Rev John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg

 

Though he is famously remembered in Woodstock, Virginia, as a "Fighting Parson" who urged his congregation to join the Revolutionary War, he was actually an ordained Lutheran minister who traveled to London to be ordained into the Anglican Church (the official state religion of Virginia at the time) so he could legally lead the local German Lutheran community. 

Muhlenberg delivered his legendary farewell sermon in Woodstock in January 1776, citing Ecclesiastes 3 to declare that "there is a time to fight". He then dramatically removed his clerical robes to reveal his Continental Army colonel's uniform. He subsequently recruited roughly 300 men from his congregation to join the Continental Army as the 8th Virginia Regiment, and he eventually rose to the rank of Major General.

Statue of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg installed in Freedom Plaza, Washington, DC for the 250th anniversary of American independence. 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/john-peter-gabriel-muhlenberg-preacher-and-patriot.htm

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/muhlenberg/

https://freedomcivics.org/blogs/news/the-black-robed-regiment-preachers-who-fought

https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/04/the-fighting-parsons-farewell-sermon/