In many ways, the history of Baptists in America is a microcosm of American religious history, with certain distinctive theologies, beliefs, and traditions inexorably intertwined with matters of American politics and society. This is a crowded academic field, with many volumes approaching the issues from different angles, including several as recently as 2022.

To Contest with all the Powers of Darkness, by Jacob Hicks, joins the conversation by analyzing Baptists’ development of “ecclesiological and political networks that Baptist leaders formed to work for political disestablishment in New England” partly due to the work of John Leland (4). Hicks states that his book is not a biography of Leland, but rather frames Leland as a crucial catalyst toward disestablishment in New England.

After a rather lengthy analysis of competing interpretations of John Leland’s views on radical individualism versus voluntarism in Baptist life (5–9), Hicks offers his thesis, taking a mediating approach in accounting for “the unique blend of both individualistic and communitarian elements that motivated New England Baptists” (9). The main thrust of the book considers how Baptists, by political means, succeeded in gaining freedom from religious persecution as a minority sect through the disestablishment of religion in New England, and later, how they institutionalized to become a significant presence in the post-revolutionary American religious landscape. According to Hicks, “this approach is a new type of political history of New England Baptists, different from existing historiography…” (9).

In chapter 1, Hicks explores the centrality of Baptist preaching and the formation of associations among autonomous Baptist congregations as means for political engagement. Baptist preachers were “called” based upon their ability to orate clearly and dynamically (31). Hicks suggests that this tradition of vibrant communication aided Baptist public speaking in the political arena. Moreover, through associations of churches, such as the Philadelphia Association (1707) and especially the Warren Association (1767), Baptists were better able to coordinate their petitions to the New England establishment.

Chapter 2 examines how Baptists eventually transitioned from isolated and ineffective “tactics” (43–45) to a more effective long-range “strategy” in their struggle. One such strategy involved the utilization of print media. Between 1745 and 1792, Isaac Backus alone published 82 articles or advertisements (54). Another strategy involved the work of the Warren Association and its powerful grievance committee which held audiences in key venues, including the first Continental Congress in 1774 (73).

Chapter 3 explores John Leland’s political advocacy for the Baptists, and what Hicks calls, the latter’s “political ecumenism.” In Virginia, Leland’s activism eventually influenced James Madison (90). In 1792, Leland moved to New England and successfully led the Baptists into a critical alliance with the Democrat Republicans. Hicks highlights Leland’s impact at the local, county, and state levels, especially during his stint as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1811 to 1813. In 1811, Leland delivered “possibly his most famous speech, a well-reasoned and passionate defense of religious liberty,” (109) as many Baptists and trinitarian Congregationalist Democrat-Republicans voted to defeat the Federalists by passing the Religious Freedom Act. The law, while not guaranteeing full freedom of religion, allowed Massachusetts citizens the freedom to direct their ecclesiastical taxes to the church of their choice, rather than to the established Congregational church. Full religious freedom would not arrive until 1833.

In chapter 4, Hicks attempts to demonstrate how Baptists metamorphosized into an established denomination which sought unity with their former persecutors, the Congregationalists, thereby initiating an era of American Evangelicalism, a quasi-national establishment (113). Hicks suggests that both groups became unified in their goals to develop mission-sending agencies for home and foreign missions, the Congregationalist American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1810, and the Baptist institution of the Triennial Convention in 1814. In addition, both established seminaries, Bible societies, and other agencies. Through institutionalization, says Hicks, Baptists spurned their historic separationist ideals, and became supporters of an “unofficial establishment” while shelving their differences with Congregationalists (136). In the closing pages of the chapter, Hicks offers a final piece of evidence pointing to Baptist institutionalization and entrenchment in the new “Protestant establishment.” John Leland, ever the individualist, harshly criticized the current state of Baptists given their earlier struggles against the establishment (134–135).

One wonders if the basis for Hicks’ thesis is merely begging the question, designed to support Hicks’ conclusions? Are the extremes in the interpretation of John Leland really as stark as Hicks states (5–9)? It is somewhat difficult to connect Hicks’ discussion of the historiography of Leland to his observations of the Baptist evolution from persecuted minority to established denomination. Hicks succeeds in demonstrating a progression of the former to the latter in his four chapters, but it seems as though Leland’s efforts are simply a part of the narrative, regardless of how he is interpreted by historians. I might have suggested removing the discussion of Leland’s interpreters so as to restore a smoother flow to the account.

In the last chapter, Hicks draws a number of untenable conclusions, but one stands out. He correctly states that Baptists and Congregationalists cooperated politically, but he implies that they achieved religious unity through the establishment of parallel institutions. While Hicks ably demonstrates how these institutions were formed, I was unable to discern from the evidence given how this led to unity between the denominations. For example, Hicks recounts the story of Adoniram Judson’s conversion to the Baptist faith while on mission to India as an appointed missionary of the ABCFM. Upon arriving in India, Judson resigned, and became a Baptist missionary. Rather than proving Hick’s claim, this story actually underscores the perpetual divide between the two denominations, that of infant versus believers’ baptism, and consequently retracts from his argument.

At times, the text made for difficult reading due to oscillation between formal and colloquial language along with a few instances of poor sentence construction. Yet, Hicks is to be commended for his foray into a crowded academic field, and while some of the evidence for his claims are a bit underwhelming, the overall narrative does offer some insight into the growth of pre- and post-revolutionary Baptists, and relies upon a solid collection of primary and secondary sources.