John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a church in Woodstock, Virginia, prior to the American Revolution. His interest in government was evident—he was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1774 and was known as a follower of Patrick Henry.

As events unfolded into 1775, a year that saw the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill initiate colonial resistance to British policies, Muhlenberg sensed that as a pastor he had a responsibility to challenge his flock to put their faith into action.

He concluded a sermon in1775 with these words:

There is a time for all things—a time to preach and a time to pray. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come.

He then took off his clerical gown and revealed his militia uniform underneath. Three hundred men joined him as he rode off to join a Virginia regiment. From 1776 to 1783, he served in the Continental Army, making him one of the select few who were part of the army for nearly the entire war. He saw action at Charleston, Brandywine, Stony Point, and at the final battle of Yorktown. He was with Washington during the brutal winter at Valley Forge in 1777-1778.

When his brother complained that he had abandoned the church for the army, Muhlenberg replied,

I am a clergyman, it is true, but I am a member of society as well as the poorest layman, and my liberty is as dear to me as to any man. Shall I then sit still and enjoy myself at home when the best blood of the continent is spilling? . . . Do you think if America should be conquered I should be safe?

Clergymen are citizens as much as anyone else. They have the same rights and liberties, and when those are in danger, God may lead them to take action. That was Muhlenberg’s belief.

After the war, he served as vice president of the Pennsylvania government, then was elected to the first House of Representatives under the nation’s new Constitution, where he held his seat from 1789-1795, and again from 1799-1801. Although elected to the Senate in 1801, he opted instead to take the position as supervisor of U.S. Customs in Pennsylvania. He never went back to the pulpit, but continued to be an active Lutheran layman until his death in 1807.

The statue of Muhlenberg posted above can be found in the United States Capitol. It shows Muhlenberg taking off his clerical robe to reveal his uniform. Each state could choose two individuals to represent the state in the Capitol building. Considering how many influential men from Virginia impacted the foundation of the country, it’s instructive and  fascinating that Virginians chose Muhlenberg to be one of their two representatives. Apparently his inspiring call to service and his dedication to the war for independence made quite an impression.

He was a significant founder, yet not many people know his name. He was a devoted Christian, but how many are aware of that?

John Jay’s family came to America as persecuted Protestants from France. Liberty of conscience came with them, and that belief was transferred to him.

Jay was deeply involved in the constitutional debate over Great Britain’s policies leading to the American Revolution. While he was very concerned over the British government’s claims, he nevertheless was a moderate in his approach, seeking a way to heal the breach. When that was no longer possible, he gave himself fully to the war for independence.

Throughout the war, he served diligently—first Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court; president of the Continental Congress; minister to Spain. He was in France as one of the negotiators to reach terms for ending the war. When he returned to America, he became Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the Confederation government.

When New York was debating the ratification of the proposed Constitution, Jay employed his pen as one of the authors of the famous Federalist Papers. His contributions were not as numerous as Madison’s and Hamilton’s, but his activity at that time was curtailed by illness.

George Washington nominated Jay, and the Senate confirmed him, as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Washington’s concern over relations with Britain led him to ask Jay to go to that country to negotiate a new treaty of commerce. At the time, he was still the sitting Chief Justice, an arrangement that never would happen now, but Washington chose to do this simply because Jay was his most experienced diplomat, and the one he trusted most to deal with Britain.

In the 1790s, the Supreme Court wasn’t as powerful as it has become over time, so Jay voluntarily stepped down from his position as Chief Justice to become Governor of New York. During his tenure, the legislature passed a law leading to the eventual elimination of slavery in that state—a goal Jay had labored for over many years.

After his governorship, Jay retired from active political life, but he didn’t retire from life itself. A sincere Christian, he later served as President of the American Bible Society. In a letter to a friend late in life, Jay commented:

Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.

Try saying something like that today and see what happens.

John Jay—another one of our largely forgotten founders, but one who deserves greater attention.

He was the man who shaped the men who shaped America, yet few know anything about him.

John Witherspoon arrived in America in 1768, enticed to leave his Scottish homeland by the offer of the presidency of a fairly new college called the College of New Jersey. Later, its name would change to Princeton.

Witherspoon was a clergyman before he was an educator, but the two were always intertwined in his life. He took the fledging college, which started shortly after the First Great Awakening, and made it into a stable institution. He also taught his students that God, not government, was the one who gave men rights. One father in Virginia, wanting that perspective taught to his son, sent him to study under Witherspoon rather than to the College of William and Mary, where all Virginia gentlemen were expected to go. That son’s name was James Madison, who later became known as the Father of the Constitution.

When problems developed between the colonies and Great Britain’s government, Witherspoon sided with the colonial cause. He was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. Throughout the long revolutionary war, he continued as a delegate to the Continental Congress, serving on over 100 committees. He lost a son in the Battle of Germantown. His devotion to the cause was total.

After the war ended, he gave a sermon entitled The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men, in which he argued that the American Revolution was the hand of God in the affairs of men, and that God aided the American cause because He wanted to raise up this nation as His own.

Witherspoon commented,

It is in the man of piety and inward principle that we may expect to find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier. God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one, may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.

In other words, there is no viable separation between the Christian faith and civil liberty; the two go hand in hand. If you destroy either one, the other will be destroyed as well in the process.

During his tenure at Princeton, Witherspoon’s students not only filled pulpits, but they got involved in government also. A list of those who served is impressive: 13 governors; 3 United States Supreme Court justices; 20 senators; 33 congressmen; 1 vice president; and 1 president [James Madison].

John Witherspoon: the man who shaped the men who shaped America.

If Patrick Henry was the voice of American resistance to the policies of Great Britain, Samuel Adams was the organizer.

His contributions to American independence are immense. Far ahead of his contemporaries, he believed that independence was inevitable. When others thought everything between the colonies and the Mother Country had been ironed out, Adams understood that the truces were essentially temporary peace arrangements. The problem, he knew, was that both operated from differing principles. To keep his fellow citizens informed on those principles, he started the Committees of Correspondence.

Samuel Adams’s convictions and actions were the result of his Christian faith. Energized by George Whitefield in the First Great Awakening, he became the premier defender of American rights. His Rights of the Colonists included a section called “As Christians.”

The book above, which is a fairly new biography of Adams, is the best I’ve ever read at showing how his Christianity formed the foundation for all his actions. I heartily recommend it.

Adams was present at the creation: he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Upon his return to Philadelphia in August 1776 to sign the document, he gave a speech that is actually as much a sermon as a speech. In this American independence speech, Adams noted,

We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.

Some historians have referred to Adams as the last Puritan. I would instead view him as a key transmitter of the Biblical tradition, which eventually transformed into an evangelicalism that dominated American society in the first half of the nineteenth century.

While we may respectfully discuss some of Adams’s tactics in his endeavor to foster American independence, none can reasonably deny the faith that inspired his actions. He deserves respect as one of the seminal Founding Fathers.

Nearly everyone knows the name Patrick Henry. But we are a nation of people only barely acquainted with our Founders. There is little depth to that knowledge.

Henry was a man who was motivated by his Christian faith, something some historians try to deny. As a young boy, he was taken to the revival meetings of the First Great Awakening by his mother. It was at these meetings that he learned his method of public speaking, an approach that made him the most eloquent voice of resistance to the aims of the British government.

Attendance at those meetings also helped him see how the official church of Virginia, the Church of England, was treating dissenters. Baptists were often put in jail for not getting permission from the government to preach. Henry took the side of the Baptists, saying they should have the liberty to speak without government interference.

In his first year as a member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Henry authored resolutions against the Stamp Act that called this act an imposition of taxes that violated the British constitution. Those resolutions passed the House and put Virginia in the forefront of the resistance. Henry said this about the passage of his resolutions:

Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere, practise virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.

His most famous speech, of course, was the one he made in March 1775, to convince the Virginia House to prepare for the eventual clash of arms. We usually refer to it as the “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. But all too few of us have read it; therefore, we don’t know that it is filled with Biblical allusions. He says he is speaking out because it would be an act of disloyalty to God if he didn’t. He talks about being betrayed with a kiss, and how that can prove a snare to the nation. He says there is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and he is trusting in Him to guide the resistance.

Finally, in his will, Henry states, after he has disposed of all his property:

This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.

That’s the Patrick Henry too few people know. This posting, though, has just added to the number of those who know him better.