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The City on the Hill?
Rollins Chapel
Richard R. Crocker, Ph.D., College Chaplain
January 31, 2008
Faith and citizenship. We have heard that the relationship between these two
forms of allegiance can be confusing. We would like specific guidelines, but we
do not have them. To resolve the tension, some would argue that faith is the
proper basis of citizenship; others argue that the two are absolutely separate.
The truth is that this is an enduring tension that has been peculiarly present
in our nation since Plymouth Rock, that is not now resolved, and that
possibility never will be resolved. Indeed, it would probably be unfortunate if
it ever were resolved, since both of the alternatives are extremely
dangerous.
To
illustrate, I would like to talk about the dialogue between John Cotton, the
famous puritan pastor in the Massachusetts Bay colony, and his chief critic,
Roger Williams, who was banished to the wilderness that he later called Rhode
Island. I am sure you have heard of both of these men, but you may not know
much about them, As it happens, I know a great deal about them. In my high
school, I was forced to choose a “great man” in my freshman year, and to read a
book and write a paper about that man (or woman) in each of four years. I chose
Roger Williams.
I would
prefer to say that my continual reading and study of this man made me like him
more and more. That is not the case. He is an admirable man because, more than
any other colonial preacher, he stood for religious liberty and what came to be
called the separation of church and state. In this battle, his chief opponents
were the preachers and governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who were also
people who do not wear particularly well. Nonetheless, Roger Williams was, as
they pronounced, simply impossible. After graduating from Cambridge in 1625, he
came to Boston, already known as a Puritan preacher. But, although they were
Puritan, the Boston churches were still part of the Church of England, and he
wanted to be part of a church that was officially separate from that
compromised body. So he went off to Salem, to be a pastor there, but the Boston
pastors blackballed him. So he went to Plymouth, where the church was a
separatist church, and was pastor there for two years. After he had worn out
his welcome there, he returned to Salem where he was allowed to be pastor of
the church for two years, until his opinions became so obnoxious that he was
ordered, by the civil government, to be quiet. When he refused, in the middle
of the winter, he was banished. He made his way to the Indian territories,
where he purchased land (one of his obnoxious opinions was that the King of
England did not have a right to give away land that belonged to Native
Americans) and founded what became the city of Providence. There he affiliated
with a group of like-mined people who followed him and founded what became the
first Baptist Church in America. Unfortunately, his affiliation with that group
only lasted a few months, and he spent the rest of his life as a seeker.
Throughout this pilgrimage, he argued vehemently, persistently, and ultimately
successfully that civil authority and church authority should not be intermixed
– that the state had no right to impose or require or deny any religious
affiliation at all. Liberty of conscience (his phrase) was almost absolute. The
only exception was that no one could, in the name of conscience, break laws
made purely to establish and maintain order. Conscience itself, and the
behavior stemming from it, Williams said, could not be regulated.
Now we
think this sounds pretty self-evident. We do, because that is what we have been
taught for two hundred years. But in 1650, it did not sound self-evident at
all, and the chief opponent of Williams was John Cotton. Cotton, like most
religious believers of his time and place, and like some in ours, thought that
God had laid out rules for behavior that are for the good of all human kind.
The church knows what these rules are, because they have been revealed in holy
scripture. It is up to the church to establish the rules of behavior, and it is
up to the state to enforce conformity. Cotton offers very compelling arguments
that “religious liberty” will degenerate into chaos at best and degeneracy at
worst. Cotton believed that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the new Israel –
the old Israel having been destroyed. And the special destiny of the old Israel
was now the destiny of the church – especially the reformed, Calvinistic
Puritan church. Williams believed that there was no new Israel. He saw nothing
in the New Testament about Jesus establishing a state or a national church.
Rather, Williams believed that churches were simply bands of faithful people
who gathered to await the Lord’s return.
Now most
of us think that we agree with Williams, and that he won the battle. In fact, I
think that most of us really agree with Cotton, and although we claim to have a
form of civil government in which the federal legislature “shall make no law
respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof “ , Cotton actually is far more influential than Williams. Williams
exemplified the principle of disorder that people feared then and fear now. For
years, Rhode Island was known as the cesspool of New England, while
Puritan/Unitarian Massachusetts, where the congregational church was
established by law until 1833, represented its zenith. Despite appearances,
Williams did not win. Rather, what has evolved is an unsteady, ever-shifting
compromise between Williams and Cotton that has characterized our history and
that characterizes our present. We can characterize the extremes today as
liberals versus conservatives, but a more accurate characterization might be
secularists and theocrats. Sometimes the compromise favors liberty; sometimes
in favors conformity. It has never settled solidly on one extreme. And this
shifting balance is probably a good thing.
Let me illustrate.
We have two founding documents. The Declaration clearly anchors liberty in
divine creation (we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal and are endowed by their creator wit certain inalienable rights).
The constitution does not mention God at all, and, indeed, in the bill of
rights, prohibits any act of congress that would establish religion or prohibit
its free exercise.
We look to two sets of “founding fathers/ancestors). The Puritans were
theocrats. The drafters of the declaration of independence and the constitution
were mainly deists (Jefferson, Franklin) or unenthusiastic Anglicans
(Washington, Madison). A significant minority, however, were enthusiastic
new-light Protestants (Witherspoon).
We pledge allegiance to a flag with words that indicate that our nation is
“under God”. Many secularists would like to have these words removed. So far,
Congress has refused to remove them. Nonetheless, courts have held that no one
can be required to recite the pledge, in school or elsewhere.
Our official national anthem – or at least the first verse, which is all
that most of us know – makes no mention of God. But the unofficial, more
favored anthem, God Bless America, clearly proclaims a national faith.
Prescribed prayers in public schools were long a fixture of public
education. Only in the 1960s were they ruled unconstitutional, to the delight
of secularists. While theocrats continue to decry this decision, the courts
have continually ruled that student religious groups, like all others, can meet
on school property. While religion can not be taught, it can be taught
about.
No religious tests can be required of candidates for public office, yet
every session of Congress is opened with prayer, and almost every candidate for
public office invokes God at every opportunity.
The current president of the United States has indicated that Jesus Christ
is his “favorite philosopher”, that he sought office at God’s instruction, and
that he believes his election was God’s will. He holds prayer breakfast
and bible study sessions in the white house. He believes that democracy is
God’s will for the world; he does not hesitate to impose it by military means.
At the same time, he refused to meet with the bishops of his own denomination
(United Methodist) to discuss the war in Iraq, and he has made numerous public
statements about the virtue of Islam.
What are we to make of all of this? I would say that we have a nation that
reflects the debate between John Cotton and Roger Williams, but it is a debate
that neither really won. Americans seem to want a state that they believe has
some divine mandate or purpose; at the same time, they do not want that purpose
to be specified too particularly. Theocrats and secularists have their
constituencies, and each sees the other as a danger. In this, they are probably
right.
We are
all aware of the danger of theocracy. Those who confuse their own ideas with a
divine mandate are dangerous. But secularism? What is its danger? Simply this:
if there is nothing that is seen as transcendent of the state. If there is no
ultimate judge of all humankind, national security can easily trump everything
else. This is certainly not what either Roger Williams of John Cotton wanted,
but it is, I fear, where we may be headed.
(For much of this information, I am indebted to Edwin S. Gaustad’s short
biography of roger William. Gaustad, Edwin S. , Roger Williams, Oxford
University Press, 2005.)
Copyright © Richard R. Crocker, 2008
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