Abstract
The Reformed and Presbyterian traditions, characterized by their iconoclasm and anti-idolatry, stress the importance of rejecting false gods and idolatry, with a political theology that allows for critique of unjust authorities. Yet, there's a dichotomy in how leaders like Witherspoon applied these principles, as they criticized oppressive systems while simultaneously benefiting from the oppression of enslaved Black individuals. With respect to ending slavery, Witherspoon and other Presbyterian leaders in Princeton during the Revolutionary period adopted a strategy of gradualism, aiming for incremental changes towards the end of slavery. However, their approach often seemed inconsistent, advocating for immediate disruptive change against British rule but taking a more moderate stance on slavery and race. An in-depth theological and historical analysis of figures like Witherspoon provides insights into their complex legacies and the broader Reformed tradition's stance on slavery, race, and political upheaval.
To make appropriate judgments about John Witherspoon, it is necessary but not sufficient to situate him in his historical context. To get a full picture of a person, we have also to consider the meaningful thought world he inhabited as he navigated his way through the problem of slavery in Princeton during the eighteenth century. Inasmuch as he was a Presbyterian pastor and theologian, we have to take some account of the religious beliefs that gave structure to his life and his thinking on the vexed question of slavery. To understand the views of this pastor, academic leader, and revolutionary figure, we have to consider several of his interlocking theological beliefs: the authority of Scripture, Reformed anti-idolatry critique, theological anthropology, and theory of social change. His beliefs on theological matters like these make clear that his views on slavery were rooted in and, in many ways, expositions of eighteenth-century Presbyterian orthodoxy as defined by the Westminster Confession and Catechisms.
Authority of Scripture and Slavery
As part of the larger family of Reformed Protestantism, the Scottish Presbyterian tradition of which Witherspoon was a part took as foundational for all questions of faith and practice that the Holy Spirit speaks definitively through Scripture. The divinely inspired text of the 66 books of the Protestant Bible functioned for Witherspoon and other Presbyterians as the final authority on all spiritual and ethical matters in life, including the vexed question of slavery in America. Mere ecclesial judgments and human reason could not and did not provide solid ground upon which to stand on major questions of human life; only the revealed Word of God was deemed adequate to provide reliable guidance and sound wisdom on matters of ethics.
In Witherspoon's day, there was little tolerance for competing views of the authority of the Bible among Presbyterians. The literal, plain sense of Scripture held sway. The Westminster documents were understood to function as a reliable and comprehensive expression of what the Bible taught. There was some awareness of and interest in scholarly study of different manuscript traditions or what came to be called “lower criticism” in eighteenth-century Presbyterianism, but there was not yet an openness to the “higher criticism” that involved assumption-shattering approaches to reading the Bible like the source criticism, demythologizing, and sophisticated reflexive hermeneutics that would begin to arise a couple of generations after Witherspoon's death. The controversies associated with modern historical-critical approaches to interpreting the sacred text had not yet shaken the foundations of Protestant epistemology when Witherspoon served as president of the College of New Jersey. In his day, it was still axiomatic that an infallible pope had given way to an infallible Book, especially as explained by the Westminster standards. This view stretched well beyond Witherspoon in Princeton into the first three decades of the twentieth century. 1
Presbyterian divines had much earlier than Witherspoon enshrined “high” views of the authority of Scripture in confessional statements like the Scots Confession and the Westminster Confession. The earlier affirmation of 1560 laid out the basic principles in its 19th chapter: As we believe and confess the Scriptures of God sufficient to instruct and make the man of God perfect, so do we affirm and avow the authority of the same to be of God, and neither to depend on men nor angels. We affirm therefore that such as allege the Scripture to have no other authority, but that which is received from the Kirk, to be blasphemous against God, and injurious to the true Kirk, which always heareth and obeyeth the voice of her own Spouse and Pastor, but taketh not upon her to be mistress over the same.
2
Building upon and, in some sense, superseding the statement from 1560, the Westminster Confession of 1647 turned up the volume on the question of the authority of the written text of the Bible. It made the very first matter addressed in its elaborate system of belief and practice—ostensibly an explicit articulation of what Scripture teaches—its foundational affirmation. The Bible as found in the plain, literal sense of the text was determinative for every major question and controversy in human life: The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God (4.) … The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequences may be adduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men … The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are at rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture (10.).
As a pastor, theologian, and teacher in the Scottish Presbyterian tradition, Witherspoon upheld this strong view of the authority of Scripture with every fiber of his being. Such exalted and ferrous, not to mention ferocious, conviction played a decisive role in the way that Witherspoon and, to be sure, all Presbyterians in ante-bellum America thought about the question of slavery. For Presbyterians, the matter had to be resolved on the basis of what the Bible teaches. That was easier said than done.
Throughout the long debate within the Presbyterian tradition in America on the Bible and slavery, the vast majority of Presbyterian clergy in America affirmed that enslaved peoples of African origin were fully human based on their reading of biblical passages like Genesis 1:27 and Acts 17:26. Yet, the Pauline corpus assumes the existence of slavery and calls only for humanizing or mitigating moves within the framework of the Roman system of slavery, not its abolition. Texts like Paul's letter to Philemon (a plea to a slaveowner to receive back a runaway slave with charity) and Pauline household codes as found in Ephesians 6:5–9 and Colossians 4:1 did not lend themselves to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American ideas of manumission or abolition. 3 On the basis of such passages of Scripture, most Princeton Presbyterians in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century would not condemn slavery outright due to the teachings found in the Pauline corpus, even though few thought it was a good thing. Most Presbyterian leaders in Princeton thought it should and eventually would end if allowed to follow the natural course of things.
There were, in fact, long drawn-out arguments in print between Northern and Southern Presbyterians on the question of slavery for decades—mostly between its Southern defenders and its Northern gradual eliminationists. Not many Presbyterians, certainly not those in Princeton, held to abolitionist principles. American historian Mark Noll's observation that the Presbyterian and other Protestant denominations’ perpetual and increasingly rancorous ante-bellum disputes about how to read the Bible on slavery were finally only determined by “those consummate theologians, the Reverend Doctors Grant and Sherman, to decide what the Bible actually means.” 4
To condemn slavery outright was for Presbyterian ministers like Witherspoon tantamount to undermining the authority of Scripture. 5 Witherspoon and others among Princeton Presbyterians believed, therefore, that the best way to navigate the tension between the inherent dignity of each human being and the Pauline household codes was a gradualism in which incremental moves to mitigate and eventually end slavery could be made, but nothing sudden or drastic. Witherspoon could, then, in good conscience, baptize a slave in Scotland—Jaimie Montgomery—and teach a handful of free Blacks in Princeton without strongly condemning slavery because baptism and education should be made available to all human beings and incorporation into the church and instruction would both contribute to preparing slaves and freedmen for the social and economic viability when slavery was no more. 6 What became the Princeton Presbyterian gradualist strategy—which included admission to the church through baptism and participation in the Lord's Supper as well as education—was a way that Witherspoon and company forged to navigate the tension between scriptural allowance for slavery and their, at least theoretical, repugnance about the practice of the institution. 7
Reformed Iconoclasm and Anti-Idolatry
The entire Reformed tradition—including the Presbyterian tradition of which Witherspoon was a part—is well known for its iconoclasm and anti-authoritarianism. In its best light, radical critique of distorted or corrupt realities arises from iron-clad commitment to uphold the first two of the Ten Commandments (“You shall have no other gods” and “You shall not make for yourself an idol”). 8 The problem, according to John Calvin, is that the human heart is an idol factory. 9 Prophetic dismantling of false gods has to take place in both church and society if human life is to remain fully human since the worship of false gods always leads to corruption, injustice, and violence.
Reformed iconoclasm ultimately leads to a disruptive political theology that has its classic articulation in the very last section of Calvin's Institutes.
10
Calvin agreed with Luther that the Bible calls believers to uphold the civil authority, even when there are bad rulers (which God sometimes uses to punish the sins committed by a society). Calvin and the Reformed tradition, however, went beyond Luther and laid the theological groundwork for various revolutions (including the American): But in that obedience which we have shown to be due to the authority of rulers, we are always to make this exception, indeed, to observe it as primary, that such obedience is never to lead us away from obedience to him, to whose will the desires of all kinds ought to be subject, to whose decrees all their commands ought to yield, to whose majesty their scepters ought to be submitted. And how absurd would it be that in satisfying men you should incur the displeasure of him for whose sake you obey men themselves! The Lord, therefore, is the King of Kings, who, when he has opened his sacred mouth, must alone be heard, before all and above all men; next to him, we are subject to those men who are in authority over us, but only in him. If they command anything against him, let it go unesteemed…. “We must obey God rather than men.”
11
The problem with regard to slavery in the United States and the absence of widespread Presbyterian prophetic critique was that white clergymen did not generally apply the same iconoclastic medicine to themselves in reference to those who were “below” them; namely, women, enslaved Blacks, and Indigenous peoples. White male Scottish Presbyterians generally did pretty well when oppressed and in the position of righteous underdogs; they for the most part did much less well when they were the ones with the power and who were oppressing others. Hence the title of his article, concerning Witherspoon's partial iconoclasm.
Witherspoon and his Presbyterian minister colleagues at the College of New Jersey and, a couple of decades after his death, at the Seminary of the Presbyterian Church (today's Princeton Theological Seminary) did not do what I would call a “360° application” of their iconoclasm when it came to the social and structural realities of early American society. For this reason, Witherspoon could both sign the Declaration of Independence and also own slaves.
Theological Anthropology
Related to the universal human tendency to create and trust in false gods, Presbyterian theological anthropology affirms simultaneously that we have inherent dignity and worth and potential for goodness and that we are corrupt, self-interested, and blind to our own hypocrisies. On the one hand, we are, in a sense, hardwired, for worship of the one true God; yet, we simultaneously desire to be our own gods or to worship gods that serve our own ends. From the theological tradition in which Witherspoon stood, what else is new?
Of course we are wrestling today with what to do with how to remember the legacy of John Witherspoon. He was both a great man of conviction and courage and a hypocrite who was self-interested. He was a political iconoclast against British rule and a beneficiary of the oppression of Black slaves. It is not that much of a shock from the point of view of Reformed theological anthropology that a signer of one of the greatest documents of freedom in the history of the world was also an owner of slaves and one who did not demand emancipation for the enslaved.
For such reasons, the Reformed tradition prefers to not turn anybody into a “saint.” It is also why we don’t “cancel” people because they are not perfect and do not check all the boxes on the standards for what qualifies as a morally upright human. In short, it's complicated. Witherspoon is complicated. We are all complicated.
Unlike Lutherans, Presbyterians do not believe that Christians are perpetually caught between being sinners and sanctified; instead, the Reformed family of churches believe that slow transformation toward godliness is possible—even if on most days it is “two steps forward and one step backward.” Unlike Methodists, Presbyterians do not, though, believe one can ever actually attain perfection in this life; instead, in this life one will always struggle with sin and live in contradiction with respect to one's own best convictions, ideals, and commitments. Perhaps somewhat ironically, Witherspoon's life and that we are having a serious conversation about how to deal with his complicated legacy is a testimony to the truth of Presbyterian theological anthropology.
Theory of Change
Gradualism with respect to ending slavery was the strategy embraced by Witherspoon and all the Presbyterian leaders at both the College of New Jersey and the Seminary. The Presbyterian leaders in Princeton during the Revolutionary period through Civil War and beyond did not employ the iconoclasm of which they were capable to the issues of slavery and race. The Presbyterian divines in this town in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tried to forge a middle way between enthusiastic support for slavery and radical abolitionism. They tried to avoid the Scylla of the status quo and the Charybdis of civil war—hence various aspects of a strategy that would make incremental steps toward the end of slavery. Presbyterian ministers in Princeton like Witherspoon actively supported initiatives like teaching slaves to read, advocating for mildly anti-slavery legislation, and, the pièce de résistance, the colonization of West Africa. 12
Witherspoon was definitely not a gradualist about breaking free from the oppressive regime of the British system. On that subject, he came to a position in which he wholeheartedly embraced and openly advocated immediate disruptive change in the name of freedom. He was certainly capable of much bigger and more radical thinking, but did not do so when it came to matters of slavery and race. Perhaps Witherspoon did not want to tear down the very same emerging political experiment that he had done so much to help create. It seems plausible that Witherspoon's gradualism and mild anti-slavery tendencies may have allowed him to affirm the need for change without the use of violence—at least violence by one group of white people against another. He does not seem to have fully grappled with the ongoing violence toward the enslaved that was inherent in the system of American chattel slavery. In another place, I have called the odd contradictions in the Princeton Presbyterian imagination architected by Witherspoon “a failure of theological imagination.” 13
Apparently, no Presbyterian minister in Witherspoon's town thought that God could do amazing things to protect, support, and provide for Black people who might become immediately free. All the white male Presbyterian clergy could imagine was disaster for an immediately freed Black community. Witherspoon's paternalism, ironically, seems to have been based on a woefully impoverished view of the way in which God can work in history to make a way where there seemingly is no way. Ironically, that was just bad and extremely domesticated providential theology. American Presbyterians like Witherspoon should have thought in bigger terms about what the Bible taught them about God's ability to free slaves and help them to establish a flourishing communal life.
Final Thoughts
The Reverend John Witherspoon has to be understood by using various scholarly lenses: historical, political, ethical, and economic. Yet, he also has to be understood through the lenses of Reformed theology and his beloved Presbyterian church operating in the key of eighteenth-century Westminster orthodoxy. The four interlocking theological issues briefly considered here provide access to the belief structure and thought world in which Witherspoon operated as a leading Presbyterian pastor and teacher and as he sought to address the issues of slavery and race as a Scottish immigrant to America. To lob a thought grenade into the campus controversy that gave rise to the consultation about the Witherspoon statue at Princeton University, let me offer that his Presbyterian iconoclastic and anti-graven image commitments arising from the Second Commandment would lead the formidable Scottish divine to be the first and the loudest voice of opposition to his memorialization with a statue. No self-respecting, Commandment-upholding Presbyterian minister would ever assent to having themselves memorialized with or as a graven image.
