of the Psalms, the sententious wisdom of the book of Proverbs, and the profound reflections of Ecclesiastes,” as well as the “exalted moral exhortation and instruction” of the prophets, and “the simple and searching lessons of faith, sincerity, purity of heart and universal charity of the New Testament” (370). Bradley thought that it was possible to commend the Bible “without entering into the question of special revelation and miracles, which have so much agitated both the curious inquirers and the superstitious devotees of the Christian world” (370–71). Moreover, such an approach “is consistent with the free and intelligent use of all similar aides to virtue and spiritual elevation to be found in the sayings of the great and good of all nations and times” (371). In another essay entitled “Inerrant or Infallible Bible,” Bradley observed, “The Spirit of God moves upon the ocean of human thought, ever evolving light and truth, which concreted in words of immortal power, becomes 69stereotyped upon the consciousness of the nations, consecrated by antiquity into the forms of sacred learning, and hallowed by all holy and religious associations” (401–2).

Suggesting that those with superior wisdom should tolerate attempts to incorporate biblical teachings into doctrines, in another essay, Bradley observed that “if we do not believe in miracles, we may well believe in the vast importance and benefit of those hoary traditions of Divine influence which have become as effective for good with the great mass of mankind as if they were based on the most certain deductions of reason and experience” (404). In a similar vein, Bradley observed,

Until the world is ready for the truth, it is not safe to communicate it, except to the select view who can be trusted to embrace and guard it; that select few who are governed by inherent and unbending rectitude. The wise man will continue to respect and observe the laws, usages and modes which prevail, and which society regards as essential to the conservation of order and morality. Mankind in general can only be gradually awakened to truth. The light of science will, in the end, quench the farthing candles of error and superstition. (Bradley 1902, 406)

Believing that Jesus had largely freed his followers from strict observance of the Sabbath, Bradley thought “that civil society has a right to enact wholesome laws on the subject is manifest both from the sayings of Christ and from the incalculable benefits which society derives from the institution” (410).

Arguing that the primary goal of religion was not “to avoid eternal misery and obtain eternal happiness,” he said that “its true object is to make men better, or rather, to make them good—a word which includes every virtue” (424). In this same essay, he observed that “a belief in an officious God is absolutely necessary to elevate and purify the masses” (426).

Bradley thought that there should be progress “in religious science” just as in other areas; this, in turn, required rejecting “the theory that revelation of Divine truth was miraculously made to these men at first hand and has never been made except through Hebrew prophets and seers” (428). He specifically argued that “every page of Nature’s great Book” refused the “narrow theory of a six day’s creation” (428–29). Bradley further said that the only dogma that Jesus taught was “that God is our Father and that we are all brethren” (481).

In an essay dated July 4, 1871, Bradley recorded some “Esoteric Thoughts on Religion and Religionism,” which concluded with the thought that “it is for us, through all difficulties and temptations, to pursue an honorable, dignified, truthful and loving life, so that whenever our task is done, we may depart amidst the blessings of mankind and be remembered for our good deeds. This is my religion” (435).

See also Christian Amendment; King James Version of the Bible; Sunday Closing Laws

For Reference and Further Reading

Bradley, Joseph P. 1902. Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Hon. Joseph P. Bradley, ed. and compiled by Charles Bradley. Newark, NJ: L. J. Hardham.

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Hitchcock, James. 2004. The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life: From “Higher Law” to “Sectarian Scruples.” Vol. II of 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Brewer, David J.

David J. Brewer (1837–1910) was among the most biblically literate of those who have served as justices of the United States. The son of a Congregationalist minister who had served as a missionary to Turkey and been active in the abolitionist movement, Brewer was educated at Yale University. There he was particularly influenced by Professor (and later president) Theodore Dwight Woolsey, who combined a strong commitment to Christianity with the belief that individuals were free moral beings (Hylton 1998, 420).

In Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), Brewer described the United States as a “Christian nation,” but part of what he thought made it Christian was its commitment to religious liberty. In interpreting the Constitution, Brewer emphasized the principles articulated in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

Brewer was fond of giving speeches, and, in a review of his faith, Linda Przybyszewski observes that Brewer “often quoted from the Christian Bible and popular Protestant hymns” (2000, 231). In a speech defending free enterprise, Brewer cited Micah 4:4 and its reference to individuals being able to sit under their own vine and fig trees (2000, 231). In a speech entitled “The Religion of a Jurist,” Brewer quoted Paul (1 Corinthians 15:53) in saying, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (2000, 234). In defending toleration, he observed Jesus’s statement to Pilate in John 18:36 that “my kingdom is not of this world” (2000, 238). In a speech to the Sons of the Pilgrims of Charleston, South Carolina, Brewer likened the founding of America to Abraham’s journey to Canaan (2000, 238). In opposing excessive police powers, he said, “My heart responds to the gentle invitation of the Man of Galilee [Matthew 11:28], ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give your rest” (2000, 239). In that same speech, he said that he believed “in the liberty of the soul, subject to no restraint but the law of love, and in the liberty of the individual, limited only by the equal rights of his neighbor” (2000, 239).

In his book describing the United States as a Christian nation, after observing that “the Bible is the Christian’s book,” Brewer continued,

No other book has so wide a circulation, or is so universally found in the households of the land. During their century of existence the English and American Bible Societies have published and circulated two hundred and fifty million copies, and this represents but a fraction of its circulation. And then think of the multitude of volumes published in exposition, explanation and illustration of that book, or some portion of it. (1905, 39)

Later in the book, Brewer opined, quoting from Proverbs 14:34, “It needs no declaration of Scripture to convince that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.’ In so far, therefore, as the principles and precepts of 71Christianity develop righteousness in the individual, to the same extent will a similar result be found in the life of the nation” (1905, 75). Still later, urging his readers to cultivate Christian homes, he urged them to “crown all these with the inspirations which come from Christianity, place the Bible on your table and enshrine the Master in your heart and you may be sure you are building up a home which will be not merely peace and blessing to you, but also for the strength and glory of the republic” (98).

Przbyszewski points out that Brewer cared little about religious doctrine but believed in a God who would sustain people through trials and right all wrongs. As a postmillennialist, Brewer believed that America could hasten the millennial rule of Christ on earth. This appears to have stimulated his work on behalf of international law. Brewer, however, opposed American foreign imperialism.

See also Declaration of Independence

For Reference and Further Reading

Barka, Mokhtar Ben. 2011. “The Christian Nation Debate and the U.S. Supreme Court.” European Journal of American Studies. Special Issue: Oslo Conference. https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/8882.

Brewer, David J. 1905. The United States: A Christian Nation. Philadelphia: John C. Winston.

Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892).

Hylton, J. Gordon. 1998. “David Josiah Brewer and the Christian Constitution.” Marquette Law Review 82 (Winter): 417–25.

Przbyszewski, Linda. 2000. “The Religion of a Jurist: Justice David J. Brewer and the Christian Nation.” Journal of Supreme Court History 25 (November): 228–42.

Brown, John

John Brown (1800–1859) was one of America’s most radical abolitionists. He led a hardscrabble life that was filled with numerous business failures, law suits, and the loss of several infant children that may have further radicalized him.

In addition to leading the massacre of men and boys at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas in retaliation for proslavery attacks on Lawrence, Kansas, and conducting a raid into Missouri in which a slave owner was killed and eleven slaves freed, Brown led the raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (today’s West Virginia), in an unsuccessful effort to spark a slave rebellion. In the trial that followed, Brown successfully elevated his profile from that of a terrorist to that of a martyr reading and carefully marking his Bible and identifying himself with prior Christian martyrs, including Jesus.

Whereas many abolitionists espoused a more liberal theology, Brown was a strong Calvinist who believed in the doctrine of original sin and read the sermons of Jonathan Edwards. Although Brown’s espousal of violence might seem better to fit the God of the Old Testament than the New, Professor Louis DeCaro argues that Brown’s vision “was premised upon a thoroughly biblical spirituality rooted theologically and ethically in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles as much as the Hebrew prophets and Old Testament accounts regarding the slaying of pagan tribes” (2002, 5). DeCaro further noted, “As an evangelical Christian, he 72not only read the Bible as God’s word, he read the Bible as God’s word to John Brown. He believed that the Scriptures continued to speak to life situations, radiating fresh truth and directives without obscuring its original and primary meaning” (5). In similar fashion, another scholar has observed that “Brown’s deterministic Calvinism was tempered by antinomian and perfectionist views held in common with many other abolitionists and religious reforms of his day. Antinomianism, an anti-clerical Protestant heresy with a long life, held that in matters of faith each soul was in direct communication with God outside any church or minister’s discipline” (Fellman 2010, 22).

Brown’s moralism was evident in a provisional constitution that he drew up for the free state that he anticipated would grow from his raid at Harper’s Ferry. It prohibited “profane swearing, filthy conversation, indecent behavior, indecent exposure of the person, or intoxication or quarreling” or “unlawful intercourse of the sexes” (Fogleson and Rubenstein 1969, 47). It also provided for setting aside Sunday for rest and for “moral and religious instruction and improvement, relief of the suffering, instruction of the young and ignorant, and the encouragement of personal cleanliness” (57–58).

In 1859, Brown published “A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America” that was patterned on the Declaration of Independence. It referred to “the enormous sin of Slavery,” stated, in words close to those that Thomas Jefferson had once voiced, that “I tremble for my Country, when I reflect, that God is just; And that his justice; will not sleep forever,” and ended with the dramatic words, “Hung be the Heavens in Scarlet” (Brown 1859).

When asked by a bystander at his trial what principles motivated him, Brown responded, “Upon the golden rule. I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you and as precious in the sight of God” (Fellman 2010, 39). In making a statement before the court that sentenced him to death, Brown said,

This Court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, is no wrong, but right. (Fellman 2010, 42)

Brown believed deeply that sin required blood atonement. In disciplining one of his children, he kept an account of his offenses, and, after giving him a number of lashes, then bared his own back for his son to inflict upon him the balance of the judgment (Fellman 2010, 23). An early disciple of Brown summed up his theology with the verse, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin [Hebrews 9:22]” (Gilpin 2013).

A biographer of Brown notes that the Bible that Brown read in prison was a King James Version, which was printed by the American Bible Society. He 73gave it to his baker, John F. Blessing, with his best wishes and added that “there is no commentary in the world so good in order to a right understanding of this blessed book as an honest Childlike and teachable Spirit” (DeCaro 2007). Altogether he had dog-eared thirty-five pages, with nine in the Old Testament. In an earlier Bible that he had owned, Brown had marked passages in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and Matthew and Revelation in the New Testament (DeCaro 2007).

See also Slavery; Violence

For Reference and Further Reading

Brown, John. 1859. “A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America.” Digital History. www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/brown/planning3.cfm.

DeCaro, Louis A., Jr. 2002. “Fire from the Midst of you”: A Religious Life of John Brown. New York: New York University Press.

DeCaro, Louis A., Jr. 2007. “John Brown the Abolitionist—A Biographer’s Blog.” May 6. http ://abolitionist-john-brown.blogspot.com/.

Fellman, Michael. 2010. In the Name of God and Country: Reconsidering Terrorism in American History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Fogleson, Robmer M ., and Richard E. Rubenstein. 1969. Mass Violence in America: Invasion at Harper’s Ferry. New York: Arno Press.

Gilpin, R. Balkeslee. 2013. “John Brown, Religion and Violent Abolition: ‘Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve.’” HuffPost. January 22. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-brown-religion-and-violent-abolition_b_2527903.

Bryan, William Jennings

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) was one of America’s most important progressive Democrats who was especially known for his oratory. After earning a degree at Illinois College, Bryan received a law degree from Northwestern University. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Nebraska in 1890, he garnered the Democratic nomination for president in 1896 after giving his “Cross of Gold” speech in which he argued for the freer coinage of money rather than following the existing gold standard, which he thought was hurting farmers. His most immortal lines, which drew directly from the gospel stories of the crucifixion of Jesus, were at the end of this speech in which he said, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold” (quoted in Noll 2011, 256); in his keynote address to the Democrat National Convention in 1956, Tennessee governor Frank G. Clement would recycle the analogy in saying, “You will not crucify the American farmer on a Republican cross of gold” (Lawrence 1956). Bryan was renominated in both 1900 and 1908 but lost these elections as well.

Bryan opposed American foreign expansionism in the wake of the Spanish-American War. He later resigned as Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state because Bryan wanted to maintain the policy of neutrality in World War I that Wilson had favored in his first term. In a speech marking the three hundredth anniversary of 74the King James Version of the Bible in 1911, Bryan had argued forcefully for the idea that the Bible was not the mere work of man but the inspired word of God. Mark Noll has observed that Bryan not only praised the Bible as “the foundation of our statute law,” the source of “the rules for spiritual growth” and the world’s best “code of morality,” but that he stressed that, above all, it presented “the story of him who is the growing figure of all time, whom the world is accepting as Saviour and as the perfect example” (2011, 255).

Bryan was a Cumberland Presbyterian and Congregationalist who believed strongly in the Bible and who thought that it was under attack by the theory of evolution, as advanced by Charles Darwin, Aldous Huxley (Darwin’s so-called bull-dog), and others. He was even more concerned about the less scientific doctrine of social Darwinism that attempted to apply insights from biology to human social interactions. In explaining how he could combine what historian Willard Smith describes as “economic liberalism with religious liberalism,” Bryan explained, “People often ask me why I can be a progressive in politics and a fundamentalist in religion. The answer is easy. Government is man made and therefore imperfect. . . . If Christ is the final word, how may any one be progressive in religion? I am satisfied with the God we have, with the Bible and with Christ” (Smith 1966, 41–42). Explaining his earnestness for democracy, Bryan said that just as a good sermon stressed the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and Christ’s command to love one’s neighbor, so too “a good democratic speech is built upon the doctrine of human brotherhood, equal rights, and self government” (Smith 1966, 43).

Although the grilling that Bryan received via attorney Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial in Tennessee in 1925 with regard to the state’s right to teach the theory of evolution in public schools suggested that he did not know the answer to many biblical conundrums (and that he did not equate the “days” in the Genesis account with actual physical days), the speech that Bryan prepared for trial as a closing argument, which was precluded from giving by Darrow’s decision to accept Scopes’s guilt, is far more nuanced. It shows that Bryan was deeply concerned about the social implications of the theory and that although he was not advocating the teaching of religion in public schools, he viewed the issue from the populist perspective as to whether citizens had the right to exclude what they considered to be anti-religious materials from public school classrooms.

Early in his speech, Bryan claimed that Christianity was a patron of learning but that Christians believed that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom [Proverbs 9:10]” and that “they therefore opposed the teaching of guesses that encourage godlessness among the students” (Bryan 1925). Believing that “divine truth . . . comes by inspiration from God Himself,” Bryan thought that it was superior to mere hypotheses that he thought the theory of evolution represented (Bryan 1925). Moreover, the law at issue did not prohibit the teaching of evolution per se, but only the teaching that such evolutionary processes had included mankind.

Bryan believed that, by omitting God, teaching evolution was equivalent to teaching an anti-religion, or what later evangelicals would refer to as “secular 75humanism.” Bryan thus said that “before accepting a new philosophy of life built upon a materialistic foundation, we have reason to remand something more than guesses: ‘we may well, suppose’ is not a sufficient substitute for ‘thus saith the Lord,’” a common biblical saying of the prophets (Bryan 1925).

Bryan broke his criticisms of evolution into several indictments. He argued first that “it disputes the truth of the bible account of man’s creation and shakes faith in the Bible as the word of God” (Bryan 1925). Tracing Darwin’s own journey from faith to skepticism, Bryan further argued that the theory of evolution, “carried to its logical conclusion, disputes every vital truth of the Bible” (Bryan 1925). In a somewhat circular argument, Bryan argued that miracles are possible and that “the same evidence that establishes the authority of the Bible establishes the truth of the record of miracles performed” (Bryan 1925). Quoting from Luke 17:1–2, which had been one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorites, Bryan observed, “It is impossible but that offenses will come; but woe unto him through whom they come. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Bryan 1925).

Prior to the Scopes Trial, Clarence Darrow had successfully defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb against the death penalty for the murder of a fellow teenager, Bobby Frank, partly on the basis that their prior education, including reading Frederick Nietzsche, had led to their crime. Tying this view to that of biological determinism (an interesting materialistic echo to Calvinistic predestination), Bryan argued that this was a “damnable philosophy,” similar in its materialistic emphasis to Darwinism. In a memorable, but sometimes mocked, line, Bryan said that he did not want students “to lose sight of the Rock of Ages [a reference to Christ] while they study the age of rocks” (Bryan 1925).

As a progressive reformer who shared some views with the social gospel movement, Bryan further argued that “by paralyzing the hope of reform,” the theory of evolution “discourages those who labor for the improvement of man’s condition” (Bryan 1925). Whereas Christianity promised the hope of redemption, evolution depended on “scientific breeding” and “eugenics”; such a philosophy had no place for such biblical stories as that of the redemption of the prodigal Son (Bryan 1925).

Again, emphasizing that his central concern was less with biology than with social Darwinism, Bryan believed that the teaching of evolution would undermine love by teaching “a struggle of tooth and claw” (Bryan 1925). Drawing from his own pacifist roots, Bryan feared that science was both generating war and making it more deadly.

As he came to his summation, which repeated the words of the song “Faith of Our Fathers,” Bryan employed two classical images, one from Elijah’s confrontation in the Old Testament with idol worshippers (1 Kings 18:1–45) and the other from Jesus’s confrontation with Pilate (John 18:28–40), to say that “it is again a choice between God and Baal; it is also a renewal of the issue in Pilate’s court.” The question of “What shall I do with Jesus” must be answered. If the jury were to repudiate the law at issue, “there will be rejoicing wherever God is repudiated, the Saviour scoffed at and the Bible ridiculed” (Bryan 1925).

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Because Bryan died five days after the trial, he never had a chance to give this speech in person, but it remains a reminder that it was possible for political progressives to be biblical conservatives and a testament to the fact that biological evolution has sometimes been the guise for social theories that could undermine both faith in the Bible and efforts to help the weak and helpless.

See also Fundamentalism; Scopes Trial; Social Gospel

For Reference and Further Reading

Bryan, William Jennings. 1925. “Text of Closing Statement of William Jennings Bryan at the trial of John Scopes, Dayton, Tennessee, 1925.” http://www2.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/wjb-last/wjb-last.htm.

Lawrence, W. R. 1956. “Democratic Keynote Talk Assails Nixon as ‘Hathet Man’ of G.O.P.; Lays ‘Indifference’ to President.” New York Times. August 14.

Noll, Mark A. 2011. “William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and the King James Version of the Bible.” Theology 114(4): 251–59.

Smith, Willard H. 1966. “William Jennings Bryan and the Social Gospel.” Journal of American History 53 (June): 41–60.

Bush, George W.

George W. Bush (b. 1946) served as the forty-third president of the United States from 2001 to 2009, a time marked both by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the second American invasion of Iraq.

A graduate of Yale University, a former governor of Texas, and the son of former president George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush, who was raised in both the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches, is, with his wife, a Methodist. He describes how in 1986 he overcame alcoholism after a visit from evangelist Billy Graham. He said that he subsequently felt a call to run for president after hearing his pastor tell how the nation needed modern leaders like Moses and his mother told him, “He was talking to you” (Siker 2006). As governor, Bush supported a prison program that sought to rehabilitate prisoners through Bible reading and prayer (Goodstein 2000), and he declared June 10, 2000, to be “Jesus Day” (Siker 2006).

Supported by many evangelical Christians, during a debate with fellow Republican presidential aspirants during the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush said that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. Bush read the Bible regularly. He told a reporter that his recommitment to Jesus was “one of the defining moments of my life,” and that “from Scripture you can gain a lot of strength and solace and learn life’s lessons. That what I believe, and I don’t necessarily believe every single word is literally true” (quoted in Goodstein 2000).

Although he kept his family Bible on which he took his oath closed to shield it from rain during his first presidential inauguration, he opened it to Isaiah 40:31 for his second one (Winder 2019, 20). That verse highlighted what had become another American symbol, by proclaiming, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

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Bush had run on a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and thought that private religious groups could often administer programs better than governmental bureaucracies. In his first inaugural address, Bush made an indirect reference to Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) when he said, “I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side,” and soon after his election he created a faith-based initiative office (Heltzel 2009, 108).

At a memorial service at the National Cathedral for the victims of 9/11, Bush cited Romans 8:38–39 to assure the audience that nothing could separate God’s people from their love. As president, Bush connected to earlier notions of American providentialism. In his first inaugural address, he thus observed,

We have a place, all of us, in a long story. A story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story. A story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. (Smith 2008, 283)

In a speech that he gave in 2002 on Israel and Palestine, he quoted from Deuteronomy 30:19: “I have set before you life and death; therefore choose life” (Siker 2006).

Bush was known for salting his speeches with references to songs and biblical passages with which evangelical Christians were often familiar, but which it sometimes took the news media some time to discover. In a speech commemorating the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bush ended with, “This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind . . . That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it.” This paraphrase of John 1:4–5 is from a passage used to describe Jesus and to identify Him with the Creator of the universe, a parallel that one theological studies professor calls “astonishing” because Bush moved “from nationalism to idolatry, envisioning America as the Word made flesh” (Siker 2006). Critics attribute Bush’s tendency to moralize with his invasion of Iraq and with other aggressive foreign policy moves.

Others, however, have suggested that Bush’s conception of the Bible was fairly bland. Summarizing four articles designed to discuss Bush’s Bible, one scholar says that “Bush’s Bible (as referenced politically and publicly) hardly exists as an actual corpus. It seems to amount to little more than a few scattered references to the Prophets (in a vague name-dropping sense); a range of quasi-biblicisms that seem to aspire to imitate the paradoxical language of the gospels (such as ‘We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers’); a few crypto-biblical and crypto-theological references to the ‘Author of Liberty’; the democratic-Christian mission against ‘tyrants’ and the commission by a vaguely theologized ‘history’; and the deliberately apocalyptic noun-ing of evil” (Sherwood 2006, 48). This scholar suggested that Bush’s Bible was the Liberal Bible, exemplified by the philosophy of John Locke rather than what she 78describes as the Absolute Monarchist’s Bible of seventeenth-century Britain, or the “republican, anti-monarchical, radical Bible” that grew out of reaction to it (Sherwood 2006, 51).

See also Eagle as American Symbol; Graham, Billy; Jesus; Presidential Inaugural Bible Verses

For Reference and Further Reading

Davis. Derek H. 2006. “President George Bush: America’s Pastor in Troubled Times?” Society of Biblical Literature. May. https://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=153.

Goodstein, Laurie. 2000. “The 2000 Campaign: The Philosophy: Conservative Church Leaders Find a Pillar in Bush.” New York Times. January 23.

Heltzel, Peter Goodwin. 2009. Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sherwood, Yvonne. 2006 “Bush’s Bible as a Liberal Bible (Strange Though That May Seem).” Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds 2(1): 47–58.

Siker, Jeffrey. 2006. “President Bush, Biblical Faith, and the Politics of Religion.” Society of Biblical Literature. May. https://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=151. Accessed May 27, 2019.

Smith, Rogers M. 2008. “Religious Rhetoric and the Ethics of Public Discourse: The Case of George W. Bush.” Political Theory 36 (April): 272–300.

Winder, Mike. 2019. Favorite Scriptures of 100 American Leaders. Springville, UT: Plain Sight.

Buttigieg, Pete

Pete Buttigieg (b. 1982), the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, is an openly gay married man and an Episcopalian. He grew up in South Bend, which is the home of Notre Dame University, where his parents were professors, and he attended St. Joseph High School (Burke 2019). He is a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied under Sacvan Bercovitch, who specialized in Puritanism, and subsequently attended Pembroke College on a Rhodes Scholarship where he traces his own spiritual awakening.

In part because he comes from the same state as Vice President Mike Pence, who has much more conservative political and religious views, the two have sometimes been at political loggerheads. At one point Buttigieg said that if Pence had a problem with him, “your problem is not with me—your quarrel, sir, is with my creator” (Cole 2019).

Buttigieg has identified two favorite Bible verses. The first is Matthew 25:40, which says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these . . . you did for me.” The second is Matthew 6:5, which says, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others” (Powers 2019).

Asked about the tension between being gay and identifying as a Christian, Buttigieg observed, “It can be challenging to be a person of faith who’s also part of the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer) community and yet, to me, the core of faith is regard for one another. And part of God’s love is 79experienced, according to my faith tradition, is in the way that we support one another and, in particular, support the least among us” (quoted in Rocha 2019). Further explaining his view of Scripture, Buttigieg observed,

When I think about where most of Scripture points me, it is toward defending the poor, and the immigrant, and the stranger, and the prisoner, and the outcast, and those who are left behind by the way society works. And what we have now is this exaltation of wealth and power, almost for its own sake, that in my reading of Scripture couldn’t be more contrary to the message of Christianity. So I think it’s really important to carry a message (to the public), knitting together a lot of groups that have already been on this path for some time, but giving them more visibility in the public sphere. (Powers 2019)

In the second debate among Democratic contenders for president in 2019, Buttigieg quoted Proverbs 14:31 when he said, “The minimum wage is just too low. And so-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage when Scripture says that, ‘Whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker’” (Parke, 2019).

Although Peter Wehner has expressed concern that Buttigieg’s remark that “Christian faith is going to point you in a progressive direction” subordinated Scripture to political ideology, Buttigieg has supported separation of church and state. He has further stated that “I get that one of the things about Scripture is different people see different things in it. But, at the very least we should be able to establish that God does not have a political party” (Rocha 2019). Evangelist Franklin Graham, who tweeted, “As a Christian, I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as a sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized,” responded that Buttigieg was right in believing that “God doesn’t have a political party. But God does have commandments laws & standards He gives us to live by” (Gomez 2019).

In May 2019, Buttigieg and his husband visited Jimmy Carter’s Sunday school class where Carter asked him to read the day’s Scripture (Reeves 2019). In an interview on the Today Show on May 7, 2019, Buttigieg suggested that if God were to have a political affiliation, he did not think it would “be the one that sent the current president into the White House” (Mercia 2019).

See also Carter, Jimmy; Pence, Mike; Same-Sex Marriage

For Reference and Further Reading

Burke, Daniel. 2019. “How Pete Buttigieg Found God.” CNN Politics. August 17. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/16/politics/pete-buttigieg-religious-journey/index.html.

Cole, Devan. 2019. “Buttigieg to Pence: ‘If You Got a Problem with Who I Am, Your Problem Is Not with Me—Your Quarrel, Sir, Is with My Creator.” CNN. April 8. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/pete-buttigieg-mike-pence/index.html.

Douthat, Ross. 2019. “The Abortion Mysticism of Pete Buttigieg.” New York Times. September 17.

Gomez, Justin. 2019. “Franklin Graham Attacks Pete Buttigieg for Being Gay, Says He Should Repent.” ABC News. April 25. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/franklin-graham-attacks-pete-buttigieg-gay-repent/story?id=62625378&cid=clicksource_4380645_null_twopack_hed.

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Mercia, Dan. 2019. “Pete Buttigieg: God Doesn’t Belong to a Political Party, but ‘I Can’t Imagine’ God Would Be a Republican.” CNN. May 7. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/politics/pete-buttigieg-god-political-party-republican/index.html. Accessed May 7, 2019.

Parke Caleb. 2019. “Pete Buttigieg Uses Bible Verse to Slam ‘So-Called Conservative Christian’ Republicans during Debate.” Fox News. July 29. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pete-buttigieg-democratic-debate-2020-bible-republicans-christian.

Peters, Jeremy W. 2019. “Pete Buttigieg, Gay and Christian, Challenges Religious Right on Their Own Turf.” New York Times. April 10. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-sexuality-religion.html. Accessed April 11, 2019.

Powers, Kirsten. 2019. “Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Countercultural Approach to Christianity Is What America Needs Now.” USA Today. April 4. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/03/mayor-pete-buttigieg-christian-right-2020-democratic-primary-trump-column/3342767002/.

Reeves, Jay. 2019. “Buttigieg, Husband Attend Jimmy Carter’s Sunday School Class.” ABC News. May 5. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/buttigieg-husband-attend-jimmy-carters-sunday-school-class-62836105.

Rocha, Veronica. 2019. “Pete Buttigieg: ‘God Doesn’t Have a Political Party.’” CNN. April 23. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/buttigieg-god-political-party/index.html.

Wehner, Peter. 2019. “Pete Buttigieg’s Very Public Faith Is Challenging Assumptions.” The Atlantic. April 10. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/buttigieg-wrong-about-christianity-and-progressivism/586810/.