Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Allen Reinach
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000230A
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00:23 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:25 This is the program that brings you news, 00:27 views, discussion, analysis and up-to-date information 00:30 on religious liberty in the United States 00:32 and around the world, today and yesterday. 00:35 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:38 And my guest on the program, 00:41 a very special guest is Allen Reinach, 00:43 Attorney Allen Reinach, 00:44 Executive Director of the Church State Council. 00:48 Let's really go back... 00:51 I thought you would say 00:53 religious liberty news past and future. 00:55 No. That's why I was trying to perfect. 00:57 I thought that was perfect. Okay. 00:58 Yeah. I mentioned that we have breaking news 01:01 and there's a lot of-- 01:02 I mean the whole world as you look at it 01:04 especially the Middle East, it's nothing 01:06 but a religious issue percolating 01:08 and often turning into violence. 01:10 But when we talk about religious liberty 01:12 especially in the United States, I think we can do 01:15 no better than to go back to the puritans 01:16 and some of those colonies and established communities 01:21 that have so much informed 01:23 how we see it in the United States today. 01:25 And I really want to focus, Lincoln, 01:27 on understanding the origins and the significance 01:31 of the separation of church and state. 01:33 Because there's so much misunderstanding 01:36 from both the left and the right. 01:37 The left distorts it, 01:39 the right attacks the distortion and rightly so. 01:42 But the true principle is largely obscured. 01:46 Now before you get into 01:47 what I know that you want to say. 01:49 On the separation of church and state 01:51 I think it's worth putting out unequivocally right away. 01:54 It's a Protestant concept. 01:56 It goes to the origin of Protestantism 01:59 even though John Calvin for example in Geneva 02:03 had trouble seeing it. 02:04 All right. And Martin Luther 02:07 I think dirtied his apparel a little bit on it, 02:13 I mean he didn't quite understand 02:14 sometime in the presence rebellion 02:15 and things like that. 02:16 But that said, as a movement, 02:19 as a reaction to the established church 02:22 and its unholy alliance with the state. 02:24 Protestantism did clarify and hold up. 02:28 If I can mix that metaphor, 02:29 the separation of church and state 02:30 as an overarching principle. 02:32 And now you want to link it to New England. I do. 02:37 But before we get to New England 02:39 throughout the era of Christendom 02:42 you're standing before God 02:44 depended upon your participating 02:46 in the life of the church community 02:48 and the sacraments. 02:50 There was no foundation for individual rights, 02:53 it was very communitarian. 02:55 It was not about a personal relationship 02:58 by faith with Jesus Christ. 03:00 Even though I said politically I-- 03:03 through it mattered, Martin Luther, 03:05 of course his central principle 03:08 that the priesthood of all believers 03:10 and that we stand before God 03:11 not needing a priest. Right. 03:12 That's very central to the separation of churches. 03:14 So 1529, there is a convocation 03:19 in the German town of Spire. 03:21 The empire wants to restrict 03:24 the progress of the reformed gospel 03:26 and the German princess would already 03:28 embraced the reformation. 03:30 They issued that famous protest 03:33 that is where we get the term Protestant from. 03:36 And they resisted the restrictions 03:39 on the proclamation of the gospel 03:41 and the premise that they announced, 03:44 the principle was, that in matters of conscience 03:47 the majority has no power. Absolutely. 03:50 So this is really what makes Protestant-- 03:53 what makes Protestantism. 03:55 It was a very political gathering of course 03:58 but they stated a spiritual truth. 04:02 And when you think about it, 04:04 all of the core doctrines of the reformation 04:07 that deal really around the idea 04:10 of a personal relationship with Christ through faith 04:14 are complete repudiation of the communitarian impulse 04:19 of the Medieval Church. 04:21 Now it laid the foundation for individual rights 04:26 because the individual conscience is answerable to God. 04:32 There's a personal relationship 04:34 and neither, neither of the church 04:37 nor the state had any legitimate right or authority 04:42 to interfere between the soul and its creator. 04:46 That was the developing concept of Protestantism absolutely. 04:49 Now they did implemented as you mentioned with Calvin 04:52 but, you know, it didn't take the Anabaptist log. 04:55 The Anabaptists were being drowned 04:57 because of their practice of adult believer baptism 05:01 and so, you know, as the ultimate insult 05:04 you want to be baptized. 05:06 They will hold you under the water. 05:08 So when they realized that the state 05:10 was persecuting for them then for their beliefs, 05:13 they began to understand 05:16 the separation of church and state, 05:17 that the state had no right to enforce religious orthodoxy. 05:23 So what I was trying to point out. 05:24 Protestantism or the Protestant Reformation 05:27 was not one single threat. 05:29 Of course not. 05:30 It developed not quite spontaneously 05:32 but as a movement it appeared 05:34 to sort of just come out of nowhere. 05:36 And it had several threads 05:38 and they're still different in some regards, 05:40 but there are some common principles 05:43 that characterized Protestantism even today. 05:45 So one of them, you know, a central one 05:48 is the separation of church and state 05:49 or expressed elsewhere only partially 05:52 priesthood of all believers. 05:53 So John went-- 05:54 But can I throw something in because I thought-- 05:56 what you're saying I think, 05:59 counterpoints what we're seeing now. 06:00 In our era put forward 06:02 by a number of the major Christian churches 06:06 is this developing idea of the common good. 06:09 I believe it's going back, 06:12 Martin used to describe so well from the Middle Ages. 06:14 The common good is an emphasis 06:16 on the community as against the individual. 06:18 Absolutely. All right. 06:19 So let's bring this over to America. 06:21 John Winthrop, you know, 06:24 leading light of the Puritans 06:27 coming over, preaches a famous sermon. 06:29 He invokes Deuteronomy-- 06:31 Which is been told to us-- 06:32 told you when we were talking about it? 06:33 The greatest sermon ever. 06:34 You could argue that, 06:35 but it certainly a landmark statement 06:39 of their political directives and what they stood for, 06:42 how they would relate to society and then lead the world. 06:44 So their flaying persecution in Europe 06:47 and they are trying to establish 06:49 a new community on America shores. 06:52 They know that it is a very risky, 06:55 a very dangerous enterprise 06:57 and they are covetous of God's blessing 07:00 and he invokes the blessings and cursings 07:03 passage of Deuteronomy 30. 07:05 And the Puritan ethos believed that their prosperity, 07:12 their success depended upon the blessing of God, 07:15 and the blessing of God was dependant 07:18 upon their moral and spiritual faithfulness. 07:21 And as that became implemented, both the magistrates, 07:26 the government and the clergy cooperated together 07:30 to uphold the spiritual orthodoxy 07:33 and faithfulness of the community. 07:36 And they didn't have in that colony, 07:38 not very good separation of church and state. 07:40 They didn't have any separation. 07:41 Well, the only separation they had 07:44 was that the clergy were not allowed 07:45 to serve in government. 07:47 Well, they had recognized 07:48 the higher authority of spiritual matters. 07:51 They went like-- in England 07:54 a few years later they challenged the king 07:56 because he claimed to be God's representative 07:59 into the divine right of kings. 08:01 The Puritans didn't see that. 08:03 What I mean is, they didn't accept that the civil power 08:06 automatically had God on their side, 08:09 but they were very comfortable with the civil 08:11 and the religious powers working in consort. 08:13 So Roger Williams is a purely 08:16 Orthodox Calvinist minister, a Puritan of the Puritans. 08:21 Well, studied in England. 08:23 Very well respected 08:24 and he witnessed persecution in England. 08:27 He witnessed burnings at the stake. 08:29 He comes over to Massachusetts 08:32 and immediately he gets himself 08:35 into trouble with the authorities 08:36 because he's a different kind of thinker. 08:38 So for example, he started preaching 08:41 that they should pay the Indians for their land. 08:45 Well, they tried to shut him up. 08:47 That's against the imperialist agenda if nothing else. 08:50 Well, they actually succeeded in 08:53 getting him to agree not to talk about that. 08:55 So that wasn't why he got himself booted out-- 08:57 I've forgotten that. 08:58 I've read the story many times but I've forgotten that one. 09:00 I know he was very sympathetic to them. 09:02 I didn't realize on the payment. 09:04 So he agreed to keep hold his peace 09:07 and not advocate for that. 09:09 They eventually came around 09:10 and did pay the Indians for their land. 09:12 But where he took a special-- Ten beans instead of five. 09:17 Where he took a special umbrage was at giving the magistrates, 09:22 the government authority to enforce 09:24 what Protestants called "The first table of the law." 09:28 The religious obligations of the commandments 09:30 that have to do with your worship of God. 09:33 Blasphemy, idolatry, Sabbath breaking, these things. 09:38 And Williams very forcefully 09:41 argued against the civil authority 09:44 having any legitimate role with respect to religion. 09:48 And that got him literally booted out of the colony. 09:52 They were gonna put him back on a boat to England 09:54 where he would have certainly been killed. 09:55 So he fled for his life-- He fled for his life. 09:58 The Indians protected him 10:01 during a fierce freezing cold winter with lots of snow 10:06 and he moved south and founded what, 10:08 community that he called Providence, 10:11 I need to throw in a little historical comparison. 10:15 I've always been amused on this. 10:17 I was a history major for many years. 10:20 And I love history 10:22 the way it sort of glosses over certain things. 10:24 You made a lot of it. 10:25 But like in Australia, 10:27 one of the greatest explorations was Burke and Wills 10:29 a doomed expedition to try to cross Australia 10:34 through the center and, you know, 10:36 they died off, they got mixed up, 10:38 they lost their food depots 10:40 and in the end they were reduced to two men, 10:43 one of the leaders and his commandment-- 10:47 the second in commander rather wandering in the wilderness. 10:52 Well, they were saved by the aborigines, 10:54 who took them in and then they lived to get back. 10:59 I mean, this whole exceptionalism 11:01 exists on this level when there's a real world existing, 11:04 they already had it-- Right. 11:06 It sort of like a teenager, 11:07 you kick him out of the house 11:09 so he goes to the neighbor to survive. 11:12 All right. Yeah. 11:15 The Indians were very civil in the early days. 11:17 Remember they had bailed 11:21 in the Thanksgiving model that we now have. 11:23 It was the Indians really 11:24 bailing out the starving westerners. 11:27 And Roger Williams of course was-- 11:30 He wasn't just saved in the winter. 11:31 He went to live with them. They had settlements. 11:33 They had normal life during the winter. 11:35 Right, of course. 11:37 Well, so the thing that got Williams in trouble 11:39 and there was a very sharp debate that comes down to us 11:43 because both sides wrote and argued against one another. 11:49 The Puritan ethos was that 11:51 God would judge them for their own faithfulness. 11:54 And that led to a very religiously exclusive society. 11:59 They banished Quakers. They banished Catholics. 12:02 It led ultimately to the excesses of Salem 12:06 and the witch trials and the burnings and all. 12:09 There were Quakers who were also hung in Massachusetts. 12:13 Williams had a different view. 12:16 He portrayed the church as a garden 12:21 protected by a hedge or wall of separation, 12:25 protecting the purity of the church 12:28 from the wilderness of the state. 12:31 The phrase "Wall of Separation" between church and state 12:35 that we attribute to Jefferson 12:37 really belongs to Roger Williams. 12:39 Well, I mean, Jefferson did say it. 12:41 But he was not-- Jefferson was not the one. 12:43 Jefferson borrowed it from Williams. 12:46 And Williams annunciated it well, 12:49 but as I think we've discussed. 12:50 I mean, it was already a developing Protestant concept. 12:54 Well, within the radical reformation, yes. 12:57 The understanding that neither of the state nor the church 13:01 had any legitimate authority 13:03 to impose upon the rights of conscience that was-- 13:07 that was one of the strains of the reformation. 13:10 You write this issue with conscience 13:12 really came to the full with Anne Hutchinson 13:14 in the early settlement there, didn't it? 13:16 That's really what was going on. 13:18 They didn't like that she believes something differently. 13:21 She was really doing nothing at all 13:22 except discussions in her home. 13:25 And she round up being exiled 13:27 to down to Brooklyn ultimately. 13:29 And they said you're not fit for this society 13:32 because you don't think like us. 13:33 Well, Roger Williams was definitely tested 13:37 because there were all kinds of people 13:40 that took refuge in Road Island. 13:42 You know, we think of the Quakers today 13:44 as a very peaceful kind of people. 13:46 Well, moved by the spirit or so 13:49 they said the women would run up and down the church 13:53 and take their clothes off and that one scandalizes today. 13:56 The Quakers they were shaking and dancing 13:59 and doing all sorts of stuff 14:00 as they were moved by the spirit. 14:02 But in ways they were like Pentecostals. 14:05 Exactly. And not in equivalent. 14:07 And Williams would debate them and argued with them. 14:10 He was disgusted by them, 14:12 but they were permitted to settle in Road Island. 14:15 The oldest Jewish synagogue in United States 14:20 is in Newport, Road Island. 14:21 People were allowed to be citizens. 14:24 Let me test my idea. 14:25 In some ways I think they were like religious anarchist. 14:29 It's a good discussion 14:31 and we'll pick it up after a break. 14:32 Please stay with us. |
Revised 2014-12-17