The Tea Party Movement is building up steam, no pun intended. It is being described in many ways, but the beauty of it is the true grassroots, non-party affiliated, and citizen-directed manner in which multitudes of Americans are standing up and saying, “This is enough!” We are experiencing a profound political moment—a perfect time to reflect upon America’s first Tea Party.
On May 10, 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act. This tax was to provide a “bailout” for the British East India Company which had a monopoly on the tea trade in the British Isles. This company had been struggling over an extended period of time for a variety of reasons.
A primary issue was their contractual agreement requiring them to pay the British government 400,000 pounds of tea each year, as a “legal” bribe for the right to exercise their monopoly on the tea trade. This Tea Act came after a series of new taxes were forced on the colonists in the previous five years. Many colonists viewed the “tea tax” as the final straw. As the British government began collecting their taxes, a grassroots movement was set into motion which culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773.
The average American probably does not know that the Tea Party was actually a calm, civil event. A number of men quietly threw 342 cases of the British East India Company’s tea off ship into the waters of Boston harbor. They disguised themselves as Native American Indians to protect their identity. No shots were fired and there was no violence, yet it was a “galvanizing” step in bringing unity among the colonists.
But there is another significant event that occurred after the passing of the Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party. You probably will not find it in a public school textbook. The Virginia House of Burgesses, on May 24, 1774, passed the following:
“This House, being deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers to be derived to British America from the hostile invasion of the city of Boston in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose commerce and harbor are, on the first day of June next, to be stopped by an armed force, deem it highly necessary that the said first day of June be set apart, by members of this House, as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, devoutly to implore the Divine interposition, for averting the heavy calamity which threatens destruction to our civil rights and the evils of civil war, to give us one heart and mind…[in answer to prayer and fasting] that the minds of his Majesty and his Parliament, may be inspired from above with wisdom.”
These Founding Fathers remind us of three important points: First, government leaders were leaders who led in fasting and praying with humiliation. They had a perspective that humbling themselves with fasting and engaging in corporate prayer can change things. They knew from church teaching and experience that humbling themselves before God and depriving themselves of food could shape history. Second, government leaders saw that God’s intervention could avert “heavy calamity.” At the foundation of their laws was a recognition of God’s sovereign preeminence, authority and power. Third, they fasted and prayed specifically for the King and Parliament to have wisdom from God. It is interesting that they did not pray and fast to be removed from the tyranny of an unjust government, but rather they prayed for “all those in authority.” There is a recognition of God’s delegated government and sense of submission with this statement that is subtle, but should not go unnoticed.
This month, as the citizens of the United States pay federal income taxes, the proclamation from the House of Virginia cries out to Tea Party members and to all of us who have a mindset to fast and pray for “all in authority,” that they would be “inspired from above with wisdom.”
