Christian Patriotism: Andrew Fuller's Call to Arms

What would you do if more than 100,000 soldiers were preparing to invade your country? And what would you preach, if you were a local pastor? Or, if you came to church on a Sunday with the threat of invasion pending, what would you expect to hear? Certainly, you would expect to hear the minister of God call the saints to pray, but would you be offended or encouraged, if he called the men to take up arms?

Such a thought experiment carries with it a note of the theoretical, but only a note. Keep reading to the end. In 1803 a military invasion of England was anything but theoretical for Andrew Fuller and his Baptist church. Situated in Kettering, a 3,000-person town located Northeast of London, Fuller and his countrymen had received reports that Napoleon threatened an invasion. In response, this faithful pastor preached a sermon on Jeremiah 29:7 that called his congregation to action and that calls us to arms, too.

In our state, Virginians face an invasion of a different kind—namely, the passage of two amendments that would enshrine abortion, “gay marriage,” and transgenderism into the state constitution. To date, over 400 Virginia pastors have called their churches to vote NO on both amendments. And in what follows, I want to encourage Christian voters to do more than vote NO, but hearing the words of Andrew Fuller, we need to embrace the calling of Christian Patriotism.

Christian Patriotism

If you have time, I would encourage you to read Fuller’s sermon “Christian Patriotism.” In it you will find multiple references to the crisis at hand. But more importantly, you will see how a faithful pastor lets Scripture inform the conscience of faithful Christians. Without referencing “Just War Theory,” Fuller walks his congregation through the minefield of just and unjust violence. Clearly, he is not a pacificist. Rather, as the title suggests, he is a patriot. Yet, his love of his homeland is not derived from personal sentiment; it arises from Christian conviction. And thus, there is much wisdom to glean from his message.

Short of reading the whole sermon, let me offer five imperatives for today that come from his sermon.

1. Seek the welfare of your country.

Fuller begins his sermon with an exposition of Jeremiah 29. Historically, this chapter is a letter that the prophet wrote to the exiles living in Babylon. While false prophets promised a short return to Jerusalem, Jeremiah told the hard truth: it would be seventy years before the Jews returned to the land. And so, he said in Jeremiah 29:5–6 to the exiles, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.”

In short, they were to make lives for themselves in Babylon and to seek the welfare of the place where they lived (Jer. 29:7). While they occupied a place not their own, they were still called to love their neighbors and do good to those who held them in bondage. And from this context, Fuller draws the connection to his own congregation and their country. He says, “We ought to be patriots, or lovers of our country.”

By way of comparison, if the exiles living in Babylon were to love a city not their own, how much should we love the country that we call home. There are certainly sinful ways to love one’s country and to turn a blind eye to its sins, and Fuller addresses these in his sermon.
But then he continues,

"O my country, I will lament thy faults! Yet, with all thy faults, I will seek thy good; not only as a Briton, but as a Christian: ‘for my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will say, Peace be within thee: because of the house of the Lord my God, I will seek thy good!’ … If we seek the good of our country, we shall do everything in our power to promote its welfare. We shall not think it sufficient that we do it no harm, or that we stand still as neutrals, in its difficulties.”

To love our neighbors means seeking the welfare of the country—our country. We should not be neutral in our affections, but as citizens of a greater kingdom, we should seek God’s blessing on the place he has put us. And when evil arises, whether in making bad laws or breaking good laws, we should work to stop them. Indifference is not an option. Rather, we must take up arms for the common good, after all that is what it means to live in a commonwealth.

2. Take up arms for the good of one’s neighbor.

Fuller makes a vital distinction in his sermon between advancing the gospel with the sword and using the sword to protect the innocent and fend off the evil-doer. In his historical context, France was a nation seeking to destroy England. And under the existential threat of French invasion, he defended the use of force to repel them. But the same is not true for defending the gospel and those who suffer to preach it. He writes,

It is allowed that Christians, as such, are not permitted to have recourse to the sword, for the purpose of defending themselves against persecution for the gospel’s sake. No weapon is admissible in this warfare but truth, whatever be the consequence. … But none of these things prove it unlawful to take up arms as members of civil society, when called upon to do so for the defense of our country.

Pressing the point, Fuller defends the state’s use of the sword (Rom. 13:4), and turning to words of John the Baptist, he justifies the role of the soldier (Luke 3:14). Yet, he does not stop there, for in the case that families come under threat, he argues that it is the Christian’s duty to protect them. As he explains the motivations for defending one’s country,

You have also a cottage, and perhaps a wife and family, with whom, amidst all your hardships, you live in love; and would it be nothing to you to see your wife and daughters abused, and you yourself unable to protect them, or even to remonstrate, but at the hazard of being thrust through with the bayonet? If no other considerations will induce us to protect our country, and pray to the Lord for it, our own individual and domestic comfort might suffice.

Hard as it is to imagine such a threat to one’s own family, Fuller is right to free the conscience of a Christian man to fight for his country and his family. This is what Fuller means by Christian Patriotism. It is not an excuse to advance the cause of Christ with force, but it is a righteous way to obey the commandment to love one’s country, as well as the churches that reside therein.

3. Acknowledge the sins of your nation.

As noted above, Fuller qualifies his endorsement loving one’s country. As Christians, we sin when we excuse our country when its actions invite God’s judgment. Sin is sin, no matter who breaks God’s law. Nevertheless, Christians love their nation best when they acknowledge the sin of their nation and call it to account. As he says,

You are also aware, in some measure, of the load of guilt that lies upon your country; and should therefore supplicate mercy on its behalf. I acknowledge myself to have much greater fear from this quarter than from the boasting menaces of a vain man.  If our iniquities provoke not the Lord to deliver us into his hand, his schemes and devices will come to nothing. When I think, among other things, of the detestable traffic before alluded to [the slave trade], in which we have taken so conspicuous a part, and have shed so much innocent blood, I tremble! When we have fasted and prayed, I have seemed to hear the voice of God, saying unto us, ‘Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke!’”

Here, Fuller does more than speak in generalities. He acknowledges the sinfulness of England’s slave trade, which would not be abolished until 1807. Thus, he sees in the tumult of the coming invasion the sins of his own country. Weighing all the circumstances, he rightly discerns the wickedness of England. Yet, instead hating his country for its waywardness, he turns to the Lord in prayer. And he calls his congregation to do the same.

4. Pursue personal repentance and public intercession.

In moments of crisis, where the threat of an enemy is imminent, it is right to seek the Lord for deliverance. Yet, in such moments the spiritually minded man will do more than seek his enemy’s defeat. He will also bring his own sinfulness before the Lord. Indeed, citing another Englishman who came in the next century, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” What C. S. Lewis observes in The Problem of Pain is that man is often careless with his sin until God threatens his life. But when suffering comes from within or without, it quickens the believer’s senses and leads him to repentance.

Such repentance begins with personal confession for sins private and public. But then, if the Spirit empowers the prayer, it leads to intercession for others. And in times of national crisis, it is the Christian’s duty to pray for his country. Affirming this point, Fuller says, “You are aware that all our dependence, as a nation, is upon God; and, therefore, [we] should importune his assistance.”

In this way, Andrew Fuller followed the model of King Hezekiah, when the Assyrian threatened Jerusalem (Isaiah 36–37). In that national crisis, Hezekiah confessed the sins of his people and sought God’s mercy. This is the Christian’s patriotic duty and the chief blessing that a righteous man can give to an erring nation.

In our day, Christians in Virginia (and beyond) must pray and fast, seeking God’s mercy upon our state. As the unrighteous rulers in Richmond seek to alter the constitution of our Commonwealth, we cannot be idle. Rather, we must approach the throne of grace with confidence that “the Lord may hearken to our prayers, and save us from deserved ruin.”

Indeed, we do not know what tomorrow brings; it could be our redemption or our ruination. The blood of seventy million children cries out for the scourge of abortion that has gripped our nation for two generations. More than that, the LGBT ideology that seeks to rewrite the Virginia law makes an ongoing mockery of God, his gift of marriage, and his definition of male and female. Accordingly, God has every right to strike us down. And he may do that with the invasion of laws that would further his judgment upon us. Yet, if we learn anything from Scripture, we are called to prayer and action. And this is the final imperative to learn from Andrew Fuller.

5. Pray, fast, and prepare yourself for action.

I can’t guarantee that Andrew Fuller would endorse Michael Clary’s Loser Theology, but Clary would definitely endorse Fuller’s high-agency Christianity. For that is what Clary calls for in his much-needed book. For, if you listen to Fuller’s words, he is spurring his people on to sacrificial love and costly good works.

Rejecting an attitude of pious and passive waiting on the Lord, Fuller calls some in his congregation to stand against the invaders and others to invade heaven with their prayers. Here’s what he says,

I know it is the intention of several whom I now address freely to offer their services at this important period. Should you, dear young people, be called forth in the arduous contest, you will expect an interest in our prayers. Yes, and you will have it. Every one of us, every parent, wife, or Christian friend, if they can pray for anything, will importune the Lord of hosts to cover your heads in the day of battle!

The circumstances of this sermon dictate Fuller’s specific applications. But today, his imperatives continue to speak. For while Virginians may not face the invasion of the French, our state (and our nation) has been overrun by a Democratic political party that hates our country and actively invites God’s wrath as they seek to kill, steal, and destroy.

Lest we think that our situation is less dire than Fuller’s England, the reality is, it may be more so. For us, the enemies of God have not simply threatened the state, they are running it. And that means that every Christian patriot must seek the welfare of the city by “contribut[ing] of our substance without murmuring; and, in cases of imminent danger, [we must] be willing to expose even our lives in its defense.”

In our own church, we have received multiple phone calls raging at our stand for life and against gay marriage and transgender ideology. And if rumors are to be believed, we may be visited by protestors in the near future. And why? Simply because our church and its pastors are unwilling to let babies be killed without a fight, nor are we willing to let the state define marriage, sex, and gender in ways that defy nature and nature’s God.

And therefore, we have engaged the battlelines for truth. And we invite others to do the same.

A Call to Arms

Returning to Fuller’s sermon, it is a needed call to arms. In his own day, it was a call to war if invasion came. And for us, it is a call to pray, to fast, and to take action. Most immediately, that action looks like voting against the pernicious amendments that threaten our Christian liberty. But that is not all. Longer term, Christian Patriotism means that we must continue to engage the spiritual warfare that threatens to destroy our country.

Indeed, Fuller himself saw the threat of godless men ruining his nation. And his words ring prophetic, as we read them today.

At present we worship God without interruption. What we might be permitted to do under a government which manifestly hates Christianity, and tolerates it even at home only as a matter of policy, we know not. This, however, is well known, that a large proportion of those unprincipled men, in our own country, who have been labouring to overturn its constitution, have a deep-rooted enmity to the religion of Jesus. May the Lord preserve us, and every part of the united kingdom, from their machinations!

May the Lord preserve us, indeed. Fuller’s words perfectly fit our day. And if we are to learn anything from this faithful minister, we must not assume that godless rulers will permit public Christianity. If anything, we should expect that that the lawmakers who want to protect the rights of women to murder their babies and who want to defy God’s good design for sex, gender, and marriage will not stop there. Instead, they will keep pushing, until Christianity is drive from all parts of public life.

And thus with prayer, fasting, public proclamation, and bold action, we must stand firm in the faith and resist every form of evil. For this is what is means to a Christian who loves his country. And with love in our hearts for Christ, we must seek the welfare of our city by strenuously resisting the forces of evil in our day. Today is not a day for weak wills or soft words; it is a day for Christian patriots to rise up and seek the welfare of the city.

To that end, let us pray and let us labor. That the Lord may preserve us, and every part of this Commonwealth and this country that we call home.