Rev. Witherspoon and the Christian Right in the Revolutionary War

John Knox Witherspoon

The conservative movement supports such policies as oppressing the stranger, stomping on the poor, and suppressing programs to care for children, while concealing its malice under biblical trappings. Is this new? No, it is not. The Rev. John Witherspoon, president of the institution that later became Princeton University and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, presaged the Christian Right’s persuasive tools. On May 17, 1776, Witherspoon preached on the topic of "The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men." (Yes, he was sexist. Surprised? Princeton was an all-male school.)

Witherspoon’s method, which today’s Christian Right has polished to blinding perfection, was to state public policies that had no biblical foundation while quoting unrelated Bible verses to support them. Since I endorse the biblical view that there is “no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), let’s look at how Witherspoon did it and see how similar his speech was to what we hear from the Christian Right today.

Witherspoon took as his thesis that the American Revolution, then already in progress, represented God’s divine will. There can be no surer way to stop a debate then to say that God is on your side. Who wants to argue with God? Citing God is the ultimate debate-stopper. Witherspoon began by quoting Psalm 76: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shall thou restrain.” The war, no matter how cruel and violent (“wrathful”), served God’s will – so Witherspoon said. The listener did not need to understand why God willed the revolution, only that the war served him. Why argue with God? The catch is that there was no objective reason to think that God willed the Revolutionary War, which was then already underway.

Nevertheless, Witherspoon gave his interpretation a Revolutionary War twist: “The fury and injustice of oppressors, shall bring in a tribute of praise to thee; the influence of thy righteous providence shall be clearly discerned; the countenance and support thou wilt give to thine own people shall be gloriously illustrated; thou shalt set the bounds which the boldest cannot pass.” That, of course, is not what Psalm 76 says. However, the Declaration of Independence, which the Continental Congress would proclaim the Declaration only a few weeks later, depicted King George III as an oppressor: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Tyranny, oppression. Psalm 76 does not talk about oppression: that was Witherspoon's little twist to give the Revolutionary war’s aims a make-believe biblical foundation, tying it to the Enlightenment ideal of political freedom.

From then, Witherspoon wandered farther and farther afield: “In the first place, the wrath of man praises God, as it is an example and illustration of divine truth.”  The very fact that the war was violent – “the wrath of man” – proved, in Witherspoon’s logic, that God was behind it. 

Apparently sensing how twisted his view was, Witherspoon talked a bit about the horrors found on the “field of slaughter.” This admission did not, however, dissuade him: “There is no part of divine providence in which a greater beauty and majesty appears, than when the Almighty Ruler turns the councils of wicked men into confusion, and makes them militate against themselves.” The “wicked men,” by which I presume he meant the British, were thrown into confusion and violence, which could only please God – so Witherspoon said. By this point, he had traveled far from his biblical text, although he may have been alluding to Psalm 64: "Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity," a text that many Christians would know.

Lest anyone overlook his anti-British message, Witherspoon reminded his congregation that English settlers in America had escaped British religious tyranny.  “The only other historical remark I am to make,” he explained, “is, that the violent persecution which many eminent Christians met with in England from their brethren, who called themselves Protestants, drove them in great numbers to a distant part of the world, where the light of the gospel and true religion were unknown.” He asserted it as a positive good that these people then brought the Christian faith to a land that had hitherto not known it. Continuing, Witherspoon compared the British with the “heirs of hell:”

“Is it of much moment whether this beautiful country shall increase in fruitfulness from year to year being cultivated by active industry, and possessed by independent freemen, or the scanty produce of the neglected fields shall be eaten up by hungry publicans, while the timid owner trembles at the tax gatherers approach? And is it of less moment my brethren, whether you shall be the heirs of glory, or the heirs of hell?”

The New Testament Gospels make tax-gatherers out to be the ultimate sinners (e.g., Matthew 9:10). By that point, Witherspoon no longer even pretended to explain the Psalms and had become purely political. Step-by-step, he had proceeded from a rather vague, innocuous Bible verse to a specific political conclusion. As I asked, who was going to argue with God? But what if God never said anything that supported Witherspoon’s thesis? What if Witherspoon was merely practicing diversion with the skill of a stage magician? 

Witherspoon's method is called proof-texting. In proof-texting, any Bible verse, no matter how yanked out of context, can be taken literally and support the speaker's point. It's not the thought that counts; in proof-texting, it's the words that count. Word magic. Like casting an incantation. The Christian Right still proof-texts today. I showed a couple months ago how conservative preacher Paula White used similar language when she compared President Donald Trump’s enemies to the forces of wickedness: “Let the secret counsel of wickedness be turned to foolishness right now, in Jesus name.” She spoke as if Trump's enemies were the "secret counsel of wickedness." 

Two caveats: First, I am happy to live in a free and independent United States. Second, anyone steeped in American history knows that, although most of them belonged to one church or another and attended services occasionally, the Founders of our Republic were not, for the most part, especially religious.

Witherspoon’s sermon was printed up and widely distributed, thus reaching an audience much larger than the congregation that heard him deliver it aloud.

Walking in Witherspoon's footsteps, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. started the Christian Right’s resurgence when he founded the Moral Majority to encourage the election of conservative candidates. The Christian Right has infested politics and given Christianity a bad name ever since. 

A meme circulating on social media says, “you should never trust religious leaders to tell you how to vote. You should never trust politicians to tell you how to pray.” Truer words were never spoken, then, or now.