Have you ever heard of the Black Robe Regiment? I haven't either, but when you hear what the Black Robe Regiment meant to America 250 years ago compared to what we're working with today, it makes sense why we're not where we need to be.
Welcome to Politics by Faith. It's where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. New headlines every day. Ecclesiastes says, not the new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day. Today, the Black Robe Regiment.
You've heard of this? I've never heard of this group until, I'll be honest, this morning. This is the name that the British gave the American clergy, or I should say the clergy colonist clergy, the clergy in the colonies who preached the gospel from the pulpit firing brimstone for 150 years prior to the revolution, the black robe regiment. We talked to Seth Gruber on my recorded TV show. We're going to air that podcast or release that podcast here, I think on Friday. and he said it just in passing.
John Adams said that the pulpits thundered and he specifically identified Christian pastors. as being among the characters most conspicuous, the most ardent, the most influential in the awakening and revival of American principles and feelings that led to the American Revolution. There was a British magazine that said if Christian ministers had not preached and prayed, there might have been no revolution as yet, or had it broken out, it might have been crushed. There's a British historian who said the ministers of the revolution were like their Puritan predecessors, bold and fearless in the cause of their country. And that also says everything we talk about in this show, it comes up often, I should say, not just our founding fathers, but our founding grandfathers. The founding grandfathers were the Puritan predecessors, and now we have the preachers during the revolution as well.
This British magazine says, the British historian said, no class of men contributed more to carry forward the revolution and to achieve our independence than did the ministers. Ready for the story about Paul Revere? Paul Revere goes off for his ride. One if I land, two if I see. Where did he go? He went to the home of Reverend Clark in Lexington.
That's where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were. Everyone talks, at least when you go to Boston, you go to Leicester, they talk about how Paul Revere went to go see John Hancock and Sam Adams, but whose house were they at? They were with Reverend Clark. Clark and Hancock and Adams, I should say, Hancock and Adams turned to Clark and asked if the people were ready to fight. And the Reverend Clark's response was, I have trained them for this very hour. So they all went to the town green and Let me quote here from Joel Headley.
He says, there they found their pastor, Reverend Clark, who arrived before them. The roll was called and 150 answered to their names. The church, the pastor, and his congregation stand together in the dim light awaiting the Redcoats, the seven colonists who died on the Lexington Green, all members of his church. I'll give you another one. Part of the black regiment, the black robe regiment. Reverend Nepthali Daggett.
You ever heard that name? Feel like I would have heard that name if I wouldn't forget it. Reverend Nepthali Daggett. He was the president of Yale University in 1776. That's my mater. the name Naphtali Daggett.
When the British attacked New Haven, he fought back. He was on the top of this hill firing shots down on the British. The British captured him and bayoneted him to death. And was it just him in New Haven? Reverend James Caldwell did the same thing in New Jersey, and the British burned his church. His family was murdered.
The British soldiers, they abused, killed, tortured, imprisoned clergymen across the country, and they suffered harsher treatment, more severe penalties. The British targeted the ministers, also their churches. There were 19 church buildings in New York City. 10 were destroyed by the British. From the very beginning, the British knew they had to take down the church in America. republished in 1772.
Again, it's been called The Textbook of Our Founding Fathers. I'll share that in just a minute, but I just want to share the Black Robe Regiment and who these guys were and what they preached and how hard they fought physically and spiritually for the revolution. And I want to compare that just for the sake of comparison to James Tallarico. James Tallarico, when he was a state assemblyman in Texas, he's now running for Senate in Texas. This is the best Christian that the Democrats could find in Texas to run for the Democratic Party. Listen to this guy.
The house and gallery will please rise for an invocation which will be offered by the Honorable James Tallarico of Williamson County. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let us pray. Holy mystery, you have so many names. The Torah calls you creator. The Quran calls you peace.
The Gita calls you destroyer. The Dharma calls you truth. And the first epistle of John calls you perhaps the most beautiful name of all, love. You are the strange love uniting all things. The love that drew elements together after that big bang. The love that drew life itself from those primordial oceans.
the love that drew us all to this exact moment, the love we were born of, the love we exist in, and the love we will one day return to. In my faith, you expressed yourself through a barefoot rabbi who embodied your perfect love, a crucified carpenter who gave only two commandments, love God and love neighbor, because there is no love of God without love of neighbor. Help us love not just in word, but in action. Help us honor not just the name of Jesus, but the way, of Jesus. Help us free the oppressed, feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, release the prisoner, welcome the stranger, forgive the enemy, and above all, protect your creation. The word of God is love.
Let us not be hearers of your word, but doers of your word in our families, in our communities, and in this chamber. Not just with prayers, but with policies. Not just personal love, but political love. Because democracy is not just a constitution. Democracy is a covenant. Holy mystery, open our minds, open our hearts, open our hands so that we may build a new world in the shell of the old, a world that is more just, more free.
more whole, and more in love with you. In all your many names, we pray. Amen. Every time I hear that, I hear something new, more blasphemy. Did he say release the prisoner? That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible does not say we need to release the prisoners. Let's compare that with the opening prayer of the Constitutional Convention in 1774, which was led by just the local guy. It wasn't like the most renowned pastor in Philadelphia. It was like, hey, let's find a guy to do it. Oh, Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers of earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires, and governments. Look down in mercy, we beseech thee.
On these are American states who have fled to you from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on you. Oh, how we have fallen from Reverend Duchesne to Tallarico. I mentioned a second ago this pamphlet that was published in 1710. It was by Reverend Wise. So there was a proposal in 1705 to centralize the power of churches across New England. And Reverend Wise was very much against this concentration of authority.
So he wrote this pamphlet called The Church's Quarrel Espoused, 1710. It was republished in 1772 and became alive again because the topic wasn't as relevant anymore specifically because it was published dealing with something that happened 70 years earlier. But the themes, were then reapplied to the revolution itself with government. So where the pamphlet was about against a concentration of church authority in New England, the colonists took the same themes and applied them politically. They were against a political consolidation of power in England against the colonies.
And it's full of amazing quotes like, churches and governing our own government, not needing a king. And it's up to us. Furnish your churches with ruling elders. He said, take charge yourself for yourself, for your community, for your church, for your own governments. I want to jump over to the Bible again, but again, just to drive that point home, started off as this church document, which was then republished in 1772. Again, written by this reverend, Reverend Wise, and thought of again in a more secular way for the revolution itself.
The Black Robe Brigade was incredibly powerful or influential, I should say. Let's wrap up with a Bible story here. I'm reading about all this. I'm learning about this Black Robe Brigade that I've never heard before. And somewhere along my reading, I came across, or I'm reminded of, Luke 16, the parable in Luke 16, the dishonest steward. This is a potentially tricky one.
At first glance, you read it and you're like, I don't get it. Why? Why is Jesus praising? I don't, it's hard to understand the motivations of this, but here's what happened. Luke 16 verse one. So this is Jesus talking.
He tells a story. There was a certain rich man who had a steward and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods or even embezzling the money. So he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship for you can no longer be steward. He was going to get fired. Then
Then the steward said within himself, what shall I do? For my master has taken away my stewardship away from me. I'm going to lose my job. I cannot dig. I'm ashamed to beg. There's nothing else I can do. I'm going to get fired.
What do I do? I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. Who? So he called on every one of his master's debtors to him. and said to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, 100 measures of oil.
So he said to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. So you don't owe Hunter anymore, you now owe 50. Then he said to the other, and how much do you owe? So he said, 100 measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80. So now you owe less.
So the master, right, so he went to all these guys and say, you think you owe this much? Well, congratulations, you owe now half as much. So he kept doing this. The master then commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. What? He stole from him more.
But here's what Jesus said of this parable. For the sons of the world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. Well, that's confusing. So the, the, the master is going to fire this manager of the money and the manager then steals more from him. He went to all the people who owed money and gave him a deal. Why did he do this?
Well, he knew he was going to get fired. And he knew that when he got fired, he was going to need some friends. But why would the master praise that? The master praised it not because he was doing the right thing, but because he was shrewd. We've done this before. You ever come across someone or maybe one of your kids doing something wrong or sneaky, or they do something at school that they're not supposed to, they break the rules somehow.
but they're clever about it. Here's kind of a silly example. Grace at school, the math question, one of the questions was like, and how did you solve this problem? It was a word problem and in the end it was like, how'd you solve it? And she said, I used my brain or something. And you're like, that's not the right answer.
But also you're like, no, pretty good, pretty clever. That's good. So if ever someone does something wrong, but they're clever about it, you're like, nah, well played. Well played. You admire the ingenuity of their thievery. You don't approve of their conduct, but you admire their shrewdness.
The illustration here that Jesus was using is that we, the sons of light, need to be as shrewd for good as the sons of evil are for the world. David Guzik, he said, if we pursued the kingdom of God with the same vigor and zeal that the children of this world pursue profits and pleasure, we would live in an entirely different world. The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And we shouldn't be like that anymore. We need to be more shrewd ourselves. We need to have more zeal, more passion.
Alexander McLaren, a Bible scholar in the early 1900s, he said, go to the men of the world, thou Christian, and do not let it be said. that the devil's scholars are more studious and earnest than Christ's disciples. " Gosh, I love that quote so much. Go to the men of this world, Christian, and do not let it be said that the devil's scholars are more studious and earnest than Christ's disciples. The pastors of the revolution and prior who set the foundation of this country, the spiritual and cultural foundations of this country, which we still benefit from today, they were zealous and they were brave and they were skilled and they were studious and they were spiritual and they were impressive men.
We today, sons of the light, should be too. And we do it the same way they did, prepare every day, read the word, pray to God. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith just wanted to present to you something new to me, the Black Robe Brigade. youtube . com slash at politics by faith spread the word