The Return of the Black Robed Regiment

The Pulpit must be filled with Bold and Just Men

Editor’s note: This was an address by J. Chase Davis at the National Conservatism Conference in 2025

“Where are the pastors?”

That’s the question every faithful Christian in America should be asking today.

When drag queens read to our children, when bureaucrats strip parents of authority, when unelected judges redefine what it means to be human, when our country is overrun with foreigners, where are the pastors? Hiding. Silent. Co-opted. And that silence is not neutral. It is surrender.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Born in 1746, Peter Muhlenberg was a second-generation American Lutheran pastor. His family would become a political dynasty in the newly formed United States. To serve in Virginia, Muhlenberg needed ordination as an Anglican minister. So he traveled to England, was ordained, and returned to shepherd his Lutheran congregation. That fact alone opens curious questions about religious establishment and creative compliance, but that’s not the point today.

Pastor Muhlenberg ministered and lived during fraught times for his nation. Questions regarding loyalty, duty, and national allegiance were bubbling to the surface. Pastors of that era didn’t shy away from politics; they applied Scripture to the pressing issues of the day.

Legend has it that one day Pastor Muhlenberg was preaching through Ecclesiastes and came to the passage in 3:9. He read, “a time for war, and a time for peace,” and stopped reading, stared at his congregation, and declared, “and now is a time for war.” He took off his priestly garments, the black robe that was common in his day, revealing his military uniform, and marched down from the pulpit straight out of the church—and over 100 men from his congregation followed him and enlisted in the Continental Army.

We don’t know if this legend is true, but the spirit of it reflects the reality on the ground. It was pastors who equipped their congregations to understand the times and what was required of them. It was the pulpits of the colonies that inspired our forefathers to engage in a war against the British Empire, securing liberty for themselves and their posterity.

This was completely normal patriotic American behavior for pastors throughout our history.

What we have done in Colorado

No institution ordained by God is more central to Scriptural formation than the pastor in the pulpit. But it doesn’t just end in the pulpit.

In Colorado this past Spring, the Democrat controlled state legislature passed House Bill 25-1312, a law that sought to remove children from parents who did not affirm their child’s perceived gender identity and criminalize those who did not use someone’s preferred pronouns. They want to make every Christian in Colorado like Jack Philips. It’s no longer “bake the cake, bigot,” it’s “say my pronouns, transphobe.” This wasn’t just bad policy. It was an attack on families, conscience, and God-ordained authority.

In response, a coalition of pastors from across the state stepped into the fight. I helped lead a charge made up of Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, non-denominational, charismatics, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox who came together from different traditions, united by conviction. We didn’t merely talk among ourselves and commiserate about the state of things; we acted. We didn’t have outside support. Legacy evangelical institutions like Young Life, Navigators, and Focus on the Family, which are all based in Colorado, remained largely silent publicly. But we few pastors:

Preached boldly from their pulpits about the wickedness of the law and the moral duty to resist it. Week after week, we showed from the Scriptures how Christians ought to think about such wicked laws.
Spoke publicly at rallies on the steps of the state capitol, making Scripture-based arguments in the public square. Many of us had never held a political rally, but it came naturally to men who were familiar with speaking with clarity in public.
Organized collaboratively across denominational lines, demonstrating that Christian unity and courage can outpace institutional divides. We circulated petitions and inspired others to action. Our number of allies grew as we stepped forward.

Our goal wasn’t simply to oppose a law. It was to educate congregations, mobilize families, and reclaim the prophetic role of the pulpit in guiding a nation toward justice and righteousness. We showed that faithful political engagement does not require abandoning theology. It is the outworking of it.

This Colorado example is a blueprint for National Conservatives: pastors can step into public life, informed by Scripture, to stand against tyranny. We can lead congregations to understand the times, inspire moral courage, and act boldly without waiting for permission from the regime or secular authorities. It does turn out, in fact, that you can just do things.

Frame this in the broader tradition in American history. It was totally normal for politics to be informed by religion and for churches and pastors to speak politically.

What we did was not novel or without historical precedent. In fact, it was common in American history. It was the shepherds in the pulpits that inspired the colonial men to action. It was not simply that people were fed up with taxes or a lack of representation. They had been steeped in the pulpit. The pulpits of the colonies were the midwives of the American War for Independence.

Consider Jonathan Mayhew. Mayhew was a minister in New England before the War for Independence. His sermons fueled the flames of those who would shed their blood for our freedoms. In a 1750 sermon, he argued that when the civil magistrate forsakes his duties and acts against the welfare of society, resistance becomes not just permissible but a moral duty for all who fear the Lord. His sermons were circulated, and he preached on these topics many times, giving Christians a deep conviction in their cause.

What’s the point? The point is not that we are to take up arms like eager, hasty revolutionaries, but rather that Scripture served as the bedrock for prudential and measured political engagement. In fact, they viewed it as their duty to get involved and bring the entire counsel of the Word of God upon political situations. And this was informed by a theological conviction that Christ is Lord. And if Christ is not Lord of all, then He is not Lord at all.

So what changed? What has happened today?

At some point, the myth of a secular, neutral public square took hold.

It is difficult to imagine this happening today.

We live in a nation that has systematically barred God from public life. Prayer and Scripture have been removed from schools, and we have sought, legally and culturally, to eradicate the influence of God from key formative institutions. We have traded a Scriptured informed nation for a neutral public square, and the results have been disastrous.

The question of pastoral political engagement is contested ground today, unlike in the days of the founding of our great nation. But pastoral political engagement is not controversial. Theology is already political. It is inevitable that theology and preaching will touch on politics, even if that means it simply submits to the regime of the day, giving tacit endorsement of everything the regime demands through slogans like “Jesus is not left or right.” Christianity is unavoidably political. We declare that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

It is inevitable that there will be a regime. In any and every society, there is a ruling class, a group of people or figure that shapes and directs the nation, those who make and interpret the law under which we live.

Law, policy, and political coalitions are rooted in claims about man, authority, and destiny. All of these laws, from zoning to immigration, will be shaped by a theological vision. Joshua Mitchell, in his book American Awakening, has shown that the architecture of law, policy, and cultural norms often reflects theological patterns, whether or not those constructing them admit it. Secularism is not neutral; it is a rival religion, with its own flags, slogans, and ceremonies. And the terms of the current political contest are existential. The left does not intend to coexist with us.

Pastors have played a unique role in political action. This doesn’t need to just happen on the left. The left has its Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons. They get out the vote at their churches. We must remember what the black church tradition has preserved from an older version of America. Our task is to reclaim the pulpits, to make them places where Scripture informs political discernment, cultural engagement, and fosters civic courage.

If National Conservatism stands for anything, it is this: we must return to God and His Word. We must orient our lives and our nation around Scripture. Without God, without a people steeped in His Word, any effort at national renewal is doomed.

This is what our forefathers knew. They understood the central feature that Scripture and the Christian religion played in their fight. It wasn’t incidental but fundamental to their efforts.

We could speak of various policy proposals to defeat the left, the necessity of regime change, the threats humanity faces from AI, mass migration, and low birth rates, all of which are important to address. There are many wins left to be had. I have yet to tire of winning. But winning without the fear of the Lord is folly. Our forefathers knew that everything they aimed to accomplish was rooted in the fear of God, and that Scripture serves as the necessary bedrock to resist tyranny. It was a fear of the Lord that allowed them to not fear the men they opposed.

And so we must turn back to God.

Pastors play a critical role in this.

Some suppose that pastors have little to no role to play in this grand project of reversing civilizational suicide that we have embarked on, a project aimed at restoring the foundations of our republic for the good of the American people. And their suspicion of pastors is not without warrant. It is for good reason: pulpits as of late have become nothing more than regime mouthpieces, parroting the slogans, mantras, and ideology of the left, baptizing their wicked ideas with pieces of Scripture taken out of context and pinned onto any and all policies related to the cultural Marxists’ ideology. When one of the most famous pastors in America, Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, advocated for getting the COVID shot as a way of “loving your neighbor,” and he and his wife marched in BLM protests while his church was closed, it is hard not to be suspicious of pastors. It seems they have been co-opted.

This is grim, but there is hope. The church in America is beginning to wake up. And if pastors rise, they can reclaim the role our forefathers’ ministers played: interpreting Scripture in light of the times, forming conscience, and inspiring courage.

What we are doing in Colorado is just that. We’ve shown that pastors can get involved and fight back. They can be partners in our broader coalition. If pastors need to be involved in national conservatism, what role can they play? I think there are four ways that pastors can be an integral part of national conservatism:

Speak politically outside of the pulpit. They can speak at city council meetings and hold political rallies. Pastors don’t need to just stand in their pulpit; they must stand in the statehouse to publicly defy the schemes of the enemy.
Form political action committees to advocate for Christians in their states and in the nation. Several churches and pastors have been integral to starting PACs in their states to fight against the left.
With the repeal of the Johnson Amendment, pastors can freely endorse political candidates. There should be prudence with their freedom, but pastors should take advantage of this freedom nonetheless. And the great news is that these so-called non-partisan pastors have the easy excuse of saying they cannot endorse candidates by law.
Train their churches on politics and political engagement. From Sunday Schools to midweek lessons, pastors can equip their congregation on what it means to engage politically.

But this brings us to a problem: many of the resources pastors have been given were created by deeply compromised Christian institutions such as seminaries and other para-church organizations. The seminaries of today are, by and large, just regime propaganda centers.

An entire hodgepodge of organizations outside the formal pipeline of seminaries to churches has sprung up to propagate regime-friendly Christianity. For example, The Gospel Coalition is one such organization that teaches evangelical Christians to essentially accept Dhimmitude in America. It is not the Gospel Coalition as much as it is the Dhimmitude Coalition. These organizations must die, but they are not going quietly into the night. They still hold massive influence, drawing thousands of pastors to their conferences. They receive funding from major foundations and donors.

And so the 5th point is that conservatives must get serious about providing patronage to pastors displaying courage under fire. The fundraising capacity among evangelical Christians has been nearly totally captured by legacy evangelical institutions that are deeply compromised. We need a new patronage system that can support pastors and Christian leaders who are willing to spend their energy resisting the left, those who display courage under fire.

Our fight in Colorado is just one example, a small skirmish, in the much larger civilizational project we are part of.

There may not be many pastors here, but this matters to you.

We live in a cold civil war. We must come to terms with what we are dealing with. We are not just dealing with leftists in our government. We are dealing with principalities and powers that stand against the Lord God Almighty. Satan’s chief aim and purpose is to make war on God’s people.

And there are people in politics who have aligned themselves with Satan. And so pastors have the particular privilege of calling this out. It is the job of a pastor to help Christians see the battle that is raging around them.

We are engaged in a cultural insurgency. Christians in Colorado, like many across the nation, are behind enemy lines. Our mission is to outlast, outlive, and persevere, raising men and families who will resist, not retreat; who will love, act, and fight for God’s glory.

And so for you, there are two things you must get right:

Conviction in Christ. It must start with you submitting your life to Jesus Christ. In your noble goal to see our nation renewed, you yourself must get right with your Maker. You must put your faith in Christ and repent of your sins.
Return to Scripture. You must not imagine a future for any National Conservatism without a return to Scripture. Integral to this project of national conservatism is Scripture.

No position in our day has been more neglected and compromised than that of pastor. Is it any wonder that commies called many pastors “useful idiots” for their cause? They knew that if they could control the pulpits, they could control the future of the nation.

We must reclaim the pulpits. Pastors must be trained and included in this civilizational project.

The American Revolution began in the pulpit. National Conservatism begins there, too. If we will stand, informed by Scripture and emboldened by faith, then we will see the renewal of our nation, and we can make America great again.