“What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war?” former President John Adams asked in a letter to a magazine publisher in 1818, eight years before America’s 50th birthday. This question is fitting today as we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. His answer is a revelation about the real revolution.
Adams understood that the American Revolution began long before the first muskets flared at the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. He knew it went beyond the battlegrounds and bloodshed of an eight-year war. Nearly 7,000 American soldiers were killed in action, while 17,000 soldiers died of disease.
At its core, the revolution was a transformation of the colonists’ hearts and souls. For most of them, this change came slowly, after wrestling in their hearts over their allegiances and beliefs in the decade leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
“The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations,” Adams explained.
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Why did Adams describe the revolution as a change of religious sentiments? He understood something that many of us may have trouble understanding today. The American founders believed that they were very diverse, especially in their religious beliefs.
“The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government, so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners and habits had so little resemblance,” Adams wrote of America’s first diversity struggle.
In 1776, the founders knew that European history was marred by religious persecution. Catholic English monarchs had persecuted Protestants while Protestant English monarchs had persecuted Catholics. Jews had been persecuted regardless of who was in power, especially through the inquisitions in Spain and Portugal that coerced conversions. As a result, thousands from all these groups came to America for religious freedom and economic opportunities.
Puritans settled in Massachusetts, while Catholics chartered Maryland. More than half of the 13 colonies were established under the Church of England. Quakers in Pennsylvania welcomed all, which made Philadelphia a rare safe haven for Jews. Similarly, Rhode Island touted tolerance. Protestants were divided into so many different denominations that they trusted only their version of Christianity.
When the Continental Congress began in 1774, they wanted to invite a clergyman to lead them in devotions but argued about whom to choose. Adams explained why: “[B]ecause we were so divided in religious sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians and some Congregationalists, so that we could not join in the same act of worship.”
Under such diversity, division and distrust, how did Congress solve this problem?
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“Mr. [Samuel] Adams arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country.” They invited Jacob Duché, an Anglican, as the first minister to pray and lead a devotion. Congress subsequently modeled religious tolerance and heard from a variety of ministers during the war. The practice continues today.
Other religious problems were dire. In 1774, Virginia’s British authorities imprisoned five Baptist ministers for preaching without a license from the Church of England. This led James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to call for the free exercise of religion. Adams agreed, concluding, “if Parliament could tax us, they could establish the Church of England… and prohibit all other churches.”
Gen. George Washington was also concerned that religious differences would divide his men. When he sent an expedition to Canada in 1775, he explicitly told his soldiers to tolerate different religious views. “While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others; ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men and to him only in this case they are answerable,” Washington instructed.
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Despite their differing religious beliefs, the founders had one thing in common. They had been taught that God had ordained their king to govern them. But when King George III acted like a tyrant, they concluded that he had abdicated his God-given responsibility to uphold their God-given rights. By becoming a dictator instead of a steward, the king was no longer fulfilling God’s call on his life. Many ministers preached Galatians 5:1, which taught that they must follow Christ and stand firm for freedom. Through their faith, they were justified to say goodbye to “God save the king” and instead embraced, “We the people of the United States of America.”
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To protect their God-given rights, they enshrined freedom of religion into the Bill of Rights. In doing so, they showed that they had enough confidence in their Judeo-Christian beliefs to let faith be free. Their religious beliefs found common ground by focusing on natural, inalienable rights given to them by their Creator, not their government. Though it wasn’t easy to trade royalty for representation, this shift united them and enabled the real American Revolution to take place.
“Their knowledge of each other [was] so imperfect that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action was certainly a very difficult enterprise,” Adams described. “This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affection of the people, was the real American Revolution.”
Their willingness to tolerate their religious differences was the change in religious sentiments that Adams believed was the real American Revolution.
As we celebrate 250 years of independence this year, we honor America’s founders by remembering how they overcame their differences. Despite their divisions, they united together as one nation under God. America’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026, is an opportunity to do the same.
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