Our Protestant forefathers in the British North American colonies—later, the United States, as we will soon celebrate—established the Christian Sabbath as one of the pillars of their new societies. They brought the Sabbath with them from England and Scotland. While the day’s observance varied widely—particularly in the South where Sabbath-keeping was never as rigorous as in Congregationalist New England—its existence in culture and law, nevertheless, remained significant.

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is attempting to address in its Ad-Interim Committee on Christian Nationalism, the phenomenon of what the late minister-author Dr. Voddie Baucham referred to as “White Christian Nationalism,” doing so under the abbreviated, better known term of “Christian Nationalism” (CN). Baucham dealt with this movement and in one of his many books wrote of the dangers the social justice movement—of which CN is a part—holds for faithful Christian churches.

CN is not a good term to use for those who appreciate an imperfect but generally liberty-promoting, merit-based, advanced Western Civilization. Christendom is a better term, with historic roots and without the cultural baggage of CN. But that train left the station some time ago and we appear to be stuck with CN.

Baucham famously called the brilliant moniker of White Christian Nationalism a “triple-word-score” on the part of those seeking to degrade Western Civilization and its Christian foundations. He wanted us to know and remember that the term CN, or White CN, was the invention of those opposed to traditional Christian influence and standards in the West and particularly in these United States.

The partial report of last year’s PCA General Assembly-directed Ad-Interim Committee on CN has been released. Its tempered, thoughtful approach certainly is commendable and important in today’s culture of arrogance, ignorance, and rage. There are, however, several sections that arguably deserve a closer look and careful definition of terms employed (as when suggesting that civil magistrates ought not merely protect, but promote “the free exercise of all religions”) [emphasis added].[1] Perhaps the committee will be granted another year to work things out, which will be decided next week at General Assembly.

Perusing the partial report, however, leads me to conclude that many, perhaps the majority, of mainline Protestants 200 years ago who contended for the Christian Sabbath—and there were many—might well, in today’s cultural climate, be considered Christian Nationalists.

Our Protestant forefathers in the British North American colonies—later, the United States, as we will soon celebrate—established the Christian Sabbath as one of the pillars of their new societies. They brought the Sabbath with them from England and Scotland. While the day’s observance varied widely—particularly in the South where Sabbath-keeping was never as rigorous as in Congregationalist New England—its existence in culture and law, nevertheless, remained significant. Virtually every colony of the future United States and every State up to at least the 1830s enacted Sabbath or Lord’s Day statutes. Countless communities did so as well.

For many church leaders and Christians in the early national period, Sabbath laws and the broadly recognized respect for the first day of the week—even by many non-church goers who recognized the social and economic benefits of a rest day—satisfied the consciences of those experiencing discomfiture over growing immorality and the loss of established churches (Massachusetts was the last State with a church establishment, hanging on until about 1830).

Trouble came when the U.S. Congress enacted a postal law (1810) that required post offices to remain open on the Sabbath and for the mails to continue moving on that day. In those days postmasters held a special status. In the vast majority of communities nationwide, the only federal official was the postmaster. A respected member of the community often with wealth, political connections, or both, he was the lone representative of the national government, which, incidentally, played almost no role in most Americans’ lives apart from delivering the mail.

For Christians who took the moral law of God seriously, for the postmaster to be required by law to keep open his office on the Sabbath was both sinful and a dangerous example of immorality for the community. Especially by the 1820s as the transportation revolution (an old but useful term) took hold—encompassing better roads, canals, and railroad aspirations—secular travel on the Sabbath increased and with it, the Sabbath itself was threatened. These Christians understood the Sabbath as the lynchpin of God’s moral law. In 1829, Hertford County, North Carolina, petitioners—many of them Calvinist Baptists—called the Sabbath “highly conducive to the advancement of our national prosperity—to the promotion of our christian character—to the furtherance of our civil and to the security of our religious liberties.” The Sabbath, they said without hyperbole, was “a subject of infinite importance.”

In terms similar to Hertford’s but often in their own words, hundreds of churches and communities nationwide responded to this moral threat. They wrote and signed petitions—or memorials—expressing their Sabbath convictions and requesting Congress to amend the postal law: to delete the requirement for post masters to open their offices and for the mails to be moved on the Sabbath. That was all. There was no attempt at coercion to observe the Sabbath—simply that those postal employees whose consciences did not permit them to violate the Fourth Commandment should not be required by law to do so.

These memorials—held at the National Archives (most in Record Group 233) but gradually turning to dust—are precious but under-appreciated documents that express the sentiments of some 100,000 Americans regarding their love for the Christian Sabbath. For many who signed them, it was the first time they had exercised their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances. They expected to be heard respectfully by their legislators.

At least at the committee level, that did not happen. A Kentucky war hero from 1813, Richard M. Johnson had entered politics, spent decades in Congress, and eventually rose to the vice presidency under Martin Van Buren. Along the way, he used the Sabbath Mails campaign to political advantage. As the chairman of the congressional committees that received the memorials between 1828 and 1830, Johnson took the opportunity to issue a Sabbath Mails Report disparaging the petitioners as though they sought a union of church and state. In 1830 he went so far as to liken the petitioners to Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold. It was a ridiculous charge, but it was popular then—and it still is today.

In 1829 and 1830, a number of local Christian leaders responded to Johnson’s slanderous, unfounded charges. While most wrote anonymously, probably the vast majority were ministers or attorneys. A few were both, one of whom was Presbyterian ruling elder, and later minister, William Mayo Atkinson (1796-1849) of Petersburg, Virginia. These Sabbath contenders knew their stuff and knew how to write.

One anonymous writer in Virginia, “A MEMORIALIST,” commented on the praises offered in the political newspapers concerning Johnson’s report:

To say which is the worse, the morality or the logic of this Document, would be a perplexing problem. . . . Mr J. alleges that the prayer of the Memorialists should not be granted for several reasons. . . . that Congress, in its Legislative capacity, is bound to consider ALL RELIGIONS alike true; and to afford like protection and equal favor to all. If then, a few hundred Hindoos or Turks were to emigrate to the United States and become citizens, Congress in ALL its legislation, would be bound to respect their religious rites and institutions, as much as those of Christians; thus placing the idolatries of Paganism, and the licentious religion of the Koran, on a PAR with Christianity itself![2] 

The above questionable morality was merely “the legitimate offspring of Mr Johnson’s own premises,” declared MEMORIALIST. He noted, with the report’s illogic in view:

In Virginia, the sanctity of the FIRST day is protected by law; yet it was never heard, we believe, that the Jew complained that his rights of conscience were invaded by our Legislature. ALL the Jew has a right to expect from a Christian nation, and all he asks, is FULL TOLERATION—the FREE EXERCISE of his own religion. That he now enjoys, and still would, were the prayers of the petitioners granted to-morrow. He has better views of justice and propriety, than to suppose that a CHRISTIAN NATION is bound to legislate in a way that would put no difference . . . between his religion and their own.    

If Mr Johnson’s reasoning . . . be correct, then Virginia ought . . . either to repeal her laws relating to the FIRST day, or by similar enactments, put the SEVENTH, the Jewish Sabbath, on a perfect equality with it, as a day of rest and devotion. This report is a public slander on the character of our Legislature. According to Mr Johnson, our legislation touching the Sabbath, is a most criminal invasion of the rights of conscience, and is to be regarded . . . as “the entering wedge” to a state of religious despotism.[3] 

Readers, please note that all capitalizations above are from the original (available online at Virginiachronicle.com).

Hopefully, you noticed these highlights:

1. Our nascent Christian Nationalist criticizes those who “consider ALL RELIGIONS alike true; and to afford like protection and equal favor to all.” Toleration is one thing, but pluralism and “equal favor,” another.
2. MEMORIALIST observes that “FULL TOLERATION—the FREE EXERCISE of his own religion” is all that any non-Christian should “expect from a Christian nation.” He notes the non-Christian already enjoys toleration, “. . . and still would, were the prayers of the petitioners granted to-morrow.”
3. MEMORIALIST argues from Johnson’s illogic that “our legislation touching the Sabbath, is a most criminal invasion of the rights of conscience” and a step toward “religious despotism.”

Apparently, Johnson was unaware that the same Virginia assembly that enacted Jefferson’s famed Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786 also enacted Virginia’s Sabbath statute. There was no contradiction in doing so.

MEMORIALIST—probably a Presbyterian because he published in a Presbyterian newspaper—went on to reason that “every syllable of praise” offered for the report amounted to holding in contempt those laws “wisely enacted to guard the Sabbath from profanation in this State.” He cautioned, with timeless wisdom: “Reflect—adhere closely to common sense, and above all to your Bibles, and you will escape that net of sophistry and scepticism, which has been spread for heedless feet.”

MEMORIALIST was far from alone. In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, a mass-produced North Carolina Memorial countered the bugbear charges of union-of-church-and-state:

It . . . is now too late to say . . . that there shall be no legislative sanctions to enforce the laws of God; the Statute Book of the nation furnishes too many instances of such sanctions, now to call in [question] the right. And, if in copying the laws of God, [the Congress] can say, (without approaching the awful whirlpool of Church and State) that murder is a crime, and shall be punished with death, where . . . is the danger in saying, after the same example, that the violation of the Christian Sabbath is a sin, and ought not to be countenanced? But, in truth . . . this Memorial does not involve the question of Church and State, but of Morality and State. And in such a union as the latter, your Memorialists, and [the Congress] and all the people would have much cause to rejoice.[4]

Yes, it seems certain that MEMORIALIST and his likeminded brothers meet today’s criteria for Christian Nationalists.

But they really ought to be called Contenders for Christendom. Count me with them.

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.

[1] Ad-Interim Report, 2721.

[2] “Sabbath Mails,” Visitor and Telegraph [Richmond, Va.], Mar. 14, 1829 [emphasis in original].

[3] Note: The Johnson Report’s “entering wedge” was quoted by MEMORIALIST.

[4] Petition of inhabitants of Mecklenburg County, N.C., Feb. 1, 1830 [emphasis in original].