Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190426A
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00:27 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:29 This is the program bringing you news, views, 00:31 information, discussion, 00:33 maybe even some wild ideas on religious liberty. 00:38 I hope not. 00:40 But we want to open your consciousness 00:41 on this very important topic. 00:43 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:47 And my guest on the program is Dr. John Reeve, 00:51 from Andrews University, Department of Church History. 00:55 And... 00:57 Let's deal with some secular history 00:58 just to throw you. 00:59 No, but I know, it involves church history. 01:01 Because I believe much of what is going on today 01:05 in the religious liberty era 01:07 and church state relations in the United States 01:09 can be traced back obviously, 01:11 to what was once the mother country, 01:13 to what went on in England and in Europe. 01:17 And I'm very fixated on the civil war in England 01:22 that began with some largely secular reasons, 01:25 but very quickly devolved to Protestants 01:30 against what they saw as a Catholic sympathizing king. 01:33 And even further devolved to Puritans and their agenda 01:38 that was at odds with the Church of England 01:40 and the desire to establish the kingdom of God on earth, 01:43 and the holy nation and a religious republic 01:45 and the whole deal, 01:46 and culminated with Oliver Cromwell, 01:49 the Lord Protector 01:51 who really wanted to re-Christianize his country. 01:55 What are your thoughts on that era, 01:56 and maybe even further back? 01:58 What can we say about that continium, 02:00 and that history is how then made its way 02:03 to this part of the world. 02:06 When you go back to, 02:08 to the magisterial reformation the... 02:11 You really do not have any concept 02:15 of having a separation of church and state, 02:19 you know, the idea 02:21 that whatever, whatever the king or the ruler, 02:26 local ruler has their religion, 02:28 the people should have that as their religion as well 02:31 was kind of the mode of the day. 02:33 So you know, as the king, so the people. 02:37 And was the structure of society. 02:40 Of course. 02:41 You know, today, we look at Asia and see that, 02:43 like in China, that's very much the thinking. 02:45 For sure. 02:46 And Japan, but that was Europe, wasn't it? 02:48 Yeah. 02:49 And it struck me with Christianity 02:51 as it first began, wasn't it, 02:52 Clovis was baptized, king of the Franks. 02:54 Everyone is suddenly Christian. 02:56 And in Russia, thousand years ago now, 02:59 it was the ruler of the Russ... 03:03 I'm trying to remember the ruler's name, 03:04 but he was baptized, everyone suddenly christened, 03:07 they didn't even know what the religion was. 03:09 Yeah, yeah. 03:11 And that's because the identity with their people, 03:14 their identity, the leader is the people, 03:16 and... 03:17 So when you end up with Henry VIII, 03:21 needing to turn away from Catholicism 03:24 toward Protestantism in order to achieve his means. 03:30 He did not want to make any religious change. 03:33 He just wanted to be, 03:34 he wanted to get rid of the power of the pope 03:36 and wanted to bring England back to... 03:38 English power and money back. 03:39 It was a bit bigger than his marriage. 03:41 It was bigger than his marriage. 03:42 And I will give him a little boost up. 03:45 He had written some very interesting articles 03:48 on the whole thing. 03:50 Well, actually now remember them all. 03:51 He also wrote against Martin Luther 03:53 at one point, is that true? 03:54 Yeah, sure. 03:56 He was called the defender of the faith. 03:57 Right, but he did write some prophetic treatises too. 04:01 So he was very much involved theologically, 04:03 he just wasn't... 04:05 He was a very astute theologian, 04:06 but he was not interested 04:08 in changing the way worship happen so much 04:11 as he was interested in changing 04:13 the power dynamics of the church, 04:14 getting the land back from the church 04:18 to usable land and taxable land particularly, 04:23 and his father before him, 04:25 Henry VII had been very poignant 04:28 about trying to get a court of laws 04:33 that were answerable to the king 04:34 and not the local lords, 04:36 so that there would be some justice 04:38 in the land rather than just the lord rules, 04:42 and if the lord was this... 04:44 Well, what you're really describing, 04:45 which has been a long process also, 04:48 was the move away from pure feudalism 04:50 to more of a modern system of governance 04:54 and a view of the individual 04:55 rather than as a serve for a vessel. 04:58 But many people have said that 05:02 the horse that Henry road to power, 05:04 Henry VIII, I'm referring to, 05:06 the horse that Henry road to power 05:08 was the law lord horse, 05:10 the followers of... 05:13 Now you're getting towards as I told you earlier, 05:15 Wycliffe, I've got a very soft spot. 05:18 Morningstar of the Reformation. 05:19 Yes. 05:20 And it was many, many decades before Martin Luther. 05:23 So England had been stirred 05:25 with bit more biblically based views of religion 05:28 rather than the autocratic church state model. 05:31 And it was Thomas Cromwell, 05:33 who was the king's man in Parliament 05:35 that allowed him to make the break with Rome, 05:39 and to establish a Church of England, 05:42 with the king as the head of the Church of England, 05:45 and then establish 05:47 that the money would no longer flow to Rome, 05:49 but would stay local. 05:50 All of this was changed by a person 05:53 who was interested 05:55 in a democratization of England and a king, 06:01 who was not interested in democratization. 06:04 So you've got a tension between Thomas Cromwell 06:08 and the king as to how to do it, 06:10 and so the king uses Cromwell until he's not useful anymore, 06:14 then he puts him in prison, 06:16 and he cuts his head off and that's the end of it. 06:20 But he sets the stage 06:22 for having a very strong centralized government 06:28 holding both, the power of the state 06:32 and the power of the church in one hand. 06:35 Yeah, yeah. 06:37 That backfires on the English people 06:40 few years later, 06:41 when his oldest daughter comes to reign, 06:44 you know, Mary comes to the... 06:47 Well ironically, though, they call her Bloody Mary 06:51 because she killed so many Protestants. 06:52 But it wasn't that many, it was 300 though. 06:55 Less than 300 she killed 06:56 and her father killed some 70,000 but... 07:01 But she was a fearsome presence 07:05 in what was becoming Protestant England. 07:08 She definitely, in many practical ways 07:09 rolled back the reformation. 07:11 Well, she declared herself 07:13 not to be the ruler of the king of the church in England, 07:17 but declared the pope 07:18 to be the ruler of the church in England. 07:20 And so, and she tried to redo 07:23 what had been done by Henry VIII in many ways. 07:25 And the people didn't follow. 07:27 Yeah. 07:30 It was under her rule that Cranmer, not Cranmer... 07:34 Yeah, Ridley and Cranmer, wasn't it? 07:37 Yeah, that's correct. Were burned at the stake. 07:40 And it's only about a year and a half ago, 07:42 I was in Oxford, 07:44 and that little monument still live a very minimal, 07:48 it's just as we were crossing the street, 07:51 I sort of turned and here's this little marker, 07:53 says that on the spot they were burned. 07:55 Yeah, I was there last October. 07:57 Yeah. So... 07:58 It's still part of the history and the ambiance 08:03 of what is modern England. 08:05 And then I think it was at Winchester Cathedral outside 08:08 the... 08:09 Is it Winchester, yeah, one of the nearby cathedrals 08:12 or a cathedral nearby for us that same day, 08:14 I noticed on the gate, there was an acknowledgement 08:18 that on that spot, 08:20 one of the churchmen of that cathedral 08:21 have been burned and also in Bloody Mary's era, 08:25 so she went after the churchmen. 08:27 She did, she went after the church leaders 08:29 that were keeping England away from papal authority. 08:34 Now, when Elizabeth comes to the throne, 08:38 she has to fight against the Catholic residual feeling 08:42 in England 08:43 in order to establish the Church of England, 08:45 and it takes her about 20 years. 08:47 But then she immediately starts fighting 08:49 with the Puritans 08:51 who are wanting to continue the reform, 08:52 and she wants to hold her via media. 08:54 So then you have this group that wants to take it further 08:57 and have a more biblical ruler in the land, 09:03 rather than someone 09:04 who is interested in a middle way. 09:07 Well, like the... 09:08 And you're very correct, linking the Puritan antagonism 09:12 further back. 09:15 Because, you know, in the civil war, 09:16 that's where it came to ahead, 09:17 but the Puritan movement was long time in coming. 09:20 Yeah, it was the 1580's, 09:21 you have John Pym, who's one of the pamphleteer's 09:25 that is trying to win the war 09:28 for the hearts of the people against the queen. 09:31 And what I see the Puritan movement 09:32 as it was the real, 09:34 the real outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation. 09:37 Church of England in England wasn't 09:39 and still isn't. 09:41 It was a continuation of the patterns of Romanism 09:45 but without the pope. 09:46 Yeah. In many ways. 09:48 It was Episcopal. Yeah. 09:50 And, of course, as you know, in the civil war, 09:54 the precipitating element really was 09:58 that preceded the parliamentary debates 10:01 and that was really the king's archbishop, 10:05 lord, changing the Book of Common Prayer, 10:08 whatever, you know, 10:10 you're messing with the Bible almost for that. 10:12 And they believed that the king and his archbishop 10:15 were under the influence of the king's wife 10:17 and Roman Catholic influence. 10:19 So they saw rolling back of the Reformation, 10:21 that got everyone ancy. 10:23 And then when there was the political crisis, 10:26 instantly, it's sort of devolved 10:27 into the king and his Catholic friends 10:30 against the Puritans who were the pure Protestants, 10:33 not always so but that was their claim 10:35 just as today, 10:37 the religious riot, 10:38 you know, claimed to speak for the American uniqueness. 10:42 But the Puritans 10:44 were demanding religious freedom. 10:47 Yes. But that's not their goal. 10:49 Their goal was to impose Puritanism. 10:52 Yes. 10:53 Well, that was their opportunity. 10:56 They got it. Yeah. 10:58 After the civil war, 10:59 that's essentially what they did. 11:00 Yeah. 11:02 Oliver Cromwell was essentially a Puritan 11:04 and most friendly to some of the more extreme elements. 11:09 And while I think for his time, 11:11 the direct role of the protector 11:14 was relatively benign, 11:15 he invited the Jews back. 11:18 He was fairly indulgent to religious dissidents 11:22 within Protestantism. 11:23 He had more religious freedom than Charles I had. 11:26 Right. 11:28 Not too good toward the Catholics. 11:31 But, yeah, I mean, his goal and his undoing 11:36 was giving power to the Major Generals, 11:39 I think they were called in the different areas 11:42 to administer religious practice 11:44 and they became odious to the population. 11:47 So there was an attempt to enforce 11:49 a certain type of religious behavior. 11:52 And a similar thing happened 11:53 when the Puritans went 11:55 to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. 11:56 Yeah. 11:58 The Puritanism there was not the religious freedom 12:02 they were claiming was freedom for them to do 12:05 what they wanted to do rather than been told. 12:07 As we've said other times and I keep repeating it. 12:09 What we're seeing now is the same type of thing, 12:11 its religious entitlement. 12:13 Yes. 12:14 Under the guise of religious liberty 12:15 and I don't think, 12:17 well, they self deceived, 12:18 but I don't think they say it cynically. 12:20 But its self-interest winning out on a principles, 12:23 that you advance the principle 12:24 but you really only mean for our group, 12:26 for the Puritans in that case, 12:28 and perhaps for what they see 12:30 as an American mainline Christianity here. 12:32 And, of course, then you get Roger Williams, 12:39 who starts as one of them and is then... 12:42 Well, he was on the inner circle. 12:43 Yeah. He was one of the elders. 12:46 But he had met with Oliver Cromwell. 12:48 He was the semi adopted son of Lord Coke or Cook. 12:53 I didn't know that one. 12:54 Yeah, the chief justice who really laid the groundwork 12:58 for the whole Puritan political movement. 13:02 Like he was the guy 13:04 that came up with the statement, 13:05 "An Englishman's home is his castle." 13:06 Yeah. 13:08 That was, he was one of the greatest jurors, 13:09 but he was opposed to the king's power, 13:12 at least in its own, and challenge for him. 13:15 And he had a Puritan sensibility 13:17 and death directly prepared the way. 13:20 But when he comes to Massachusetts Bay, 13:23 then he ends up with being at odds 13:27 with those who would say 13:30 he cannot worship the way he wanted to. 13:32 Well, and, you know, I'm... 13:35 Well, I'm not a self proclaimed expert on it, 13:38 but I'm very interested in this 13:39 and I believe 13:40 that he was exemplifying the core principles 13:43 that the real thinkers 13:45 in that movement have been advancing, 13:46 not the popular application 13:48 of unrestricted Puritan sensibility. 13:53 And part of the proof of that, 13:55 remember out of that era came 13:57 John Milton's Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained 14:01 and some of his other writings 14:03 and I can argue that even Adventism, 14:06 our great controversy thing 14:08 comes straight out of John Milton. 14:10 And it's a wonderful concept of the freedom of man to rebel 14:16 and God giving back his power 14:18 and freedom to morally regain everything he'd lost. 14:23 So I think at root the Puritan movement 14:26 had good thoughts, 14:28 but just like all movements have not restricted, 14:30 its excesses undid, its gains undid. 14:33 And its excesses, 14:35 would you see it's fair to say 14:38 that their excesses 14:40 came to bear 14:42 when they recognized that if they could be in power, 14:45 they could call all the shots for their own. 14:48 Absolutely. 14:50 And the one thing 14:51 that is a stain against that era 14:54 was Oliver Cromwell's Irish expedition 14:59 where he put the island under the sword. 15:01 Sure. 15:02 We'll be back after a short break 15:03 to continue this review of Puritan history 15:07 and English history 15:08 and perhaps some applications 15:10 for the United States in the world today. 15:11 Stay with us. |
Revised 2019-04-08