By desiring to extend the rights of conscience to non-Christians, DeYoung undermines the 1788 Synod’s reasoning for rejecting the protection of pluralism. The American Presbyterians of 1788 were no different from their forefathers of 1646 in embracing the magistrate’s duty to favor the Christian religion throughout the land. They knew that religious pluralism is harmful toward the nation and the church, and we also should affirm this teaching of the 1788 Confession.

In his recent Themelios article, Kevin DeYoung speaks of “several responses” to his earlier 2024 article, but he only alludes to them without citations or links. (Here is a prior article of mine that relates to the subject.) I intend this article to complement James Baird’s recent response to DeYoung, which I commend to readers.

DeYoung summarizes his argument in the article’s abstract: “My contention is that Reformed political thought has not been static, and, in fact, that American Presbyterianism saw itself as correcting elements of the earlier tradition.” The first sentence is accurate that “Reformed political thought has not been static,” particularly when one considers American Reformed political thought. However, the word in question in DeYoung’s argument is “correcting.” Did American Presbyterians think they were “correcting” earlier Reformed political theology? The better term here is “adapting,” as the American Presbyterians adapted the 1646 Westminster Confession to the American context. This avoids DeYoung’s conclusion that the 1788 Confession contradicts the 1646 Confession. There are at least two reasons why this is a better understanding of what happened in 1788.

First, the 1788 revisions to the Confession represent a consensus response to the American context, which included allegations that Presbyterians were seeking a national establishment.

American civil government was in flux at the time that the American revisions to the Westminster Confession were made in 1788. Many states had disestablished their churches or were in the process of doing so. There were American Presbyterians on both sides of the debates, such as the debate over whether Virginia in the 1780s should embrace complete disestablishment or move to a general establishment. The Hanover Presbytery initially supported Patrick Henry’s general establishment bill but then changed its position in support of disestablishment. South Carolina, a state that Presbyterians dominated, even enacted a general establishment from 1778 to 1790.

Things were changing, and American Presbyterians were not unified in their view of civil government’s relationship to Christianity. (Michael Lynch has noted that there was even disagreement among the seventeenth-century English and Scottish Presbyterians as to what constitutes in sacris, that is, in what “sacred matters” the magistrate may be involved.) American Presbyterians knew chapters 23 and 30 of the 1646 Confession were not suitable for the American context, so they did not require subscription to these chapters in the 1729 Adopting Act. But there was not much discussion as to what should replace those chapters. Even the 1788 Synod’s minutes regarding revisions do not provide much explanation as to the change. Notably, the colonial church in 1729 exempted themselves from the Confession’s chapters on the magistrate but made no corresponding exceptions in the larger catechism.

However, we do know one thing: American Presbyterians were concerned about the charge that they wanted to form a Presbyterian establishment. American Presbyterians knew such an establishment was not possible because of their minority status in every colony turned state, so they wrestled with their relation to civil government in early America. Yet there were numerous allegations that the American Presbyterians wanted to set up a form of establishment that was intolerant of other Protestant denominations. In April 1785, James Madison wrote that “all the Clergy” in Virginia were against Henry’s general establishment bill, “except the Presbyterian who seem as ready to set up the establishment, which is to take them in as they were to pull down that which shut them out. I do not know a more shameful contrast than might be formed between their Memorials on the latter & former occasion.”^[1]

Thomas Jefferson wrote in March 1820 that the Presbyterian clergy “are violent, ambitious of power, and intolerant in politics as in religion and want nothing but license from the laws to kindle again the fires of their leader John Knox, and to give us a 2d blast from his trumpet.”^[2] That was in response to the attacks from Presbyterians (such as Rev. John Holt Rice) on Thomas Cooper (1759–1839), the rationalist who had been elected as president of the University of Virginia. Cooper resigned because of the attacks, and he later became president of the College of South Carolina. Yet in 1834, Cooper wrote of the Presbyterians: “Yet these are the men who constitute the most numerous, the most wealthy, the most arrogant class of priests in these United States…whose known and avowed design it is to make Presbyterianism the religion of this country by law established—to make themselves independent of their congregations—and to erect a church paid by TYTHES, exacted from the people!”^[3]

Jefferson’s and Cooper’s allegations came well after 1788, showing the Presbyterian Church was unable to shed the accusations of desiring an establishment. However, Madison’s allegations show that the same criticism was around in 1785, prior to the 1788 revisions. Such criticisms were known to the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, which in 1783 issued a statement to calm the fears of Christians from other denominations:

“It having been represented to Synod, that the Presbyterian Church suffers greatly, in the opinion of other denominations, from an apprehension, that they hold intolerant principles. —The Synod do solemnly & publicly declare, that they ever have, & still do renounce and abhor the principles of intolerance; & we do believe that every peaceable member of civil society ought to be protected in the full & free exercise of their religion.”^[4]

The Synod in 1783 wanted to counter the allegations from other denominations that Presbyterians were “intolerant” of other Protestants. This provides the background to the 1788 changes. DeYoung even quoted Ashbel Green regarding this very concern, as Green said in response to the 1788 revisions, “You see, then, how unfounded and senseless has been the cry, that the Presbyterian Church has been seeking governmental patronage. This can never be done, but in open violation of an established principle of the standards of that Church.”^[5]

The allegations of “intolerance” and “government patronage” imply that some American Presbyterians were seeking to establish the Presbyterian Church, or at least that is how other Protestants were perceiving things. This might have been exaggerated, but there was surely a basis to such a claim because of the 1646 Westminster Confession, the history of Scotland, and the existence of Covenanters in America (who were not part of the mainline American Presbyterian Church).

The 1788 revisions did away with a hard establishment of the Presbyterian Church in the American context. However, this did not change the magistrate’s relationship to the Christian religion. This is seen in that the same Ashbel Green just five years later in 1793 signed a letter with other ministers that petitioned the Pennsylvania legislature for “the suppression of vice and immorality,” calling for “some effectual provision for the orderly and religious observation of the Lord’s day; for the prevention and punishment of the profanation of the name of God, and every species of impious imprecation.” Green rejected “governmental patronage” for the Presbyterian Church, but he still called for the magistrate to punish Sabbath-breaking and blasphemy. This is consistent with the views of John Witherspoon. And it supports the conclusion that 1788 revisions were an adaptation of the 1646 Confession for the American context. The changes were pragmatic and allowed flexibility for the various practices of the states at the time (some of which still had establishments).

Second, the American Presbyterians left almost the entire Westminster Larger Catechism intact, which is evidence of adaptation and not a “correction” of the Standards.

This is a major problem for DeYoung’s thesis. It is certainly true that the American Presbyterian Church sought to remove some of the 1646 Confession’s teaching, such as that the magistrate may call synods. However, the Westminster Larger Catechism (1647) is a detailed system of theology. If one were to seek to make a major “correction” to the Standards, then the Larger Catechism should have been revised and not just the Confession. Therefore, if DeYoung is correct that the American Presbyterians intended to “correct” the Standards on politics and the duties of the magistrate, then we would expect to see significant changes to the Larger Catechism. But since the Larger Catechism was not significantly changed, DeYoung’s conclusion is incorrect.

As it stands, the Synod in 1788 left the Shorter Catechism untouched and only removed one clause in the entire Larger Catechism—the sin of “tolerating a false religion” under the Second Commandment (WLC 109). DeYoung cited Ashbel Green’s recounting of this one change to the 1788 Larger Catechism, as Green explained how Rev. Jacob Ker called attention to WLC 109 and the sin of “tolerating a false religion.” Green noted that Ker’s motion was carried “without debate,” and prior to Ker’s motion, “the members of the adopting Synod were just going to take the final vote on the catechisms of the Church, without alteration.”^[6]

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