Jacob Green's Revolution: Radical Religion and Reform in a Revolutionary Age By S.Scott Rohrer. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 304; illustrations, maps. Cloth, $79.95; paper, $34.95.

Abstract

Independent scholar S. Scott Rohrer weaves together biographies of two New Jersey ministers, Jacob Green (1722–1790) in Hanover and Thomas Bradbury Chandler (1726–1790) in Elizabethtown. Both were raised as Congregationalists. Green fell under the spell of Edwards and Whitefield, became a Presbyterian minister, and authored popular polemical tracts both devotional and political. During his long career, Green advocated social and moral change, including emancipation, democratic reform, currency amelioration, and payment of the national debt. Within Presbyterianism he urged greater congregational self-rule, opposed religious establishment, and held high standards for personal piety and church membership. Green's devotion to the patriot movement, including his powerful argument against reconciliation with Great Britain, earned him appointment to the New Jersey Provincial Congress. By contrast, Chandler became a follower of (American) Samuel Johnson, an Anglican minister, advocate for an American bishop, and loyalist. Rohrer's handling of religious and political history is skillful, but his loyalty to an erroneous paradigm of what and who was conservative or progressive during this period owes too much to Mark Noll and others who have confused the complexity and diversity of both the Reformed tradition and what we lazily call “the Enlightenment.” This blunts the contrasting of Green with Chandler and misses important opportunities to correct the received orthodoxy. Nevertheless, we are grateful for Rohrer's careful and deliberate chronicle, his spirited prose, and a monograph appropriate for scholars and undergraduates alike.