Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
We welcome Darryl G. Hart back to Christ the Center to discuss Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Hart traces the transatlantic story of Presbyterianism from the Reformation through the age of revolutions, asking why Presbyterian polity so often became a political irritant in Britain, Ireland, North America, and beyond.
The conversation ranges from Calvin’s Geneva and the French Reformed connection to the Scottish Covenanters, the English civil wars, John Witherspoon, the American founding, the 1788 revision of the Westminster Confession, and contemporary debates over Christian nationalism. Along the way, Hart helps us see how questions of church government, civil authority, establishment, liberty, and public memory are bound up with the church’s confession that Christ alone is head of his church.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction and the road to episode 1,000
2:00 Protestants and Patriots and the Presbyterian question
3:10 The project’s origins and teaching the big picture
5:12 Calvin’s ecclesiastical ordinances and Presbyterian polity
7:26 Was the American Revolution a Presbyterian revolution?
10:12 Lumpers, splitters, and Presbyterian identity
11:09 Reformed and Presbyterian: why the names matter
15:01 Presbyterians, nationalism, and the godly society
16:12 Covenanters, national covenanting, and regicide
19:31 Geneva, exiles, and the French connection
22:26 The true Presbyterian revolutionary moment: the 1630s and 1640s
24:21 Why Scotland became a Presbyterian laboratory
28:29 Why England and Scotland became Reformed rather than Lutheran
30:52 What did Presbyterians want? Church independence and state support
34:43 The Glorious Revolution, moderation, and establishment compromises
39:15 Regium donum, Canada, Ireland, and voluntary giving
42:34 John Witherspoon and Presbyterian moderation in the American founding
48:16 Revising Westminster Confession chapter 23
55:30 American Heretics, Two Sons of Oil, and anti-liberal Presbyterianism
60:30 Further conversations and Protestants and Patriots
65:05 Independence Hall, historic preservation, and public memory
70:07 Conclusion
Resources
Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution by D. G. Hart
University of Notre Dame Press: https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268210854/protestants-and-patriots/
We welcome Darryl G. Hart back to Christ the Center to discuss Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Hart traces the transatlantic story of Presbyterianism from the Reformation through the age of revolutions, asking why Presbyterian polity so often became a political irritant in Britain, Ireland, North America, and beyond.
The conversation ranges from Calvin’s Geneva and the French Reformed connection to the Scottish Covenanters, the English civil wars, John Witherspoon, the American founding, the 1788 revision of the Westminster Confession, and contemporary debates over Christian nationalism. Along the way, Hart helps us see how questions of church government, civil authority, establishment, liberty, and public memory are bound up with the church’s confession that Christ alone is head of his church.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction and the road to episode 1,000
2:00 Protestants and Patriots and the Presbyterian question
3:10 The project’s origins and teaching the big picture
5:12 Calvin’s ecclesiastical ordinances and Presbyterian polity
7:26 Was the American Revolution a Presbyterian revolution?
10:12 Lumpers, splitters, and Presbyterian identity
11:09 Reformed and Presbyterian: why the names matter
15:01 Presbyterians, nationalism, and the godly society
16:12 Covenanters, national covenanting, and regicide
19:31 Geneva, exiles, and the French connection
22:26 The true Presbyterian revolutionary moment: the 1630s and 1640s
24:21 Why Scotland became a Presbyterian laboratory
28:29 Why England and Scotland became Reformed rather than Lutheran
30:52 What did Presbyterians want? Church independence and state support
34:43 The Glorious Revolution, moderation, and establishment compromises
39:15 Regium donum, Canada, Ireland, and voluntary giving
42:34 John Witherspoon and Presbyterian moderation in the American founding
48:16 Revising Westminster Confession chapter 23
55:30 American Heretics, Two Sons of Oil, and anti-liberal Presbyterianism
60:30 Further conversations and Protestants and Patriots
65:05 Independence Hall, historic preservation, and public memory
70:07 Conclusion
Resources
Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution by D. G. Hart
University of Notre Dame Press: https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268210854/protestants-and-patriots/
