{"id":1898,"date":"2025-10-16T13:14:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/?post_type=furman-update&p=1898"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T15:43:09","slug":"lecture-summary-religion-in-america-the-bible-politics-and-the-city-on-a-hill","status":"publish","type":"furman-update","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/lectures\/lecture-summary-religion-in-america-the-bible-politics-and-the-city-on-a-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Lecture Summary, Religion in America: Mark Noll and Kaitlyn Schiess on the Bible, Politics, and the \u201cCity on a Hill\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch the recordings:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0“The Powers That Be Are Ordained by God: The Bible as a Weapon in the American Revolution” – October 7<\/a><\/p>\n

“A City on a Hill: The Bible and American Exceptionalism”- October 8<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt took a Frenchman to teach Americans what made them unique.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

With this remark, Director Brent Nelsen<\/strong> opened the second of two Tocqueville Center lectures on religion and the American founding. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across the United States to study its democratic experiment. What he found was not merely political institutions, but a society in which religion shaped civic imagination<\/strong>. Religion, he wrote, was \u201cthe first of their political institutions,\u201d not because church and state were entwined, but because religious conviction offered a moral grammar<\/strong> that made self-government possible.<\/p>\n

Today, that moral grammar is fraying. But biblical language remains a persistent, if often misunderstood, part of our public life. This October, the Tocqueville Center welcomed historian Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame)<\/strong> and political theologian Kaitlyn Schiess (Duke Divinity School)<\/strong> for two evenings examining how the Bible has shaped American political discourse\u2014from the Revolution to the present.<\/p>\n

Their lectures did not offer nostalgia for a \u201cChristian nation.\u201d Instead, they traced how Scripture has been used, contested, and reimagined<\/strong>, revealing the complex ways religion and democracy intertwine in the American story.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

Tocqueville\u2019s Question<\/h2>\n

In his opening remarks, Nelsen reminded the audience why Tocqueville remains such a fruitful lens. Tocqueville did not find a \u201cbiblical republic.\u201d Instead, he found that Americans argued politically within a shared moral horizon<\/strong>. People disagreed fiercely\u2014but they assumed a transcendent moral order existed and that Scripture, however variously interpreted, spoke to it. That assumption no longer holds in the same way.<\/p>\n

The Tocqueville Center\u2019s fall series is organized around this fact. What happens to democracy when its shared moral grammar weakens? What happens when biblical references remain, but their meanings fragment?<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/h2>\n

Night One: Mark Noll on the Bible in the American Revolution<\/h2>\n

On Tuesday, Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame)<\/strong> delivered a lecture titled \u201cThe Powers That Be Are Ordained by God: The Bible as Weapon in the American Revolution.\u201d<\/em> Noll, one of the nation\u2019s leading historians of religion, began with an unmistakable claim:<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s only a slight exaggeration to say that the Bible was everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From pulpits to pamphlets, Scripture saturated revolutionary America. Patriot and loyalist clergy alike framed their arguments with verses that audiences knew well. Patriots leaned on texts like Galatians 5:1 (\u201cFor freedom Christ has set us free\u201d) and the Exodus story as paradigms of liberation. Loyalists, in turn, cited Romans 13\u2014Paul\u2019s admonition to \u201cbe subject to the governing authorities\u201d\u2014as a divine prohibition against rebellion.<\/p>\n

The Bible\u2019s ubiquity<\/strong>, Noll emphasized, did not mean it offered clear political guidance. \u201cThe same text could be deployed to opposite ends,\u201d he noted. \u201cFor every Exodus sermon, there was a Romans 13 sermon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Paine famously invoked 1 Samuel 8 to denounce monarchy, portraying the demand for a king as a sin against God. Anglican clergy countered with Deuteronomy\u2019s prescriptions for kings, suggesting monarchy could be righteous. Both sides reached for the same book\u2014and found ammunition for their cause.<\/p>\n

Noll\u2019s core historical point cut through the noise:<\/p>\n

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\u201cSerious historical study does not justify describing the founding of the United States as distinctly, singularly, or unequivocally Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Revolution was steeped in Scripture but not governed by a single theological consensus<\/strong>. Biblical language functioned as a rhetorical and moral resource<\/strong>, not a blueprint. This reality complicates both secular and religious myths of the founding.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/h2>\n

Panel Response: Scripture as Common Vocabulary\u2014Then and Now<\/h2>\n

The evening\u2019s panel featured Kaitlyn Schiess (Duke Divinity School)<\/strong>, John Barrington (Furman University)<\/strong>, and Grant Wacker (Duke Divinity School)<\/strong>. Each highlighted different dimensions of Noll\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n