In my last post, I wrote about the marriage of the Church and the State under the Emperor Constantine in the early fourth century. As a result, the Church became polluted with paganism and a worldly, rather than eternal, focus. The division between church and state had been removed, and to the shame of both the Church and the State, there has been little separation between church and state in western civilization since Constantine. Throughout most of church history, the Church has controlled the State or the State has controlled the Church. In the Middle Ages, monarchs were often puppets of the Pope, and in 1527, under Henry VIII, the Church-State was simply exchanged for a State-Church.Now, let's move up to the colonies in America. In all of the education that we have received about the American War for Independence--even us older folks who were not taught the "revised" history the kids are receiving today--few of us have been taught the huge role that the struggle for religious freedom played in the overall struggle for independence in the colonies.
Just like in England, where the Church was controlled by the State, preachers in the colonies had to be licensed by the government. If you refused to take the king's license you were subject criminal prosecution. And as in England, jurors might typically bring back a verdict of not guilty, so preachers were often tried unlawfully.
The Citizens Rule Book is quite an interesting piece of literature. Although the book was originally published anonymously, we now know this book was written and published by Charles R. Olson, a World War II Marine veteran and printer from Boston. The The Citizens Rule Book contains an account of an important event in the life of Patrick Henry, one of our founding fathers:
Young Christian lawyer Patrick Henry saw why a JURY of PEERS is so vital to FREEDOM! It was March 1775 when he rode into a small town of Culpepper, Virginia. He was totally shocked by what he saw! There, in the middle of the town square was a minister tied to a whipping post, his back laid bare and bloody with the bones of his ribs showing. He had been scourged mercilessly like JESUS, with whips laced with metal. Patrick Henry is quoted as saying: "When they stopped beating him, I could see the bones of his rib cage. I turned to someone and asked what the man had done to deserve such a beating as this."
The reply given him was that the man being scourged was a minister who refused to take a license. He was one of twelve who were locked in jail because they refused to take a license. A license often becomes an arbitrary control by government that makes a crime out of what ordinarily would not be a crime. IT TURNS A RIGHT INTO A PRIVILEGE! Three days later they scourged him to death.
This was the incident which sparked Christian lawyer Patrick Henry to write the famous words which later became the rallying cry of the Revolution. "What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know no what course others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!" Later he made this part of his famous speech at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Virginia.[1]
In his book, In Caesar's Grip, Peter Kershaw writes about Patrick Henry:
As a Common-Lawyer, Henry used his legal prowess to successfully argue the case of numerous "nonconformist" ministers. "Preaching without a license" was held to be a crime, but eager to avoid the stigma of being branded as "religious persecutors," magistrates usually charged unlicensed preachers with some other crime, such as "vagrancy" or "disturbing the peace." Henry won the release of many a preacher from prison, and even posted bail or paid their fines, sometimes anonymously.[2]
Kershaw goes on to quote from A Son of Thunder by Henry Mayer:
Henry, it was said, rode fifty miles out of his way to volunteer his services to the Baptists jailed in Spotsylvania. He walked into the courtroom on the day of the trial and, hearing the charge of disturbing the peace read aloud, asked to see the indictment.
"Did I hear it distinctly, or was it a mistake of my own?" he is supposed to have said. "Did I hear an expression, as of a crime, that those men, whom your worships are about to try for misdemeanor, are charged with,--with what,--preaching the Gospel of the Son of God?"
The lawyer paused, exploiting the silence as only he could. He held the paper high in the air and slowly waved it three times around his head. Then, with face and arms raised toward heaven, Henry simply said, "Great God!" and again, "Great God!" and once more, "Preaching the Gospel of the Son of God--Great God!" The prosecution, the story concludes, could make no rejoinder, and the case had to be dropped. The dissenters celebrated Henry as their Robin Hood."[3]
There was an important undercurrent of thought from religious leaders throughout the colonies that played a large role in the development of our founding documents. I have written previously about Roger Williams (click here to read). Williams came from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631, and he was banished from from the colony in 1636 because he criticized religious intolerance. There certainly was a lot of religious intolerance in Massachusetts Bay. Remember, it was in this colony, in Salem, that the notorious witch trials of 1692 were held.
Roger Williams insisted that the magistrates of Massachusetts had no authority over an individual's religion and he opposed a church-state. Williams' primary concern was not for the State, it was for the Church. He was convinced that the State could not touch anything regarding the Church without corrupting it. There was century upon century of history to prove this!
Among those who framed our founding documents, there were some who were primarily concerned with protecting the State from the Church, and some more concerned with protecting the Church from the State. The upshot of the whole thing was the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Although Dominion Theologians will try to convince you that the First Amendment does not separate the church and state, the powers of each are clearly recognized as being separate. Thank God for First Amendment!
Footnotes:1. The Citizens Rule Book.
2. Peter Kershaw, In Caesar's Grip, (Branson: Heal Our Land Ministries, 2000), p. 33.
3. Ibid.
