The American Revolution and Righteous Community: Selected Sermons of Bishop Robert Smith

This selected edition of twenty-seven sermons delivered by Bishop Robert Smith (1732-1801) from the pulpit of Charleston's oldest Episcopal church gives voice to an influential clergyman and his rhetoric in support of a colonial rebellion. Wilbanks has edited Smith's previously unpublished sermons, which were written, delivered, and sometimes repeated during a forty-year career. In his analysis of these sermons, Wilbanks illustrates how a theology of community, civic duty, and national piety led to Smith's advocacy of American independence. Wilbanks suggests that Smith articulated a southern perspective that constituted a radically distinctive justification for the American Revolution, a view drawn from Smith's notion of a righteous community. Contrary to Puritan teachings of individual rights and responsibilities, which often served as a validation for revolution, Smith's call for righteous community also justified the War of Independence.