Whether they believed it was the word of god. This talk was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. It is 45 minutes. Our Third Session today is the bible and the American Revolution with james byrd. In this presentation based on his latest book, he shows that the bible was a key text of the American Revolution when war came to the colonies, preachers and patriots turned to the bible for solace and exhortations to fight. Such scripture helped soldiers. Conferred on those who died for the revolution and he gave americans a sense of the Divine Providence of their calls. In this session, dr. Byrd will examine specific biblical text and how they were used especially in making the patriotic calls for war. James byrd is chair of ft graduate department of religion and associate professor for religion at vanderbilt university. The latest book is sacred scripture, sacred war. Join me in welcoming dr. Byrd. [ applause ] well, thank you. Im pleased to be here. And to be joining in this important conversation at the museum of the bible. Im honored to be sharing the podium with two scholars that i have admired for years and i thank the team here at the museum of the bible. Ckay peninger and all of you fo putting this together. Im honored to be participating. My focus and my angle on this specifically deals with a little more with the war itself. And in doing this, i have two topic that is i try to binge together. One is the history of the bible in america and the history of war in america. So i do a little extensively with war and violence and the bible and how the bible has been part of our justifications for going to war and our protests against it. So i got interested in this a few years ago just curious in all of our projects begin with a certain kind of curiosity. Curious about how the bible was included in the American Revolution and being a computer be geek i decided to design a database and pick out biblical text and sort them and i would have the answer. That may have been a mistake. It took me a few years to do this before i could write the book. Soy thought i will get the database together and write the book based on the database and thats what i did. That involved going to a lot of text, most of which are not in modern fonts let me tell you, or modern spelling. And going to each page and finding each bible verse and many times they site the verse and sometimes they dont. I had to scan and i grew up learning the bible a bit and in sunday school we did the draw swords bible exercise. So general knowledge there. And jewsii printed them out and i guess these are the big text and went through an analysis of the text and thats what the book turns out to be. So im going to talk about some of the text today and how they are represented and why they are important in revolutionary america specifically dealing with the war. So the next one, next book is on the civil war and it involves more in terms of like the bible and how and a lot more text to deal with. And this one is kind of its involving more Computer Programming to get to. So, okay. I want to start by talking about thomas payne. He is an interesting character and one of the most interesting insights he brings us from the bible comes from common sense. Most of you probably read common sense. It was written for a particular written in 1776. It was written to argue that declaring independence which they later did in 1776 was just common sense. So he was attempting to deal with arguments that everyone could agree on. He was attempting to just, to take the pulse of the society and to make a persuasive case for declaring independence. Because let me say that going to war against britain in one way is one thing and declaring independence was different. For many people, they didnt necessarily want to declare independence. They were hoping to get a Better Parliament or king or situation. But paynes arguing that it is common sense to declare independence and he uses scripture to do that. He uses this specifically the Old Testament and one particular chapter. First samuel, chapter 8 that i want to talk about. You might remember 1 samuel, chapter 8. The prophet samuel getting old and the people start to think about new leadership and in so doing, they come to samuel and say hey, your sons arent that impressive, how about you give us a king so that we can be like other nations . Just as an aside. Any time the people want to be like other nations, thats not a good thing. [ laughter ] so he is wrestling with this and he asks god and god says, all right give them a king and in so doing, they are not just rejecting you, they are rejecting me sins they have done sins i lead them out of egypt. They wanted it and demanded it. Samuel argues that the king is going to oh press them. Thomas payne pulls this out and uses this as an argument against the king. An argument for independence to say that it is not this that a new king will help. Any king is bad. We need to turn against all kings. Monarchy is not the way to go. And this draws on this tradition that he was talking about. So pain quotes scripture in common sense. But did he believe it . Later on in another publication, age of reason. He says bad things. The Old Testament is the world of a demon instead of the word of god which is pretty bad. And he quotes scripture like bil billy graham here. Payne brushed to the side and said i got that from milton. This is an argument against how the bible was inflew we know chal in various ways regardless if people quoting it believed the bible was the revealed word of god in a specific way. This is a quote from gordon wood, the most imminent american, american historians in the revolutionary era. It was the clergy who made the revolution meaningful for common people. For every gentleman that read a scholarly pamphlet for an explanation there was dozens of people who read the bible and looked to their ministers for an interpretation of what it meant. The bible was part of the language, the symbolism and narrative. If anybody owned a book and this is the case for the 19th century as well. In the family, if they owned one book it was probably the bible. So when talking about the bible as used to wage war. Used by patriots. But in so doing, using the bible to wage war, they had to over come obstacles because the bible wasnt just a militant document. Theres a lot of the it that speaks against violence. One is that passiveist text seems to exist in the scripture. Theres the deck ka log, that will shall not kill and the sermon, matthews chapter 57 jesus turn the other cheek and love your neighbor. The idea that nonresistance to evil is part of scripture is true too. It is not just that the bible is this militant text. There was an obstacle in the sense that a lot of christians because of their faith and love for neighbor rekised going to war. One of the most prominent civil war historians argued that killing or trying to get christians to kill for the country was harder than getting them to die for their country. Christians all along had this sense of selfsacrifice. To get somebody to take up arms and kill. That was the harder courage. The harder obstacle to overcome in the civil war era and thats the same case in the revolutionary war area. Same situation. And the fact that there were loyalties who knew how to quote scripture well. Including methodists. They were for the most part like john wesley. They were english. So i want to talk about a couple of frameworks or kinds of ways to frame the way people looked at the bible in the revolutionary period. Because, as i argue, many colonists could not assist the war without assessing scripture. When people were dealing with going to war, dealing with the new kind of nation, they naturally appealed to scripture, because scripture was not only the authority in all of life for many people, but it was also a consoling text. People went to the scripture in all kinds of trial. The death of a loved one. Any kind of crisis. It was natural that people going to war would appeal to scripture. When they appeal to scripture, they cannot comprehend it without referencing war. And by that i mean, as they read scripture, they came to and many of them were very very proficient at scripture. They saw there was a lot of war in the bible. There was a lot of conflict in the bible in various kinds of ways and outright wars. And they understand this. A couple of framework that is they took with them. One is republicanism. And we talk about this already a bit today but republicanism is this kind of respect for ancient republics as pivotal models for politics. So taking those models from the classic world. We are in this great city, washington, d. C. When you look around at the architecture, do you notice a neoclassical influence . It is subtle but you can see it. This idea that the ancient republic valued virtue and liberty. It came together as we talked about. Without virtue, liberty doesnt exist. And advice and tier any go together, governments like people are fallen and prone to corruption especially when you have too much power involved. So they found republican ideas throughout scripture, the Old Testament covenant. This i about the Old Testament when a king comes forward. Good and bad kings are fairly easy to identify. The can he think that is do good things prosper and the bad ones dont prosper and thats the case with other figures. So that fits well in the republican world view. Another idea in addition to republicanism is martyr dumb. One of the most popular books that protestants read is foxs books of martyr. It is a group of narratives of martyrdom. Cat lic catholics on property stants. So it brings together a value that christianity is worth dying for. That this idea of sacrifice is something that is valued. That they find throughout scripture. And one says that they have a martyr complex. They see it everywhere. The idea comes across through war when you see it in washington, soldiers and the Continental Army and preachers interpret their death dying as martyrs. And it is seen as martyrdom is critical. And this one, i saw everywhere. Just everywhere. Saturated the documents. Saturated the sermons and this concept of military and spiritual warfare. As i said, when people looked at the bible, they found war and conflict everywhere. The bible was a book of war. Not just military warfare, but spirituality as a warfare. Do you remember seeing anything like this in scripture, in the new testament, that spiritalty is a war between good and evil, a constant conflict within us. Good versus evil . This kind of spiritual warfare and military warfare merged in some of these sermons especially. Where people saw that spirituality and military patriots and military pat rotism and courage went hand in hand. Another aspect had to do with means. Means. The means of waging war. Now, when declaring war if people believe that god is on their side in a war, there could be a tendency, well, do we need to fight . Do we noo ed to join . Do we need to battle . If god is on our side, it will turn out. Preachers will preach against that. You wouldnt say in your spiritual life, if god loves me, i dont have to go to church or pray. God gives us the means to wage warfare, spiritual warfare like scripture against satan. He gives us the means to wage military warfare through best of weaponry encouraged. We should not depend on him to do it all but use the mean that is god provides us. Theres a sense, especially ministers in the revolutionary period tend to think that some believe that christians again, some christians shouldnt go to war, if if this e did go to war they would not be the best soldiers. There was an argument that christians are the best soldier. If you were a christian, you will be the best military soldier ever. This is from 1771, which is not the American Revolution, but still, it is kind of in the era. I would not intimate that every got christian is a good soldier and accomplished man of war. There could not be a good soldier, an accomplished man of war of the practice of christianity. I want to specifically talk about a biblical character here that seems to exemplify that. And that is david. David is fascinating in so many different ways. I mean think about the story of david. He had it all. What did he not have . He was hand some. He was strong. He was courageous. I mean, you know, as a child it was one of my favorite biblical texts. David slays ga lie yit with a slingshot. I had a slingshot goliath. David was amazing. Many sermons talk about david. David as a man after gods own heart. What the scripture terms him as. He was a man after gods heart, yet he was a man of war. Skilled in the bloody art and furnaced above the common standard with the qualifications of war. In this art, terrible as it is, he informs us that he was taught of god. So david was both spiritual and a courageous warrior. He can write a song about his depth with god and then go and slay. He was a fascinating hero of the scriptures. He kind of brings together heroism and spiritalty together. Think about the republican world view of the revolutionary era. Think again about the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The need for balance of powers and then lets think of the david story. Again, david had a all. He was mighty with faith and the sword. He was a military leader, a great king. I mean, if anyone could be the perfect king, it would be david. And yet, when david became king, what happened . There was the incidence with bath sheba and haraya. He is staying back from the war and committing adultery and having her husband murdered. Can you mind a better republican argument that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Giving somebody too much power corrupts them. Even david was corruptible if given too much power. Now i want to talk about specific biblical texts. This is one i must confess, i didnt know about growing up. This is a story that i did remember but just vaguely. It is a story in the book of judges specifically about a judge named deborah. And the verse that gets quoted over and over again in various contexts in revive list stick contexts and war contexts, especially in war contexts is the curse of ma razz. The curse of ma razz, curse them they come not to the help of the lord the help of the lord against the mighty. Lets brek this down. First of all, where was ma ras. I asked one of our colleagues. Happened to be writing a commentary. I asked him a few years ago and he said we have know idea. And they didnt know that much in the revolutionary period. They did know that deborah issued thirddegr issued this curse from god. Would not join in the fight against the canines. But one person who joined in the fight was yiel. She was the one who fought for israel by slaying a cicero and when he went to sleep took a tent peg and drove it through his skull. Thats a good biblical text. And in doing so, she exemplified courage. This played fairly well in the revolutionary period. Preachers picked up on this and connected deborah and yiel as two women who would fight and who were mighty in battle. So this was the most based on what i could find. The curse of ma razz was the most sited biblical verse for like 100 years from the king philip war to the American Revolution over 100 years. And here is another one by the way that got a good bit of play. From jeremiah. Curse be he who does the work of the lord deceitfully and curse he and i want to specifically talk about peter and paul a little bit. Among the various texts and wartime, there was a lot of Old Testament narrative. And we can make that makes sense because theres a lot of war in the Old Testament. A lot of battles and armies and a lot going on. People drew on these texts over and over, they had something write for the pickings. But passiveist tended to point that out. Not only them but those particularly opposed to a certain war. Sure you can find a lot of war in the hebrew bible or the Old Testament. What about the new testament . This is the case in civil war you find. More and more over the new testament. So there were several ways in which people who wanted to argue against war could make that move and one we mentioned is the sermon on the mount where jesus says turn the other cheek. Somebody slaps on one cheek, turn the other. Could be nonresistance or read as passivism. It gets quoted over and over and it is one of the top sited texts in the revolutionary era. Those who wanted to support war had a burden of proof to over come. They sited that text to argue against it and sited thou shall not kill in other texts. It was most profitable to show how the new testament also spoke about war. And they did this in a few different ways. One way had to do with the book of revelation. Now, you probably knew i was going to mention the book of revelation. If you read anything about the colonialer are ra colonial colonial era. Not just the book of revelation so many people see this my let me knowial ideology because evenlation is fairly warlike. If you read it lately, it is a lot of fighting and evil beings to fight and symbolism that is quite violent throughout. So sometimes, ministers would point to the book of revelation as the new testament text that endorses war and they would look at revelation, chapter 19 where jesus rides in as a warlike figure. Even jesus go to war in the book of revelation. So the book is a key text. Even more prominent were texts from peter and paul. Because the idea being, would the apostle support war . What would they do about going to war . And specifically, were peter and paul the great apostles, would they side with the loyalists or with the patriots . And it was a lot of ink spilled over that question. So, i want to read you a couple of texts and well read these and lets just see which side they tend to fall down on. Loyalists or patriot. Ill start with peter. Peter, first peter chapter 2, verses 1317. Submit yourselves to every ordnance of man for the lords sake. As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as servants of god. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear god, honor the king. How might that go . Here is one from paul. Which is the most site the text in the revolutionary era. Romans chapter 13. It gets a lot of play in the civil war. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of god. The powers that be are ordained of god. Who so ever therefore resist the power, resists the ordnance of god. And they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation. For he is the minister of god to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil be afraid, for he bear not the sword in vein. For he is the minister of god, a revenger, a revenger to execute wrath on him that do evil. So obey the king, obey the higher powers because they are ministers of god and represent god. Some loyalists like these texts quite a bit. Among those were methodists like john wesley and John Fletcher and other ministers like Charles Ingles and before the revolution and during and you can see why. I mean, peter saying fear god and honor the king to oppose the king is to oppose god. God was a king and god put kings in power. That the king is the revenger of god. The king does the work of god. Going back specifically one more part of that text. I want to say that i want to use this as free it talks about freedom and liberty because one of the things that the loyalists were arguing. Patriots using this terminology of liberty in the wrong way and this specifically says as free and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness m not taking your liberty too far and misunderstanding it. It seems tailormade for the loyalist. So lets read the texts from the apostles and consider the political situation. The political situation was, they were under the control of the roman empire and being under control of the roman empire, they had to deal with jews, and their own churches and they had to deal with the fact that the roman empire controlled everything. And as was typical in many cases a lot of people ended up blaming the jews. A lot of antijew rhetoric. Some preachers and loyalist saying that the problem is that the jews were stirring up problems and inser recollections and paul and peter were worried that the christians would cause problems too and join in these and become radicals in politics and just start all of these wars and these things. So the problem was that christians were get ago bad reputation. People were thinking they were disloyal. So peter and paul commanded them to oh buy the royal government. Be good citizens and join in the government in anyway. Lets think about the roman government for a second. What was the roman government doing in regards to christians . They were thinking about emperors. And emperors that were much worse than kings george the third. I mean say what you want about him, he is not killing christians, okay . Cant say as much for nyro. He tor meanted and executed christians. Even though there were living in a hostile roman government, including roman emperors who were killing christians and persecuting them, peter and paul say fear god, honor the king. Peter and paul still say that the king is the minister to all. The minister of god. A revenger on those who do evil. So the message some of these loyals said is obey all rulers even the bad ones. Respect authority because god put them in authority for a reason. So what you call patriotism is really just ambition. It is selfishness in disguise and all patriotic revolts do is create more violence. Now what about the patriotic arguments . What are patriots going to do with those telkts . What are they doing to do with text that is say the Civil Authority are the revengers of god and wrongdoers. What can you do with that . Anywhere you can go with that . Well, of course. Lets see. Jonathan may hue. That title is helpful and people like john adams cousin use this text and many others. Lets think about their argument. They say look at the historical context. Peter and paul, what they were really doing is making general statements about respecting authority. Submission didnt mean unlimited submission to any king or any authority. The problem with saying that they were endorsing unlimited submission to any king, too many biblical text showing people of god resolting against king. Anybody remember exodus and pharaoh. D darius and daniel. They were bad kings. They didnt have to take it from any bad king. So it couldnt be about unlimited submission to any king. Lets look at pauls situation. Paul specifically writing to the romans, he was dealing with christians who were just taking a little too literally, the idea that christ kingdom is not of this world. Sometimes christians take that literally. Not of this world, doesnt mean this world is gone. It means you still have to live in the world but live in a different way. So paul is saying, the key to understand this is one specific verse and section of a verse that people tend to overlook. The ruler is the minister of god to thee for good. So if the ruler is not acting in the peoples best interest, if the ruler is not gods minister for the peoples good, then christians should resist. Christians should rebel against that minister or king. Part of this then means the patriots said, we have to have some common sense when it comes to approaching scripture. These commands for hon nooring king, they are basic command for authority. The bible tells children to obey parents, does that mean to obey the parent who throws a fit and tries to cut their throats. So the idea is respect the king but based on how the king performs the kings duties and not specifically for just because the king is the king. So evaluate leadership. So what the patriots are arguing against the loyalists is really, youre prooftexting without understanding the true context. And you have to read the true context to understand it. What it really becomes is an argument over what that context is. The loyalists have a view and the patriots have a view of what that context is overall. So some conclusions on this. The revolution, it is arguable was the most important event in American History. The revolution, it creates the nation, sets the nation in motion. And the revolution becomes like a we still think it is an enduring symbol for what the nation is about. Fighting for liberty. There are many different ways fighting for liberty manifests itself. Even in the civil war, the revolutionary period is a biblical text of its own. The confederates and the unionist arguing that they are following in the footsteps of the patriots. So we can make the case that the revolution was the most pivotal event in American History. And the bible was arguably the most influence chal book. It was the book that most paem read and honored as authority. There are differences in how the people read it then and now. When they read it then, this was before higher criticisms and arguments over different ways of reading the bible from historical perspectives and more or less when people read the bible, they read the bible as it was and pretty mush took it as it was. Thats not to say they were not skeptics on the bible. Certainly, some of the founders and others and in the enlightenment era were skeptical about certain views on the bible. There was biblical skepticism. I believe that biblical skepticism didnt interfere with biblical patriotism. So for the same people who were skeptical about scripture and authoritative as all of the word of god was true, used scripture and used it to make sacrifice and morality. Regardless of any kind of skeptical views of scripture as revelation, scripture was still policeically significant. Through revolution. Colonists became patriotically american and so did the dibible. One thing i found in the 19th century. If i read the war book first i would understand the revolution book better. I had to write it to understand the civil book better. We probably have to rewrite them. One thing i see over and over through civil war from both sides in honoring the patriots and the revolution, honoring scripture goes hand in hand and as part of that there is this sense that the bible itself is the nations book. That the bible that the nation itself has a biblical kind of auro around it. It is a biblical nation and disagree c disagree radically over what that means when i say that the bible became patriotically american, they see it as a patriotic book. That the bible preaches patriotism. If it did, or teach it, it is a militant patriotism. One of the things we can not ignore Going Forward is the milita militantcy of scripture. One of my favorite sections of the book. And Jonathan Edwards is one of my favorites to read, and i dont agree with everything he says and all of the images he preached but Jonathan Edwards lived in a world was very much like the world we see in lord of the rings and star wars and that we are in an enchanted world and it is good versus evil and what we see in our daily life is not it. There is good verses evil everywhere and we are in the midst of it and it is a meaningful struggle. We have to remember that and it has to be part of any understanding of this time and the scripture. Scripture is read in that kind of context and thats where we get to military and spiritual warfare there. And im not saying it is good or bad. Im saying with even to think about it and it is part of the tradition. Look through your hymn in churches if you have the hymn book in the pew and notice the mill ta ris stick impl it is. Religious violence and to the extent that that is still a conversation we have to be apart of. We have to come to terms on how we view the interest and which context interpreted. There is also this just war and sacred ar war kind of question. Inevitable the kor spons that i get is if the revolutionary war ruz just war or fighting a holy war . Or were they fighting a just war . My answer is always yes. By that i mean that they lived in a rl world in which just war theory was prominent specifically that they believed that they were not to be fighting wars of vengeance, wars in which god had sent them to war, and they were to the annihilate everyone as a kind of revival in the Old Testament of the passage, but they believed in the just war theory, and there were certain rules about go going to war. So they argued specifically, and the revolutionaries would talk about just war, and just war terminology, and at the sim tie they could not help talking about a just war was a godly war because god was a god of justice, and so there is not a stark division. And i like another quote by George Marson talking about the just war theory, and he says that the problem with just war theory is that it is the theory, and too theoretical, and people dont behave, and so i find that in this case of reading the texts on the bible and the American Revolution. Thank you very much. I ap preepreciate this, and it been a great opportunity. Thank you. Heres what is coming up today on cspan three American History tv. How the bible informed the founding of america, and then a look at Benjamin Franklins faith and later the effect the bible had in writing the u. S. Constituti constitution. Join us tonight when American History tv is in primetime. Our focus will be the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. , which held a symposium and the bible and the founding of america. We are will also hear from Baylor University professor thomas kidd on Benjamin Franklins faith. American history tv is in primetime here on cspan3. Later today, the commission of security and corporation is going to lock at the Russian Doping Program and whistle blower protection. That is on cspan 2. Also are, eric trump will address the conservative Political Action conference at Maryland National harbor. You can watch the coverage starting at 6 00 p. M. On cspan. Tonight, with more from cpac with remarks from mike pence who spoke this morning to the conservative gathering. You can watch the full speech tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern also on cspan. For nearly 20 years in depth on book tv has featured the nations best known nonfiction writers for live conversation about the books. This years a special project, we are featuring the special fiction writers for in depth fiction writers. Join us at noon on march 4th whose book god and generals will be joining us. And he also wrote 11 noveling the recount the American History the American Revolution to the korean war. In the program, we will take your phone calls and tweets and facebook messages. In depth series will be sunday from noon to 3 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv on cspan 2. A panel of historians answered audience questions about the bibles influence on the american founders, and they talked about the founders views on religion, democracy and the nation as a republic. This is part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington. Its an hour. Thank you, danielle. Good a aftfternoon, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your lunch and the time in the museum. If you will take a moment to silence your cell