EDITOR’S NOTE: Leading up to the 250th anniversary of the United States, Midwestern Seminary professor Thomas Kidd discussed faith and the nation’s founding era in articles at Desiring God (Link: “250 Years of Faith“) and the Acton Institute (Link: “Our Religiously Secular Founding“). The article below reviews Kidd’s related book, “God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution.”
KANSAS CITY – Though it was published 14 years ago, it’s hard to imagine a more timely read as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States (and as talking heads loudly decry any mention of Christian principles in public life as “Christian Nationalism” and an affront to democracy). Thomas Kidd’s book, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution, cuts through rhetoric and digs far beyond his own denominational identity to deliver exactly what the title promises: a history.
Kidd is a research professor of church history and the John and Sharon Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s a prolific writer, penning biographies of George Whitefield, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, as well as several books on early American history.
He’s not just a prolific writer; he’s a good one. He clearly loves history and learning more about the story of America. Academics can often come off as boring or get lost in scholarly detail, but God of Liberty tells an effective story that dives deep but never gets bogged down. Anyone can read this book, including teenagers, as Kidd ties familiar names of American history to their religious (or skeptical) backgrounds, letters, sermons and speeches which primed, then turbocharged the American Revolution. Chapter by chapter, he covers the Great Awakening, the origins of religious liberty, the English political missteps in the late 1700s, the Christian foundations of the Revolution, unraveling state churches in various states, chaplains during the war itself, the role of virtue in civil society, the equality by creation, the failure to end slavery, and more.
A few highlights are noted below:
Christian Foundations of the Revolution
Though there is famously no established, official religion in the United States God of Liberty makes the clear and undeniable case that Christianity during the Great Awakening Revolution and afterward provided essential moral and political principles to the colonists. Kidd notes the Declaration of Independence’s central idea of “rights by Creation” only comes from basic shared Christian principles, even shared by skeptics, deists, and others we wouldn’t call born again believers today. Almost all of the Founding Fathers employed biblical rhetoric, they believed that virtue was essential to political success, and even derived the desire to separate powers amongst branches of government from idea that men are sinful and prone to abuse that power.
Religious Liberty
Then there’s the excellent and detailed tracing of religious liberty. That particular freedom was a hot topic amongst all faiths present in the colonies (but in particular, Christianity, and especially among evangelicals), helping to create a broad coalition that saw freedom from England not just as the path toward worshipping as they pleased, but as the only way to peace and prosperity in general.
Of course there’s a sizeable chunk on the growth of Baptists, including how they became some of the fiercest proponents of religious liberty. Baptists like John Leland may have sharply disagreed with skeptical deists like Jefferson on theological matters, but they greatly appreciated his stance on religious freedom. As Kidd writes, “…both believed that government should afford liberty of conscience to its citizens, and should not privilege one Christian denomination over another. Their shared beliefs about the unfettered place of religion in public life made fast friends of men from theologically opposite religious traditions.”
Despite being recast in modern circles as a prohibition of religious activity in public life, what would become the First Amendment, never carried that meaning. Faith in the 1700s was far from private, personal, apolitical. Instead, that protection was meant to keep government from establishing a state church, which further fueled and strengthened partnership in the revolutionary spirit: “… evangelicals wanted disestablishment so they could freely preach the gospel,” Kidd writes. “The rationalist and deists wanted disestablishment because they felt an enlightened government should not punish people for their religious views.”
Slavery
A religious history of the Revolution cannot be complete without discussing the utterly sinful hypocrisy that was slavery in the colonies and infant country. Kidd pulls no punches in addressing the moral failure to fulfill the revolution’s implied promise of freedom for all, especially in the southern states. How hypocritical to say freedom and rights are endowed by the Creator, but only for some. Even many Christians who were personally against slavery preferred to keep the status quo. Still, he also notes evangelical fervor did help turn public sentiment away from slavery in the northern colonies and then states, applying much the same biblical rhetoric and reasoning.
