Myth of Christian America

Lesson Transcript

They let the Raven Indians pray for a couple of hours and sing songs. And then one by one, they killed each of them by tomahawks and things like that. Because they chose, they told them, "We're not going to fight back. We are following in the steps of the Lamb, the Son of God." One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In 1601, if you look at it, "That shall be found attending such preachings or gathering shall each time be fined two dollars.

Whoever shall be found to have rebaptized anyone shall be fined twenty dollars, and when detected the second time shall be imprisoned on bread and water and expelled," as the force said. As regarding this possessing of the force said fines, one half shall go to the informer, and the other half, like other fines, will fall to the city and its jurisdiction. Almost exactly what the state of Pennsylvania said. The informer who accused you of treason could get a half of the fines.

This was said in 1601 in the Netherlands city. And here's what Burns said in 1695, "All subjects are without contradiction bound to show their natural God-given authorities, fidelity and allegiance, and to attest such filthy or fidelity with an oath. But those who will not render such an oath of allegiance are not recognized as subjects nor tolerated in the country.

Hence the Anabaptists who flatly refuse the same, neither can or shall be in any wise be permitted to remain in the country." And there's the second one, "All subjects are bound to defend and protect their country as being our common mother, yea, to sacrifice their property and blood for it.

Hence those who contrary to the command refuse to do this cannot be permitted in this country, and as the Anabaptists otherly refuse this, they cannot be tolerated in the country." Sounds exactly what Pennsylvania said with both the act of militia and the oath of allegiance. I think it's pretty sad that they copied the same thing that was used against the Anabaptists and other non-resistant Christians about a hundred years later here in the colonies during the American Revolution.

And that's what the Anabaptists pointed out. This is the same thing that happened to our forefathers. When we refuse to go along with the program, we get the same laws put against us. So we're going to look at some of the examples of things that happened to the Anabaptists. These are real-life examples that happened to them. I'm going to be doing some reading here. First of all, we're going to look at an example of tar and feathering.

It was something that is well known in the American colonies, but it existed in Europe and it came over the American colonies. In the colonies, it was mostly done by the revolutionaries, but it was occasionally done by the loyalists also against some revolutionaries. And the idea was that they would either strip you completely naked or to your waist if you had, you know, and then they would pour pine tar on, not asphalt tar like we think, but like a pine tar that they would get from pine.

Usually it was warm, not normally scalding hot. As I was studying, they said nobody, as far as they know, died in the colonies who were tarred and feathered, but they would pour this pine tar on you, and then they would put feathers on you to make fun of you, to humiliate you, to more or less punish you for not going along with the program.

Here's a common picture that they show of the revolutionaries tarring and feathering like a tax collector, and they make it look like it's funny, but obviously if you, who wants pine tar poured on you even if it's cold and stuck with feathers and stuff. Here's my first story. This happened in 1775. I'm going to go back a little bit and then kind of come forward. So we're going to go back to 1775, right at the, when the revolutionary was happening.

Here's this comment about a Mennonite youth getting tarred and feathered. This was talking about what happened when they started the voluntary militias. If you remember in 1775, they started the voluntary militias that kind of sprang up through the act of the Continental Congress and through this, the committees of safety, observation, and correspondence.

One young Mennonite learned to keep his mouth shut several weeks after the news of the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord had reached his community in York County. He'd been helping at a horse racing where a local tavern keeper named Michael Smisser announced that all able-bodied men at the Frolic were required to join some militia company or else be ranked among the Tories.

The Mennonite youth then spoke up and advised against such warlike mustering, saying that it would lead to actions that would later be regretted. And then, of course, that reached the militia. So Mr. Smiser, who was also a militia captain, angrily stormed into the town of York, registered a complaint with the new county committee of observation and secured from them a request for the immediate appearance before them of this Mennonite war critic.

After the committee consulted briefly, Colonel Hartley announced that the young Mennonite was to be considered an enemy to the country and that as a Tory, he was to be tarred and feathered. This was just the kind of amusement a collection of local men and boys would welcome. One boy had mischievously brought along a feather-stuffed pillow, but when the young Mennonite, under orders from the committee, came and stood before the tar bucks, no one, including the boys, would approach him to apply the tar.

Only one of the committee, an exceptionally rough man, had stayed to observe the result of the orders. A bystander concluded that the other committee members were ashamed of the proceedings and thus had disappeared. Finally, the man stated that the defenseless young critic must tar himself if no one else would do it. To this ridiculous order, the victim actually responded, taking on his jacket and shirt. He obediently stuck his fingers into the tar and dabbed on his shoulder with several of the boys.

There seemed to be somewhat mixed, calling out that he should let the man who had given the ordering do the tarring himself. This brought the proceeding to a standstill. The sticky-fingered young Mennonite looked dubiously over the crowd for a moment, and one of them suggested that he pick up his jacket and go home. He immediately took the advice and then walked down the middle of the street. At this, someone ripped open the pillow and half-heartedly hurled the feathers after him, but none seemed to stick.

I think, yeah, so obviously he was very blessed. And obviously it was kind of a joke for this guy, but obviously it really happened. Next thing that I skip to is what happened to the Mennonite communities and other communities in the area who were minding their own business, taking care of their farm. This happened as, here in the, 1775.

It said this, "In addition to this problem, the rich farms of the Germans, especially those of the non-associators, which would be like the Mennonites, were often visited with increasing frequency by foragers from the army and militia seeking horses and proven for their companies." And this was by both the Continental Army and the British Army.

The small Mennonite community in the Butter Valley at Hereford in Berks County was paid an unwelcome call by hungry soldiers just as a household of guests was sitting down to a wedding meal. It was at the home of Michael Bauer, whose oldest daughter, Fanny, had just married a young man named Christian Meyer.

As their descendants would tell it, the soldiers not only ate and ate the things away, but went outside and caught as many turkeys and chickens as they could find and drove back to the camp with a wagonload of plunder. Like I said, that happened over and over and over to the farmers. Both sides taking things. Sometimes they gave a receipt and sometimes they did not. Sometimes this disappeared in the middle of the night, you woke up and it was gone. Here's the next one.

This is in 1777 after they passed that act of militia that said, "You shall either serve or pay the fine." I saw this, and I thought it was actually a very nice thing that happened here. It starts here, "When the sixth class of Captain Crawford's company was called upon duty," this was in Lancaster County, "he stayed at home and was shortly called upon by the lieutenant, John Skibble, who requested payment of the usual fine.

Christian replied that he had not the money at the time, but that he was willing to pay if the lieutenant could wait for a few days. The young farmer then sold a horse to raise the fine. But by the time the lieutenant came for it, a fire had annihilated all Christian's worldly possessions, including his clothes and the money for his horse.

The sympathetic lieutenant then recommended to his superiors that since such an accident was obviously very hard upon a new beginner, his fines for the year 1777 should be written off." I thought that was actually interesting that the lieutenant actually had mercy on this Mennonite man, writing his fines off. Obviously, that didn't happen all the time, but I thought it was actually an interesting story about that. We're going to skip now to the summer of 1778.

The British departed Philadelphia on June 18th, 1778, and that was what you had Valley Forge, which is just a couple of miles outside of Philadelphia where George Washington's army was encamped. And there was a lot of issues that happened after the British encamped, left Philadelphia. So we're going to look at the first one. It happens to the Mennonite congregation of Salcon Congregation, which is just south of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.

It starts this, "Small, narrow, and short-sighted fellows now come to the cracks where they have hidden. In the current atmosphere of suspicion, the baseest man can ruin an innocent acquaintance whom he does not like. All that is necessary is that he point with his finger and whisper in someone's ear, 'That man is a rebel' or 'That man is a Tory.'" Again, they're calling people who don't support the revolution rebels, in contrast, yes, to themselves.

"And revenge and ruin will follow without impartial investigation, judgment, and legal procedure. In such short trials wherever, the stronger man is usually right and the weaker must pay the cost. That the pastor was not exaggerating was abundantly proven in the summer of 1778 in the sad experience of the Mennonite congregation at Salcon, several miles south of Bethlehem.

The troubles arose when the stringent new rules of the Second Test Act were applied by the local militia officers who had been appointed agents for the forfeit of estates to persons attained of treason. In times like these, to use Pastor Muhlenberg's words, envious persons and enemies who at other times would be secret rise up as accusers and vent their petty rage because they had never had a chance to do so before." Like I said, this happened in the Philadelphia area after the British left.

"In the quest for revenge on such people, suspicion sometimes ranks as proof and the innocent were often victimized. One elderly Quaker miller from Upper Marion Township was hanged despite a petition signed by 4,000 people, as was a farmer from Hatfield Township. Before the latter was executed, several of his Mennonite neighbors with a number of Welch Quakers signed their fruitless petition for his pardon, citing the plight of his wife and several small children.

Many confiscations of property and real estate took place as officials eager to settle old scores and collect the percentage of the price brought by a share of auctions did their work. One day before the British departure, a dozen Mennonite men were held in the court at Easton by two justices of the peace. One of them was Squire Frederick Limbaw and requested to prove their colors by taking the test oath or the oath of allegiance.

All but one were married and most were farmers with one blacksmith, Henry Gessinger among them. In the community with the apparent allowance of their bishop, Jacob Meyer, they had paid both the taxes and fines for the new government, furnished horses and teams for the occasional service whenever demanded, and occasionally gone along with the teams of drivers. But in the test oath, they were yielding as they were in taking up arms. It was contrary to their principle.

In any case whatever, though they were informed of the requirements of the new law, they insisted that they were not able yet to get over the religious scruple. Taking the test oath appeared to them, they claimed, like joining our hands to the military service. The Northampton County magistrates felt not the slightest sympathy for their position that they were trying to eradicate in the district.

To their astonishment, the Mennonite farmers heard themselves sentenced to be banished from the state within 30 days, with all their personal property except their real estate to be confiscated and sold by the sheriff. Their former peaceful behavior, the pregnancy of several of their wives, and their lack of ill will towards the new government were all dismissed as irrelevant.

It remained difficult for the Mennonites to believe that this was actually what happened, but on June 24th, two men arrived in the farms of Abraham Gessinger and Henry and Peter Sale to take an inventory. Over the next few days, the other farms were visited and their animals, tools, household furniture, and utensils all cataloged. Even the iron stoves, though bolted to the floor, went into the account. Only the uncut hay and standing grain in the fields were uninventoried.

An alarm that convicted meal appealed on July 4th, 1778, to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. They protested in all humility that their sentence had been pronounced for no other reason than their obeying their religious scruple against the test. And they asked the council to rectify the magistrate's error. They were going to skip to what happened after their appeal. By the end of August 1778, time had run out for the Salcon Mennonites and no relief had been granted by the state government.

Sheriff John Siegfried supervised a public venue at which the movable goods of George Bachmann were sold at the highest bidder. Members and relatives of the Bachmann family managed to buy 26 of 56 lots of their own goods, including the clock for 75 pounds and all the furniture except one bed, the spinning wheel, and some hogs and sheep, but none of the cows or horses. On the same day, a larger sale was held disposing of the goods of Caspar Yoder. Here, the only Mennonite buyer was John Baer, who got the Bible.

The pacifist hater Squire Limbaw, the same person who had sentenced these men, was on hand and bought himself a hand crew.

So it went for the next 10 days until 40,000 pounds worth of farm and household goods had been sold for the support of the war and punishment of, quote, "traders." Dennis Gibson says, "Here's a list of things that were sold: churn, spinning wheel, walnut table, scythe, sickles, chisel, curry comb, auger, cow chains, axe, saw, shovel, rake, leather and wool, harrow, plows, hay fork, clocks, and two stoves." Finally, on September 3rd, the corner cupboard of the Abraham Yoders, the large spinning wheel and looking

glass of Christian Young, and the cattle of both farms were auctioned off with Henry Gessinger's blacksmith tools.

And the law protecting Pennsylvania from traders had taken its course. Now, in addition to the unfurnished houses and the clothes on their backs, all the families of these jailed men owned was the standing hay and grain in their fields. Six days later, a petition signed by two of the wives was sent to the Pennsylvania Assembly in Pennsylvania. This petition said, "All their provisions were taken and not even a morsel of bread left for them.

Since all the iron stoves were taken from them, though fastened to the floors, they are deprived of every means of keeping their children warm in the approaching winter, especially at night, being obliged to sleep on the floor without any beds. The women begged the assembly to mitigate the severity of the sentence, to allow their husbands to dwell with them again and not take their children from them." The assembly, after hearing the petition, asked for a quick investigation of the facts. And here's what they said.

They said, "But what the committee learned that the crops had been gathered after the seizure would last the petitioners for a year, and they estimated the loss at only one-fourth of what the goods had actually brought them." So they more or less did nothing to help those ladies. And again, like I said, it was to protect Pennsylvania from traders. Another example that happened was to a Brethren minister named Christopher Sauer Jr. He lived in the Germantown, and again, he didn't take the oath of allegiance.

And here's what he's told when they came to him. This was 1778 again. These two men came to his house, and again, he spoke against the revolution. I don't think he spoke against the revolutionaries. He spoke against that Christians don't go to war. And of course, in the time period of the American Revolution, you didn't have freedom of speech. You couldn't say that type of thing. So that revolutionaries didn't like them saying that.

Here, so when they came the second time, they said, "Have you taken the test oath?" "No," said the printer. "Why not? Were you still attached to the king?" "No," Christopher explained. "It was not the attachment to the king. You have in your act that they who do not take the oath shall have not a right to buy nor sell." This was so close to the prediction in the Book of Revelation of the evil mark of the beast that Christian said he could not take the oath while it stood on that condition.

But you went to the English. Do you know why? No, nor do we want to. At this point, the officers informed Christopher that the purpose of their call was to take an inventory of his property prior to confiscation for selling at an auction. One of them stood guard to keep the printer from removing anything while the other went for an appraiser. They listed his medicine, his bed, and even a barrel of rice. Finally, he asked could he keep his spectacles, which was granted.

In spite of his frantic efforts to get the auction stopped by appeals to other authorities, he was sold out to the bare walls and his house was rented out and later sold. I did also read that he did have a good attitude about it. He actually told the men, "This stuff is more yours than mine." He showed humility again when they came and approached him. I'm going to skip to the Amish here. This happened in Berks County. Read two things here from the book, Uncer Light. So it says there, this was like 1778, 1779.

Again, the Amish, just like the Mennonites, didn't take the oath of allegiance. And they said they sentenced, it looks like approximately 14 men to jail there in Berks County, and several of the young men fled to other Amish settlements in Western Pennsylvania, like Somerset County and places like that that were more on the frontier. Two of the Amish men ended up actually being sentenced to be executed. And this was the first one. His name was Isaac Kaufman.

When one of the American rebel soldiers came to his farm there in Berks County and asked he wanted to take a horse, Isaac Kaufman said, "You are a rebel, and I will not give you a horse to such blood-spilling persons." Of course, it's probably not what he should have told this person because this person then said he was being a traitor and seditious and a spy.

So Isaac Kaufman was arrested as a person of evil and seditious mind in this position and being an enemy to the liberties and independence of the US, conspiring to disturb the peace of the Commonwealth and aid and abet the king of Great Britain. Like I said, he was sentenced to be executed. And another Amish man named Christian Smoker was traveling between Lancaster and Berks County, and he hadn't taken the oath of allegiance. And when he was arrested, because he didn't have the certificate, that he took it.

Again, he was convicted of being a spy, and again, he was sentenced to be executed. Thankfully, executions did not happen. A minister named Henry Herzl of the German Reformed Church appealed to the authorities and had the executions stopped. But the men were in jail over a year with their wives having to take care of their farms and the young men being in Western Pennsylvania so they wouldn't get drafted. Christian was released.

It sounds like Isaac had to get released later because of about a year later, he was kept in jail a little longer because of him saying that words about, "I don't give a horse to a rebel who will spill blood." Something else that it says, as I said, the farmers would have things disappear. They would have things like this disappear. This maybe doesn't look very much to you, but if that is your rail fence and you wake up in the morning and all your rails are gone, that is a pretty big thing.

Because both armies took the rails for firewood, for like valley forge. They made cabins. They used it to make embankments for battles. And so you'd wake up and your fence would be gone. The last one I want to share about here this morning, it's only take about two minutes and then we can conclude, is what happened to the Moravian Indian Christians in Ohio. They had been evangelized by the Moravian missionaries from like Bethlehem, Hernhut. If you've heard of David Zeisberger, he was a Moravian missionary.

And they had become, it was called Nehu Hutton. They had become non-resistant Christians like us. Unfortunately, they were at the frontier and the Native Americans as a whole were allied with the British. So there had been a lot of atrocities done to the frontier villages by the Native Americans, the ones allied with the British. And these Native Americans at that community were the Lenape, which was from like Pennsylvania, and they had laid down their arms.

They had been captured by some other Indians and moved up near Lake Erie, but they didn't have enough food. So they went back to their village and at the same time, a revolutionary militia from Pennsylvania caught them thinking they were another raiding army. And after they put two and two together, they were not. They said, the two accounts was either a couple hours or overnight. They said, "We do not care. After the couple hours, you will all be killed point blank. No mercy." Men, women, and children were killed.

It was recorded by both the frontiersmen who committed the atrocity and by some of the escapees. Here's a rendition of what happened. They let the Moravian Indians pray for a couple hours and sing songs. And then one by one, they killed each of them by tomahawks and things like that. Because they told them, "We're not going to fight back. We are following in the steps of the Lamb, the Son of God." And there was approximately 96 men, women, and children and babies were killed by the frontiersmen.

I read one of the accounts, one of the guys was doing it because his parents, father and uncle had been killed in that revolution, and he thought it would bring him satisfaction to do revenge. Revenge never brings you satisfaction. At the end, he said he was weeping what he had done. And not all the frontier, not all the frontier, as I read it, they said 18 of the men said they did not participate in this militia and the killing. This is, like I said, in Ohio.

Here's a monument, said this description, "Here triumphed in death, 90 Christian Indians, March 8th, 1782." And here's a picture of some of the graves. I was reading, it affected, I think, the relations with the Native Americans in this country, why most of them, if you read, are going back to their native religion. Things like that. These people had turned themselves to an authentic Christianity and they were murdered.

I read Theodore Roosevelt, about a hundred years later, said it had a bad effect on the American frontier. And again, I said they chose to follow Christ. Obviously, they didn't put any of the Mennonites, Amish, Brethren to death, but they put these Native American Moravian Christians to death, being a follower of Jesus. The last thing I'll say and I'll conclude here, the Mennonites had, in the beginning of the revolution, that said this. This is what they told here in Pennsylvania.

"To the advice to those who do not find freedom of conscience to take up arms, that they should be helpful to those who are in need in the stressed circumstances. We receive with cheerfulness towards all men of what station they may be, it being our principle to feed the hungry and give the thirsty drink. We have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that we can be helpful to the preservation of men's life.

We find no freedom in giving or doing or assisting in anything by which men's lives are destroyed or hurt." And I read an example of several of the Mennonites at the Effort of Cloister who were helping the wounded from like Valley Forge in that area. And soldiers died from like yellow fever, and the Mennonite men and women died from yellow fever. They actually said they had to burn down part of the Effort of Cloister to try to prevent the spread of the disease.

And I think that's what they said they were going to do, but they weren't going to support the revolutionary army.