More on the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (MeckDec): Who were these men (and alas, they were all men, although surely the women of Mecklenburg shared their sentiments!), these feisty rebels who concocted this bold idea of declaring independence? Most were Scots-Irish, known as people you didn’t mess around with, people who never just fell in line to do as they’d been told. It seems they were religious people, probably more so than the men who signed The Declaration of Independence a year later in Philadelphia. They were downright allergic to any kind of imposed authority. Being Scots, they loathed all things English – like the king and taxes and the Church of England.  

   Their brand of Christianity was Presbyterian. I wish I could credit the Methodists, but they were focused down east and didn’t arrive in Mecklenburg until a decade after MeckDec. Half of the delegates who signed MeckDec weren’t just church members; they were leaders, elected elders in their churches. And two were clergy.  

   Indeed, Billy Graham, speaking to a crowd of 100,000 at Freedom Park on May 20, 1975, the bicentennial of MeckDec, claimed that “Their faith was the inner resource that directed their actions and gave meaning and purpose to their lives. It was the most important thing in their lives.” I suspect they’d say the most important thing in their lives would be survival, scratching out a hard-scrabble living for their poor families. They sought God’s help in this – and in ridding themselves of British control. 

   In fact, dreams of rebellion and independence had been stirred up in the churches. As we’ve seen, Jefferson and the other famous Founders bequeathed to us what Randall Balmer calls “America’s best idea,” the separation of church and state – which, as we saw earlier in our series, doesn’t mean the church is silent on things that matter! Certainly in Colonial North Carolina, pastors spoke openly about things that mattered, like oppressive taxation, the overlording by a King and Parliament on a little island far away, and tantalizing ideas like freedom.  

   The greatest among them may have been Rev. Alexander Craighead, the first pastor of Mecklenburg’s oldest church, Sugaw Creek Presbyterian. Their first building’s location is marked by a stone pillar right across Craighead Road from the Sugaw Creek Burying Ground, where Rev. Craighead is buried. {Footnote: he is not buried in Elmwood Cemetery in uptown Charlotte where you can find a 25 foot tall marble obelisk dedicated to him – with the unfortunately misspelled “Decleration” engraved on its base!} 

   Craighead was called “Son of Thunder.” He delivered his sermons with a drawn sword for dramatic effect. {Footnote: I’ve not tried this, or at least not yet…} He preached with guile and ferocity that kings had no right to rule over anybody. He wasn’t making this stuff up, and he wasn’t mixing his politics into his religion. What he thundered was in Scripture.  

   Gideon was a great military hero, leading the Israelites to stunning, country-preserving victories over the Midianites. The people rose up and shouted that he should be king! – like the other nations. But Israel was not to be like the other nations. His theologically profound reply to this offer of power? “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.” In 1 Samuel 13-15, the people demand that they be given a king, like the other nations. Samuel refuses. They relentlessly insist. God tells Samuel, Let them have a king, and boy, will they be sorry. 

   Later, Solomon is king, and he fleeces the people of the fruits of their labor, and sends their beloved sons into ill-advised wars not of God. Only Jesus arrives as the true king, not one to lord it over others, but to serve, humbly, meekly, compassionately. 

   Craighead died in 1766, nine years before the Mecklenburg Declaration. But the signers gave him credit for ushering them toward such a momentous decision. Indeed, as David Fleming puts it in Who’s Your Founding Father?, Craighead “should have been its first signer.” His fingerprints were all over what those Scots-Irish Presbyterians did in May, 1775.