With God on our side

Nearly 50 years ago, Bob Dylan romped through a century of American warfare in his song “With God on Our Side.” From killing Indians to developing nuclear weapons, in Dylan’s view Americans acted with the hubris of knowing they had divine approval. After all, “You never ask questions / When God’s on your side.”

Dylan’s verses didn’t mention the Revolutionary War, but they just as well could have. In a 1777 sermon entitled “God Arising and Pleading His People’s Cause,” Presbyterian minister Abraham Keteltas praised the colonists’ battle against malevolent Great Britain, claiming that theirs was “the cause of heaven against hell.”

Historian Thomas Kidd recently traced how chaplains in the Continental Army frequently preached and published about war as a holy cause. Some even endorsed the brutal destruction of Iroquoian towns on the New York frontier. Though he’s a historian quite friendly to religion, Kidd concludes that