The Role of Christians in Government: Leadership from the Pulpit Part 2

Who were our leaders most responsible for the great awakening in America that led to our Independence?

We are familiar with the likes of:

• Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution
• Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration of Independence
• John Hancock, President of Congress
• John Adams, negotiated the peace treaty with Great Britain to secure our Independence

These leaders were irreplaceable and I believe that God appointed them for a time such as this. These men had a purpose and had it not been for men like these we would not have an America today. We need men like this today. Men who will risk it all, everything they have including their financial security for a cause bigger than themselves.

But there were other leaders that are a little less well-known that without them there may not have been a Jefferson, an Adams, a Washington. Previous generations knew about these other leaders so why don’t we know them today?

These men were leaders who helped shape a nation from behind the pulpit. Our pulpits have always been the heart and soul of America. If our nation is going to be won back, it is going to have to happen from behind the pulpits in America. America was birthed from its pulpits so that is where revival will take place.

Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mayhew and Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper were two courageous men of God who John Adams declared as “most conspicuous, most ardent, and influential” in the “awakening and revival of American principles and feelings” that led to independence.

Let’s fast forward to the year 1816. We have a man named Hezekiah Niles who decided to write a book on how the America declared her independence. Niles himself had not lived through the revolution but was inspired by the patriots that went on before him. He goes on to ask former President John Adams who had a first-hand account of the events that transpired and was also very much and active participant of the revolution. Adams was also the one most responsible for the ideas in which inspired the birth of the America that we have grown to know and love. These same ideas would make America different than any nation before or since.

At the very top of Adams’ list of the most influential people were these two ministers Rev. Mayhew and Rev. Cooper.

Here is President John Adams, a Founding Father, his signature is on the Declaration of Independence, identifying these two pastors by name as some of the most influential men in the fight for liberty and freedom.

I don’t ever remember learning about these men in my history textbooks in school? Maybe if we still taught the importance of men like this, we would have a different America today.

We must ask the question, “Why would Adam’s point to a couple preachers as being so influential in the battle for independence?

As David Barton puts it, “Because historians have documented that every right set forth in the Declaration of Independence had been preached from the American pulpit prior to 1763.” The American Revolution was born out of the Generation that experienced the 2^nd Great awakening in the new world.

If we wanted to, we could attempt to read the rights within the Declaration as a list of sermon topics. The 4 most important natural rights, as our founders claimed them to be, are as follows:

• Life
• Liberty
• Pursuit of Happiness

Natural Right can be defined as a right considered to be conferred by natural law.

What is natural law? Natural law is a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.

Natural Law is:

• Based upon Principles and Truth, essential to Creation
• Harmonized with, due to Knowledge and Understanding
• Universal, exists and applies anywhere in the Universe regardless of location
• Eternal and Immutable (unchanging over time)
• Exists and applies for as long as the Universe exists and cannot be changed

Our Founders came to the common understanding that the rights they listed in the Declaration of Independence were natural rights derived from natural law that could not be changed by man. It doesn’t get anymore concrete than that.

It was the pulpits across America that helped shaped Americans view towards their natural rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as well as how to look at everything else through a Biblical worldview.

When we look at sermons from the “Founding Fathers Generation”, we see a Biblical relevance to the daily life of a colonist that we don’t really see today.

John Adams wrote these words, “Our pulpits have thundered.” As I have gone back and thumbed through the sermon topics and titles from the Founding Era I have come to this conclusion, these men preached the Gospel with fire, with zeal, with passion, and with anointing most of all. These sermon titles include:

• Called Unto Liberty, 1791 – John Leland
• Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men, 1776 – John Witherspoon
• America’s Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775 – Moses Mather

The characteristics of many sermons across America at this time carried a similar theme as you can see. While these men were on fire for God, they also had a passion and desire for Independence. Rev. Jonathan Mayhew was one of those preachers.

Sources: The Role of Pastors and Christians in Civil Government by David Barton