Follow Up on Anglican Defenestration In America

We can all agree on a few things about religion and the original Constitution. On the one hand, religion, including establishment policy, was left to the states. On the other, the states were in the middle of a movement termed disestablishmentarianism. (Massachusetts was the last state to disestablish around 1833 and interestingly did so because the "orthodox" didn't like Unitarians, whose religion they didn't view as "real Christianity," getting their hands on establishment money.) The third thing to appreciate is the Anglican Church and its establishment in America lost the most ground, as a result of the revolution. And that makes sense because Anglicanism officially taught submission to the King as head of church and state, which is what America rebelled against.

As this source notes:

Picture yourself an American member of the colonial Church of England (COE) during or after the Revolutionary War. Your church was part of the royal government, the same government that people were fighting against. Perhaps you felt more allegiance to the Crown than your fellow colonists. After all, the Church of England in the United States (remember “Anglican” wasn’t a term in common use until the 19th century) attracted members of the merchant class, civil servants, royal governors, and others with strong ties to England. 

If you left during the Revolution to go to Canada or return to England you weren’t alone. About 40% of Anglicans did. For those who stayed on after the war, their church was a shadow of its former self. Where the COE was the established (government-subsidized) church, such as the southern colonies and parts of New York, the church was quickly dis-established and lands sold off. Clergy, who took an oath of loyalty to the King, were caught in a dilemma: do you remain faithful to your ordination vows and support the King or side with the colonists who were part of the Revolution?

It was a relatively orthodox Bishop named William White, who was a Whig (supported the rebellion) who led the effort to rewrite the faith into American Episcopalianism (you can read about it here). It obviously wasn't going to be a Tory like Samuel Seabury (the "farmer" whom Alexander Hamilton "refuted") playing the leading role in directing the new project. He was, you could view him as "too cold." On the other hand, Whig Bishop James Madison (the President's cousin and namesake) was probably too hot. William White was just right.

American Rebelled Against High Church Anglicanism

I recently noted to a very smart, learned on these issues, Catholic writer that America rebelled against high church Anglicanism. The person seemed dumbfounded by that claim. Where was I getting this?

As I see it, high church Anglicanism equals (or at least strongly correlates with) Tory political theology. And America rebelled against Toryism.

Peter A. Lillback addresses this issue in his tome on George Washington's religion. I may have given the misimpression Lillback is a bad scholar along David Barton grounds. I think his book is flawed on a number of different grounds. I don't think he proves Washington was an "orthodox Trinitarian Christian." And a respectable academic editor (which the book lacks) would have taken it from 1200 pages or so to 800 to make it more organized and readable. Dr. Lillback is nonetheless a legitimate scholar.

But Lillback argues that Washington was a "low church Anglican." Indeed, I would say Washington fit into the "low church latitudinarian Anglican" wing. The problem (for those who support Lillback's thesis) is that wing, because of its doctrinal latitude did indeed include Trinitarians of the Calvinist bent and otherwise, but also included more deistic and unitarian minded theists as well (they were also often called "liberal dissenters").

The "high church" wing took Anglican doctrine more literally. They were not "latitudinarian." Arguably they were more "Anglican fundamentalists" in the sense they took everything their church officially taught literally.

Indeed, one mild criticism of Gregg Frazer's new book which lays out the case for the American loyalists is that it's almost entirely (but not entirely, there was at least one Presbyterian loyalist minister) drawn from Anglican sermons preaching high church Anglican Tory doctrine of submission to the monarchy and parliament in the face of Romans 13.

Since George Washington systematically spoke about God in generic terms, never mentioning Jesus in his private correspondence, etc., the only way to make him into a Trinitarian is through Anglican doctrine (which is explicitly Trinitarian). And Lillback tries to make Washington into an "oath fundamentalist." Washington did indeed take Trinitarian oaths when becoming a vestryman and a godfather. Jefferson took those oaths when becoming a vestryman, but refused to be a godfather because of their Trinitarian nature. Jefferson was driven nuts thinking about the Trinity. Washington was not.

But the problem is those oaths are high church! They demand allegiance and obedience to the King as head of church and state. It's actually quite fascinating that so many notable American founders were Anglicans who rebelled against mother England and then became Episcopalians. And it's not just laity. There were ministers, some more orthodox than others, who also supported the rebellion. And others, more high church oriented, who remained loyalists.

When trying to explain why Washington systematically avoided communion in the church, Lillback stressed Dr. Abercrombie -- the minister who called Washington out as either a "deist" or not a "real Christian" for avoiding communion -- was a Tory loyalist. In other words, GW didn't want to be in communion with this guy. But, any Anglican who supported the rebellion technically had a problem with official Anglican doctrine.

One of the Anglican leaders who testified that Washington avoided communion, Bishop William White, actually supported the rebellion. This is what his Wiki page notes: "Though an Anglican (Episcopalian) cleric who was sworn to the king in his ordination ceremony, White, like all but one of his fellow Anglican clerics in Philadelphia, sided with the American revolutionary cause.[6]"

Interestingly, that footnote 6 says:

Only William Stringer, a recent immigrant f[ro]m Ireland in 1773, remained a Loyalist among the Anglican clerics in Philadelphia. In a Letter to Lord Dartmouth on March 6, 1778, from Philadelphia, Stringer reports that he is the only clergyman in Philadelphia who has acted consistent with his ordination oath of allegiance to the King and duty as a minister. See The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, Volume 2, p. 460.

Bold face mine.  

After America's revolution succeeded, by necessity the Anglican churches had to "reform" their doctrines to scrub the language of the British monarchy technically ruling over them. From what I know, all but one became Episcopalians who left most everything in place, except that language that needed scrubbing.

Though one Anglican Church in New England, King's Chapel used the opportunity to reform itself into unitarianism. Its Wiki page says:

It became Unitarian under the ministry of James Freeman, who revised the Book of Common Prayer along Unitarian lines in 1785. Although Freeman still considered King's Chapel to be Episcopalian, the Anglican Church refused to ordain him. The church still follows its own Anglican/Unitarian hybrid liturgy today.

Unitarianism Over the Span of the American Founding

From 1750 to 1820 (ish). 

John Adams, in 1815, writes to an orthodox critic remarks that relate back to 1750.

I thank you for your favour of the 10th and the pamphlet enclosed, "American Unitarianism." I have turned over its leaves and have found nothing that was not familiarly known to me. 

In the preface Unitarianism is represented as only thirty years old in New England. I can testify as a Witness to its old age. Sixty five years ago my own minister the Reverend Samuel Bryant, Dr. Johnathan Mayhew of the west Church in Boston, the Reverend Mr. Shute of Hingham, the Reverend John Brown of Cohasset & perhaps equal to all if not above all the Reverend Mr. Gay of Hingham were Unitarians. Among the Laity how many could I name, Lawyers, Physicians, Tradesman, farmers! 

-- John Adams to Jedidiah Morse, May 15, 1815. Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 122, Library of Congress.

The reason why there was "confusion" as to how old unitarianism was relates to unitarianism being in the closet. It was not safe, in some cases not legal in say 1750, to publicly proclaim one's unitarianism.

But over time, it became safer. And I think that was probably part of the motivation behind the fervent push for liberty of conscience in some quarters (i.e., Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's, among others).

In the 1800s, Jefferson and Adams seemed downright gleeful that unitarianism was making progress. It was turning into Unitarianism, not just a theology (small u) but the official name of denominations (capital U).

As I've noted before the two options from the which to choose were Arianism and Socinianism with the former being more popular. Fast forward to 1821 and we see Jefferson in a letter to Timothy Pickering (United States Secretary of State under Presidents George Washington and John Adams) mention William Channing, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley:

I thank you for mr Channing’s discourse, which you have been so kind as to forward me. ... and read it with high satisfaction. no one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in it’s advances towards rational Christianity. when we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus, when, in short, we shall have unlearned every thing which has been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: ...

So off the bat Jefferson tells Pickering he read William Channings' address on "rational Christianity" which is Arian, and gave it his approval. Pickering was a fellow unitarian. Perhaps Jefferson suspects Pickering was, like what Channing argued for, an Arian.

But Jefferson was not an Arian. I would argue he was some kind of modified Socinian. But let the man speak for himself:

in the present advance of truth, which we both approve, I do not know that you and I may think alike on all points. as the Creator has made no two faces alike, so no two minds, and probably no two creeds. we well know that among Unitarians themselves there are strong shades of difference, as between Doctors Price and Priestley for example. so there may be peculiarities in your creed and in mine. they are honestly formed without doubt. I do not wish to trouble the world with mine, nor to be troubled for them. these accounts are to be settled only with him who made us; and to him we leave it, with charity for all others, of whom also he is the only rightful and competent judge. I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the Unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also.

Price was the notable influential British Arian and Priestley was his Socinian counterpart. Jefferson's comments above illustrate that the unitarianism of his time was highly individualistic. That is, it didn't exist like Trinitarianism did. Trinitarianism was institutionalized in churches with creeds; unitarianism was more of a theological philosophy that free thinking individuals attached to Trinitarian churches either flirted with or believe in.

Then it became a Church (Unitarianism with a capital U) starting at the end of the 18th Century, but more so in the 19th Century.

Why Socinianism Matters to the American Founding

Because it's part of unitarianism. And unitarianism matters. During America's founding era many claimed to be "unitarians" and there were two chief varieties. One, Arianism (which taught Jesus some kind of divine being, but created by and subordinate to the Father), the other, Socinianism (which taught Jesus 100% human in His nature, but on a divine mission). Arianism was the more popular of the two varieties.

John Locke is oft-referred to, for good reason, as "America's philosopher." On how governments ought to treat their citizens, including and especially on religious matters, Locke matters.

And we can almost be certain that Locke was not an orthodox Trinitarian Christian. So that means he must have been something else. But Locke had a problem with putting his explicit religious cards on the table: In Great Britain in Locke's time, it was illegal to publicly deny the Trinity. Yet many did doubt or deny the Trinity back then. They just tended to, for safety, do it in private.

So Locke writes the book called "The Reasonableness of Christianity" where he sets out his ideal understanding of the common faith. Locke proposes a formula for defining who gets to be a "real Christian" as we might put that term today. And it's this: Jesus is a unique Messiah.

That's pretty much it (yeah, we can get into some other details, like you have to repent).

This simple formula got Locke accused by an orthodox theologian of being a Socinian. Because it's true that Socinians could pass Locke's test. But I don't think Locke was a Socinian. Rather he probably was some kind of Arian (this is what Locke scholar the late Paul Sigmund of Princeton told me, citing other Locke scholar John Marshall of Johns Hopkins).

So as it turns out Locke's orthodox critic probably was right that Locke was a unitarian, but wrong on which kind.

Still, Trinitarians, Arians, Socinians, Modalists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Swedenborgians among others all believe Jesus Messiah and therefore get to be "Christians" according to Locke's formula.

Or as John Adams described the American landscape, that implemented Locke's ideas, some time later:

... There were among them, Roman Catholicks English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anababtists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and “Protestans qui ne croyent rien.” Very few however of Several of these Species. Never the less all Educated in the general Principles of Christianity: and the general Principles of English and American Liberty.

"Socinians" actually made Adams' list twice. Most American Socinians probably wouldn't be imbibed in the "Racovian Confession," but rather influenced by Joseph Priestley's theology, which is a form of Socinianism. "Priestleyans" are Socinians.

I've heard people claim John Adams was an Arian, but I am not convinced. I know that Adams was a fervent unitarian, but of which kind I'm not sure Adams himself knew. He just "knew" the Trinity was false.

Smithsonian: "Why No One Can Agree on What George Washington Thought About the Relationship Between Church and State"

By a professor at Stanford. A taste:

Historians were not deaf to Washington’s religious references. While the clergy and the scientists saw them as evidence of Washington’s devotion, the historians stressed the president’s precision in crafting a vocabulary that would unite the dizzying array of Protestant denominations in post-revolutionary America without alienating the small but important groups of Catholics, Jews, and freethinkers dotting the American landscape. It was precisely because he understood that Americans did not believe the same thing that Washington was scrupulous in choosing words that would be acceptable to a wide spectrum of religious groups.

In his own time, Washington’s reluctance to show his doctrinal cards dismayed his Christian co-religionists. Members of the first Presbytery of the Eastward (comprised of Presbyterian churches in Massachusetts and New Hampshire) complained to the president that the Constitution failed to mention the cardinal tenets of Christian faith: “We should not have been alone in rejoicing to have seen some explicit acknowledgement of the only true God and Jesus Christ,” they wrote. Washington dodged the criticism by assuring the Presbyterians that the “path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.”  

Similarly, a week before his 1789 proclamation, Washington responded to a letter from Reverend Samuel Langdon, the president of Harvard College from 1774-1780. Langdon had implored Washington to “let all men know that you are not ashamed to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Once again, instead of affirming Christian tenets, Washington wrote back offering thanks to the generic “Author of the Universe.”

Christianity & Religious Liberty

This new book Robert Louis Wilken, Liberty in the Things of God, looks to be a must read. I disagree with the subtitle of the American Conservative review article that doesn't credit "The Enlightenment." Yes, there were sources of religious liberty that preceded the Enlightenment. But it was during the Enlightenment when such became normative. A taste from the article:

This tension reached a climax during the Reformation and post-Reformation era. Wilken includes chapters on Lutheran Germany, Calvinist and Zwinglian Switzerland, and on Catholic-Protestant battles in France, the Netherlands, and England. Readers may be surprised to learn how often it was not just Protestants but also Catholics who turned to liberty in defense of their religious beliefs. Nuns in Germany, clergyman in Switzerland, Benedictine abbots in France, and papist lawyers in England all appealed to their consciences in the face of Protestant persecution. Indeed, while Reformation history is full of Catholic oppression of Protestants, it is equally full of Protestants oppressing, persecuting, and even forbidding Catholic worship. 

It is ultimately the Englishmen—Roger Williams, John Owen, William Penn, and John Locke—to whom America and the West are indebted for their conception of religious freedom. Williams argued that liberty of conscience applied to all men equally, including dissenting Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even the hated Catholics. He also “severed the link between the two tables of the law,” meaning that he rejected any role for the state in the affairs of the church and vice versa. Owen, in turn, interpreted Tertullian’s earlier cited argument to mean that “liberty of conscience is a natural right” rather than one created and protected by the state. Penn, meanwhile, argued that this liberty of conscience necessarily extended to public worship. Locke, finally, incorporated some of these elements, but went even further by arguing that religious communities are fundamentally voluntary societies composed of individuals possessing “free and spontaneous” rights.

For instance the Calvinist covenanters like Samuel Rutherford and John Knox who were "good" on resistance to tyrants in the face of Romans 13 were still defending Calvin having Servetus put to death for denying the Trinity. By the time of the American Founding, John Witherspoon and his Presbyterians had accepted liberty of conscience as an unalienable right.

Free Chapter on Gregg Frazer's First Book

Gregg Frazer's "thesis" on the political theology of the American founding, in my opinion, took the level of scholarly analysis to a "higher level." His book has its strengths and weaknesses. But it's certainly a must read for anyone who wants to seriously study the issue.

I just noticed that University of Kansas Press now features a free chapter of the book in PDF form. Check it out.

Law & Liberty Site: "John Locke and Political Hebraism"

By one DAVID CONWAY. Check it out here. A taste:

The Paradox of Locke’s Sources  

Of course, Hebrew Scripture forms but a part of Christian Scripture, so that Locke would not but have taken the Old Testament to be every bit as divinely revealed as the New Testament. However, it is still puzzling just why he should have drawn so much more heavily on Old Testament sources than he did on New Testament ones, especially in respect of illustrating quite universally applicable theses about the law of nature. ...

But there seems an answer to the puzzle:

At the time of the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 in which James ll was deposed in favor of Mary, his Protestant daughter, and her Protestant Dutch husband William (who also happened to be the son of the deposed king’s deceased elder sister), the chief theoretical apostle of the divine right of kings had been the royalist Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653). Filmer had defended the doctrine in his essay Patriarcha, which was published posthumously in 1679 at the time of the Exclusion Crisis, in which a vain parliamentary attempt was made to prevent James’s succeeding his elder brother, Charles. 

In 1688, Locke and his fellow Whigs who sought to sideline James, were particularly exercised to do so by the birth, earlier that year, of James’s son, which would have ensured a Catholic succession. Since Filmer had justified the doctrine of divine right by appealing to Old Testament stories about God’s granting Adam dominion over other creatures, Locke had no alternative but to take on Filmer at the hermeneutical task of Biblical exegesis. ...

Locke discussed the Old Testament so much by necessity to answer Filmer's claims which centered on the Old Testament. 

Andrew Seidel Publishes Book on "Christian Nation" Controversy

A hard hit from the secular left. Read about it here. A taste from an interview:

The second part of your book is "The United States versus the Bible." One chapter is titled "Biblical Obedience or American Freedom." Could you talk about this opposition in attitudes and philosophy?  

Sure. This also plays a lot into the Declaration of Independence itself, which was this document which was rebelling against this king, who was the defender of the faith. Even though the divine right of kings was gone by that time, he certainly believed himself to be instilled in that position by God.

The Bible demands obedience. The Bible is very, very clear on this point, many times over. The Judeo-Christian God demands obedience. And not just to himself, but also to the rulers that are on earth. Romans 13 is all about obedience to the earthly rulers. So here you have a country that was built on rebellion, versus a book that is all about obedience, and the two are in fundamental conflict. That's an important point that I try to make throughout the whole book. If you really pay attention to Judeo-Christian principles, and what those principles are — throughout the Bible, throughout the Ten Commandments — and look at the principles America holds dear and was founded on, the two are really diametrically opposed to each other. They’re in fundamental conflict. It does make it fair to say that these principles are un-American.