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More explicitly religious motives also contributed to Congregational Loyalism. The Reverend Eli Forbes of Brookfield, Massachusetts, thought that Christians, and particularly Christian ministers, should simply not be a part of a movement engendering strife and discord. He wrote with reference to the political strife that the good Christian "will form no party schemes, or list under dividing names. … All such party attachments discover a carnal mind, and the want of the true spirit of Christianity. Nor will the good Christian be discontented with the post in which the supreme Lord has fixed him, and break from his sphere like an eccentric body, to the disturbing or, indangering the whole system" (Some Short Account). Forbes was harassed by the patriots, who on one occasion hurled rocks at him and his wife and who later forced him to abandon his Brookfield pastorate.

In sum, Christian Loyalism during the Revolution had many components. Christians who chose to resist the patriotic tide did so as much for political, social, and cultural reasons as for explicitly religious ones. Yet finer and higher motives also moved some of the Loyalists. Whatever one may say of their politics, persons like Moses Dunbar, J. J. Zubly, and Eli Forbes maintained Christian convictions of high integrity, often in the face of sharpest public hostility. Their Loyalism must not be neglected by modern Christians who desire a fuller understanding of the event whose bicentennial we are celebrating.

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Mark Noll also answered a question about whether the Revolutionary War was justified.

More articles on U.S. history are available on our site. Articles about Independence Day include:

Is Patriotism Dead? | The day that patriotism ceases, that day we will have ceased to be a people. A Christianity Today editorial (July 1, 2001)

What Jonathan Edwards Can Teach Us About Politics | Before Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson, another preacher ventured into the public square. (July 1, 2001)

Watching My Daughter 'Defect' | Part of being a good Christian is being a good citizen (July 1, 2001)

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July (Web-Only) 2008, Vol. 52