The History of Religious Liberty in Colonial America
Content
LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN COLONIAL AMERICA
A PAPER
SUBMITTED TO DR. DAVID L. GOZA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE
HISTORY OF BAPTISTS
CHHI 694
BY
BRIAN DOUGLAS AUNKST
MORRISON, COLORADO
MARCH 8, 2013
ii
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
John Smyth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
Thomas Helwys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
AMERICAN COLONIES: FOUR APPROACHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
New England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
Roger Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
John Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
New York, New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Act of Toleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
John Locke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
LIBERTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12
John Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Isaac Backus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
Thomas Jefferson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
James Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
iii
John Leland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
The First Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
INTRODUCTION
Many American colonies were settled by those seeking freedom to exercise their
religious beliefs, which was denied them in Europe. However, those same seekers of religious
freedom became the persecutors of others who did not share their beliefs. Nevertheless, small
dissident religious groups survived this state-sanctioned persecution, as did their idea of ChurchState separation. Religious freedom was not inevitable, nor was it accomplished easily. On the
contrary, the journey to religious freedom was long and arduous and, like most difficult treks,
had to be achieved gradually. The Baptists were among the significant pioneers in this unfolding
odyssey; their fundamental belief in religious liberty eventually culminated in the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
BACKGROUND
The idea of the separation of religion and the State was conceived when Jesus Christ
said, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”
(Luke 20:25 ESV). Until that time religion was a national concept; all members of a society
shared a common belief system, and dissenters were not tolerated. Christ opened the door for
religion apart from state sanction or regulation. This idea became a way of life for His followers,
especially during the Patristic period before Constantine. Upon Constantine’s accession to the
throne, Christianity became the state-sponsored religion throughout the Roman Empire,
eventually seeking out those who held dissenting views—heretics. Ultimately, one of these
1
2
heretical views, Church-State separation, would, in due course, become implanted in the
American colonies. 1
Europe
With the marriage of the Church and the State under Emperor Constantine in 313 AD and
the domination of Roman Catholicism under Gregory from 590 AD, all of Europe was seized in
its iron grip; religious liberty was not tolerated, and those who sought it were punished as
enemies of both the Church and the State. 2 The more intertwined the Church and State became,
the more the citizenry suffered under their joint control. Eventually, in 1517, Martin Luther
permanently disrupted the medieval Church-State feudal system in Europe. 3 As the seams of the
established religious and political institutions began to heave under the pressure, others added to
the strain: Thomas Cranmer in England, John Knox in Scotland, Menno Simons in the
Netherlands, and Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich. 4 Many of these ‘reformers’ simply wanted to repair
the existing Church, but others wanted to completely separate from it.
John Smyth
Among those Separatists was an Englishman, John Smyth, an ordained minister of the
Church of England who was dismissed for his radical teachings on believers’ church. He wrote,
“The true constitution of the Church is of a new creature baptized into the Father, the Son, & the
Holy Ghost.” 5 He joined a group of Separatists who met in Gainsborough; however, the
persecution against them under King James I was relentless, forcing Smyth and another leader,
1
Philip Schaff, and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1910), under “Restriction of Religious Freedom, and Beginnings of Persecution of Heretics.” Logos ebook.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., under “Luther and Henry VIII.” Logos ebook.
4
Ibid.
5
John Smyth, The Character of the Beast, 1609. Baptist Theology.org.
http://www.baptisttheology.org/documents/history/thecharacterofthebeast.pdf (accessed February 28, 2013).
3
Thomas Helwys, to immigrate to Holland where they discovered greater religious toleration.
Smyth and Helwys formed the first Baptist church in Amsterdam in 1609; however, Smyth’s
growing attraction to the Mennonites caused a split with Helwys. 6
Thomas Helwys
In 1612, Helwys returned to England and founded the first Baptist church there. 7 An
early English advocate for religious freedom, Helwys wrote, “If the Kings people be obedient
and true subjects, obeying all humane lawes made by the King, our Lord the King can require no
more: for men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it,
neither may the King be judge between God and man.” 8 His words expressed one of the most
divisive issues among the Reformers and Separatists: the proper relationship between the
Church and the State. 9 Some of the Helwys’ group departed for America, and in 1620 these
‘Pilgrims’ settled the Plymouth colony in New England. 10
America
Columbus had brought European Catholicism with him to the New World. Pope
Alexander VI divided this newly-discovered land between Spain and Portugal and charged them
“to bring the Christian faith to the peoples who inhabit these islands and the mainland, and to
send to the said islands and to the mainland wise, God-fearing, and virtuous men who will be
capable of instructing the indigenous people in good morals and in the Catholic faith.” 11 Little
6
E. Glenn Hinson, “The Baptist Experience in the United States,” Revew & Expositor 79, no. 2 (Spring
1982), 218.
7
Ibid.
8
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 72. Logos ebook.
9
Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press,
2012), 35. Kindle ebook.
10
Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1992), 56.
11
Ibid., 13.
4
thought was given to the religious liberty of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas; they
were viewed as heathens in need of salvation. Much of this missionary effort was concentrated
in Latin America; however, Spanish missions were also founded in Florida and the American
southwest. 12
Spain and Portugal were not the only European nations to express interest in the New
World. Great Britain, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands all inaugurated colonies in North
America. 13 Their goals for establishing colonies in the New World were mostly commercial;
however, many religious groups who were suffering persecution in the Old World elected to seek
an opportunity in the New World to practice their religious beliefs as they chose. While there
was no unity of purpose in settling the various North American colonies, many of their colonial
charters included provisions for religious organization. Indeed, the American colonies
demonstrated four distinct approaches to the relationship between religion and the State. 14
THE AMERICAN COLONIES: FOUR APPROACHES
In reviewing the history of the widely disparate beginnings of the colonies in North
America, four specific methodologies in their governance and the Church-State bond clearly
emerge. These four concepts vary from state-mandated religion, similar to what existed in
Europe, to self-imposed compulsory religion, to relative ambivalence, to religious toleration. 15
12
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 14-17.
13
Ibid., 197.
14
Michael W. McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,”
Harvard Law Review 103 no. 7 (May 1990), 1423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1341281 (accessed January 31,
2013).
15
Ibid.
5
Virginia
In the Colony of Virginia, religion in the form of the Church of England was established
and financially supported by the State as an instrument of social control. 16 England’s first
colony was founded by a proprietary charter from King James in 1606, which stated one goal of
the colonists was “propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and
miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the
Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet
Government.” 17 With this, supremacy was given in Virginia to the King and to the Church of
England. For two hundred years, other religious groups, including the Baptists, were beaten and
imprisoned in Virginia for practicing their beliefs. 18
New England
Conversely, the New England colonies were primarily settled by English Calvinists who
had separated from the Church of England. 19 For example, the Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact of
1620 refers to the “Advancement of the Christian Faith”; however, it also asserts that the
colonists will “covenant and combine [themselves] together into a civil Body Politick.” 20
Likewise, the Plymouth Charter also references simply “the propagation of religion” 21 by its
Puritan colonists. Further, the immigrants from Massachusetts who founded Connecticut gave
16
Ibid.
17
First Charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va01.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
18
John S. Moore, “The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia,” Baptist History and Heritage 11, no. 3
(July 1976), 161-162.
19
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1422-1423.
20
Mayflower Compact, 1620. The Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp
(accessed January 22, 2013).
21
Charter of the Colony of New Plymouth Granted to William Bradford and His Associates, 1629. The
Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass02.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
6
the governor “the power to administer justice according to the Laws established…according to
the Rule of the Word of God.” 22 These New Englanders were congregational in their polity and
in their colonial governance; their church governance was democratic as well. While religion in
these colonies was not mandated from England, they chose to be monolithically Puritan.
Religious dissent was not tolerated and in most instances was persecuted. For example,
Anne Hutchinson, who had been a follower of Puritan preacher John Cotton, was tried for heresy
for preaching salvation by faith and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. She was considered a
danger to the Puritan civil authority, convicted, and banished from Massachusetts. Her followers
were punished, and Hutchinson left Massachusetts and founded the settlement of Portsmouth. 23
Roger Williams
Roger Williams was a Separatist who immigrated to America from England, settling in
Massachusetts, where he was confronted not with the religious liberty he had expected, but with
the same religious intolerance and persecution he had left England to escape. 24 Among his
beliefs that set him at odds with the recognized Church in Massachusetts were the fair treatment
of the Native Americans and the involvement of state authority in the Church and vice versa.
His heretical views caused him to leave Massachusetts and establish a settlement called
Providence.
Although Williams was a Baptist for only a few months, he and several others originated
the first Baptist church in the New World. 25 Williams’ seminal work, The Bloudy Tenent of
22
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/order.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
23
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 60-62.
24
H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1987), 124. Logos ebook.
25
Ibid.
7
Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, was a scathing attack against the harsh
treatment of dissenters in Massachusetts. In it Williams expressed:
All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and
administrations, are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or
defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship…God requireth not an
uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced
uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience,
persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of
millions of souls.26
While not certain, it is likely that Williams’ work influenced those who followed him, such as
Isaac Backus, and perhaps even Thomas Jefferson. 27
John Clarke
John Clarke’s Puritan beliefs caused him to flee England and come to Boston in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he supported Anne Hutchinson. Clarke, Hutchinson, and
Williams eventually formed the Rhode Island colony on the basis of religious freedom. 28 Clarke
became the minister of the first American congregation identified as Baptists. He and two others
were arrested, tried, and convicted for conducting an unauthorized prayer meeting at the house of
an elderly parishioner. Outraged by this event, Clarke wrote Ill Newes from New England, which
was published in London and described the severe persecution of Baptists in Massachusetts,
making clear the Baptist position that religious liberty was a God-given right. 29 Clarke wrote:
No such believer, or Servant of Christ Jesus hath any liberty, much less Authority, from
his Lord, to smite his fellow servant, nor yet with outward force, or arm of flesh, to
constrain, or restrain his Conscience no nor yet his outward man for Conscience sake, or
worship of his God … every man being such as shall appear before the judgement seat of
26
Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, 1644, 7, Adobe
Digital Edition.
27
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 259. Logos ebook.
28
Edwin S. Gaustad, “John Clarke: ‘good news from Rhode Island,’” Baptist History and Heritage 24, no.
4 (October 1989), 21.
29
Forrest Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), under “Corrupt
and Dangerous Opinions,” Kindle ebook.
8
Christ, and must give an account of himself to God, and therefore ought to be fully
perswaded in his own mind, for what he undertakes. 30
While sharing the same belief in religious liberty as Roger Williams, Clarke is less well known
although he was more influential in establishing the Baptist presence in New England and in
successfully negotiating the charter for the colony of Rhode Island that provided for the religious
liberty of its inhabitants. 31
New York, New Jersey
By contrast to New England, New York was first settled as the Dutch colony New
Netherland, which was a trading outpost into which the Dutch attempted to plant the old
European feudal system. When the English conquered the Dutch colony in 1664, they replaced
this feudal system with a more democratic form of government. There was no state-sanctioned
religion; in fact, the Charter of Liberties and Privileges, which was enacted by the New York
colonial government, instituted religious toleration for all Christians. 32 Religion in the former
Dutch colonies of Delaware and New Jersey was treated in a like manner. McConnell refers to
this third approach to religious liberty as “benign neglect.” 33
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
A few colonies were established solely as refuges for religious dissenters: Maryland
(Catholics), Rhode Island (Baptists), and Pennsylvania (Quakers). 34 Cecil Calvert, Lord
30
John Clarke, Ill Newes from New England, 1652. Old School Particular Baptist Library.
http://www.particularbaptistlibrary.org/LIBRARY/History/Ill%20News,%20John%20Clark.pdf (accessed February
24, 2013).
31
John Corrigan and Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson,
2004), 71-72.
32
Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 1683. The Online Library of Liberty.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1042&Itemid=264 (accessed February
28, 2013).
33
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1424.
34
Ibid.
9
Baltimore, was a Roman Catholic who had been expelled by the Anglican settlers of colonial
Virginia. 35 Maryland’s Act of Toleration in 1649 gave legal protection to all Trinitarian
Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. 36 As mentioned previously, Rhode Island’s founders
were Baptists who had been expelled from Puritan Massachusetts. William Penn was a
prominent English Quaker, who was sympathetic with the persecution of his people in colonial
America. Penn’s Frame of Government for his “Holy Experiment” in Pennsylvania offered
freedom of religious worship to all “who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and eternal
God, to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world.” 37 The religious practices of each of
these colonies helped to establish the tradition of religious toleration that would become
widespread in America during the revolutionary period. 38
THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
The foregoing brief discussion easily shows the broad spectrum of Church-State relations
practiced in early colonial America, ranging from vehement persecution to acquiescent
toleration. This idea of toleration had developed in England over the course of their struggle for
separation from Roman Catholicism. Even so, “Toleration [was] an important step from statechurchism to free-churchism. But it [was] only a step. There is a very great difference between
35
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 26-28.
36
Ibid., 28.
37
William Penn, Frame of Government, 1682, The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa04.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
38
Michael Ferris, From Tyndale to Madison: How the Death of an English Martyr Lead to the American
Bill of Rights (Nashville: B&H, 2007), 273. Kindle ebook.
10
toleration and liberty.” 39 Nevertheless, it was a step in the right direction, and without that step,
the journey toward religious liberty may very well have ended in England.
Act of Toleration
In 1689, under the guidance of William of Orange and Mary, the English Parliament
passed the Act of Toleration, which was a breakthrough for the cause of freedom of religion.
While falling short of affording complete religious liberty, the Act did allow Baptists and other
dissenters the freedom to exist, to meet for worship without fear, and to hear and heed their own
ministers. 40 However, dissenters still had to pay the tithe to the Church of England and fulfill
other state requirements; nonetheless, its application in England and in colonial America, albeit
uneven, opened pathways for the dissenters, especially the Baptists, that had been blockaded
until that time, and the journey toward true religious liberty took another great stride. 41
The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
Two landmark events occurred that further prepared the way for the next steps in that
journey: the Enlightenment (1654-1789) and the Great Awakening (1725-1760). The
Enlightenment was a philosophical mood of in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that
emphasized faith in human reasoning and its ability to free man from all bondage. The
Enlightenment criticized any claims to the revealed authority of the Bible and the Church, but it
also advocated tolerance. 42 In many ways, the Great Awakening was a revivalist response to the
Enlightenment, which invigorated colonial convictions that God not only existed, but also that
39
Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. II.
Christian Self-Government With Union, American Revolution bicentennial ed. (San Francisco: Foundation for
American Christian Education, 1979), 39. Logos ebook.
40
H. Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers,
1990), 79. Logos ebook.
41
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 158. Logos ebook.
42
Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment, 1, Kindle ebook.
11
He was knowable and personal. 43 One result of the Great Awakening was the explosion in the
number of Baptist congregations, especially in the South. It also engendered a feeling of
fellowship and religious toleration among all American Christian churches. In many ways these
two events leveled the terrain for religious liberty in America and political liberty from Britain. 44
John Locke
Perhaps second only to the Bible, the Enlightenment writings of John Locke influenced
the American colonial view of government and religion more than any other. 45 Locke’s A Letter
Concerning Toleration gave voice to the idea of religious liberty: “For the civil government can
give no new right to the church, nor the church to the civil government…It neither requires the
power of the sword by the magistrate's coming to it, nor does it lose the right of instruction and
excommunication by his going from it.” 46 In his The Reasonableness of Christianity, As
Delivered in the Scriptures, Locke defended the natural moral law, “As men, we have God for
our King, and are under the law of reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our
King, and are under the law revealed by him in the gospel.” 47 Much of the writing in the
American Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
can be tied to Locke’s work, particularly his Two Treatises of Government. 48
43
Ibid., 458.
44
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 253. Logos ebook.
45
Corrigan and Hudson, Religion in America, 114.
46
John Locke, The Work of John Locke, 2004, under “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” Kindle ebook.
47
John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, As Delivered in the Scriptures, 1824, 229, Adobe
Digital Edition.
48
Locke, The Work of John Locke, under “Two Treatises of Government,” Kindle ebook.
12
LIBERTY
While the Great Awaking and the Enlightenment were propelling the ideal of liberty ever
onward, many American colonial preachers were espousing these same thoughts from their
pulpits. Congregational and Presbyterian preachers, such as Elisha Williams and John
Witherspoon preached sermons exhorting Christians to stand against the political and economic
tyranny of England. 49 When independence was declared in 1776, many of the newborn states,
including Georgia, North and South Carolina, and New York, quickly dissolved all bonds with
the Church of England. New York and North Carolina joined the states having no established
religion (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island); however, the old bastion of
state-sponsored religion, Virginia, was slower to change. 50 New England was even more
reluctant, believing their “exemption laws” to be sufficient, as Samuel Adams expressed, “The
religion and public liberty of a people are so intimately connected, their interests are interwoven,
and cannot exist separately.” 51
Viewing the struggle for independence as a twofold conflict, the pulpits of the dissenters
focused on the colonists’ right to worship freely, especially in New England where the battle for
political freedom was imminent. Acknowledging the necessity for freedom from the
governmental oppression of England, these men preached the corollary need for freedom from
the religious oppression of America. Among these sermons, two from Baptist preachers are
notable: An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty by John Allen and An Appeal to the Public for
Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day by Isaac Backus.
49
Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. (Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1998). http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed on January 24, 2013).
50
51
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1436.
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “The Rights of the Colonists—Samuel Adams,”
Kindle ebook.
13
John Allen
John Allen was ordained a Baptist minister in England in1764. Allen had immigrated to
America, settling in Boston and pastoring the Second Baptist Church there. In 1772, he preached
a sermon entitled An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty, which was published and widely
circulated. The published version includes a “Dedication” to the Earl of Dartmouth—the British
Secretary of State for the Colonies. 52 Allen advised:
Liberty, my lord, is the native right of the Americans; it is the blood-bought treasure of
their Forefathers; and they have the same essential right to their native laws as they have
to the air they breathe in, or to the light of the morning when the sun rises: And therefore
they who oppress the Americans must be as great enemies to the law of nature, as they
who would, if it were in their power, vail the light of the sun from the universe. 53
While specifically targeting the American right to freedom from tyranny, Allen’s words were
also a general appeal for liberty of all kinds.
Isaac Backus
Perhaps the most recognized spokesman for the cause of religious liberty in New England
was Isaac Backus. Backus’ insights on religious liberty drew heavily from Roger Williams and
John Locke. 54 Backus wrote various publications advocating religious freedom and church selfgovernance. Written in 1773, Backus’ most influential tract, An Appeal to the Public for
Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day makes his most persuasive and
robust argument for religious liberty and separation of Church and State. 55 Backus believed,
“All acts of executive power in the civil state are to be performed in the name of the king or state
52
John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine: John Allen and the Spirit of
Liberty,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series., 21, no. 4 (October 1694), 562-563.
53
John Allen, An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty, 1772 in Political Sermons of the American Founding
Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
54
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 170. Logos ebook.
55
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 173. Logos ebook.
14
they belong to, while all our religious acts are to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus and so
are to be performed heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.” 56 In 1774, Backus was sent to the
First Continental Congress as a Baptist lobbyist to ensure that the delegates did not neglect the
issue of religious liberty. 57 According to fellow Baptist lobbyist Samuel Jones, “One of them
[John Adams] told us that if we meant to effect a change in their measures, respecting religion,
we might as well attempt to change the course of the sun in the heavens.” 58
Undaunted, Backus continued his efforts to ensure religious freedom, unsuccessfully
introducing a religious liberty clause into the Massachusetts State Constitution, asserting, “As
religion must always be a matter between God and individuals, no man can be made a member of
a truly religious society by force or without his own consent, neither can any corporation that is
not a religious society have a just right to govern in religious affairs.” 59 However, Backus did
not allow that failure to halt his efforts on a national level. 60 He and other Baptists, such as
James Manning, Baptist pastor of Roger Williams’ Providence Church, 61 and Morgan Edwards,
pastor of First Baptist Church in Philadelphia and co-founder (with Manning) of Rhode Island
56
Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day,
1773, in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1998. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
57
Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First
Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 131-132.
58
Samuel Jones, A Century Sermon, 1807, Baptist History Homepage.
http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/phila.century.sermon.1.html (accessed March 2, 2013).
59
Isaac Backus, “A Door Opened to Christian Liberty,” 1783, in A Documentary History of Religion in
America: To the Civil War, Gaustad, Edwin S., ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1922), 269.
60
Church, The Separation of Church and State, under “Baptist Appeals for Religious Liberty—Isaac
Backus,” Kindle ebook.
61
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 136. Logos ebook.
15
College (Brown University) 62 are credited with ratification efforts in Massachusetts and the rest
of New England. 63
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
After gaining independence from England, the newly-freed states faced the daunting task
of fashioning a form of government by which they could function together yet maintain their
individual identities. The original “Articles of Confederation” had failed because they instituted
a loose confederation in which the states held the most significant power. In the spring of 1787,
fifty-five national leaders met in Philadelphia to amend the Articles, which was deemed
impracticable; therefore, an entirely new constitution was prepared. For various reasons, the
constitution submitted to the states for ratification did not include a Bill of Rights. 64 Once again,
the Baptists continued blazing the trail for religious liberty against the majority who were firmly
entrenched in their position of Church-State support, as strongly evidenced by the Anglicans in
Virginia. 65
Thomas Jefferson
In 1776, the General Committee, a group of Separate and Regular Baptists, petitioned the
Virginia House of Delegates for freedom to worship without fear of prosecution, which was
becoming increasingly rampant because of the ties between Virginia’s Anglicans and the Church
of England. The General Committee observed:
We believe that Preachers should be supported only by voluntary Contributions from the
People, and that a general Assessment (however harmless, yea useful some may conceive
62
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 144. Logos ebook.
63
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 266. Logos ebook.
64
Curry, The First Freedoms, 194.
65
Ibid., 176.
16
it to be) is pregnant with various Evils destructive to the Rights and the Privileges of
religious Society. 66
Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Virginia House, received the petition and aggressively joined
the battle for religious freedom in Virginia. 67 Three years later the result was “A Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom,” submitted by Jefferson to the Virginia legislature. 68 Sandler
observes several ideas in Jefferson’s bill that originated with Locke’s A Letter Concerning
Toleration noting, “At the heart of Jefferson’s Bill is the doctrine of the separation of church and
state.” 69
While the Baptists were universally supportive of Jefferson’s proposal, they were
virtually alone. In opposition to Jefferson was devoted Anglican Patrick Henry, whose “Bill
Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” in 1784 would not only have
levied a tax to support Christian educators, but it would also have granted the Virginia legislature
the prerogative in promoting the Christian religion. 70 By then, Jefferson had moved from the
State House to the governor’s office, leaving the battle in the House to his protégé, James
Madison. 71
66
Michael Ferris, From Tyndale to Madison, 337. Kindle ebook.
67
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
68
Matthew L. Harris and Thomas S. Kidd, eds., The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in
Revolutionary America: A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), under “Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom, 1786,” Kindle ebook.
69
S. Gerald Sandler, “Lockean Ideas in Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 21, no. 1 (January 1960), 110-113.
70
Harris and Kidd, The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in Revolutionary America: A
History in Documents, under “Bill for a General Assessment for Religion, 1784,” Kindle ebook.
71
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
17
James Madison
Jefferson and fellow Virginian James Madison met in 1776 and became friends and
confederates for life. Madison rose to the challenge of Patrick Henry by drafting “A Memorial
and Remonstrance” in 1785. In it, Madison expressed concern over the state’s support of any
religion:
[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties....Who does not see that
the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions,
may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all
other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence
only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform
to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? 72
This short document enabled the defeat of Henry’s bill and facilitated the passage of the
Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty in 1786, which was based on Jefferson’s original draft. 73
As difficult as the battle in Virginia was, the course to formulating a national stance on
religious freedom was less easily traveled. With Jefferson abroad as the new French
ambassador, Madison and fellow Virginian George Mason were called upon to traverse this
harsh terrain. A staunch supporter of religious liberty, Mason had previously authored Virginia’s
“Declaration of Rights,” whose Article XVI provided:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it,
can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men
are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of
conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love,
and charity towards each other. 74
72
Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America: To the Civil War (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1922), 263.
73
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
74
Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776, The Avalon Project,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp (accessed February 28, 2013).
18
Outraged at the passage of the US Constitution without a Bill of Rights, Mason resented this
“fatal” flaw and worked against ratification. 75
The Baptists were in complete agreement with Mason’s assessment, causing John Leland
to draft a letter to President Washington voicing their concern over the absence of any guarantee
of religious liberty, yet expressing their complete confidence in the person of George
Washington to “prevent all oppression.” 76 The President’s reply was reassuring, commenting,
“No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of
spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” 77 Nonetheless, the Baptists were
well aware that more work needed to be done to ensure those “effectual barriers” were put into
place.
John Leland
Baptist minister John Leland’s influence in the struggle for religious freedom was
extremely effective. While born a Massachusetts Congregationalist, Leland became a Baptist
minister, and in 1777, he moved from Massachusetts to Virginia. In 1786, he became
representative for the General Committee. 78 A staunch supporter of Jefferson and Madison,
Leland is credited with Madison’s election to the Virginia ratification convention in 1788 and to
the First Congress in 1789, which was responsible for authoring the Bill of Rights. These two
75
Daniel L. Dreisbach, “George Mason’s Pursuit of Religious Liberty in Revolutionary Virginia,” The
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 1 (2000), 41.
76
John Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, L. F. Greene, ed. (New York: G. W. Wood,
1845), under “Address of the Committee of the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, assembled in the city of
Richmond, 8th August, 1789, to the President of the United States of America.” Kindle ebook.
77
Gaustad, A Documentary History of Religion in America, 276.
78
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 273-274. Logos ebook.
19
key interventions by Leland on behalf of Madison were instrumental in reaching the eventual
destination: the Federal guarantee of religious liberty. 79
Leland continued writing on behalf of the cause of religious liberty; his major work, The
Rights of Conscience Inalienable (1791), maintained three essential propositions. First, Leland
argued that the “rights of conscience” are “inalienable” and cannot be regulated or restricted by
government. 80 Second, he asserted that the legal establishment of a religion always harms that
religion, noting, “These establishments metamorphose the church into a creature, and religion
into a principle of state, which has a natural tendency to make men conclude that Bible religion
is nothing but a trick of state.” 81 Third, Leland proclaimed that the actual underlying cause of
religious establishment was not the benefit of that religion but was the strengthening of political
power of civil leaders and the enriching of greedy clerics. 82 Although a Christian, Leland did not
support the idea of the United States as a Christian nation:
The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government
should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse
another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is
despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence,
whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. 83
While agreeing that the government should punish those who caused harm to others, he added,
“Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the
79
Mark S. Scarberry, “John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification of the
Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights,” Penn State Law Review 113, no. 3 (February 11, 2009), 734.
80
Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, under “The Rights of Conscience, &c.” Kindle
81
Ibid.
82
Ibid.
83
Ibid., under “The Excess of Civil Power Exploded.” Kindle ebook.
ebook.
20
principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that
he believes, worship according to his own faith… and let government protect him in so doing.” 84
The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.” 85 At last, on December 15, 1791, the United States Bill of Rights became
law upon ratification of three-quarters of the States, with Leland’s Virginia providing the critical
tenth vote for ratification, and freedom of religion in America took its place as the first protected
right. However, even with the passage of the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion was only
guaranteed at the Federal level; many states continued to support religion into the mid-nineteenth
century, with Connecticut deleting all references in its constitution in 1818 and Massachusetts
suspending church funding by the state in 1833. 86
CONCLUSION
As has been demonstrated, the pinnacle of religious liberty in America was not easily
achieved. On the contrary, the road to freedom of religion was a costly and lengthy struggle, yet
the Baptists were the initiators of the venture as well as the catalysts who kept it always moving
forward, even at the great personal sacrifice of many of its sojourners. Undaunted by its steep
grade and many perilous obstacles, the outnumbered and underrepresented Baptists tightly
grasped their doctrine of separation of Church and State, refusing any divergent path of historic
state-established religion and reaching the summit of freedom of religion.
84
Ibid., under “The Rights of Conscience, &c.” Kindle ebook.
85
United States Constitution, Amendment 1, clauses 1 & 2.
86
Mark A. Noll, The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 78.
21
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, John. An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty, 1772. In Political Sermons of the American
Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund,
1998. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
Backus, Isaac. An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the
Present Day, 1773. In Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2
vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
Bumsted, John M. and Charles E. Clark. “New England’s Tom Paine: John Allen and the Spirit
of Liberty.” The William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd series. 21, no. 4 (October 1694): 561570.
Charter of the Colony of New Plymouth Granted to William Bradford and His Associates, 1629.
The Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass02.asp (accessed
January 22, 2013).
Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 1683. The Online Library of Liberty.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1042&Itemid=
264 (accessed February 28, 2013).
Church, Forrest, ed. The Separation of Church and State. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011. Kindle
ebook.
Clarke, John. Ill Newes from New England, 1652. Old School Particular Baptist Library.
http://www.particularbaptistlibrary.org/LIBRARY/History/Ill%20News,%20John%20Cla
rk.pdf (accessed February 24, 2013).
Corrigan, John, and Winthrop S. Hudson. Religion in America. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson, 2004.
Curry, Thomas J. The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First
Amendment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Dreisbach, Daniel L. “George Mason’s Pursuit of Religious Liberty in Revolutionary Virginia.”
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 1 (2000): 2+5-44.
Ferris, Michael. From Tyndale to Madison: How the Death of an English Martyr Lead to the
American Bill of Rights. Nashville: B&H, 2007.
First Charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va01.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/order.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
22
Gaustad, Edwin S., ed. A Documentary History of Religion in America: To the Civil War.
Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1922.
________. “John Clarke: ‘good news from Rhode Island.’” Baptist History and Heritage 24, no.
4 (October 1989): 20-28.
Hall, Verna M. The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. II.
Christian Self-Government With Union, American Revolution bicentennial ed. San
Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1979. Logos ebook.
Harris, Matthew L. and Thomas S. Kidd, eds. The Founding Fathers and the Debate over
Religion in Revolutionary America: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012.
Hinson, E. Glenn. “The Baptist Experience in the United States.” Review & Expositor 79, no. 2
(Spring 1982): 217-230.
Jones, Samuel. A Century Sermon, 1807. Baptist History Homepage.
http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/phila.century.sermon.1.html (accessed March 2,
2013).
Leland, John. The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland. L. F. Greene, ed., New York: G. W.
Wood, 1845. Kindle ebook.
Locke, John. The Reasonableness of Christianity, As Delivered in the Scriptures, 1824. Adobe
Digital Edition.
__________. The Work of John Locke, 2010. Kindle ebook.
Mayflower Compact, 1620. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
McBeth, H. Leon. A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1990.
Logos ebook.
__________. The Baptist Heritage. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1987. Logos ebook.
McConnell, Michael W. “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of
Religion.” Harvard Law Review 103 no. 7 (May 1990): 1409-1517.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1341281 (accessed January 31, 2013).
Miller, Nicholas P. The Religious Roots of the First Amendment. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
Moore, John S. “The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia.” Baptist History and Heritage
11, no. 3 (July 1976): 160-168.
23
Noll, Mark A. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1992.
________. The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity.
Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002.
Penn, William. Frame of Government, 1682. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa04.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
Sandler, S. Gerald. “Lockean Ideas in Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious
Freedom.” Journal of the History of Ideas 21, no. 1 (January 1960): 110-116.
Sandoz, Ellis. Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 on 2013-0124.
Scarberry, Mark S. “John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification
of the Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights.” Penn State Law Review
113, no. 3 (February 11, 2009): 733-800.
Schaff, Philip, and David Schley Schaff. History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1910. Logos ebook.
Smyth, John. The Character of the Beast, 1609. Baptist Theology.org.
http://www.baptisttheology.org/documents/history/thecharacterofthebeast.pdf (accessed
February 28, 2013).
Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp (accessed February 28, 2013).
Williams, Roger. The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, 1644.
Adobe Digital Edition.
A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN COLONIAL AMERICA
A PAPER
SUBMITTED TO DR. DAVID L. GOZA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE
HISTORY OF BAPTISTS
CHHI 694
BY
BRIAN DOUGLAS AUNKST
MORRISON, COLORADO
MARCH 8, 2013
ii
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
John Smyth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
Thomas Helwys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
AMERICAN COLONIES: FOUR APPROACHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
New England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
Roger Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
John Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
New York, New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Act of Toleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
John Locke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
LIBERTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12
John Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Isaac Backus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
Thomas Jefferson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
James Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
iii
John Leland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
The First Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
INTRODUCTION
Many American colonies were settled by those seeking freedom to exercise their
religious beliefs, which was denied them in Europe. However, those same seekers of religious
freedom became the persecutors of others who did not share their beliefs. Nevertheless, small
dissident religious groups survived this state-sanctioned persecution, as did their idea of ChurchState separation. Religious freedom was not inevitable, nor was it accomplished easily. On the
contrary, the journey to religious freedom was long and arduous and, like most difficult treks,
had to be achieved gradually. The Baptists were among the significant pioneers in this unfolding
odyssey; their fundamental belief in religious liberty eventually culminated in the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
BACKGROUND
The idea of the separation of religion and the State was conceived when Jesus Christ
said, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”
(Luke 20:25 ESV). Until that time religion was a national concept; all members of a society
shared a common belief system, and dissenters were not tolerated. Christ opened the door for
religion apart from state sanction or regulation. This idea became a way of life for His followers,
especially during the Patristic period before Constantine. Upon Constantine’s accession to the
throne, Christianity became the state-sponsored religion throughout the Roman Empire,
eventually seeking out those who held dissenting views—heretics. Ultimately, one of these
1
2
heretical views, Church-State separation, would, in due course, become implanted in the
American colonies. 1
Europe
With the marriage of the Church and the State under Emperor Constantine in 313 AD and
the domination of Roman Catholicism under Gregory from 590 AD, all of Europe was seized in
its iron grip; religious liberty was not tolerated, and those who sought it were punished as
enemies of both the Church and the State. 2 The more intertwined the Church and State became,
the more the citizenry suffered under their joint control. Eventually, in 1517, Martin Luther
permanently disrupted the medieval Church-State feudal system in Europe. 3 As the seams of the
established religious and political institutions began to heave under the pressure, others added to
the strain: Thomas Cranmer in England, John Knox in Scotland, Menno Simons in the
Netherlands, and Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich. 4 Many of these ‘reformers’ simply wanted to repair
the existing Church, but others wanted to completely separate from it.
John Smyth
Among those Separatists was an Englishman, John Smyth, an ordained minister of the
Church of England who was dismissed for his radical teachings on believers’ church. He wrote,
“The true constitution of the Church is of a new creature baptized into the Father, the Son, & the
Holy Ghost.” 5 He joined a group of Separatists who met in Gainsborough; however, the
persecution against them under King James I was relentless, forcing Smyth and another leader,
1
Philip Schaff, and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1910), under “Restriction of Religious Freedom, and Beginnings of Persecution of Heretics.” Logos ebook.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., under “Luther and Henry VIII.” Logos ebook.
4
Ibid.
5
John Smyth, The Character of the Beast, 1609. Baptist Theology.org.
http://www.baptisttheology.org/documents/history/thecharacterofthebeast.pdf (accessed February 28, 2013).
3
Thomas Helwys, to immigrate to Holland where they discovered greater religious toleration.
Smyth and Helwys formed the first Baptist church in Amsterdam in 1609; however, Smyth’s
growing attraction to the Mennonites caused a split with Helwys. 6
Thomas Helwys
In 1612, Helwys returned to England and founded the first Baptist church there. 7 An
early English advocate for religious freedom, Helwys wrote, “If the Kings people be obedient
and true subjects, obeying all humane lawes made by the King, our Lord the King can require no
more: for men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it,
neither may the King be judge between God and man.” 8 His words expressed one of the most
divisive issues among the Reformers and Separatists: the proper relationship between the
Church and the State. 9 Some of the Helwys’ group departed for America, and in 1620 these
‘Pilgrims’ settled the Plymouth colony in New England. 10
America
Columbus had brought European Catholicism with him to the New World. Pope
Alexander VI divided this newly-discovered land between Spain and Portugal and charged them
“to bring the Christian faith to the peoples who inhabit these islands and the mainland, and to
send to the said islands and to the mainland wise, God-fearing, and virtuous men who will be
capable of instructing the indigenous people in good morals and in the Catholic faith.” 11 Little
6
E. Glenn Hinson, “The Baptist Experience in the United States,” Revew & Expositor 79, no. 2 (Spring
1982), 218.
7
Ibid.
8
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 72. Logos ebook.
9
Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press,
2012), 35. Kindle ebook.
10
Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1992), 56.
11
Ibid., 13.
4
thought was given to the religious liberty of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas; they
were viewed as heathens in need of salvation. Much of this missionary effort was concentrated
in Latin America; however, Spanish missions were also founded in Florida and the American
southwest. 12
Spain and Portugal were not the only European nations to express interest in the New
World. Great Britain, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands all inaugurated colonies in North
America. 13 Their goals for establishing colonies in the New World were mostly commercial;
however, many religious groups who were suffering persecution in the Old World elected to seek
an opportunity in the New World to practice their religious beliefs as they chose. While there
was no unity of purpose in settling the various North American colonies, many of their colonial
charters included provisions for religious organization. Indeed, the American colonies
demonstrated four distinct approaches to the relationship between religion and the State. 14
THE AMERICAN COLONIES: FOUR APPROACHES
In reviewing the history of the widely disparate beginnings of the colonies in North
America, four specific methodologies in their governance and the Church-State bond clearly
emerge. These four concepts vary from state-mandated religion, similar to what existed in
Europe, to self-imposed compulsory religion, to relative ambivalence, to religious toleration. 15
12
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 14-17.
13
Ibid., 197.
14
Michael W. McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,”
Harvard Law Review 103 no. 7 (May 1990), 1423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1341281 (accessed January 31,
2013).
15
Ibid.
5
Virginia
In the Colony of Virginia, religion in the form of the Church of England was established
and financially supported by the State as an instrument of social control. 16 England’s first
colony was founded by a proprietary charter from King James in 1606, which stated one goal of
the colonists was “propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and
miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the
Infidels and Savages, living in those parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet
Government.” 17 With this, supremacy was given in Virginia to the King and to the Church of
England. For two hundred years, other religious groups, including the Baptists, were beaten and
imprisoned in Virginia for practicing their beliefs. 18
New England
Conversely, the New England colonies were primarily settled by English Calvinists who
had separated from the Church of England. 19 For example, the Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact of
1620 refers to the “Advancement of the Christian Faith”; however, it also asserts that the
colonists will “covenant and combine [themselves] together into a civil Body Politick.” 20
Likewise, the Plymouth Charter also references simply “the propagation of religion” 21 by its
Puritan colonists. Further, the immigrants from Massachusetts who founded Connecticut gave
16
Ibid.
17
First Charter of Virginia, April 10, 1606. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va01.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
18
John S. Moore, “The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia,” Baptist History and Heritage 11, no. 3
(July 1976), 161-162.
19
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1422-1423.
20
Mayflower Compact, 1620. The Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp
(accessed January 22, 2013).
21
Charter of the Colony of New Plymouth Granted to William Bradford and His Associates, 1629. The
Avalon Project. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass02.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
6
the governor “the power to administer justice according to the Laws established…according to
the Rule of the Word of God.” 22 These New Englanders were congregational in their polity and
in their colonial governance; their church governance was democratic as well. While religion in
these colonies was not mandated from England, they chose to be monolithically Puritan.
Religious dissent was not tolerated and in most instances was persecuted. For example,
Anne Hutchinson, who had been a follower of Puritan preacher John Cotton, was tried for heresy
for preaching salvation by faith and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. She was considered a
danger to the Puritan civil authority, convicted, and banished from Massachusetts. Her followers
were punished, and Hutchinson left Massachusetts and founded the settlement of Portsmouth. 23
Roger Williams
Roger Williams was a Separatist who immigrated to America from England, settling in
Massachusetts, where he was confronted not with the religious liberty he had expected, but with
the same religious intolerance and persecution he had left England to escape. 24 Among his
beliefs that set him at odds with the recognized Church in Massachusetts were the fair treatment
of the Native Americans and the involvement of state authority in the Church and vice versa.
His heretical views caused him to leave Massachusetts and establish a settlement called
Providence.
Although Williams was a Baptist for only a few months, he and several others originated
the first Baptist church in the New World. 25 Williams’ seminal work, The Bloudy Tenent of
22
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639. The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/order.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
23
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 60-62.
24
H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1987), 124. Logos ebook.
25
Ibid.
7
Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, was a scathing attack against the harsh
treatment of dissenters in Massachusetts. In it Williams expressed:
All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and
administrations, are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or
defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship…God requireth not an
uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced
uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience,
persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of
millions of souls.26
While not certain, it is likely that Williams’ work influenced those who followed him, such as
Isaac Backus, and perhaps even Thomas Jefferson. 27
John Clarke
John Clarke’s Puritan beliefs caused him to flee England and come to Boston in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he supported Anne Hutchinson. Clarke, Hutchinson, and
Williams eventually formed the Rhode Island colony on the basis of religious freedom. 28 Clarke
became the minister of the first American congregation identified as Baptists. He and two others
were arrested, tried, and convicted for conducting an unauthorized prayer meeting at the house of
an elderly parishioner. Outraged by this event, Clarke wrote Ill Newes from New England, which
was published in London and described the severe persecution of Baptists in Massachusetts,
making clear the Baptist position that religious liberty was a God-given right. 29 Clarke wrote:
No such believer, or Servant of Christ Jesus hath any liberty, much less Authority, from
his Lord, to smite his fellow servant, nor yet with outward force, or arm of flesh, to
constrain, or restrain his Conscience no nor yet his outward man for Conscience sake, or
worship of his God … every man being such as shall appear before the judgement seat of
26
Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed, 1644, 7, Adobe
Digital Edition.
27
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 259. Logos ebook.
28
Edwin S. Gaustad, “John Clarke: ‘good news from Rhode Island,’” Baptist History and Heritage 24, no.
4 (October 1989), 21.
29
Forrest Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), under “Corrupt
and Dangerous Opinions,” Kindle ebook.
8
Christ, and must give an account of himself to God, and therefore ought to be fully
perswaded in his own mind, for what he undertakes. 30
While sharing the same belief in religious liberty as Roger Williams, Clarke is less well known
although he was more influential in establishing the Baptist presence in New England and in
successfully negotiating the charter for the colony of Rhode Island that provided for the religious
liberty of its inhabitants. 31
New York, New Jersey
By contrast to New England, New York was first settled as the Dutch colony New
Netherland, which was a trading outpost into which the Dutch attempted to plant the old
European feudal system. When the English conquered the Dutch colony in 1664, they replaced
this feudal system with a more democratic form of government. There was no state-sanctioned
religion; in fact, the Charter of Liberties and Privileges, which was enacted by the New York
colonial government, instituted religious toleration for all Christians. 32 Religion in the former
Dutch colonies of Delaware and New Jersey was treated in a like manner. McConnell refers to
this third approach to religious liberty as “benign neglect.” 33
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
A few colonies were established solely as refuges for religious dissenters: Maryland
(Catholics), Rhode Island (Baptists), and Pennsylvania (Quakers). 34 Cecil Calvert, Lord
30
John Clarke, Ill Newes from New England, 1652. Old School Particular Baptist Library.
http://www.particularbaptistlibrary.org/LIBRARY/History/Ill%20News,%20John%20Clark.pdf (accessed February
24, 2013).
31
John Corrigan and Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson,
2004), 71-72.
32
Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 1683. The Online Library of Liberty.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1042&Itemid=264 (accessed February
28, 2013).
33
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1424.
34
Ibid.
9
Baltimore, was a Roman Catholic who had been expelled by the Anglican settlers of colonial
Virginia. 35 Maryland’s Act of Toleration in 1649 gave legal protection to all Trinitarian
Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. 36 As mentioned previously, Rhode Island’s founders
were Baptists who had been expelled from Puritan Massachusetts. William Penn was a
prominent English Quaker, who was sympathetic with the persecution of his people in colonial
America. Penn’s Frame of Government for his “Holy Experiment” in Pennsylvania offered
freedom of religious worship to all “who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and eternal
God, to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world.” 37 The religious practices of each of
these colonies helped to establish the tradition of religious toleration that would become
widespread in America during the revolutionary period. 38
THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
The foregoing brief discussion easily shows the broad spectrum of Church-State relations
practiced in early colonial America, ranging from vehement persecution to acquiescent
toleration. This idea of toleration had developed in England over the course of their struggle for
separation from Roman Catholicism. Even so, “Toleration [was] an important step from statechurchism to free-churchism. But it [was] only a step. There is a very great difference between
35
Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 26-28.
36
Ibid., 28.
37
William Penn, Frame of Government, 1682, The Avalon Project.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa04.asp (accessed January 22, 2013).
38
Michael Ferris, From Tyndale to Madison: How the Death of an English Martyr Lead to the American
Bill of Rights (Nashville: B&H, 2007), 273. Kindle ebook.
10
toleration and liberty.” 39 Nevertheless, it was a step in the right direction, and without that step,
the journey toward religious liberty may very well have ended in England.
Act of Toleration
In 1689, under the guidance of William of Orange and Mary, the English Parliament
passed the Act of Toleration, which was a breakthrough for the cause of freedom of religion.
While falling short of affording complete religious liberty, the Act did allow Baptists and other
dissenters the freedom to exist, to meet for worship without fear, and to hear and heed their own
ministers. 40 However, dissenters still had to pay the tithe to the Church of England and fulfill
other state requirements; nonetheless, its application in England and in colonial America, albeit
uneven, opened pathways for the dissenters, especially the Baptists, that had been blockaded
until that time, and the journey toward true religious liberty took another great stride. 41
The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening
Two landmark events occurred that further prepared the way for the next steps in that
journey: the Enlightenment (1654-1789) and the Great Awakening (1725-1760). The
Enlightenment was a philosophical mood of in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that
emphasized faith in human reasoning and its ability to free man from all bondage. The
Enlightenment criticized any claims to the revealed authority of the Bible and the Church, but it
also advocated tolerance. 42 In many ways, the Great Awakening was a revivalist response to the
Enlightenment, which invigorated colonial convictions that God not only existed, but also that
39
Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Vol. II.
Christian Self-Government With Union, American Revolution bicentennial ed. (San Francisco: Foundation for
American Christian Education, 1979), 39. Logos ebook.
40
H. Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers,
1990), 79. Logos ebook.
41
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 158. Logos ebook.
42
Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment, 1, Kindle ebook.
11
He was knowable and personal. 43 One result of the Great Awakening was the explosion in the
number of Baptist congregations, especially in the South. It also engendered a feeling of
fellowship and religious toleration among all American Christian churches. In many ways these
two events leveled the terrain for religious liberty in America and political liberty from Britain. 44
John Locke
Perhaps second only to the Bible, the Enlightenment writings of John Locke influenced
the American colonial view of government and religion more than any other. 45 Locke’s A Letter
Concerning Toleration gave voice to the idea of religious liberty: “For the civil government can
give no new right to the church, nor the church to the civil government…It neither requires the
power of the sword by the magistrate's coming to it, nor does it lose the right of instruction and
excommunication by his going from it.” 46 In his The Reasonableness of Christianity, As
Delivered in the Scriptures, Locke defended the natural moral law, “As men, we have God for
our King, and are under the law of reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our
King, and are under the law revealed by him in the gospel.” 47 Much of the writing in the
American Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
can be tied to Locke’s work, particularly his Two Treatises of Government. 48
43
Ibid., 458.
44
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 253. Logos ebook.
45
Corrigan and Hudson, Religion in America, 114.
46
John Locke, The Work of John Locke, 2004, under “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” Kindle ebook.
47
John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, As Delivered in the Scriptures, 1824, 229, Adobe
Digital Edition.
48
Locke, The Work of John Locke, under “Two Treatises of Government,” Kindle ebook.
12
LIBERTY
While the Great Awaking and the Enlightenment were propelling the ideal of liberty ever
onward, many American colonial preachers were espousing these same thoughts from their
pulpits. Congregational and Presbyterian preachers, such as Elisha Williams and John
Witherspoon preached sermons exhorting Christians to stand against the political and economic
tyranny of England. 49 When independence was declared in 1776, many of the newborn states,
including Georgia, North and South Carolina, and New York, quickly dissolved all bonds with
the Church of England. New York and North Carolina joined the states having no established
religion (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island); however, the old bastion of
state-sponsored religion, Virginia, was slower to change. 50 New England was even more
reluctant, believing their “exemption laws” to be sufficient, as Samuel Adams expressed, “The
religion and public liberty of a people are so intimately connected, their interests are interwoven,
and cannot exist separately.” 51
Viewing the struggle for independence as a twofold conflict, the pulpits of the dissenters
focused on the colonists’ right to worship freely, especially in New England where the battle for
political freedom was imminent. Acknowledging the necessity for freedom from the
governmental oppression of England, these men preached the corollary need for freedom from
the religious oppression of America. Among these sermons, two from Baptist preachers are
notable: An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty by John Allen and An Appeal to the Public for
Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day by Isaac Backus.
49
Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. (Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1998). http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed on January 24, 2013).
50
51
McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1436.
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “The Rights of the Colonists—Samuel Adams,”
Kindle ebook.
13
John Allen
John Allen was ordained a Baptist minister in England in1764. Allen had immigrated to
America, settling in Boston and pastoring the Second Baptist Church there. In 1772, he preached
a sermon entitled An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty, which was published and widely
circulated. The published version includes a “Dedication” to the Earl of Dartmouth—the British
Secretary of State for the Colonies. 52 Allen advised:
Liberty, my lord, is the native right of the Americans; it is the blood-bought treasure of
their Forefathers; and they have the same essential right to their native laws as they have
to the air they breathe in, or to the light of the morning when the sun rises: And therefore
they who oppress the Americans must be as great enemies to the law of nature, as they
who would, if it were in their power, vail the light of the sun from the universe. 53
While specifically targeting the American right to freedom from tyranny, Allen’s words were
also a general appeal for liberty of all kinds.
Isaac Backus
Perhaps the most recognized spokesman for the cause of religious liberty in New England
was Isaac Backus. Backus’ insights on religious liberty drew heavily from Roger Williams and
John Locke. 54 Backus wrote various publications advocating religious freedom and church selfgovernance. Written in 1773, Backus’ most influential tract, An Appeal to the Public for
Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day makes his most persuasive and
robust argument for religious liberty and separation of Church and State. 55 Backus believed,
“All acts of executive power in the civil state are to be performed in the name of the king or state
52
John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine: John Allen and the Spirit of
Liberty,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series., 21, no. 4 (October 1694), 562-563.
53
John Allen, An Oration of the Beauties of Liberty, 1772 in Political Sermons of the American Founding
Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
54
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 170. Logos ebook.
55
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 173. Logos ebook.
14
they belong to, while all our religious acts are to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus and so
are to be performed heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.” 56 In 1774, Backus was sent to the
First Continental Congress as a Baptist lobbyist to ensure that the delegates did not neglect the
issue of religious liberty. 57 According to fellow Baptist lobbyist Samuel Jones, “One of them
[John Adams] told us that if we meant to effect a change in their measures, respecting religion,
we might as well attempt to change the course of the sun in the heavens.” 58
Undaunted, Backus continued his efforts to ensure religious freedom, unsuccessfully
introducing a religious liberty clause into the Massachusetts State Constitution, asserting, “As
religion must always be a matter between God and individuals, no man can be made a member of
a truly religious society by force or without his own consent, neither can any corporation that is
not a religious society have a just right to govern in religious affairs.” 59 However, Backus did
not allow that failure to halt his efforts on a national level. 60 He and other Baptists, such as
James Manning, Baptist pastor of Roger Williams’ Providence Church, 61 and Morgan Edwards,
pastor of First Baptist Church in Philadelphia and co-founder (with Manning) of Rhode Island
56
Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day,
1773, in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1998. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
57
Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First
Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 131-132.
58
Samuel Jones, A Century Sermon, 1807, Baptist History Homepage.
http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/phila.century.sermon.1.html (accessed March 2, 2013).
59
Isaac Backus, “A Door Opened to Christian Liberty,” 1783, in A Documentary History of Religion in
America: To the Civil War, Gaustad, Edwin S., ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1922), 269.
60
Church, The Separation of Church and State, under “Baptist Appeals for Religious Liberty—Isaac
Backus,” Kindle ebook.
61
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 136. Logos ebook.
15
College (Brown University) 62 are credited with ratification efforts in Massachusetts and the rest
of New England. 63
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
After gaining independence from England, the newly-freed states faced the daunting task
of fashioning a form of government by which they could function together yet maintain their
individual identities. The original “Articles of Confederation” had failed because they instituted
a loose confederation in which the states held the most significant power. In the spring of 1787,
fifty-five national leaders met in Philadelphia to amend the Articles, which was deemed
impracticable; therefore, an entirely new constitution was prepared. For various reasons, the
constitution submitted to the states for ratification did not include a Bill of Rights. 64 Once again,
the Baptists continued blazing the trail for religious liberty against the majority who were firmly
entrenched in their position of Church-State support, as strongly evidenced by the Anglicans in
Virginia. 65
Thomas Jefferson
In 1776, the General Committee, a group of Separate and Regular Baptists, petitioned the
Virginia House of Delegates for freedom to worship without fear of prosecution, which was
becoming increasingly rampant because of the ties between Virginia’s Anglicans and the Church
of England. The General Committee observed:
We believe that Preachers should be supported only by voluntary Contributions from the
People, and that a general Assessment (however harmless, yea useful some may conceive
62
McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 144. Logos ebook.
63
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 266. Logos ebook.
64
Curry, The First Freedoms, 194.
65
Ibid., 176.
16
it to be) is pregnant with various Evils destructive to the Rights and the Privileges of
religious Society. 66
Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Virginia House, received the petition and aggressively joined
the battle for religious freedom in Virginia. 67 Three years later the result was “A Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom,” submitted by Jefferson to the Virginia legislature. 68 Sandler
observes several ideas in Jefferson’s bill that originated with Locke’s A Letter Concerning
Toleration noting, “At the heart of Jefferson’s Bill is the doctrine of the separation of church and
state.” 69
While the Baptists were universally supportive of Jefferson’s proposal, they were
virtually alone. In opposition to Jefferson was devoted Anglican Patrick Henry, whose “Bill
Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” in 1784 would not only have
levied a tax to support Christian educators, but it would also have granted the Virginia legislature
the prerogative in promoting the Christian religion. 70 By then, Jefferson had moved from the
State House to the governor’s office, leaving the battle in the House to his protégé, James
Madison. 71
66
Michael Ferris, From Tyndale to Madison, 337. Kindle ebook.
67
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
68
Matthew L. Harris and Thomas S. Kidd, eds., The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in
Revolutionary America: A History in Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), under “Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom, 1786,” Kindle ebook.
69
S. Gerald Sandler, “Lockean Ideas in Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 21, no. 1 (January 1960), 110-113.
70
Harris and Kidd, The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in Revolutionary America: A
History in Documents, under “Bill for a General Assessment for Religion, 1784,” Kindle ebook.
71
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
17
James Madison
Jefferson and fellow Virginian James Madison met in 1776 and became friends and
confederates for life. Madison rose to the challenge of Patrick Henry by drafting “A Memorial
and Remonstrance” in 1785. In it, Madison expressed concern over the state’s support of any
religion:
[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties....Who does not see that
the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions,
may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all
other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence
only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform
to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? 72
This short document enabled the defeat of Henry’s bill and facilitated the passage of the
Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty in 1786, which was based on Jefferson’s original draft. 73
As difficult as the battle in Virginia was, the course to formulating a national stance on
religious freedom was less easily traveled. With Jefferson abroad as the new French
ambassador, Madison and fellow Virginian George Mason were called upon to traverse this
harsh terrain. A staunch supporter of religious liberty, Mason had previously authored Virginia’s
“Declaration of Rights,” whose Article XVI provided:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it,
can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men
are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of
conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love,
and charity towards each other. 74
72
Edwin S. Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America: To the Civil War (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1922), 263.
73
Church, ed., The Separation of Church and State, under “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—
Thomas Jefferson,” Kindle ebook.
74
Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776, The Avalon Project,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp (accessed February 28, 2013).
18
Outraged at the passage of the US Constitution without a Bill of Rights, Mason resented this
“fatal” flaw and worked against ratification. 75
The Baptists were in complete agreement with Mason’s assessment, causing John Leland
to draft a letter to President Washington voicing their concern over the absence of any guarantee
of religious liberty, yet expressing their complete confidence in the person of George
Washington to “prevent all oppression.” 76 The President’s reply was reassuring, commenting,
“No one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of
spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.” 77 Nonetheless, the Baptists were
well aware that more work needed to be done to ensure those “effectual barriers” were put into
place.
John Leland
Baptist minister John Leland’s influence in the struggle for religious freedom was
extremely effective. While born a Massachusetts Congregationalist, Leland became a Baptist
minister, and in 1777, he moved from Massachusetts to Virginia. In 1786, he became
representative for the General Committee. 78 A staunch supporter of Jefferson and Madison,
Leland is credited with Madison’s election to the Virginia ratification convention in 1788 and to
the First Congress in 1789, which was responsible for authoring the Bill of Rights. These two
75
Daniel L. Dreisbach, “George Mason’s Pursuit of Religious Liberty in Revolutionary Virginia,” The
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 1 (2000), 41.
76
John Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, L. F. Greene, ed. (New York: G. W. Wood,
1845), under “Address of the Committee of the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, assembled in the city of
Richmond, 8th August, 1789, to the President of the United States of America.” Kindle ebook.
77
Gaustad, A Documentary History of Religion in America, 276.
78
McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 273-274. Logos ebook.
19
key interventions by Leland on behalf of Madison were instrumental in reaching the eventual
destination: the Federal guarantee of religious liberty. 79
Leland continued writing on behalf of the cause of religious liberty; his major work, The
Rights of Conscience Inalienable (1791), maintained three essential propositions. First, Leland
argued that the “rights of conscience” are “inalienable” and cannot be regulated or restricted by
government. 80 Second, he asserted that the legal establishment of a religion always harms that
religion, noting, “These establishments metamorphose the church into a creature, and religion
into a principle of state, which has a natural tendency to make men conclude that Bible religion
is nothing but a trick of state.” 81 Third, Leland proclaimed that the actual underlying cause of
religious establishment was not the benefit of that religion but was the strengthening of political
power of civil leaders and the enriching of greedy clerics. 82 Although a Christian, Leland did not
support the idea of the United States as a Christian nation:
The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government
should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse
another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is
despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence,
whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. 83
While agreeing that the government should punish those who caused harm to others, he added,
“Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the
79
Mark S. Scarberry, “John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification of the
Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights,” Penn State Law Review 113, no. 3 (February 11, 2009), 734.
80
Leland, The Writings of the Late Elder John Leland, under “The Rights of Conscience, &c.” Kindle
81
Ibid.
82
Ibid.
83
Ibid., under “The Excess of Civil Power Exploded.” Kindle ebook.
ebook.
20
principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that
he believes, worship according to his own faith… and let government protect him in so doing.” 84
The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.” 85 At last, on December 15, 1791, the United States Bill of Rights became
law upon ratification of three-quarters of the States, with Leland’s Virginia providing the critical
tenth vote for ratification, and freedom of religion in America took its place as the first protected
right. However, even with the passage of the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion was only
guaranteed at the Federal level; many states continued to support religion into the mid-nineteenth
century, with Connecticut deleting all references in its constitution in 1818 and Massachusetts
suspending church funding by the state in 1833. 86
CONCLUSION
As has been demonstrated, the pinnacle of religious liberty in America was not easily
achieved. On the contrary, the road to freedom of religion was a costly and lengthy struggle, yet
the Baptists were the initiators of the venture as well as the catalysts who kept it always moving
forward, even at the great personal sacrifice of many of its sojourners. Undaunted by its steep
grade and many perilous obstacles, the outnumbered and underrepresented Baptists tightly
grasped their doctrine of separation of Church and State, refusing any divergent path of historic
state-established religion and reaching the summit of freedom of religion.
84
Ibid., under “The Rights of Conscience, &c.” Kindle ebook.
85
United States Constitution, Amendment 1, clauses 1 & 2.
86
Mark A. Noll, The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 78.
21
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