Thoughts on the American Revolution
Renae Stanton
It is undeniable that as believers in the Lord and partakers of His salvation, we have a clear and Biblical mandate to submit to our governing authorities. Paul is clear in Romans 13, and likewise the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2, that governments are instituted and authorized by God, and that it is a matter of compliance with God’s will that we follow His command to live peacefully under the authority of government. This is our mandate as believers.
It is impossible, however, that all the men who fueled the Revolution and served as the governing body for the infant country of the United States of America were true followers of Christ. Many, if not all, would have claimed some form of the gospel of Christ or at least held to a loose set of Christian morals. But, this does not mean that all the Colonists or the founders of our country had a true saving faith and personal relationship with their savior. Hence, most of them, although claiming the morals and culture of Christianity, would not have been concerned enough with God’s mandates nor had the God-gifted faith necessary to follow them even in the face of compromising personal comfort, security or happiness.
America, even in its early colonial form, was a nation of independent individualism. The generation who forged the Colonies out of raw earth and harsh elements, though many of them true humble servants of the Lord, had given birth to a resilient and defiant line of self-made individuals. The American Colonies were a case of unprecedented success, and what had begun as a humbly devoted Church body seeking refuge, became the resting place of unchallenged success. Thus, it followed that when their pure freedom, their capitalist enterprise, their security and happiness were challenged by their governing power, most of the Colonists did not fall to their knees in prayer before their God, but raised their voices and guns against their oppressive foe. This is not to suggest that the Colonies were completely devoid of all men and leaders who truly sought to live God-honoring lives and men who had a true and saving faith in their God. The general tide of American sentiment at the time, however, flowed much more toward the shore of indignation and political liberation than toward submission to God and His mandates that transcend time and space. Hence, when the British Empire wielded its governing hand against the American Colonies, the result was the rallying of all the resilience and defiance that had been gradually growing in the hearts and minds of the American people, and culminated in the fighting and winning of a war unprecedented in the history of the world.
Politically speaking, the Colonists, as citizens of the England, had entered into a contract, a functional agreement with their governing authority. Their rights as English subjects were protected by the English constitution and they in turn agreed to be productive and obedient members of English society; they agreed to adhere to English laws, they agreed to pay taxes to the English crown, and they agreed to suffer the due consequences of a refusal to do either. However, when a breach was made of this agreement, by the British government in the form of unlawful taxation and a stripping of rights regarding free trade and criminal justice, the American Colonists felt justified in surrendering their obedient compliance to the English crown. And so followed the American Revolution.