Category: Religion

Eric Metaxas' New Book: On Tolerance for All Denominations and Religions in Colonial America, Part Two

In his new book, If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxas writes on page 70:

Since the Pilgrims came to our shores in 1620, religious freedom and religious tolerance have been the single most important principle of American life.

If only.
As I pointed out in two previous posts (link, link), Metaxas makes the argument that the Pilgrims provided a model of religious tolerance which was incorporated by the Founders into formation of America. In contrast to his claim, I wrote about the persecution of Mary Dyer, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams. Today, I bring forward another exhibit in contradiction to Metaxas’ claim. In the year 1700, the Massachusetts assembly passed an “Act against Jesuits and Popish Priests.” Here is an portion:

Be it Enacted by His Excellency the Governour, Council and Representatives in General Court Assembled: And it is Enacted by the Authority of the same. That all and every Jesuit, Seminary Priest, Jesuits▪ Priests &c to depart the Province by the 10th. of September. Missionary, or other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Person made or ordained by any Authority, Power or Jurisdiction derived, challenged or pretended from the Pope or See of Rome, now residing within this Province or any part thereof, shall depart from and out of the same, at or before the tenth day of September next, in this present year, One Thousand and Seven Hundred. And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid,Penalty on Jesuits or Priests &c. that shall re|main or come into this Province after the 10th. of September. 1700. That all and every Jesuit, Seminary Priest, Missionary or other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical person made or ordained by any Authority, Power or Jurisdiction, derived▪ challenged or pretended from the Pope or See of Rome, Or that shall pro+fess himself, or otherwise appear to be such by practising and teaching of others to say any Popish Prayers, by celebrating Masses, granting of Absolutions, or using any other of the Romish Ceremonies and Rites of Worship, by or of what name, title or degree soever such person shall be called or known, who shall continue, abide, remain or come in to this Province, or any part thereof, after the Tenth Day of September aforesaid, shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary, and disturber of the Publick Peace and Safety, and an Enemy to the true Christian Religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual Imprisonment, And if any person being so Sentenced and actually Imprisoned, shall break prison and make his Escape, and be afterwards reken, he shall be punished with Death.Penalty for receiving or harbouring any Jesuit or Priest.

Catholics were to “suffer perpetual Imprisonment.” The law allowed the death penalty for those who escaped from prison and were captured.
Even in Rhode Island, Catholics were excluded from complete religious freedom beginning in 1719.

…all men professing and of competent estates and of civil conversation acknowledge and are obedient to the civil though of different judgments in Religious (Roman Catholicks only excepted) shall be Freemen and shall have liberty to choose and chosen Officers in the Colony both millitary and civil. (link, page 25)

None of the original founders were still around at the time and for reasons not completely clear (although perhaps related to a desire to be consistent with British anti-Catholic sentiment), Rhode Island passed a law which singled out Catholics. Thus, in the home of religious tolerance in the colonies, religious toleration went backwards. The law was not repealed until 1783.
In New York, Catholics were tolerated until a purge came in 1688. In 1700, New York’s lawmakers passed a law, similar to the anti-Catholic law passed in Massachusetts, which called for imprisonment of priests who led Catholic worship and death for any who escaped prison and were captured. Other colonies went through anti-Catholic periods as well.
When one considers the experience of the Quakers and Catholics, it is impossible to support the notion that religious tolerance was “the single most important principle of American life.” Metaxas engages in wishful thinking when he writes, “complete tolerance for all denominations and religions” existed for nearly a century before the founding of America.
It is astounding that the founders came together to ban religious tests for federal service and enact the First Amendment to the Constitution. However, one cannot exclusively ground this tradition with the Pilgrims and Protestant controlled colonial assemblies. Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison and the others, influenced by Enlightenment writers as well as their religious traditions, took the nation in a different direction than was true of the colonial governments.

On Tolerance for All Denominations and Religions in Colonial America

In his upcoming book If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxas claims there was “complete tolerance for all denominations and religions” for nearly a century before the founding era of the United States. From page 35 of the book:

On page 70, he adds

Since the Pilgrims came to our shores in 1620, religious freedom and religious tolerance have been the single most important principle of American life.

Such tolerance was not extended to Quakers and other dissenters in the colonies. In 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged in Puritan Massachusetts as a Quaker dissenter. Anne Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts in 1638 and settled in Rhode Island where Roger Williams also settled two years earlier after being banished from Massachusetts.  Persecution and discrimination were the lot of many dissenters from the state church.
Thomas Jefferson did not attribute his ideas about religious freedom to the example of the colonial governments. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson criticized the treatment of dissenters by colonial governments.

Note that Jefferson judged that Puritans showed intolerance toward other sects, most notably the Quakers. They wanted religious freedom for themselves but not for others. Religious tolerance was the exception, not the rule in colonial times, even in Jefferson’s Virginia. Metaxas tells us that religious tolerance was complete; Jefferson said the intolerance matched the level displayed in England. I’ll go with TJ on this one.
Metaxas mentions exceptions to the general religious intolerance but he weaves them in with his contention that the Pilgrims and Puritans gave us the tradition of religious freedom. For instance, Metaxas briefly describes the Flushing Remonstrance and Roger Williams’ settlement in Rhode Island. The Flushing document was a petition to the leader of New Netherland settlement Peter Stuyvesant asking for relief from his ban on Quakers. Metaxas rightly heralds this action. However, Metaxas fails to set it in context. Despite the noble purpose, the petition failed and Stuyvesant cracked down on dissent. He jailed two leaders of the petition effort. Others recanted their dissent in the face of punishment.
Regarding Roger Williams, he was forced out of Massachusetts because he “broached  & divulged diverse, new & dangerous opinions.” Williams had to secretly escape to Rhode Island in January 1636 during the harsh Massachusetts winter. Dissent was not well tolerated. Metaxas does not give us the whole picture. Without banishment due to the intolerance of the dominant Puritans, Williams would not have established religious freedom in Rhode Island.
I can’t understand why writers omit this history. The outline for Metaxas’ book appears to come from Paul Johnson’s 2006 First Things article on the same subject. The cover similar ground and gloss over similar issues. The America given to us by the founders is much closer to Roger Williams’ Rhode Island than John Winthrops’ city on a hill. That is a good thing and a story worth telling and retelling.
 
Additional information:
See my post from yesterday and Gregg Frazer’s review of Metaxas’ book.

Does Christianity Need Donald Trump's Help?

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Faith and the Election. Read other perspectives here.
Now that Donald Trump is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, we can look back at some of the promises he has made. Of interest to the current Patheos Public Square conversation on faith and politics are his promises to make businesses say Merry Christmas and his pledge to “work like Hell” for Christian power.
In February, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas TX Robert Jeffress told a rally that if Donald Trump is elected that evangelical Christians “will have a true friend in the White House.” Trump followed Jeffress’ remarks by declaring:

Christianity is under siege. Every year it gets weaker and weaker and weaker and I had a meeting with various ministers and pastors about two months ago and I’m pretty good at figuring things out. And I say with them and some of them said we love you. We want to endorse you but we are afraid if we do we are going to lose our tax exempt status. And I said what’s this all about. That takes you and makes you less powerful than a man or woman walking up and down the street. You actually have less power, and yet, if you look at it, I was talking to some, we probably have 250 million, maybe even more, in terms of people. So we have more Christians — think of this — than we have men or women in our country, and we don’t have a lobby because they’re afraid to have a lobby because they don’t want to lose their tax status. So I am going to work like hell to get rid of that prohibition, and we’re going to have the strongest Christian lobby, and it’s going to happen.

About Christmas celebrations, Trump said.

We’re going to say ‘Merry Christmas’ now on Christmas. We’re going to start going to department stores, and stores, and you’re going to see big beautiful signs that say, ‘Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday,’ and we’re going to have a big, big, big lotta fun.

Working “like hell” seems like an apt description of what Trump has in mind. If we can take him at his word, he plans to somehow coerce business owners to post Merry Christmas signs and favor Christianity as a kind political lobbying force.
There is another religion Trump mentioned briefly in his February speech and then repeatedly throughout the campaign. Trump has famously suggested shutting down some mosques and banning Muslims entering the country. If Trump wins and he follows through on his promises, Christianity will have a “true friend” in the White House and Islam will have quite an adversary.
Does Christianity need this kind of help? Will special help make America great?
The issue of Muslim (Mahometan) participation in the new Republic came up during the North Carolina debates over ratification of the Constitution in 1788. Some delegates expressed worry that the lack of a religious test would allow atheists or people from non-Christian religions to be elected to office. In the debate, James Iredell, appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington in 1790, answered concerns that a pagan or Mahometan might gain office:

But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened. Nor would it answer the purpose, for the worst part of the excluded sects would comply with the test, and the best men only be kept out of our counsels. But it is never to be supposed that the people of America will trust their dearest rights to persons who have no religion at all, or a religion materially different from their own. It would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority. Has he not said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? It made much greater progress for itself, than when supported by the greatest authority upon earth.

Justice Iredell addresses the Trumpish desire to favor Christianity over non-Christian religions. Iredell told his North Carolina peers that even the “least difference” opens the door to persecution. Iredell, speaking as a member of the majority, exhorted his colleagues to resist the temptation to consider themselves always right and others wrong.
As Iredell warned, favoritism can lead to persecution which is why the Constitution protects religious freedom and included the clause barring religious tests for public service. Moreover, Iredell argued, Christianity needs no assistance from the government. He asserts that religion should take its own course and stand on “the excellence of its own doctrines.” If Christianity is the religion it claims to be, why should it require “worldly authority?”
James Madison wrote in 1785, “every page of it [the Christian Religion] disavows a dependence on the powers of this world.” The same is true today. Christianity does not need a “strong lobby” or a “true friend” in the White House to accomplish its mission. We don’t need governmental power to enact a coerced allegiance to our religion. It is unconscionable that Trump would promise such a thing and worse that ministers of the Gospel would applaud it.
Christianity doesn’t need Donald Trump’s kind of help.

Rolling Stone Examines Evangelical Reactions to Donald Trump

Writing for Rolling Stone, Sarah Posner examines a variety of evangelical reactions to Donald Trump’s status as presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Yours truly is quoted along with several other conservatives grappling with what it means to live in a Trumpian universe.
Some highlights:

  • Trump might get 50% of the evangelical vote says Tobin Grant. That prediction compares unfavorably to Mitt Romney’s 79% of the evangelical vote in 2012.
  • Denny Burk, professor at Boyce College told Posner: “I think that Trump is uniquely disqualified.”
  • Although time is running out, about 40 conservatives are planning some kind of move to counter Trump according to Erick Erickson. Lord, haste the day.
  • Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has resisted calls to become a third-party candidate.
  • Fellow Patheos blogger John Mark Reynolds blames rampant conspiracy thinking for some of Trump’s support.

I pointed out that religious leaders who oppose Trump aren’t getting very far in offsetting the Trump tide. Evangelicals who support Trump are tossing the Republican political establishment aside and ignoring many of their religious leaders as well (e.g., Russell Moore). The way the quotes are presented, it may sound like I am blaming them, but that isn’t the case. Like many others, I am amazed how this election season has turned everything upside down.
It is disturbing to see evangelicals Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and others contradict themselves so dramatically in the name of party unity. Perhaps this unity worship is why Erick Erickson predicts many evangelicals will vote for Trump, although not enough to win. Although I agree, I don’t feel confident. In this political environment, it feels like the sand shifts frequently which as we know isn’t a good place to build a house.
 

For Mothers Day, Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris Speaks Conception

He did this last year too. One of Mark Driscoll’s friends and benefactors, Robert Morris believes he can speak conception to infertile couples. Listen to part of the sermon actually delivered yesterday:

This is a transcript of the first view minutes. Near the end of the prayer, Morris “speaks conception” to infertile couples (at about 4:00 in this clip).

I do wanna pray over a specific group of ladies.  I do this nearly every Mother’s Day.   Um, and that is, if you want to have a child.  And the reason I do this is for some reason God has blessed this prayer when I pray it.   And I don’t even know why or understand it.
I was getting my hair cut a while back in a specific, where I get my hair cut, and, um, they, there was this lady who I overheard talking about miscarriages and not being able to have a child and she’d been praying for, I think, 12 or 13 years or something.  And I just got so burdened so we, I, just went over to her and she got up at the same time I got up and I said, ‘I’m sorry to overhear your conversation but I’m pastor of a church, and would you mind if I pray for you?’  And so I prayed for her right there in the salon.  And, um, um, she uh, started coming to the church.  She got saved.  Her family got saved.  And, uh, her husband, and they started coming to small group and she had a baby.
And, uh, so, and what’s amazing is, I was getting my haircut there again today, and we were talking about that and they said, ‘uh, Robert, we, we have people that ask to get their haircut in that wing (hand motion towards wing) of the salon – that are trying to have a baby.  And they get pregnant!  And then we’ve had employees that say, ‘can I transfer to that wing (more jerking hand motions towards wing) of the salon?’ And they get pregnant so um.   So, uh, I’m gonna pray for you now.  You don’t have to get your hair cut there.  It is a good place, but….

I offer this without much comment on the stories of pregnancies being influenced by where in the hair salon Morris — pastor of the third largest church in America — sat to get his hair cut.
However, these stories and the rest of the sermon is about hearing from God in dreams and the ability to do miracles. Those outside evangelcalism wanting to understand the diversity under that label should make a distinction between evangelicals who believe such things happen frequently and those who don’t.