The Christian Doctrine Paradox

“Upon my return from the army to Baltimore in the winter of 1777, I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, “Yes-if we fear God and repent of our sins.”
~ Benjamin Rush
(Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress)

As a young American Christian, I once believed a devout tyrant named King George III had been persecuting our forefathers for practicing their religion in a way that conflicted with his own. I had assumed this religious dispute was a defining factor in the American Revolution and the war for independence, and I had likely made this assumption by knowing the First Amendment to the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. To my knowledge, this portion of the First Amendment was a revolutionary response to King George III attempting to institute a tyrannical state-sponsored religion in North America. Why else would the authors make the issue of religion and free speech the first defining point in their constitution if someone, somewhere, were not forcing their beliefs on others?

I cannot recall how or why I adopted this thinking, but all the pieces of the puzzle did seem to fit. Looking back, I now understand this unwitting departure from historical truth was based on my sheer lack of knowledge. I was ignorant of the facts.

The evidence, however, would lead me in a direction opposed to my former assumptions. Persecution of Christians taking place in the new world was not the result of the Anglican church under the king’s authority, but rather, a colonial offshoot and divestiture from the Church of England that George III had no part in orchestrating or promoting.

The Declaration of Independence casts George III as the leading villain of the American Revolution. It asserts that he was a prince whose character was “marked by every act which may define a Tyrant” and pronounces him “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” As a member of the original committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, John Adams later admitted that it contains “expressions which I would not have inserted, if I had drawn it up, particularly that which called the King tyrant.” Reminiscing at the age of eighty-eight, Adams thought it “too personal . . . too passionate, and too much like scolding, for so grave and solemn a document.” He confessed that he “never believed George to be a tyrant” or to be guilty of the “cruel” acts committed in the name of the King. In his autobiography, Adams was also critical of Benjamin Franklin for his “severe resentment” and personal animosity towards George III. According to Adams, regardless of the appropriateness of the occasion, Franklin never missed an opportunity to cast aspersions upon George III.⁵ (emphasis mine)

“Acts committed in the name of the King”, not “by the order of the King”.

Here is the truth. If I kill someone in the name of Christ, it does not mean Christ ordered me to kill that person. It means I am a delusional psychopath who took it upon myself, under my own cognizance, to commit murder. It is true that George III was harsh toward his subjects when he needed to be. But to the extent, some believe George III was responsible for religious persecution in the thirteen colonies, this is simply not true. It would be more truthful to suggest the current situation in the United States of America far surpasses any religious tyranny George III promoted during his tenure as King of England.

If George III was not the iron hand behind the persecution of early American Christians, who was?

Europe had experienced many wars from the time of Constantine through the Reformation era on down to the time in which this generation of Christians lived who had settled in the American Colonies. Many of those wars had seen professing Christians fighting and killing one another. These people [Quakers and Anabaptists] wanted no part of killing anyone, but especially not their fellow Christians. This would be a betrayal to their Lord in their eyes. (emphasis mine throughout)

When the Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, many Americans were ready to stand up and fight for their freedoms. After all, they had been resisting British taxation and enforcement thereof for more than a decade. But not all Americans were in favor of war in order to solve their problems. In fact, there were some groups of devout Christians who would rather die than take the sword. In particular among these were the Quakers and those we know as the Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonites, Brethren, etc.). These Christians went against the grain of the dominant thinking patterns of their day. Moreover, they paid a high price for it. In the process of refusing to resist evil, these peace-loving Christians were met with severe persecution from their patriotic neighbors. In the process of defending what they believed were their freedoms by divine right, the Colonists, in their treatment of these Christians, tyrannically deprived their peaceful neighbors of some of those necessary freedoms in order to gain their own.6

The picture painted above is a near mirror image of the Christian Nationalist movement growing in America today. When debating them online, they have warned me on more than one occasion that I (a peace-loving Christian) am part of the problem and need to “get out of the way” if I am not willing to “man up” and defend my homeland. This is a delicate way of saying they are willing to force peaceful Christians “out of the way” when the war drums begin pounding on American soil once again.

It is quite clear when looking back at the historical record that the persecution taking place against Christians in the American colonies was not propagated by George III but was a result of the colonial settlers infighting amongst themselves. It would appear to be no different in the twenty- first century. Christians are willing to persecute other Christians if they don’t “get out of the way” or “man up” in an effort to prepare for a new American revolution.

To be clear, the early Christian settlers were being persecuted by other Christian settlers, and never were they persecuted under the direction of George III. That persecution would come later only as a result of money and taxation, not Christian doctrine. The Christian persecution taking place in the colonies was a homegrown grassroots conquest over who would be the more dominant party. One perfect illustration of this conflict can be found in the history of a group known as the Puritans.

Those in the Puritan sect were fiercely loyal to the crown of King Henry VIII, even centuries later. Their creation was a result of Henry VIII parting ways with the Catholic Church during the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. After the split from Rome, the English dynasty would possess total authority over religious affairs throughout Great Britain, dismissing the Pope’s long-standing reign over church doctrine. The Puritans would grow to be as harsh to
the dissenters of the Anglican Church as the Catholics were to the dissenters of Catholicism. There were many battles fought between those loyal to the Pope, and those loyal to the English crown.

As time passed, the Puritans enjoyed their progress by persecuting anyone (including other Christians)who did not pledge loyalty to their version of “the true church”. By the time leading up to the American Revolution, the Puritans had butchered their way into the thirteen colonies leaving countless maimed and dead bodies in their wake.

These Puritans were a very harsh people.Methods of persecution under their authority included public humiliation (in various forms), hanging by the neck, burning at the stake, hefty monetary fines, imprisonment, and selling the absent devotee into slavery. They would cut out pieces of a person’s tongue if they were found speaking against established doctrine. There are known cases of cutting off a person’s ears for not “hearing the gospel”. They would strip their woman naked and publicly beat and whip them bloody for talking back to their husbands. Above all, they were loyal to the crown dating back 250 years despite who was currently sitting on the throne. They were holding onto a belief established long before Charles II, George II, or George III had ever assumed power.

What these various groups (Quakers and Anabaptists) had in common was a firm belief that Jesus’s teachings on nonresistance were to be applied exactly as they were written. Jesus taught “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”3 They all believed that this teaching of Jesus did not merely apply to personal conflict but also applied to times of war. To these Christians, there was never an acceptable time to take the life of another human being on their part, even if the government ordered them to do it.

When these non-resistant Christians finally settled in the Thirteen Colonies, they lived in Pennsylvania. At a time when most of the Colonies followed the European pattern of having a state church, Pennsylvania was among those who did not officially have a state church, but allowed for a little more religious freedom than their Protestant neighbors in other Colonies.

King George III had allowed the Pennsylvania colony to continue as it was, just as Charles II had before him. So, these persecuted Christians were able to find a safe refuge from all of the European nations that had persecuted them since their founding. For once they had a land in which they could express their religious beliefs without fear of being hunted and/or executed by the government in the brutal fashion that they had been in Europe. The government of Pennsylvania itself was run by non-resistant Quakers, which helped the settlers to even more appreciate the freedoms they enjoyed. All of this, however, was going to change almost overnight.

While political squabbles between the non-resistant Quakers and the Protestants who were not opposed to war raged over the years prior to the American Revolution, each side maintained its particular religious beliefs, even if no compromise between the two sides was reached.15 Even if they did not agree with each other, they maintained enough civility not to go to war prior to the American Revolution. However, with the outbreak of the War, a political shift occurred in the government of Pennsylvania. A new revolutionary government composed of various types of Protestants rapidly took over Pennsylvania and established a host of new wartime laws which put all of the conscientious objectors in a very trying position, as it would be a fiery test for all of their dearly held religious convictions.⁶

Notice how the infighting among Christians was never a cause for independence from Britain. Notice also, that the conscientious objectors (pacifist Christians) such as the Anabaptists and Quakers were permitted by the kings of England to continue practicing their religion in solidarity without persecution. In fact, these English kings were primarily responsible for the allowance of their peaceful practice in Pennsylvania. Whether at home or abroad, the current king of England during the American Revolution (George III) was not responsible for the religious disputes taking place in the colonies. So, who amongst this generation were the true tyrants?

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5) Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, The Meeting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George III (University of Vergina, 2019), https://engagement.virginia.edu/ learn/2019/07/11/the-meeting-of-thomas-jeffersonjohn- adams-and-george-iii

6) Kevan D. Keane, Persecution of Christians During the American Revolution (Liberty University, 2015), https:// digitalcommons.liberty.edu/symp_grad/2015/A/5/; https:// digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1020&context=symp_grad

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And much, much more.

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