Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Nick Miller
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000366A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is your program 00:30 that you can follow the latest updates, 00:34 analysis and discussion on religious liberty 00:37 in the US and around the world. 00:38 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. 00:41 And my guest on this program 00:43 Professor Nic Miller, author of... 00:46 Oh, yes. 00:47 A very significant book 00:49 that we need to talk a little bit about. 00:51 500 Years of Protest and Liberty, 00:54 Martin Luther to modern civil rights. 00:56 This year is the 500th anniversary 00:58 of the Protestant Reformation. 01:00 And so, I've gathered many articles 01:03 I've written over the years for Liberty magazine, 01:06 added some material for today 01:08 and none other than Lincoln Steed 01:10 has the forward in the book. 01:12 You can get a copy at Liberty500.com, 01:17 and for every book that's ordered, 01:19 we're giving free subscriptions to Liberty magazine. 01:22 Sounds a pretty good combination... 01:24 So it's a great, a great combination... 01:25 Now, this is a fantastic outline of the Reformation 01:30 which we're remembering now 01:31 but it's more than just remembering it 01:33 like a birthday or something. 01:34 This is such a seminal development 01:37 into the form of religion and religious liberty 01:39 that we have today in the United States. 01:41 It explains, it explains the conflicts 01:44 we have in society today. 01:45 And what we've done is we're doing a program 01:48 on each of the centuries, 01:50 so we've done the 16th century Martin Luther 01:52 the priesthood of believers 01:53 and how the priesthood of believers 01:55 created the framework of freedom to study the Bible 01:59 which meant that church and state should be separate. 02:01 The state shouldn't be telling you 02:03 how to study the Bible and what the Bible teaches. 02:05 Sounds good today. 02:06 If you listen to this program 02:08 always hear about separation of church and state, 02:09 before Luther that was antithetical concept. 02:11 It didn't exist... 02:12 And a lot of people think 02:13 that it's a secular enlightenment idea. 02:15 We don't trust those religious people, 02:16 we have to push them out of the public sector. 02:18 But in reality its roots lay 02:20 in the Protestant Reformation understanding of Sola scriptura 02:23 and the priesthood of believers. 02:24 Well, yes I agree with you. 02:26 I do believe 02:27 that the developing enlightenment thought 02:30 which emphasized the... 02:34 I'm trying to think of... 02:36 there's line from Fast 02:37 where he talks about the unbounded soul. 02:40 Okay. 02:41 You know, I do think intellectual development 02:44 in the renaissance and beyond 02:46 that sort of emphasized the individual 02:48 and the Protestant Reform is picked up 02:50 on that, that frame of mind 02:53 because it wouldn't have come at them naturally 02:55 from within the church. 02:56 So you had a renaissance humanism in Italy, 02:59 but the renaissance humanists 03:00 they did emphasize the individual, 03:02 but they didn't have a big concept of individualism 03:05 in terms of religious ideas or religious ideology. 03:10 And it took really Martin Luther 03:12 and we moved, we recognize 03:14 that Martin Luther in our last program 03:16 and Calvin stayed with for a variety of reasons 03:19 what we call magisterial Protestantism 03:21 which is the kind of Protestantism 03:23 that combines church and state. 03:25 So Calvin's Geneva, Luther worked with the princes, 03:29 but his ideas were picked up and used by the Anabaptists 03:33 who did believe in a strong separation of church and state. 03:37 And after Luther and Calvin died, 03:39 the Anabaptist become significant in the Netherlands 03:42 and they're the English Baptists 03:44 and we should perhaps talk about 03:46 the English Reformation, Henry the VIII and his death, 03:50 King Edward for a few years 03:51 and then it reverts back to Catholicism 03:54 under Queen Mary. 03:55 Bloody Queen Mary... 03:57 Who kills, 03:59 at least there's 300 martyrs during her reign. 04:02 Many of the Protestants in England escape 04:04 and go to Geneva where they study under Calvin 04:08 causing British Protestantism, 04:10 at least a part of it 04:12 to have a strong Calvinistic emphasis... 04:16 So you connected them to the Puritan. 04:17 Well, and then the Puritans arise 04:19 because they're never happy with the kind of halfway 04:22 Reformation that Queen Elizabeth 04:24 carries out in the church. 04:26 And hence their name the Puritans... 04:28 You've missed a few... 04:30 Okay, well, what do you think we need to... 04:32 Well, this is my... 04:36 idee fixe on history. 04:37 All right. I love history. 04:39 But in the mid 1600s which is our century, right? 04:42 Yeah. The century. 04:44 There was a civil war in England... 04:46 Oh, no, I'm still before that because the... 04:48 I'm sorry... Well, you jumped over to... 04:49 No, the end of the 16th century is when the Puritans rise 04:53 and then they develop into the 17th century. 04:56 Some of them come to America 05:00 and they take the Bible very seriously. 05:02 Purify the church in England, if you can't purify it, 05:05 you leave it and you become pilgrims 05:06 and go to America, you settle in New England. 05:09 But now we're getting to the civil war period. 05:11 That's Massachusetts Bay... Massachusetts Bay. 05:14 The Puritans that go to America 05:17 do so because of some persecution 05:18 that happens in the 1630s 05:20 but those that stay around confront the king 05:24 and soon there is a civil war. 05:26 Parliament is made up mostly of Puritans 05:29 and it opposes the camp. 05:30 Yeah, now they didn't confront him on a religious question. 05:33 Okay. 05:34 And that's why I think... 05:37 The Reformation of course is everything 05:39 when you talk about religious freedom and Protestantism 05:43 separating from the monolithic dictatorial church. 05:47 But you can't see these things in isolation. 05:49 There were social developments, 05:51 there were political developments, 05:52 and in England there was a long dispute 05:58 that actually went back 05:59 to the more liberal style of rule in England 06:03 where they needed to call a parliament 06:05 to raise money for wars. 06:07 And so the kings tried to rule by faith, 06:11 but every now and again they'd have to call parliament. 06:14 And King Charles, 06:17 the first king of England and of Scotland 06:20 which was a very unusual period. 06:23 He begrudgingly after many years 06:25 of having dismissed parliament called them again, 06:27 and in the meantime as you said 06:28 they'd become primarily a Protestant assembly of Puritan. 06:32 The Puritan assembly. Yeah. Right. 06:35 And they didn't like his style. 06:38 They tried to have some control 06:40 as a condition of giving out the money 06:42 so he dismissed them again. 06:43 Well, but let's not minimize the religious elements 06:45 because clearly he had to call it 06:47 because he needed to raise an army 06:49 and he needed taxes for that. 06:50 But the reason that he didn't want to bring them together 06:53 was because the Puritans were against 06:54 his style of church government. 06:56 They were against his wife, his wife was Catholic. 06:58 Well against his wife... 07:00 And they believed that he was trying to recath, 07:02 catholicize England 07:03 and the singular event was Archbishop Lord 07:09 of the Church of England, 07:10 he was a high churchman, 07:12 this is the Church of England was for most of its history. 07:15 Changed the book of common prayer... 07:17 And they were convinced 07:18 that this was bringing in Catholicism again. 07:21 So there was deep suspicion on a religious level 07:23 as he convened parliament. 07:25 But it was all about raising money. 07:26 Charles believed in the episcopacy 07:29 which is the bishop coming down appointed by the king. 07:32 He believed in the heavy hand of the authority. 07:34 The Puritans wanted a presbytery 07:37 which was elders elected by the church body 07:40 and these two competing systems clashed 07:43 and a civil war broke out. 07:45 And in fact... 07:46 But it wasn't religious initially. 07:47 It had religious undercurrent. 07:50 It turned into a religious war 07:53 when Charles appealed to Catholic friends for help. 07:57 And he, and this is why 07:59 they cut his head off in the end. 08:01 They found that he'd been conspiring 08:02 to bring a Catholic army into England... 08:05 So they cut his head off and for the first time 08:08 you had a government of the godly. 08:11 Parliament was now in charge 08:13 who was the Lord Protector, who was the... 08:16 Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell. 08:17 The head of the army 08:18 who was himself a dedicated Puritan. 08:21 In fact, he once said, I'd rather have, 08:24 I forget the number but say 20 of my hymn singing Puritans 08:28 than, you know, the whole army of the fancy cavaliers. 08:32 Now there is an important distinction to be made 08:35 that we say Puritan 08:37 and we think it means one group, 08:39 but Oliver Cromwell was an independent, 08:43 not a Presbyterian. 08:45 Now we're getting into some of the minutiae 08:46 of the British Civil War... 08:48 Very few of them were Puritans, were Presbyterians. 08:50 Well, most of parliament were Presbyterians 08:52 and they wanted to impose religion through law... 08:55 Yeah, we're dealing in history. 08:57 But it, but it contracted down 08:59 and that's the accusation against Cromwell 09:02 which is probably correct 09:04 that he only worked with those that he was comfortable, 09:06 then he worked things down to get a Rump Parliament 09:10 and even to get the king's execution that... 09:13 he got rid of most of the nominal Protestants 09:18 and just had a little tight group of mostly Puritans 09:21 who signed the death warrant. 09:23 But Cromwell being an independent 09:25 was actually more tolerant of religious differences 09:28 than were the Presbyterians. 09:29 Oh, he's very tolerant in according to the time. 09:31 He allowed the Cath, he allowed Jews in England, 09:34 he was actually going to tolerate Catholics in England. 09:37 He sent a force and source of money over 09:40 to protect the Waldenses, right? 09:41 I'm glad you know it, most people don't. 09:43 Who were being persecuted in England. 09:44 Well, he was so offended 09:46 that at the mistreatment by the... 09:48 was the Duke of Savoy I think of the Waldenses that he said, 09:52 if they didn't cease immediately, 09:54 he would personally lead an English army 09:56 to relieve them. 09:58 And there were at least a couple of authors 10:02 who wrote during this period that are very important, 10:04 one is John Milton, right? 10:07 After Shakespeare, 10:08 the greatest author in the English language. 10:09 John Milton is a Puritan, 10:11 but he is influenced 10:13 by some of these dissenting Protestants 10:14 we discussed earlier. 10:16 He reads the Baptists writings 10:18 who've been studying the Anabaptists, 10:19 who've been studying early Luther, 10:21 and he comes to believe 10:22 in the separation of church and state. 10:24 He writes that not only should people have religious freedom 10:29 but in the... 10:30 He has a treatise on civil and ecclesiastical power. 10:35 And he says that... 10:37 And this was very advanced view for his day 10:39 that the state should not pay the salary of ministers, 10:42 that there should be a real separation 10:44 of church and state. 10:45 I studied that at school, I haven't read it for years... 10:46 Is that? 10:48 I have a great regard for Milton, powerful writer. 10:49 So Milton writes these things very clearly, 10:52 and he puts these ideas of freedom 10:55 in another document which is even more influential. 10:58 You've heard of Paradise Lost, right? 11:00 Paradise Lost is about war over ideas with the... 11:04 Was the great controversy of his age. 11:06 Being given the freedom to choose God or Satan, right? 11:09 Yeah. 11:10 And this view of human freedom 11:14 and the government of God granting freedom 11:17 and a fight over morality, 11:21 it creates the environment in the English speaking world, 11:24 the Puritan context. 11:26 The critique of, 11:27 well, there's two critiques of Paradise Lost. 11:28 All right. 11:31 Samuel Johnson said, "None wished it longer." 11:35 But I think it's a good link but it's in... 11:39 Verse. 11:40 Open verse 4, 11:42 but still it's, you got to trudge through it. 11:43 But if you know the King James, 11:45 it's wonderful similar language. 11:47 And the other critique is that the hero is Satan. 11:51 And freedom, and I'm saying that for real... 11:52 Milton didn't mean that. Others have said that he... 11:54 No, but he gave him 11:55 some of the most heroic speeches. 11:57 And like his, better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. 12:01 Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. 12:03 Right, yeah. 12:05 But I think he got himself caught up 12:08 in just the dynamic of the plot, 12:10 but the principles that he was having Satan 12:13 the numerate were actually the self determinism 12:17 that came out of Protestantism. 12:19 Well Milton writes these things very clearly 12:22 a separation of church and state 12:23 like we have in America, it doesn't get picked up 12:26 but there he sets it out clearly in written form. 12:29 And then a few years later John Locke 12:31 who reads Milton and who also reads 12:34 these Baptists dissenting Protestant authors 12:37 begins to express very clearly in a couple of different books. 12:42 His book on the two treaties on government 12:45 is filled with these ideas of natural rights 12:50 of worship due only to God 12:52 that shouldn't be enforced by humanity. 12:55 And he writes another book on religious toleration 12:59 which really should be understood 13:01 as religious freedom as we use it we're today. 13:03 I think it's pretty easy to prove 13:05 that as far as so called secular thinker, 13:08 Locke was the singular personage 13:11 that informed the development of the American republic. 13:13 So here we are 13:14 between the 16th and the 18th centuries, 13:16 and so this connecting piece with the British Revolution, 13:21 Locke sees the wars of religion in England, 13:25 and he begins to realize that you can't put civil power 13:29 on the side of spiritual beliefs 13:31 that you really need to separate these two things out. 13:33 And he begins to clearly state that 13:36 in these writings that have a profound effect 13:37 on the American founding fathers. 13:40 Yeah, and a little advertisement 13:41 for Liberty magazine, 13:42 we've had many features on him. 13:44 And I can visually see on the back cover once, 13:47 we had a powerful quote from John Locke. 13:49 I can't remember the exact quote 13:51 but I had him in the sky like the sun king 13:55 shining down on the American republic... 13:57 He is of great influence. But it's very interesting. 13:59 Why in Washington there's no, 14:02 that I know of, there's no big statue 14:05 or commemoration of Locke's role 14:07 but to me he's everywhere 14:11 in the Declaration of Independence 14:12 and the discussions 14:13 that surrounded the constitution. 14:15 Well, really James Madison and Thomas Jefferson 14:17 are bringing Locke to America. 14:19 Absolutely. 14:20 We'll take a break here 14:22 and be back shortly to continue our discussion. 14:24 Stay with us. |
Revised 2017-07-06