American Revolution and the Church 

I remember looking at the American Revolutionary war through the teachings of scripture and coming to the conclusion that it cannot be supported theologically. I have often wondered if the founding fathers knew that and that is the reason that religious language is largely missing from the declarations that follow.

Concerning Paul's context of writing Romans 13 and Emperor Nero. Nero's prersecution of Christians did not start untill after the fires in Rome, while Romans was written before that. Tyranicide, the act of killing a tyrant, is a discussion the Church has had for a long time. It goes against the idea of Divine Right of Kings, but many argued it did not go against Romans 13 as Romans 13 was for how Christians generally should approche the authorities, but that there were exceptions when Christians could kill and depose the ruler if he was acting tyrannical. Thomas Aquinas and even Luther himself argued that deposing a tyrant may be just. Aquinas follows Just Law theory that it should be a last resort and such. Luther argues the same that preventing the Emperor from killing unjustly is no different than preventing a theif from doing the same. When the Emperor engages in unjust killing and acts, he has then abandoned his duty as Emperor and forcefull resistance may be allowed. Whether the British Empire had done such tyrannical things as to allow resistance is another question

at 16:50 there is a glitch right after as a resulllllllt

im jewish and not religious at all. But i really like your docs. Very interesting thxs

The Quebec act of 1774 does a lot more then you mention and also you do not seem to really recognize(but are certainly aware) how odd it is that the British Parliament tied as it was(and is) to the Church of England would make such overtures to the Roman Catholics. You have previously mentioned the recusant Catholics being granted the colony of Maryland and yet this isn't really a peace offering to the English recusant Catholics from years before but to French Catholics and other nationality Catholics to come and rejoice in the new world so close to the protestant Christian colonies. Why would they do this goes a little deeper then simply pressuring the colonies. I think a study of the 1763 Treaty of Paris is where I would begin to find some answers. Discussion of the Revolutionary war often begins with the Seven Years War or as we knew it in the colonies of the day the French and Indian war. So where in this does the Church and the American Revolution reside in history? Most people assume the conflict of the French and Indian war was just a conflict between France and England. This is where these two empires fought in North America but every Major European nation was involved in the Seven Years War with the exception of the Ottoman Empire. So France and England were the major powers going head to head but other nations and powers lined up on either side. So what does this tell us about the Church of this time and what were the colonial Americans thinking at this time. They are British subjects and yet not part of the Church of England. After so many years of disagreement about so many different things within religious understanding of scripture or how to practice faith in God it is seemingly odd that now people of different faiths rise and stand together in the face of oppression where as previously it was people of like mind to join together

Dr. Reeves, Interesting lecture, but I found myself scratching my head a bit when you discussed the Boston Tea Party. In your preamble to the discussion you did say, "American people *believed*" certain things about the nature of the tea to be delivered to Boston, but you intimated the belief was that the tea was to be sold at inflated price without clarifying that the tea was actually to be sold at reduced price. Certainly a corollary objective was to make the colonists more dependent upon the government-sanctioned East India Company, which counted the creme de la creme of British aristocracy among its shareholders, but the central objective was to undercut smuggled tea, which constituted the bulk of tea consumed in the Colonies. The longer-term objective was to weaken smuggling in general, which posed a real threat to sovereignty. Few of your listeners, I wager, would be aware of this; if I were giving the lecture I'd probably rework a bit. I pretty much stopped listening after you said, "So all these documents, and in particular the Constitution, restrain references to God to simply a bare acknowledgement of the existence of God or of his loving kindness and care over the nation...There is a god, of course, they do make mention of him." Well, perhaps in debate or in 'supporting documents', but you mention the Constitution several times and 'supporting documents' only once, so that you appear to be saying the Constitution references God, which of course it does not, and not even obliquely, using the usual code words of the time. I have to believe you are not unaware of this, but again, the wording of the lecture is at best misleading. Perhaps all of your students are constitutional scholars and they don't need help understanding. Perhaps you require your students to read the Constitution before your lecture. I enjoyed your lectures on Puritanism, but in light of omissions (errors?) in this lecture on the American Revolution and the Church, I find myself needing to research further before I accept your analysis of the evolution of English Reformed thought in the 17th century.

Manly: stand on your own two feet, stop whining and ignore feelings. Feminine: let's get together and care for each other, complain and focus on feelings. Either in extreme is bad, but you can certainly see what is manly and feminine. I think you ignore hard wired human nature in your abeyance to modern sensibilities. Otherwise, another excellent lecture.

Your understanding of the non-establishment clause is flawed. Separation of Church and State is an extra constitutional concept

There is no such thing as an atheist or Deist who uses Biblical inspiration to make a case .... for anything. Paine and even Jefferson may not have been overtly affiliated with one denomination over another out of a primary goal to knit a nation, but The Bible itself tells us God intervenes in the Created Order from time to time. You have made that very case in other superior videos. The primary text for the Founders was the Bible; not the Quran (and we have Jefferson's), the history of Roman government, the writings of Confucius, Aristotle or Hindu or Buddhist Dogma. This makes them Christian. There is no total separation of the moral and secular aspects of life. An atheist can not be a Christian and a Deist can not be a Christian.