Eighty-three years ago this week, President Coolidge rode up
16th Street from the White House and dedicated the noble but simple
statue of Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury that still sits in the
Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Across five decades in early America, Methodism’s circuit riding
bishop crisscrossed all the colonies and later nearly every state
of the union, preaching the Gospel, and constructing what would
become the nation’s largest denomination. The statue portrays
Asbury on his horse, enrobed in a cape and with a wide brim hat,
Bible in hand. Asbury, who never owned a home, spent most of his 70
years on the preaching trail. He routinely forded engorged rivers,
hoofed through blizzards, traversed the Alleghenies, risked Indian
attacks, and stayed in tiny smelly cabins with dirt floors more
often than in fine houses.
“It was because of what Bishop Asbury… preached that our
country has developed so much freedom and contributed so much to
the civilization of the world,” Coolidge rhapsodized about the
circuit rider. The President warned that America’s “liberty and
prosperity” cannot continue if “we neglect the work which he
did.”
In the 1920s, this memory of frontier religion was still
retained in the American consciousness. The Asbury statue unveiling
included a 3-hour ceremony, for which the President was present in
its entirety. A military band played hymns, including “Behold the
Christian Warrior Standing in All the Armor of His God,” while an
honor guard from Ft. Myer stood at attention. The flags of all 13
original American colonies fluttered in the autumn breeze, and a
flock of carrier pigeons were released to symbolize peace. More
than 5,000 were in the audience.
Today, almost nobody notices the Asbury statue any more, and few
outside of diehard Methodist circles even remember who Asbury was.
But the Coolidge dedication and speech were front page news in
Washington, D.C. newspapers in October 1924. Coolidge called Asbury
a “prophet of the wilderness” who is “entitled to rank as one of
the builders of our nation.” But the President also exploited the
opportunity to speak more largely about the role of religion in
American civic life.
“We cannot depend upon the government to do the work of
religion,” said Coolidge. “An act of Congress may indicate that a
reform is being or has been accomplished, but it does not itself
bring about a reform. The government of a country never gets ahead
of the religion of a country.” Of Asbury, Coolidge said: “He had no
idea that he was preparing men…to take
advantage of free institutions, and the better to perform the
functions of self-government.”
Asbury was arguably the most important religious figure during
the United States first 40 years. During the American Revolution,
the established Anglican churches collapsed. The influence of the
old-style Puritan divines did not stretch much beyond New England.
The new democratic republic needed a new populist, frontier-style
religion. Appointing thousands of fellow circuit riding Methodist
preachers over the decades, Bishop Asbury saw Methodism explode
from a few thousand followers to over 200,000 church members.
UNLIKE SOME OF HIS modern mainline Protestant successors, who
advocate a stale 20th century Social Gospel, Asbury had little
direct interest in politics, despite living during some of history
most revolutionary times. “Methodist preachers politicians! What a
curse!” he once remarked. Asbury’s 50 years of journaling barely
mention the momentous events of his day. He never mentioned Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison or Andrew Jackson, though he
likely met them and many other great statesmen. Estimated to travel
about 6,000 miles every year, Asbury was probably the most traveled
American of his era.
Twice Asbury did meet George Washington. First it was to ask the
general, immediately after the Revolution, to endorse legislation
in Virginia to abolish slavery. Later, Asbury would assure then
President Washington of Methodist support for the new republic.
Both times Asbury was impressed by Washington’s simultaneous
simplicity and grandeur. When Washington died, Asbury described him
as the greatest man of the age.
Asbury’s ties to Washington were significant. Unlike other
Methodist preachers sent by Methodist founder John Wesley in
England, Asbury refused to leave America when the Revolution began.
“I can by no means agree to leave such a field for gathering souls
to Christ as we have in America,” he wrote, “Therefore I am
determined by the grace of God not to leave them, let the
consequence be what it may.”
When Wesley, an ardent Tory, denounced the Revolution, Asbury
remained publicly silent, while privately lamenting that the
“venerable man ever dipped into the politics of America.” When
Wesley permitted the creation of a new Methodist Church in America
after the Revolution, Asbury insisted that Wesley’s appointment of
him as bishop was not sufficient, and that the American preachers
must elect him as their bishop. The new church also inserted into
its doctrinal standards a specific affirmation of the sovereignty
of the United States and opposition to any “foreign
jurisdiction.”
While the early Methodist Church mostly stayed out of politics,
it created an ethos that deeply shaped early American life.
Methodism encouraged thrift, hard work, entrepreneurship, private
philanthropy, and civic righteousness. Even if the church itself
did not become politically active, Methodist individuals became
renowned for their reforming zeal. But their main focus was always
on the Gospel.
“He did not come for political motives,” Coolidge rightly
observed of Asbury. “He came to bring the Gospel to the people.”
Asbury preached to whites, blacks and Indians. He opposed slavery
and was indifferent to wealth. He confirmed to early Americans that
morality and religion were inextricably linked.
Undoubtedly, Asbury would have agreed with Coolidge’s assertion
that, “Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source
that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality
and liberty, and for the rights of mankind.” Perhaps aware of the
rising totalitarian movements that would consume the rest of the
20th century, Coolidge noted: “There are only two main theories of
government in the world. One rests on righteousness, the other
rests on force. One appeals to reason, the other appeals to the
sword.”
Coolidge, ever the realist, also warned against divorcing social
reforms from the religious impulses that generate them, as well as
realizing that if “we can keep in mind their sources, we shall
better understand their limitations.” But the President, often
portrayed as dour, ended his ode to Asbury on a lofty note.
“I do not see how any one could recount the story of this early
Bishop without feeling a renewed faith in our own country,”
Coolidge declared. “Above all attacks and all vicissitudes it has
arisen calm and triumphant; not perfect, but marching on guided in
its great decisions by the same spirit which guided Francis
Asbury.”
