•Thinking
about politics and values in the context of the
“religion-and-politics” issues
•What is
religion?
•“Value
issues” and elections – What is meant?
•A
controlling force – How else might we view its role re: power/influence
in society and the political order?
•Politics
and certainty – an unholy alliance?
Historical Background:
--the
historic split
--the U.S.
Constitution and the First Amendment --- pluralism protected -----establishment and religious exercise
clauses --- later development of “separation of church and state”
concept by politicians and courts
1. Some
Key Terms:
--establishment clause
--free
exercise clause
A typology of
church-state relations:
--accommodationist
cf separationist positions
--communalist
cf libertarian positions
--abstract
separationist but concrete accommodationist
2. Framing the Issue:
3. Values
at Stake:
Constitutional
Personal
Social
–
pluralistic society that allows for various and numerous visions
of the right and the good [Rawls calls it “reasonable pluralism” if
no group’s vision of the good is to exterminate or oppress the groups
with which it disagrees] --- note that pluralism is a “fact” of
social life. The question is how politics will deal with it.
Political
4. Judiciary:
A key case: Lemon v.
Kurtzman and 3-pronged test
--state and
"compelling interest"
--state and
"least restrictive alternative"
--burden on
religious group and "central" to religion
5. Federalism: What significance is there to the idea that "All politics is local"
with regard to the issue of religion and politics?
Some Historical Notes
From a short
report located in the Library of Congress
The colony of
Rhode Island,
founded on complete religious toleration, separation of church and state, and
political democracy, became a refuge for people persecuted for their religious
beliefs. Rhode Island
colonists participated in a simple form of democratic government, with each
family represented in political meetings by the vote of the head of the family.
Anabaptists and Quakers fled the persecutions of the Puritans to settle in Rhode Island. In 1658, a
Jewish community
arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, seeking religious freedom.
Church History 13:
Roger Williams
The
following is a succinct account provided by an Internet writer with sources to
track down other accounts.
Since
Luther's time, reformers who refused to baptize infants and who re-baptized
adults were called "Anabaptists." Despite biblical support for their
position, the Anabaptists were scorned, both by Roman Catholics and other
Protestant reformers. And in that age it was dangerous to be a religious
minority.
Christian
reformers generally claimed liberty for their own beliefs, only to deny freedom
to others. But, with the Mennonites and Separatists, Baptists promoted true
religious freedom. In 1614 they declared, "The magistrate is not by virtue
of his office to meddle with religion, this or that form of religion, or
doctrine; but to leave Christian religion free, to every man's conscience, and
to handle only civil transgressions."
Meanwhile
a boy grew up in London, close by Smithfield plaza, where
heretics were burned. That boy was Roger Williams,
and his hobby was shorthand. He attended a court called the Star Chamber,
recorded the speeches, and transcribed them for Sir Edward Coke. Impressed,
Coke made Williams his secretary,
and enrolled him in the Charter House school, from
which he passed to Cambridge
University.
In
1630 a certain Dr. Leighton became a Puritan, seeking to reform the Church of
England. But the Church was not eager for reform. For his beliefs, Leighton was
whipped and placed in the pillory. One of his ears was cut off, and one side of
his nose split. Then he was branded on the face with the letters "SS"
for "Sower of Sedition," and returned to prison. Later to balance
things, he was returned to the pillory, the other side of his nose split and
his other ear cut off. Then he was imprisoned for the rest of his life.
As
witness to these events, Roger Williams
concluded that England
was not ripe for reform. Meanwhile, Puritans had started a colony on the far
side of the ocean, at a place called Massachusetts.
When the 28-year-old Williams was called to serve as pastor of the church in Salem, he was happy to go.
On his way there, he was invited to preach in Boston, but got into immediate trouble. He
thought people should be free to worship God as they chose, or chose not, without
fear of punishment by their government. This made him a heretic. He also
thought Indians should be paid for their land. This made him a threat to
civilized society.
The
Puritans of Boston warned the church in Salem,
surprised they would employ such a radical. But Salem's
leaders were tired of being dominated by Boston,
and delighted to welcome Mr. Williams.
The Bostonians didn't give up. In six months they had stirred up so much
trouble that Williams left Salem for refuge with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. There he enjoyed two years of
relative peace, serving as assistant pastor to Elder Smith. Meanwhile he did
missionary work among the Indians, became well acquainted with Chief Massasoit,
and arranged a friendly treaty with him.
In
1633 he was welcomed back to Salem.
But the Bostonians believed they were "the divine church order established
in the wilderness." Williams
preached "there was never civil state in the world that ever did or ever
shall make good work of it, with a civil sword in spiritual matters." The
Bostonians labeled him "the first rebel against the divine church
order."
King
Darius had once signed a law for the Medes and Persians, not realizing it was
aimed at Daniel. Now Boston
authorities made a law aimed squarely at Williams:
Everyone must swear an oath affirming "the right of magistrates to
punish... and to rule in religion." Williams
was convicted of holding "dangerous opinions," and was sentenced in
these words:
"Mr.
Roger Williams...hath broached and
divulged diverse new and dangerous opinions against the authority of
magistrates...and churches...and yet maintaineth the same without retraction:
it is therefore ordered that the same Mr. Williams
shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks...not to return any more
without license from the court.
But
during his last six weeks Williams
continued to preach religious liberty. Alarmed by free speech, Governor Haynes
canceled Williams' period of grace. January 11, 1636 he ordered
Captain Underhill,
with the aid of fourteen soldiers, to kidnap Williams
in the middle of the night, and ship him back to England, where he could trouble
them no more.
Fortunately
before his secret arrest, Williams
received a secret tip. At midnight
he bade good-bye to his wife and newborn child, and through a blowing
snowstorm, vanished into the wilderness.
He
later wrote, "I was unmercifully driven from my chamber to a winter's
flight, exposed to the miseries, poverties, necessities, wants, debts,
hardships of sea and land in a banished condition...I was sorely tossed
for...fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread and bed
did mean."
Emerging
from the forest at Narragansett Bay, he was
sheltered by Massasoit and other friendly Indians. Hearing he was safe, other
persecuted souls joined the Indians. Massasoit sold them land on the Mooshassuc River. Grateful to God, Williams named their new settlement "Providence." We still
call it Providence, Rhode Island.
Williams learned well the
language of his hosts, and compiled a Narragansett dictionary. Several times he
served as peacemaker among the Indians; once he even protected Massachusetts Bay.
Later
Governor Endicott invited Williams
to return to Massachusetts, but Williams replied, "I feel safer down here among
the Christian savages along Narragansett Bay
than I do among the savage Christians of Massachusetts Bay Colony."
In
fact, the leaders of Massachusetts
still had no interest in religious liberty. In 1644 they declared, "It is
ordered and agreed, that if any persons or persons, within this jurisdiction,
shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or seduce
others, or leave the congregation during the administration of this rite, they
shall be sentenced to banishment."
This
meant that Baptists had to leave Massachusetts,
but they found welcome refuge in Rhode
Island. Thus came Stephen
and Anne Mumford in 1664. The Mumfords worshipped with other Baptists on
Sunday, but they also kept holy the seventh day Sabbath. The next year came
Tacy and Samuel Hubbard, who joined the Mumfords for Sabbath worship in their
home. Their numbers increased, and in 1671 they organized the first
Sabbath-keeping church in North America.
Roger
Williams served as the first pastor
of the first Baptist church
of Providence. Williams did not keep the Sabbath, but he honored
and protected those who did. A British major named Mason heard that the Rhode Island colony no
longer kept "the Sabbath," meaning Sunday. Williams
assured Mason that Sunday was still observed, but added, "You know
yourselves doe not keep the Sabbath, that is the 7th day." As long as he
lived, there was never a Sunday law in Rhode
Island; in fact one Seventh Day Baptist eventually
became governor of the colony.
Debating Puritans on forced contributions for ministers: Williams was asked, "Is not the laborer worthy
of his hire?"
He answered, "Yes, from them that hire him, from the church."
Williams taught that
religious liberty is for everybody, including non-believers. He preached,
"Persons may with less sin be forced to marry whom they cannot love, than
to worship when they cannot believe."
Some
Baptists eventually moved to Virginia,
only to meet persecution there. Yet even in suffering they drew great minds to
their issues. Among those who defended Virginia's
Baptists were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The same Jefferson would
later write the Declaration of Independence, and Madison would write the American
Constitution.
In
1787 twelve states accepted the constitution; one did not. The one hold-out was
the smallest and weakest of them all, Rhode
Island; and the issue was religious liberty.
The
Rhode Island delegation pled, "That religion, or the duty which we owe to
our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason
and conviction, and not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an
equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion,
according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular religious sect
or society ought to be favoured, or established by law in preference to
others."
For
three years the national union remained incomplete and without a constitution.
Then Thomas Jefferson spoke to the delegates in support of Rhode Island: "By the Constitution you
have made, you have protected the government from the people, but what have you
done to protect the people from the government?" President George
Washington recommended a bill of rights, and James Madison guided it through
Congress. Supported by Virginia, Rhode Island was finally
heard, the Bill of Rights was adopted, the union was
complete.
Roger
Williams' influence lives on in the
first words of the first amendment to the American Constitution: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof..."
Bibliography:
Cross,
F. L., & Livingstone, E. A., eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the
Christian Church, p. 1488, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990.
Froom,
Le Roy, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. III pp. 46-55, Review
and Herald, Washington, D.C., 1946.
Longacre, Charles, Roger Williams,
Review and Herald, Washington,
D.C., 1939.
Seventh
Day Baptist sources from http://www.biblestudy.org.
The
New Encyclopędia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 3 p. 573, Chicago, 1991.
The
New Encyclopędia Britannica, 15th edition, vol. 12 pp. 680, 681, Chicago, 1991.
The World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 21 pp. 260,
261, World Book–Childcraft International, Chicago, 1978.
White, E. G., The Great Controversy, pp. 293-297,
Pacific Press Publishing Association, Boise,
Idaho, 1950.
©
2001 R. Wresch, M.D
