Image: German and British officers with a chaplain in 1777

In God on Three Sides, Jonathan M. Wilson explores how German Pietist communities experienced and interpreted the American Revolution, a war that forced believers to wrestle with loyalty, violence, and obedience to God in a time of political upheaval. Drawing on sermons, letters, and personal writings, Wilson shows how Pietists on all sides of the conflict—Patriot, Loyalist, and neutral—understood the war through a shared theological vocabulary of providence, suffering, discipline, and faithful endurance.

Wilson treats Pietism broadly, using the term to describe a transatlantic devotional culture rather than a narrowly defined movement. In his account, Lutherans, Reformed, Moravians, and related German-speaking Protestants participate in a common pietist world shaped by intense Scripture use, moral seriousness, and the conviction that God was dwelling within them by faith.

Rather than resolving the moral tensions of war, God on Three Sides highlights how pietist faith absorbed and interpreted political crisis: some read the conflict as divine chastisement, others as a call to reform, and still others as a trial demanding patient submission. For Lutheran listeners, the book is especially illuminating in showing how traditional Lutheran language of vocation, suffering, and obedience functioned within this broader pietist framework—often without sharp confessional self-consciousness, yet still grounded in inherited theological instincts.

God on Three Sides offers a comparative compilation of how early American German Protestants experienced revolution, revealing the temporal costs of war and the complexity of Christian conscience in a divided world.

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About the Host
- Benjamin Phelps is a 2014 graduate from Martin Luther College with a Bachelor of Arts with a German emphasis. From there went on to graduate from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2018. Ben has been a regular writer and presenter on various Lutheran history topics. His 2018 thesis on Wyneken won the John Harrison Ness award and the Abdel Ross Wentz prize. He is also the recipient of several awards from the Concordia Historical Institute.
  Ben is currently a doctoral student in historical theology through Concordia Seminary's reduced residency program in St. Louis.

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TLHP 77 Lutherans and the American Revolution: God on Three Sides with Jonathan Wilson PART I

The Lutheran History Podcast