Now some of you may be thinking that to question the morality of the American Revolution has to be some type of strike against conservative Christians or some attempt to do away with the idea that the USA is a Christian country. But, it may surprise you to know that the question has been raised by some of the most reliably conservative Christians in the USA, in a book written by a professor from Liberty University and by Dr. John McArthur. [NOTE: I am using the word “conservative” in this paragraph to mean theologically conservative only, with no reference whatsoever to politics.]
Michael Babcock, a professor of humanities at Liberty University challenged the concept of the American Revolution being moral in his book, Unchristian America. The book was written before the 2008 election, and part of the blurb on it says, “Liberty University professor Michael Babcock traces America’s historical, political, and religious development to reveal the surprising truth: The country has been trending post-Christian since Jamestown, and therefore America was never really Christians’ to lose. As he presents a sympathetic but candid view of the legacy of the Christian Right, Babcock challenges evangelicals to take action for moral change and prevent the slide into a post-Christian future before it’s too late.” As one reviewer of the book points out, it is important to note that almost to a man, the Founding Fathers who put together the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons, and that the God of the Freemasons is more Deist than anything else. Thus, in part, the Christianity reflected in the Declaration and other documents is not really a Biblical Christianity, as I pointed out yesterday.
But, he is not the only conservative writer who has questioned the American Revolution. For instance, the famous pastor and writer Dr. John McArthur, in his book, Why Government Can’t Save You, makes the following statement:
Over the past several centuries, people have mistakenly linked democracy and political freedom to Christianity. That’s why many contemporary evangelicals believe the American Revolution was completely justified, both politically and scripturally. They follow the arguments of the Declaration of Independence, which declares that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are divinely endowed rights.
Therefore those believers say such rights are part of a Christian worldview, worth attaining and defending at all cost including military insurrection at times. But such a position is contrary to the clear teachings and commands of Romans 13:1-7. So the United States was actually born out of a violation of New Testament principles, and any blessings God has bestowed on America have come in spite of that disobedience by the Founding Fathers.
There is a debate that rages back and forth on the issue of the American Revolution and whether it was Biblical and appropriate. But, for people like John McArthur and Michael Babcock, the question of rebellion is a serious one. They would trace the breaking down of the husband-wife and the parent-child and the arguments over marriage to the spreading effects of a rebellion that spilled over into every facet of society and social relationships. Thus, just like Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience led to Cain’s sin of murder, so it could be said that America’s sin of rebellion may have led all the way to Roe v. Wade. In both cases, it would be said, a sin of rebellion led to the sin of murder.
In fact, rebellion is well entrenched in our country. If you look at any of several compilations about World Christianity, you will see that America is the country with the largest number of denominations. We have lost the ability to hold together. Among the Orthodox and Roman Catholics, there are splinter groups, each of which claim to be “true” Orthodoxy or Catholicism, and no arguments nor rejection from the world bodies will convince them that they are not the last remaining speck of “true” Orthodoxy (or Catholicism). Every one of our bodies is convinced that God will not discipline them for their independence or their separation from their parent body. Every one of the bodies is convinced that their reason for splitting from whomever was a fully justified reason. In fact, there are so many Christian bodies in so many flavors that it is no wonder that many people in the USA simply believe that we are all going in the same direction and we all worship the same God, even if one is not even of Judeo-Christian background.
So, this brings us back in full circle to my original question of yesterday. Can there be, is there such a thing as a theology of a “just revolution” which parallels the Christian theology of just war?
===MORE TO COME===
Well, I was watching an excellent documentary on the history of Scotland last week, andd it xame to the period where there was a movement to replace John Baliol with Robert the Bruce, as the latter carried hope with him, and the former gave up on it all, being content to stay inF rance in exile. Now both had a claim to the throne, but previously Baliol was selected. However, under leadership of the Bishops (Wishart and Lamberton), a document was written that stated that in the case where a King disregards his duty to the people, the people (in this case, the nobles/clan leaders and the church) can rise up to replace him with a better King. Of course, I doubt if this can be called revolution – after all, the act is an attempt to preserve the status quo / the current institutions, not to revolutionalise society. In this it bears resemblance to a Constitutional Monarchy.
Another example about early Colonial America that I came across in a comment thread on Food Sustainability yesterday might give some indication as to the attitude towards law, order and tradition prevalent back then. The author states:
The early history of European agriculture in America is an interesting one, and just maybe offers some insights into the current debate about sustainable agriculture. Rather than following in the path of tidy English farms, colonists in the midst of a land glut would repeatedly exhaust a plot and simply move on to another, rather than taking the care necessary to ensure continued fertility on the ground they were already farming.
They did not bother to build the tidy stone walls or plant the necessary hedges, common in the Old World, to restrict animal traffic, but instead never got past the shoddy, ineffective split rail zig-zags that required not even a post hole to be dug.
So notable was the colonists laziness that English visitors were often scandalized by what they saw, and the court dockets were full of animal trespass cases as pigs and cows decimated many an Indian corn field. Yes, Indians often used the courts.
This is all documented quite well in Virginia DeJohn Anderson’s interesting book, Creatures of Empire, and explains at least a good part of the early breakdown in the Colonists relationship with the Indians.
Despite the author’s frequent bashing of the colonists, she has ample help; as one Ehglish visitor to Virginia put it in bemoaning the fact that negligent planters behaved in ways that “one would think English men would not be guilty of.”
This lack of concern for sustaining the fertility of a particular piece of ground led to and contributed to the un-sustainability of the peace, as Indians eventually lost patience with the Colonial courts’ ability to keep feral livestock from ruining their cornfields and displacing wild game.
This was by one James B, in this thread: http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7348:idea-nomads&catid=123:creation-and-food#JOSC_TOP
This would be indicative of a moral climate quite conducive to revolution. And not a very Christian one at all….
Now some of you may be thinking that to question the morality of the American Revolution has to be some type of strike against conservative Christians or some attempt to do away with the idea that the USA is a Christian country.
Try reading some of the flakier Victorian-era British books that touch on the subject. You know, the ones denouncing the American Revolution as Satanic Rebellion against God’s God-Ordained System of Monarchy? I’ve read a Victorian-era occult book (the one that started all the Great Pyramid Measurements as Prophecy shtick) and an Edwardian-era history of the French Revolution, both of whose last chapters (suddenly without any warning) went Unabomber Manifesto on the subject.
Please note that the author of The Three Musketeers wrote a follow-up book which takes them to England where they witness, up close and personal, the “murder” of a King in the divine right.
It seems to me that those who left hearth and home to come to “the new world” were the cantankerous, adventuresome sorts who would be more prone to rebellion than the stay at home types. If there is any genetic basis for this sort of thinking or indeed if it is nurture that sets these things into play and one learns these things at mother’s knww, there is a predisposition in the US for rebellion. Given that–King George was nuts, the patriots were hotheads–and the majority of folks probably just wanted to be left alone to grow their crops and raise their families.
Of course, then we have to look and see if it was moral for the European Kings and Queens to cross the Atlantic and lay claim to a land that was already populated with its own people and chief/kings/etc. So if England and Spain etc had no business being here, was their overthrow immoral or were they–the royalty of Europe immoral in their laying claim to rule over lands that had their own rulers already??? (And breaking treaty after treaty with said leaders.)
We could go back and back…….I am not sure that it is a useful discussion–though intellectually stimulating perhaps. My thoughts are that we should look at the now–see what is going on–and try to fix the now. To know how the now came about is interesting and might even assist in fixing the now if a pattern is seen–but how can one really second guess the then. I think most human governments will tend to do what serves them best–if it is acquisition of power or land or petroleum.
Too often, I am aware that I am hampered in making true decisions of some of the large issues of the day because I do not really know what is going on. As both daughter and wife to military men, I became very aware that I did not have the real story on much of anything going on in the world–all I had was the spin. When my father and my husband were in Viet Nam, what they felt they could tell me and what the paper printed on a specific incident were miles apart. I simply am not on the need to know list.
So I do the best I can and pray a lot.
Are revolutions immoral? Are Kings and Queens who won lands by brute force immoral? Are men who took over land that was someone else’s because they could use cultural misunderstandings and their own prejudice? I can stand in the middle and see both sides–indeed more than two sides–but I was not there.
Alix
Ahh, but the question was about a Christian theology of a just revolution. I was not trying to defend any particular government. A King or Queen who takes land by brute force is not Christian either. Neither is someone who fools an indigenous person and places them in a cultural trap. But, again, the question is about rebellion against established authority, not about imperial expansionism.
But would you not say that a typical human being who is looking for an excuse for his bad behavior will more than likely take the stance that his rebellion isn’t against a God established authority because the take over wasn’t Godly? Humanity is very good at rationalizing sin. Just trying to get inside the heads of rebels here–the South and the North say–North says–we are the government–South says but you have trampled on our rights–North says too bad–South says pound sand and takes a shot at Ft. Sumpter and it is on. And the rationale for that one is the same rationale as the rationale for the American Revolution. Having had ancestors on both sides of both fights, I can see both sides–and all the rationalizations and excuses. Now me? I would probably have been on the mind set that I would move where the King wasn’t. But then I have lots of ancestors with that get out and see the world gene!!
My question really was–who said that the English throne held by a German was the duly constituted authority? IF you invade and take over does that make you the duly constituted authority–or does it take years–so we can go back to the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066–and then back to the Celts coming through Gaul to Scotland and Ireland and taking over from the Picts–and back and back–where does the duly constituted authority spring from??? Anybody with enough gold back then could find a Bishop to buy and have him put the crown on your head–it was done over and over–so what makes the authority THE AUTHORITY.
As far as a just revolution–I am not sure there is ever any justice about war. Are there necessary wars??? Probably, which suggests that there are necessary revolutions. None of them are just–everyone gets hurt, both sides innocent and guilty alike. And the scars last down generations (having PTSD myself and one of my children with PTSD symptoms from being almost killed by the Viet Nam Vet husband with PTSD as the children looked on.)
As far as rebellion against established authority–if my established authority tells me to do things that are against all Godly and Human laws, I would like to hope I would rebel. We tried Nazis at Nurnberg for obeying orders of the established authority to round up innocents and throw them into camps and gas chambers. “My” St. Maria of Paris went against the then government of France–the Germans–and was martyred for her trouble. So when does a government that is not a “legal” government become the legal government? By invading and taking over are you then the God Established authority–or in 50 years or a hundred? If invading and taking over is not a way of being established as THE AUTHORITY, then there is not a government on earth that is a duly constituted authority–but then…..to my way of thinking–God is the one who sits on the throne and all of the human attempts to take control are rendered null and void in the light of His Glory.
Just my 2 pence–Alix
Alix, your comments above are on the money. Yet I do think that there is something else to consider – ever since (and inclusive of) the American Revolution, the character of revolutions changed. Prior it was the replacement of one group / individual within an order, by another group / individual. Subsequent to that revolution, we had order changes, outside of a traditional framework. By this I mean that, for instance, in 1066 William took over the Crwn of England, and assumed the accompanying authority. Alfred united crowns some 2 centuries or so before him.
The only other revolution that I can think of before the American Revolution is the unspoken, unmentioned revolution, spanning centuries, of the Roman republic into the Roman empire, though one could justifiably call it an evolution. The gradual dissapearnce of the powers of the Senate would be an example.
The American Revolution brought in something different, and although the French Revolution postdates the French, I think that in this case one could arguably say the American Revolution is the daughter preceding the mother. The change here is the disregard for tradition and history, and the sole appeal being to the “Rights of Man”. This became the antecedent of all subsequent revolutions, including the October Revolution, the Cuban revolution, the revolution in the 70’s in Angola and Mozambique, the assumption of Franco and many others. The fruit of these revolutions differ widely, of course. And it is also true that God will bless the unjust if they procede in just ways, as the reference to Jereboam above insinuates. Yet I find it intersting to note that revolution often introduces a disconnect with tradition. That is why evangelical forms of Christianity so easily assumed dominance in the 2 centuries since the American revolution. They revel in innovation, individualism and non-traditionalism. (BTW, I’m not orthodox, I’m “traditional” or “orthodox” Lutheran).
Who knows, maybe John (Reformedispy) MacArthur is right and the greatest Greek scholars (Google “Famous Rapture Watchers”), who uniformly said that Rev. 3:10 means PRESERVATION THROUGH, were wrong. But John has a conflict. On the one hand, since he knows that all Christian theology and organized churches before 1830 believed the church would be on earth during the tribulation, he would like to be seen as one who stands with the great Reformers. On the other hand, if John has a warehouse of unsold pretrib rapture material, and if he wants to have “security” for his retirement years and hopes that the big California quake won’t louse up his plans, he has a decided conflict of interest. Maybe the Lord will have to help strip off the layers of his seared conscience which have grown for years in order to please his parents and his supporters – who knows? One thing is for sure: pretrib is truly a house of cards and is so fragile that if a person removes just one card from the TOP of the pile, the whole thing can collapse. Which is why pretrib teachers don’t dare to even suggest they could be wrong on even one little subpoint! Don’t you feel sorry for the straitjacket they are in? While you’re mulling all this over, Google “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the same 180-year-old fantasy.