A War of Religion: Dissenters, Anglicans, and the American Revolution (review)

This work is divided into two parts: “A Century of Controversies” and “A New Controversy: The Political Sentiments of the Clergymen.” It is argued that a series of disputes (primarily in New England), the activities of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), and clerical petitions for a colonial bishop collectively provided a cause for the American Revolution. Jonathan Mayhew of Boston in the 1760s crystallized these issues into an effective argument against the procurement of a bishop for America. John and Samuel Adams focused on the role of Parliament in church affairs, uniting ecclesiastical and political issues into an attack on British imperial policy. The Englishness of the Church of England in America symbolized a cause for the revolution and became a victim of it.

The forceful placing of King’s Chapel in Boston initiated the controversies between Dissenters and Anglicans between 1686 and 1783. Increase and Cotton Mather saw it as an attempt to undermine the Puritan church, and a conspiracy theory was born. The appearance of SPG missionaries in every mainland colony except Virginia and Maryland alarmed Quakers and Presbyterians. John Checkley’s advocacy of divine-right episcopacy challenged the Congregationalists’ doctrine of ministry. A defection of several Congregationalists at Yale to the Church of England in 1722 was a shocking event. The effort of Thomas Sherlock, bishop of London, to secure a “primitive” bishop for America exacerbated tensions. The elevation of Thomas Secker to Canterbury in 1758 renewed hope for an American episcopate but instead led to an intense controversy in the 1760s. After Secker’s death in 1768, the new archbishop and bishop of London did not revive the subject.

John Adams in “Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” (1765) and Samuel Adams’s “Puritan Letters” (1768) questioned whether Christianity could exist without an uninterrupted succession of bishops. In the English system the crown selected bishops and parliament created dioceses and provided funds. This combination of ecclesiastical and political authority threatened the colonists’ religious and civil liberties. The author asserts that the episcopal controversy attracted little interest outside of New England (p. 107), although subsequently 311 Anglican ministers in America were forced to respond to the revolution. The former debate over ministry, SPG, and bishops became personal. Thomas B. Chandler, Charles Inglis, and Samuel Seabury became outspoken Loyalists, but others kept silent, retired, or fled. Noted patriots were Henry M. Muhlenberg, James Madison, William White, and Samuel Provoost. An appendix (pp. 222–45) identifies the political sentiments of the Anglican clergy between January 1, 1775, and December 31, 1783.

The study’s focus on the Church of England in New England unfortunately discounts the importance of the church in the southern colonies, where the vast majority of its clergy and constituents were located. Even in New England, the church laity passively resisted the idea of a resident bishop. The Pennsylvania and Maryland Anglican proprietors saw no need for a bishop. Virginia Anglicans were well aware of events to the north and dramatically protested a petition for a colonial bishop in the 1770s. In the Carolina church establishments, local rule prevailed. While the episcopal controversy of the 1760s and 1770s did generate opposition to the English ecclesiastical-political system, the likelihood of a government-imposed episcopate had passed. In the showdown with Great Britain, Anglicans and Dissenters defended their religious and civil liberties.