Welcome back.
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Well, before the break
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we were going
through the century.
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Right.
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We're talking about 500
Years of Protest and Liberty,
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Liberty500.com, and
we're in the 18th century.
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You're picking like a marketer.
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Well...
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But what we need to talk about
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because it's a big
part of this period,
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it's the First Great Awakening.
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And I really believe
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when you talk
about religion in the US,
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the First and the
Second Great Awakenings
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are the linchpins to
just about everything else.
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They create a sense of
national identity really.
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Before the First Great Awakening
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there were a series
of discrete colonies
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along the Eastern seaboard
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where you have,
"Hey, there who is..."
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Some of the big names
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Jonathan Edwards in New England,
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Whitfield.
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Whitfield certainly.
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George Whitfield
who comes to England.
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He was English,
but he spent so long
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that he was in
pretty much any community
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had heard him
one way or another.
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He's the first
American celebrity, really.
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He's recognizable and travels
to almost all the colonies,
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he's promoted by
Benjamin Franklin,
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he spends a significant
time in Philadelphia.
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He creates a sense that
there is an American identity.
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We're involved in
this revival together
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and there's a
tremendous religious outbreak
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which historians have argued
create a sense of identity
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that is
important then to Americans
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being willing to
two or three decades
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later fighting the revolution.
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I don't know that I
could sustain this comment,
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but I picked up a
comment by one historian
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that part of his
success is he didn't deal
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with doctrinal particulars.
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It was sort of like the
popular preachers of today,
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a general
appeal, the spirituality,
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and a vision of
what it meant to be...
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Well, he was quite a committed
Calvinist interestingly enough.
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He and Wesley fought
over the doctrines of election
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and predestination.
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Wesley being
believer in human freewill
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of some kind anyway and
it's interesting to note
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that Whitfield was
actually a supporter of slavery,
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did you know that?
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No, I didn't know that.
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He helped bring
slavery to Georgia.
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Now the reason I make this point
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is not to impugn Whitfield
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but to underscore the fact
that the First Great Awakening
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brought spiritual revival
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and a national sense of identity
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but it didn't
create much social change.
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There wasn't a sense
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that people should
try to better themselves,
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or change society, free slaves,
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or give women the vote
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and it stands in
contrast to something
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we'll talk about the
Second Great Awakening
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later on which is a
freewill orientation.
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So we have the
irony of this country
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that seeking its
political freedom,
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and is talking about
freedom in rather dramatic ways
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in the
Declaration of Independence,
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creating a Bill of Rights.
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You even said a
loaded word there.
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Was this country
seeking its political freedom?
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I don't think so.
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Well, you know,
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I mean, I think the
Declaration of Independence
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sets out to that, right.
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Ah, politically
but there's a big story
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where the Boston group
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really polarized the situation
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and redirected
some of the sentiments,
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this is what I think.
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There was a scent
more of a sense of self
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that was developing
in these colonies...
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Yes.
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Rather than just Englishmen
or a few others sitting
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on the shores
and religion opened
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their horizons I think.
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But I don't think
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it immediately expressed itself
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as they wanted to separate.
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I've read one book...
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Oh, no, I agree. I agree.
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It's probably true that
this religious sentiment
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sort of fortified
them to see the king
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as the antichrist,
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they've even called Him
that and the ruler of Babylon.
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So there was spiritual justice
on this side but I really,
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in all my
reading I failed to find
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this was a part of land bubbling
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with discontent
against England at that time.
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Well, no, it's a
few decades later
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after the First Great Awakening.
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But even when it came it
was a few of the merchants
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in New York and
Boston that had an issue,
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but they polarized the situation
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and then capitalized on
this independence spirit.
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Now that sounds like the
interpretation of someone
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who was born and raised,
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and part in the common
wealth in the British Empire.
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Guilty. Admit,
you're an Australian.
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Guilty.
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I think that from a,
and I have to confess,
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I was born in England.
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No, I've read a few
historians that have said this,
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it's not just about it.
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I was born in England myself
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but raised in the United States.
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And I do think that
it would have been hard
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just to engineer revolution
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without some
widespread sense of discontent.
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And of course,
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this was focused initially
in the New England colonies
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but certainly
the Virginia Planters
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had their own issues
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with England
commercially and otherwise.
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And I do want to say,
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I don't think it
was all just pragmatic.
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In fact, I discussed in my
book the desire of the British
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to send over Anglican
bishop to the American colonies,
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you know, if you
know what that means,
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to us it sounds like,
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"Wow, why would you
want a church leader there?"
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But in England...
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Binding the territory.
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If you were an Anglican bishop,
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you actually had
civil authorities.
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And Americans didn't want
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this combination
of church and state
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and so John
Witherspoon who was a clergyman,
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he was president
of the University
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of New Jersey
which became Princeton,
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he preaches a sermon
where he says, "The British,
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if they do this
Anglican bishop thing,
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they're gonna be taking
away our religious freedoms."
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And because of that he
viewed the American Revolution
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as a fight on behalf
of religious liberty.
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And therefore
justified his involvement
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as a clergyman
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because it was a
religious liberty battle.
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There is no question that the,
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as we call it
the Episcopal Church
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played a bad
role in the build up
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and in the promulgation
of the order of independence.
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So that's why they...
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But you keep saying Episcopal
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but really it's
the Anglican Church,
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the Episcopal Church
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is what the new
church in America
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is called after the revolution.
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That's what I'm
saying. Okay. Oh, I see.
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That's the whole reason
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it's called
Episcopal in there now.
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Okay. I understood.
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They ruined it
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for themselves forever and ever.
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All right, right, right.
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It was not
acceptable to be called
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the Church of England, you know.
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Right, you had to be
calling the Episcopal Church.
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Because, yes,
there were an offense
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because there was
religious divergence
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within the colonies,
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we've discussed how
the Puritans came across,
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they didn't like the
Church of England, the Anglican.
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And then the war of independence
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set them on the wrong side
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and the Church
of England leaders
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actually openly came out
against the revolutionaries.
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Yes, that's right.
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So they lost
out every which way.
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Yeah.
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And perhaps, it just hit me now.
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Perhaps more than anything
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that may have led the groundwork
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then for pure
separation of church and state
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because they
didn't want those guys
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in the game anymore.
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Well, that was
certainly part of it.
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And so you had some people
viewing the Revolutionary War
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as a war of independence,
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but it does raise the question
and I think it's important
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when a book that
talking about freedom,
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we also talk about
the lack of freedom.
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And there was
slavery in our country,
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and it was a great
stain on our country,
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and the effects of it continue
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to be a great
stain on our country.
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The question is how could people
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so articulate about
freedom and independence
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be so oppressive
to an entire race
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in their midst?
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It's almost without answer.
It is almost without answer.
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Given that
already I think in England
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there was a turning
against the whole principle
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and well before the Civil
War England had outlawed...
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There were some
religious individuals
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who believed
strongly in religious freedom,
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"The Quakers," for
instance who were among
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the first advocates
for freedom of opposition
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to slavery.
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But also John
Wesley, he was a Methodist,
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he believed in freewill,
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he believed in the
moral government of God,
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and he opposed
slavery on those grounds.
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An early American
Methodist opposed slavery.
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Now after a few decades
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especially as they
tried to evangelize
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in the South,
many of them gave up
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that principle
and supported slavery,
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but many of them never lost
this initial opposition to it.
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And I think that's
the redeeming element
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of this whole story on slavery
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that the many of
the abolitionists
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were deeply spiritual people.
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There was a connection
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between religious
sentiment and evolution.
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Well, and I think
that's where I'm wanting to go
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with this that the human dignity
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that supported religious freedom
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eventually also expressed itself
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in supporting freedoms for
other categories of people.
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This is the angel
of our better nature
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to quote Abraham Lincoln.
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Coming out,
coming out. Yes, indeed.
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Now it's an interesting story
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so if we reach the
end of the century?
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Well, we come to the
end of the 18th century.
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The First Amendment
is framed by Madison.
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We should note that
the First Amendment,
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while it protects the
free exercise of religion,
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and it very unusual
language prohibiting laws,
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respecting an
establishment of religion.
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So we often think of
the Establishment Clause
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is separating church and state,
00:09:36.50\00:09:38.04
but really it says,
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"You can't make laws respecting
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the separation of
church and state."
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Because it was designed,
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some states still had
church state combination.
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I've never
thought of it that way.
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I just say that it
means, it was hands off,
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the federal government
was not to have anything to do
00:09:52.89\00:09:54.72
with legally with religion.
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That the federal
government wasn't,
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but it allowed
the state governments
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to establish religion.
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But we know
that was the reality.
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Right.
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And until after the Civil War,
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I'm sure,
you'll tell that story.
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And when we go
into the 19th century,
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we'll talk about
how that changed.
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Yeah.
00:10:08.77\00:10:10.11
So as we end this century,
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slavery is in place.
00:10:15.38\00:10:16.78
Yes.
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There is some
religious sentiment against it
00:10:18.18\00:10:19.51
but nothing yet has been done.
00:10:19.55\00:10:21.95
The idea of freedom is
fully developing around.
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The principle of freedom
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is put in the
federal constitution,
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it's found in more than
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half of the state constitutions.
00:10:29.42\00:10:31.39
But there are several states
that still have establishments.
00:10:31.43\00:10:34.20
And we need to talk
about that again later.
00:10:34.23\00:10:37.20
The First Great Awakening
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in the 1740s is an event
00:10:39.90\00:10:43.74
that has great
spiritual significance
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for American society.
00:10:46.27\00:10:48.94
But many people
don't quite realize
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or are mystified to hear
00:10:52.01\00:10:53.78
discussions of religious liberty
00:10:53.82\00:10:55.28
that mix in groups or
people like John Locke
00:10:55.32\00:10:58.92
and the enlightenment thinkers
00:10:58.95\00:11:01.29
who may not have narrowly spoken
00:11:01.32\00:11:02.92
about religion.
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The great reality is when
we talk about religious liberty
00:11:04.66\00:11:07.93
in the United States today,
00:11:07.96\00:11:09.66
it has, yes, a
constitutional background,
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it has, yes, many
antecedents in history.
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And, of course,
00:11:16.44\00:11:17.77
the great antecedent
that we're remembering
00:11:17.81\00:11:19.54
in these present
programs 500 years ago
00:11:19.57\00:11:23.01
Martin Luther and of course,
00:11:23.04\00:11:24.38
many other reformers
all throughout Europe
00:11:24.41\00:11:26.75
reawaken spiritual fervor
00:11:26.78\00:11:29.22
and in so doing reemphasized
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the biblical
principle of the autonomy
00:11:32.99\00:11:35.69
of the individual before God.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:38.53\00:11:41.60