On citing Andrew Fuller & his Christian Patriotism

There have been a number of times in the past few years that I have thought of writing an academic memoir with the subtitle How Andrew Fuller changed my life. That alone speaks volumes about the affection and esteem I have for the literary corpus of this pastor-theologian from the long eighteenth century. And so, whenever this spiritual and theological mentor is cited, I am pleased for I well remember a day when his name was almost completely unknown, even by those Christian communities who were his spiritual heirs.

Now, I suppose it is true that most great theologians generate differences of interpretation and Fuller is no exception. I, for one, have had amicable disagreements with one or two scholars on how to understand Fuller’s doctrine of the atonement, for example. As an historian, though, I have always been concerned to understand him from within his historical context. In other words, as an historian, I am not first and foremost interested in the questions that agitate us in our day. I want to understand what questions Fuller was seeking to answer and why he gave the answers he did. Only at that point can we begin to talk about a usable past.

This historical rule is, for me as an historian, sacrosanct. Although every historian approaches subjects of the past from his or her horizon, a key insight of Anthony Thiselton, it is vital that interpretations proceed from a good understanding of an author’s context and corpus of written work. In other words, understanding a past author’s horizon is key to rendering an interpretation that is faithful to the person being studied or interpreted.

Recently, I heard Fuller cited in relation to what was well described as an “incredible sermon,” namely his sermon Christian Patriotism (1803).[1] I agree that this sermon is a tour de force, for it encapsulates an approach to political theology that Fuller had worked out over nearly thirty years of public ministry. In the early 1790s, when Fuller was hitting his stride as a preacher, French revolutionary armies had sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution to neighbouring nations. What they exported, though, was “unprecedented destruction and warfare”[2] to the rest of Europe, and so plunged the continent into a war that more or less lasted until 1815. At one point there was a lull in the hostilities as the treaty of Amiens (March 27, 1802) secured an uneasy peace in Europe for close to fourteen months. In 1803, though, this peace collapsed and open hostilities resumed between France and Great Britain. Almost immediately Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) and his French generals committed themselves to extensive preparations for the invasion of England. Although these preparations would occupy much of Napoleon’s energy for the next two years, events were at their most critical during the latter months of 1803, when invasion seemed an imminent certainty. Fuller’s sermon, preached during this time of deep anxiety in the evening of August 14 at the Baptist meeting-house in Kettering, was based upon Jeremiah 29:7 (KJV) —“Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” The sermon sought to help the members of his congregation determine their Christian duty during a time of grave national crisis.

Baptists, it must be remembered, were second-class citizens in Great Britain, owing to various unrepealed elements of the Clarendon Code from the era of the Restoration. There might well have been some who had qualms about taking up arms to defend a nation in which they were liminal figures at the margins of British society. In other words, the sermon is designed to answer this question: should we, as Christians and Baptists, employ arms to defend our country? Fuller’s answer is yes, for love of one’s family and neighbours, for love of country.

Now, what I found surprising was this: Fuller’s sermon was employed in the talk noted above to reject what is called a “national Gnosticism,” namely, the conviction that Christians should retreat from involvement in the public square and the political realm, since these are regarded as irredeemably evil. Fuller is said to have replied to this approach to politics “head on.” The talk gives the impression that Fuller’s sermon was seeking to deal with a “retreatist” approach to politics. Not at all, the sermon is designed to respond to the question about whether or not Christians can engage in violence in a defensive war. Here, Fuller is very much reflecting the classical just war that western political theorists derived from the African theologian Augustine (354–430). In fact, in the course of the sermon, Fuller says at one point that “if my country were engaged in an attempt to ruin France, as a nation, it would be a wicked undertaking; and if I were fully convinced of it, I should both hope and pray that they might be disappointed.”[3]

More broadly, Fuller had a deep distrust of politics. He did not hesitate to identify “an eager and deep interest in political disputes as a key cause of spiritual backsliding.”[4] He had seen far too many in his day cultivate an inordinate passion for politics. In words that Fuller penned two years prior to Christian Patriotism:

Their whole heart has been engaged in this pursuit. It has been their meat and their drink: and this being the case, it is not surprising that they have become indifferent to religion; for these things cannot consist with each other. It is not only contrary to the whole tenor of the New Testament, but tends in its own nature to eat up true religion. … Christians are soldiers under the King of kings: their object should be to conquer all ranks and degrees of men to the obedience of faith. But to do this, it is necessary that they avoid all those entanglements and disputes which retard their main design. If a wise man wishes to gain over a nation to any great and worthy object, he does not enter into their little differences, nor embroil himself in their party contentions; but bearing good-will to all, seeks the general good; by these means he is respected by all, and all are ready to hear what he has to offer. Such should be the wisdom of Christians. There is enmity enough for us to encounter without unnecessarily adding to it.[5] 

Yes, Fuller was also a political realist who knew that politics was essential to human existence—he gave his wholehearted support to those seeking to abolish the slave trade, for example, men such as William Wilberforce (1759-1833), with whom he was on a first-name basis. Yet, in his measured opinion, deep engagement in politics is rarely conducive to spiritual flourishing.

Was Fuller right or wrong? Well, that is another question that belongs to the realm of biblical theology. What is clear is this: Fuller was not an advocate for the political involvement being recommended in the talk in which his sermon on Christian Patriotism was cited. As he once told John Fountain (1767–1800), a missionary to India: “All political concerns are only affairs of this life with which he that will please him, who hath chosen him to be a soldier, must not entangle himself.”[6]

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[1] See William Wolfe, “A Christian Case for an ‘America First’ Government” (Talk at Miami National Conservatism Conference, September 13, 2022). For the texts cited, see Andrew Fuller, Christian Patriotism in The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, revised Joseph Belcher (1845, Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 1:203.

[2] These words are those of Mark A. Noll in his discussion of the French Revolution as a turning-point in the history of Christianity: Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997), 251.

[3] Fuller, Christian Patriotism in Complete Works, 1:207.

[4] Andrew Fuller, The Backslider (1801, New York, NY: American Tract Society, [1840]), 35.

[5] Fuller, The Backslider, 37, 42–43.

[6] Andrew Fuller, Letter to John Fountain, March 25, 1796, cited in Michael A. G. Haykin, One heart and one soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, his friends, and his times (Darlington, Co. Durham: Evangelical Press, 1994), 247.