Every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule, and to keep up with the latest history news. For the newck live museum of the bible in washington dc washington, d. C. , for symposium on bible and founding of america. Professor james byrd talks about the bible and the American Revolution. You are watching American History tv on cspan3. Hello everyone and welcome back. Moment to silence your cell phones as you return to your tables. Our Third Session today is the bible and the American Revolution with james byrd. This is based on his latest book and shows the bible was the key text of the American Revolution. When war came to the colonies, preachers and patriots turn to the bible for solace annexed rotations to fight. Scripture helped amateur soldiers stop their natural aversion to killing. A sense of thens Divine Providence of their cause. , the doctor will examine specific biblical texts and how they were used, especially in making the patriotic calls for war case for war g. James byrd is from Vanderbilt University and his latest book is sacred scripture, sacred war , the bible and the American Revolution. He is working on a book on the bible and the american civil war. Please join me in welcoming dr. Byrd. [applause] thank you. I am pleased to be here and to be joining in this important conversation at the museum of the bible. I am very honored to be sharing the cody him with sharing the podium with scholars i have admired for years. I want to especially thank the team at the museum of the bible for putting this together. I am very honored to be participating. My focus and my angle on this, specifically deals a little more with the war itself. , i have two topics i tried to bring together. One is the history of the bible in america. And the history of war in america. Extensively i deal a little extensively with war and violence and how the bible has been part of our justifications for going to war and our protest against it. I got interested in this a few , all ofo, just serious our projects begin with curiosity. Serious about how the bible was included in the American Revolution and being a computer geek, i decided to design a database and tried to pick out biblical texts, and sort them. And i would have the answer. That may have been a mistake, because it took me a few years to do this before i could write the book. I thought i will get the database together and write the book based on the database. That is what i did. That involved going to a lot of texts, most of which not in modern fonts. Nor modern spelling. Going to each page and finding each bible verse, and many times, they cite the bible verse and sometimes they dont, so i had to scan through i grew up learning the bible a bit in sunday school and we did the draw swords bible exercise. Using the citations i could find, i put together a database. And i printed them all out and said these are the big texts. I went through an analysis of this text and that is what the book turns out to be feared i want to talk about the texts and how they are represented and why they are important in revolutionary america, specifically dealing with the war. The next book is on the civil war and it involves a lot more in terms of the bible and how a lot more text to deal with. This one is more computer programming. I want to start by talking about thomas payne, he is an interesting character for all times. One of the most interesting insights he brings us on the bible come from common sense, most of you have probably read it, it was the most probably probably the most red pamphlet in American History, it was written for a particular reason in 1779. It was written 1776. It was written to argue that declaring independence was common sense. He was attempting to deal with arguments that everyone could agree on. He was attempting to take the pulse of the society. And to make a persuasive case for declaring independence, because, let me say, during the war against britain declaring war against britain was one thing but declaring independence was different. For many people, they did not necessarily want to declare independence as they wanted a Better Parliament and perhaps a better king, a better situation. Thomas payne argues that it is common sense to declare independence. He uses scripture to do that. He uses the Old Testament and one particular chapter. First samuel, chapter eight. You may remember this verse. The prophet samuel was getting old. The people start to think about new leadership. In so doing, they come to samuel and say, your sons are not that impressive. How about you give us a king so we can be like other nations. As an aside, if you read the hebrew bible come anytime people want to be like the other nations, that is not a good thing. He is wrestling with this and asks god, god says, give them making, but in so doing, they are not just rejecting you, they are rejecting me, as they have done since i lead them out of egypt. God gave them a king, not because it was a good thing to do, but because they wanted it and demanded it. In so doing, samuel argued that the king will oppress you, god tell samuel to tell them a king will be terrible and oppress you , and they will be sorry they asks for a king. This out andpulls uses it as an argument against the king, an argument for independence. To say, it is not that a new king will help, anything is bad. Bad, monarchy is not the way to go. It draws on the tradition of embraer republicanism. Thomas payne quotes scripture immaculately in common sense. Did he believe it . Later, in another publication, age of reason, he says rather bad things about the hebrew bible, saying the Old Testament is more the word of a demon than of the word of god. Pretty bad. Yet he quotes scripture like billy graham here and knows the bible. John adams, when he had a conversation with thomas payne about drawing on the Old Testament in common sense, thomas payne brushed it aside and said i got it from milton. This is an argument against how the bible was influential in the various ways, regardless of whether or not the people quoting it believed that the bible was the revealed word of god in a specific way. This is a quote from gordon would, one of the most eminent american religious american historians, specifically in the revolutionary time. He says it was the clergy who made the revolution meaningful for most common people, because for every gentleman that read a pamphlet and dealt in a week and agent history for an explanation of events, dozens of ordinary print americans who read the bible who look to ministers for interpretation of what the revolution meant. The bible was part of the language. It was part of the symbolism and a narrative everyone knew. If everyone owns the book, this is the case in the 19 century, it was probably, if they owned one book, it was probably the bible. I am talking about the bible as used to wage war, used by patriots. In using the bible to wage any war, they had to overcome certain obstacles. Because the bible was not just a militant, violent document. There is a lot in the bible that speaks against violence, so arguing taking the bible to work, you had two of come obstacles. , there is the decalogues, theyll shall not kill, the sermon on the mount where jesus said turn the other cheek. Love your neighbor as yourself. The idea that nonresistance to evil is part of scripture is true. It is not just the bible is a militant text. There is also an obstacle in the sense that a lot of christians, because of their faith, because of their love for neighbor, resisted going to war. One of the prominent Civil War History in that historians argue that historians say arguing to get christians to kill for their country was harder to get them to die for the country. , westians have all along have a sense of selfsacrifice, but getting someone to take up arms and kill, that was the harder courage. That was the harder obstacle to overcome for a lot of people in the civil war. The same case in the revolutionary war era. There was the fact there were loyalists who knew had to quote scripture really well. Including the methodists. They would use scripture pretty well. They were like john wesley, loyalists. They were english. 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 time. Colonists could not assist their wars without assessing scripture. When they were coming when people were dealing with going to war, dealing with a new kind of nation, they naturally appeal to scripture because it was not only the authority in all of life for many people, but also a consoling text. People went to scripture in all kinds of trials, the death of a loved one, any crisis. It was naturally people going to war would appeal to scripture. When they appealed to scripture, they cannot comprehend scripture without referencing war. By that i mean that, as they read scripture, in many of them were very, very proficient in scripture, they saw there was a lot of war in the bible. There was a lot of conflict in the bible in various ways. An outright wars. A couple of frameworks that they also took with them, republicanism. We talked about this already today. Republicanism is this kind of respect for ancient republics as pivotal models for politics. We are inmodels this great city of washington, d. C. When you look at the architecture, do you notice a neoclassical influence . It is subtle. This republican ideology, the idea that the ancient republicans republics guide merging valued virtue and liberty, that without virtue, liberty dies. And vice and she really go together, the governments, like people, are prone to corruption, especially when you have too much power. They found republican ideas throughout scripture. The Old Testament covenants. In the Old Testament, when making comes forward when a king comes forward, good ones and bad ones are easily identified, the ones that do good things usually prosper and the ones that do bad things usually do not prosper. You can see how that would fit well in a republican worldview. Another idea is martyrdom. One of the most popular books that protestants read throughout history was a book of martyrs. Some of you have probably seen this or rate read it, do not download it on the kindle, it will probably crash it with the image. Catholics and posed martyrdom on protestants. Itself, it brings together this value that christianity is worth dying for. Sacrifice isa of something that is valued. See, oneon, you historian says that colonial americans have a martyr complex. They see martyrdom everywhere. The idea comes across through the war, when you see in washington, soldiers in the continental army, preachers interpret their deaths as they are dying as martyrs or their country. Wartime death is martyrdom. The idea of martyrdom is critical. This one, i saw everywhere. Everywhere. Saturated the documents, saturated sermons. That is a concept of military and spiritual warfare. When people look at the bible, they found war and conflict everywhere. It was not just a book of military warfare, they salsa. Fear is rowdy as warfare. Do you remember spirituality as warfare. Spirituality is a war between good and evil, a constant conflict, good versus evil. And spiritual warfare military warfare merged in some of the sermons, especially. Where people saw that spirituality and military patriotism, military courage went handinhand. Another aspect of this had to do with means. Means. The means of waging a war. War, and people believe god is on their side in a war, there could be a tendency to do we need to fight . Do we need to join and battle, if god is on our side, it will turn out. Preachers would preach against that, you would not say in your spiritual life, if god loves me, i do not have to go to church or read scripture or pray. We always have to use means. God gives us the means to wage warfare, the means to wage spiritual warfare like scripture against satan, god gives us the means to wage military warfare through the best of weaponry and courage. We should not depend on god to do it all. We should use the means god provides us in the spiritual and military warfare. That s also a sense especially ministers, and the revolutionary period, they thought that some believed that christians some christian should not go to war, or if christians do go to war, they would not be the best soldiers. There was an argument that christians are the best soldiers. If you are really a christian, you will be the best military soldier ever. I have a quote that may help 1771, not yetr in the American Revolution, but still in the era. I would not intimate that every good christian is a accomplished manofwar, this i will venture to say, there cannot be a good soldier, on accomplished man of war bested to for the principal and practice of christianity. I want to talk about a biblical character that seemed to exemplify that, david. David was fascinating. In so many different ways. Think about the story of david beard david david. David had it all, he was handsome, he was strong, he was courageous, as a child, one of my favorite biblical text when he slays goliath with a slingshot. I had a slingshot. Who could have any problem with david . He was amazing. He had it all going on. Many sermons talk about david, here is one from the prerevolutionary time talking about david as a man of god. David was a man after gods heart. Yet a manofwar. Skilled in the bloody art. The common standard with qualifications of war. This art, terrible as it is, informs us he was taught of god. And awas spiritual courageous warrior. Song about write a m aboutality psal spirituality and then go sleigh philistines slay philistines. Himrings together hero is and spirituality. David was also interesting in another way. Think again about the republican worldview of the revolutionary era. The idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, the idea for the balance of powers. And think of the david story. David had it all. David was mighty in faith and mighty with the sword. David was a military leader, a great king. If anyone could be the perfect king, it would be dated. Yet it would be david. When he became king, what happened . The incident with betsy about, andh, he gets all the power he is staying back from the war and committing adultery and having her husband murdered. Could you find a better republican argument that absolute power corrupts absolutely . Giving someone too much power will corrupt that powers will corrupt that person, no matter who, even david was corruptible if given too much power. Now i want to talk about specific biblical texts. Confess,s one, i must i did not know about growing up. This is the story i did remember but just vaguely. The story in the book of judges, specifically about a judge named deborah. In the version that gets quoted over and over again in various contexts and revival is to context, preaching for revival, in war context, especially in war context, is the curse. Curse bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they come not to the help of the lord against the mighty. Lets break this down. Maraz . F all, where was i asked a colleague at vanderbilt who is writing a commentary on the book of judges, where is it . He had no idea. They did not know that much any revolutionary period. They know deborah issued the curse from god because the people there, wherever it was, would night fight for god against the canaanites. One person who did join thfight. She was the woman who fought for sisera, anlaying army general for the canaanites. Lured him into a tent and when he was asleep took and put it through his goal put it through his skull. She example if i courage which went well a simplified exemplified courage which went well in the revolutionary war. , thisas the most cited curse was the most cited biblical verse for over 100 years, from the king philips war in 6075 through the American Revolution 1675 through the American Revolution. Here is another one that got a good bit of play from jeremiah, first the he who do the work of the lord to see fully and curse the who keep back the sword from the blood. If that is not a holy war text, that will do. I want to specifically talk about peter and paul. Various texts in wartime, there was a lot of Old Testament narrative. That makes sense. There is a lot of war in the Old Testament. There are a lot of battles. A lot is going on. In so doing, people drew on the texts over and over, they had something right for the picking. Pacifists tended to point that out. Not only pacifists, but those opposed to a certain war, they would say, you can find a love for in the hebrew bible, real testament. What about the new testament . This is the case also in the civil war. More arguing over testaments, how relevant is war in the new testament . There were several ways in which people who wanted to argue against war could make the move. One is the sermon on the mount where jesus says turn the other cheek. That is nonresistance. Seems to be nonresistance and could be read as pacifism. It gets quoted over and over and is one of the top 10 cited texts in the revolutionary era. Those who wanted to support war had a burden of proof to overcome and often cited that text to argue against it. Just as they sided doubt shall not kill another texts. It was most profitable cited doubt shall not kill and other texts. They did this in a few different ways. One way had to do with the book of revelations. You probably knew i would mention revelations. If you read anything about the colonial era and more, people speak of millennialism. Millennial ideas come out of the book of revelations. Many people see the millennial ideology because the book of revelations is warlike. There is a lot of fighting. A lot of evil beings fighting and symbolism that is quite violent throughout. , ministers would point to revolution revelations as a new testament text that endorses war and specifically chapter 19 where jesus rides in as a warlike figure. Even he goes to war in the book of revelation. The book of revelation is a key texts. Even more prominent our text from peter and paul. The idea being, what the apostles support war would the apostles support war . What would they do about going to war . For peter and paul, the great apostles, would they side with the loyalists, or would they side with the patriots . There was a lot of ink spilled over that question. I want to read you texts, we will read these and lets see which side they tend to fall down on. Loyalists or patr