Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Nick Miller
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000367A
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00:25 Welcome to the Liberty insider.
00:27 This is the program bringing news, views, and insight, 00:31 and up-to-date information on religious liberty in the US 00:34 and around the world, 00:36 and today and back to its origins. 00:39 My name is Lincoln Steed, 00:41 editor of Liberty magazine and my guest on the program 00:44 Nick Miller professor, lawyer... 00:46 And author, right. 00:48 This is the book we're talking about. 00:49 Renaissance man. 00:51 500 Years of Protest and Liberty 00:53 from Martin Luther to modern civil rights. 00:56 It has deep connections with Liberty magazine. 00:58 I wrote much of it originally as articles for Liberty 01:01 and have added some additional material 01:04 to bring it up today. 01:06 We're working cooperatively to promote this. 01:08 Yeah. 01:10 Liberty500.com and if you buy it from that site, 01:14 you'll get a year subscription to Liberty magazine 01:17 as well which is a great way 01:19 to stay up-to-date with what's happening. 01:20 You say how much it is? 01:22 Yeah, the retail price is 24.99. 01:25 Yeah, and it's a hard back. That's right, it's a big book. 01:27 It's a nice book covering 500 years... 01:29 It's cheap. 01:30 Very. 01:32 By the year it's a great deal, 01:33 covering 500 years and what we've done 01:35 is were taking a program per 100 years. 01:38 We're done the 16th and 17th centuries 01:41 and now we're on to the 18th century 01:43 and we're tracing 01:44 the development of religious freedom. 01:46 I pause it from Martin Luther's priesthood of all believers 01:49 and the idea of freedom that brings, 01:51 the freedom not only to pray to God 01:53 but to study the Bible for yourselves 01:55 without interference from the state. 01:57 Therefore, the state can't pass religious laws 01:59 because they would have to interpret 02:01 the Bible and apply that to you. 02:03 We saw how this went from Luther to the Anabaptist, 02:06 to the English Baptist, 02:07 to men like John Milton and John Locke, 02:10 who wrote broadly and that brings us 02:13 to the 18th century 02:14 where American colonies begin to form. 02:18 They began to form in the 17th century 02:20 but really they take on a certain character 02:25 by the time of the 18th century 02:27 that just now leads 02:29 into the founding of the country itself. 02:31 There are three areas to the colonies, 02:35 there's New England, 02:38 they are the middle colonies New York, Maryland, Delaware, 02:43 New Jersey, and then there's the southern colonies. 02:46 Each of those 13 colonies all together 02:49 and each of those three areas, 02:51 those groupings relate to church and state 02:54 in a somewhat different way and you know enough 02:56 about New England and the puritans. 02:57 Yeah, for different reasons like around Baltimore 03:00 was a strong Catholic enclave 03:03 and up in New England the Episcopal Church... 03:06 Well, no, no the Episcopal Church 03:08 was actually in the Anglican Church 03:11 in the southern colonies. 03:13 But you're right the puritans 03:15 are part of the Church of England, 03:17 they don't leave, but they start their own... 03:20 You might differ from it. 03:21 All right. 03:23 I believe down south were more of the puritans 03:25 that had come across after Oliver Cromwell. 03:27 No, no, it's the other way round. 03:29 It's New England is where the puritans go. 03:31 No, no, after Oliver Cromwell. Oh, after Oliver Cromwell. 03:35 With the restoration, 03:36 tens of thousands of them fled and I believe most, 03:39 not most but an awful lot of them 03:41 went down south. 03:42 The restoration colony, 03:43 some did go down south, it's true, 03:45 but the southern colonies have been founded 03:47 as Anglican establishment, 03:50 whereas the New England colonies 03:51 were congregational puritan establishments. 03:54 Yeah. 03:55 And they had much more... 03:57 It's a hodgepodge, yeah. It's a hodgepodge. 03:58 And like even in Pennsylvania I lived in near that area, 04:02 I lived in Maryland, but the Pennsylvania Dutch. 04:04 But it's the Germans... 04:05 They're actually Germans. 04:07 Yeah, but they're Anabaptists a lot of them so... 04:10 Well, this is the story most people think America, 04:13 the pilgrims, the puritans, religious freedom, 04:16 but as we discussed last time that's really not true. 04:19 The puritans were interested in religious freedom 04:21 for themselves, 04:23 but if you were a Quaker, or you were a Baptist, 04:25 you were persecuted and in fact Rodger Williams, 04:29 he becomes the Baptist, 04:30 has to go and start his own colony in Rhode Island. 04:33 And Rodger Williams had very close ties 04:37 to the insider group 04:38 that formed Oliver Cromwell's government, 04:41 did you know that? 04:42 I'm trying to think of the top guy 04:45 in the government 04:46 that was basically a mentor to Oliver Cromwell, 04:50 he was a very close friend of... 04:52 Well, I didn't know that. 04:53 I did know that Rodger Williams met 04:55 and knew John Milton. 04:58 Rodger Williams taught Milton some of the English, 05:02 not the English, 05:03 the native American languages and as I remember it, 05:06 Milton, I think taught... 05:10 anyway they exchanged ideas and printers. 05:14 So Lord so and so, 05:15 but it was the inner circle that was advising Cromwell. 05:19 But the important thing to point out 05:21 is that New England 05:23 didn't really produce religious freedom 05:25 except for Rodger Williams in Rhode Island, 05:27 but he was on the margins and was outcast. 05:29 Virginia we often think of, oh, Jefferson and Madison, 05:32 but Virginia was an Anglican establishment. 05:35 Where do we find religious freedom 05:36 in early America? 05:38 The middle colonies, Pennsylvania. 05:40 You actually mentioned Maryland. 05:41 In Maryland there was a high level of tolerance 05:43 because the Catholics found 05:44 that this kind of religious freedom haven. 05:46 But even in Maryland, 05:48 eventually there were enough Anglicans 05:50 that came along that they passed rules 05:52 outlawing Catholic worship. 05:54 Pennsylvania is the only of the original colonies 05:57 where there was continuous protection 05:59 for Catholic worship. 06:00 Jews could worship, Catholics could worship, 06:02 native Americans could worship, 06:04 and you have William Payne who was a Quaker 06:07 and who's picked up 06:08 the dissenting Protestant views of religious freedom 06:12 and church and state 06:14 and created Pennsylvania in that model. 06:16 I never quite thought of Pennsylvania in the way 06:18 you're saying unless it's obviously true. 06:21 The lesson I get is that 06:23 before the constitution was brought up, 06:27 I don't think the experience was very good anywhere. 06:30 It just was that it was so different. 06:32 There were continued examples of religious prejudice 06:37 and of essentially establishment 06:40 of a certain group but not always the same one. 06:42 Well, Pennsylvania wasn't perfect, 06:44 there was actually a rule on a book said, 06:46 if you wanted to be a state employee, 06:49 you needed to believe in God and Jesus Christ. 06:52 But there is no evidence that was enforced 06:55 and it's a probability 06:57 that the colonial office in England 07:00 who granted the colonial charters 07:02 put that requirement in there and Payne never enforced it. 07:06 But what we do know is that 07:08 Pennsylvania had the highest level 07:10 of religious freedom outside Rhode Island 07:12 which again was obscured on the edges 07:15 and it soon became the most commercially successful colony. 07:19 Do you know it was founded... 07:20 Oh, like the Switzerland of the new world. 07:22 Philadelphia was founded, two or three decades, 07:25 several decades after both Boston and New York, 07:28 but it very quickly outstripped those in size 07:32 and the reason was William Payne traveled 07:34 throughout Europe 07:35 and found all the persecuted groups, 07:37 the Moravians, the Anabaptists, 07:40 the Huguenots, Catholic and Jews 07:43 and said come to Pennsylvania. 07:45 We'll use your skills 07:46 and your religious beliefs will be protected. 07:48 It very quickly surpassed Boston, 07:51 New York in size and economic viability 07:54 and by 1720 it was known as the Athens of North America. 08:01 And Jefferson, Madison and other leaders 08:05 in the colonial period, 08:07 they didn't site Rhode Island 08:09 as the model for the new nation, 08:11 they said, "What's happening in Pennsylvania is 08:13 where it's at." 08:15 And I think it's no accident 08:16 when the Continental Congress came to ride, 08:19 right, it rode in Philadelphia 08:21 and the constitutional convention was in Philadelphia 08:24 and they were surrounded by this model of prosperity 08:28 which have been brought about 08:30 by the strong religious protection, 08:33 bringing in and turning it into a successful colony. 08:37 It's a very interesting story and you're right, 08:40 it's a part of the continuum of Protestantism. 08:44 So what happens 08:47 when Pennsylvania is founded 08:52 and this dissenting model is allowed to spread. 08:57 It's criticized by some because it was a standard belief 09:03 up to that point 09:04 that they have a successful political unit 09:06 and an economic unit, 09:09 you needed to have uniformity in religion 09:11 and that's the model that Europe have forward on. 09:14 And so suddenly they have 09:16 this example of religious diversity 09:19 and pluralism going along with economic and social, 09:23 and political success was an eye-opener for many people. 09:29 Yeah, but... 09:31 Maybe I'm jumping ahead in time... 09:32 All right. 09:34 What's your explanation though 09:37 when they came together to draw up a constitution? 09:41 Why even though there were some arguments 09:44 in the contrary by, what's his name, 09:47 "Give me liberty or give me death." 09:48 Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry. 09:51 They settled on a religiously open, 09:54 or actually a religiously neutral structure, 09:57 but they all had establishment, 09:58 they had a history of as you mentioned 10:01 in another program of hanging Quakers and so on. 10:06 In my view looking at the US history, 10:09 the antagonisms of religion was constant 10:13 and ever present here as anywhere in Europe. 10:16 The difference was, 10:17 there were so many things going on, 10:19 you seldom had, 10:20 like we have today in some African countries 10:23 where the country split between Islam and Christianity 10:26 and said, this is sort of a religious civil war. 10:28 You couldn't have that in America 10:30 with so many different groups. 10:32 But it was not a pleasant sight 10:35 and yet they consciously set that aside. 10:38 Is it just because of John Locke... 10:39 Well... 10:41 The object lesson of bad history behind them. 10:46 So there is more than one factor, 10:48 we can't say there was Luther and the Anabaptists and Locke 10:53 and therefore separation in America. 10:55 We have to acknowledge these other influences. 10:57 There was a great deal of religious diversity in America. 11:00 As a practical matter tolerance was a good thing, 11:03 but that on its own wouldn't have been enough, 11:05 because the New England colonies 11:06 were not very diverse, were they? 11:08 They were puritan, and therefore, 11:10 it was just the matter of diversity, 11:11 they would have stayed that way. 11:13 Pennsylvania itself became diverse 11:17 because it had a preexisting commitment to religious freedom 11:20 which then produced the diversity. 11:23 So a number of scholars and historians like to say, 11:26 "Well, it was so diverse, 11:27 they had no choice but to be tolerant." 11:29 But that still overlook some important historical facts 11:31 about which came first, 11:33 and in the instance of Pennsylvania, 11:35 it was the principle commitment to diversity that came 11:38 before diversity appeared. 11:41 I'll throw a, not a wrench... 11:42 A wrench? A curve ball? I don't disagree. 11:45 But, while the US has a discrete history 11:49 and it's a very different country now than England. 11:52 I think the things that were happening 11:54 in the colonies were happening in other country, 11:58 then later happened in Australia. 12:00 I think there was this rising tide of civil 12:06 and religious freedoms 12:08 that was going to breakout regardless. 12:10 There was a growth 12:11 in the sense of the importance of the individual. 12:13 Yeah. 12:14 But what drove that growth 12:16 in the sense of the importance of the individual? 12:18 And I think it was these theological constructs, right. 12:22 Because, you know, you mentioned before 12:24 about establish church in England 12:28 and not in Australia. 12:30 I think England has got what the US Supreme Court 12:33 nicely referred to as ceremonial deism. 12:35 Right. 12:37 I think the establishment in England is powerless, 12:40 it's just a historical curiosity 12:43 but the social development 12:45 that has led to the separation of church 12:47 and state which they clearly have in England 12:49 in the practical sense so separated, 12:51 it became very secular society. 12:55 I think this was developing and bubbling up, 12:57 and John Locke is probably the... 13:01 If not the then, very much the central figure. 13:04 John Locke influences the thinkers in Virginia, 13:07 Jefferson and Madison. 13:09 He also writes part of the Carolina Constitution 13:13 specifically the part on religious freedom. 13:16 What about... 13:18 I'm bad on names, the guy that favor the patriots and... 13:23 Favor the patriots in that story. 13:24 What's the Americans pamphlet writer? 13:30 Oh, Thomas Paine? Thomas Paine. 13:33 Who is under the frown of us... 13:36 Well, he wrote common sense 13:38 obviously the well-known pamphlet there 13:40 in which he appeals to notions of Protestantism 13:45 that as we wouldn't have a pope in the church, 13:48 so we shouldn't have a king in our politics. 13:51 But later on, he writes pamphlets attacking 13:54 both organized religion and revelation. 13:56 That's where I think he comes in frown 13:58 of some of our own religious writers in Adventism. 14:01 That's right. 14:03 But I do think some of his early stuff is 14:05 exactly the same as John Locke in the prevailing mood 14:09 and it sped it all along. 14:10 And he goes off the rails with his age of reason. 14:12 Right, yeah. 14:14 We'll be back after a short break. 14:15 Stay with us. |
Revised 2017-07-14