Founding Fathers Who Were Ministers 8

Last week I gave you #6 of 7 common occasions where in addition to regular Sunday morning sermons, pastors had other venues to educate Americans in the Biblical principles of liberty.

#7. Anniversary, Historical, and Holiday Sermons. Included in this category were Century Sermons (preached in the year 1701, 1801, or 1901, to review significant events of the previous century from a Providential viewpoint), and annual sermons reviewing significant events of the preceding year. There were also commemorative sermons on topics such as the anniversary of the Pilgrims' Landing, the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument, the 100th anniversary of a significant battle or event, and of course annual Fourth of July sermons.

Political scientists have documented that an incredible 10% of all published pamphlets during the Founding Era were sermons. And those represented only a fraction of the tens of thousands of additional unpublished sermons also preached.

The impact of these sermons were substantial. As affirmed by Yale professor Harry Stout:

The average weekly church-goer in New England (and there were far more church-goers than church members) listened to something like 7,000 sermons in a lifetime, totaling somewhere around 15,000 hours of concentrated listening. 

Nineteenth-century author David Gregg pointed out that while "The people made the laws, the church made the people.”

Content sourced from The American Story The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton