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My mom's side of the family has a place at Prudence Island. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Rhode Island lore, this seemingly tiny island located in the geographic center of Narragansett bay was settled by my ancestor Roger Williams (1613-1684). (Apparently, I can trace my lineage back to Roger's sons Daniel and Joseph. Ah, inbreeding. That explains a lot. But I digress.)
Apparently, Gramps named this idyllic island, as well as neighboring Patience and Hope Islands after three virtues he felt everyone should possess. About once a year, I go up to this peaceful paradise to reconnect with my past and reflect on my future. No matter what's going on in my life, the Narragansett Bay will say something to me and somehow, I feel better. And after all this political infighting that's been going on between competing Christian factions, I needed a rest-that's for sure.
I dunno 'bout you but all this Baptist bickering has gotten on my last nerve. And this time it's personal. For you see, my ancestor not only founded the state of Rhode Island but he also established the first Baptist church in North America. (A fact I did not learn until relatively recently 'cause I attended public and Catholic schools where discussions of all things Protestant were strictly prohibited.)
Just as he preached to the Native Americans in a manner that produced harmony not discord, perhaps ol' Roger can shed some light on what the heck is going on here. certainly hope so.
So, one day, I biked over to Pulpit Rock, where legend has it, the Rev. Roger Williams preached to the Narragansett Sachem Native Americans.
Boy did Gramps give me an earful.
If you think we have it bad today, well, my elder relative reminded me of how bad he had it when he was a kid. Man oh, man. He was bellowing so loud you'd think he was doing one of those good 'ol day routines. You know the spiel. “Well, back in my day we had to walk ten (or was it twenty) miles to school every day through the rain, the mud and of course, snow that was piled up so high you couldn't see your nose in front of you. We had to put newspaper in our shoes to keep us warm. And we had to drink rusty water from a tin cup and eat dried beans.... blah, blah, blah.” You get the drift.
Now, this dude's regaling me with tales of growing up in the old Holborn section of London, near the great Smithfield plain, where he regularly witnessed religious dissenters being burned at the stake. I could have done without all the nasty bloody bits that would have put Wes Craven to shame. Pass me the Pepto. Please. But apparently like many of my relatives, this dude tells it like he sees it, bloody guts, gore and all.
When the Rev. Williams arrived in Boston on February 3, 1631, Governor John Winthrop (1587-1649) welcomed him as a “godly minister.” However before you knew it, these two men were arguing over the same issues that are still being debated today: What role should religion have in society? How do we as a society tolerate people whose beliefs differ from ours? Do dogs go to heaven? You know, the questions that really, really matter.
Seems Winthrop wanted to keep the Massachusetts Bay Colony shining as a Christian city on the hill, a place free from any and all dissent. Just like any good Puritan he wanted to "purify" the church from Anglican excesses, but Winthrop wanted to remain on good graces with the crown.
In typical family fashion, my ancestor took the more radical route, preaching that that the church had to make a clean break with the state. Oh no. Now he's running on both engines. Oh boy, oh boy. Yep. Yeah, he is a Baptist preacher that's for sure. Now he's hammering on about “soul liberty,” a term that I gather means that neither the state nor the church can judge the conscience of even the heretic or the atheist.
Lest anyone think Rev. Roger is pulling one of those "anything goes" moves a.k.a. the late Bishop James Pike from San Francisco or any of his subsequent silly sycophants, fuggetaboutit. For starters, those two dudes have yet to meet up cause I gather Pike, Carl Sagan and Gene Roddenberry's secret séances kinda give gramps the willies. But I digress. Oops. My bad.
According to gramps, just because one can say something doesn't mean it's a good idea. So, if say a member of the clergy pulls a Pike and starts bagging the Resurrection, they should expect others to refute these claims. Furthermore, if a man can't agree with those within a given religious community, then conscience should lead him to separate himself.
OK, lemme see if I get this straight. While Spong and his fawning followers have the right to blow off the Nicene Creed as antiquated rubbish, if they choose to go against Episcopal teachings, then in good faith, they should turn in their clerical collars? OK. Got it.
While Gramps didn't care for all religions (especially the Quakers), he felt individual conscience must be free from the tyranny of the majority. As he noted, state sponsorship of religion would yield an unhappy situation wherein “the whole world must rule and govern the Church.” The merger of church and state remains “opposite to the souls of all men who by persecutions are ravished into a dissembled worship which their hearts embrace not.”
These beliefs branded him a heretic. Lovely. And as he proclaimed that Indians should be compensated fairly for their land, he became a threat to civilized society. Go figure.
As expected, things kinda went south for this elder statesman of the family. After a series of escapades running through Salem and Plymouth, he got the boot out of godly Massachusetts by my more "pure" Puritan relatives, thus setting up a dysfunctional family dynamic that repeats itself whenever someone in my family gets too uppity. So, off he went to into the howling wilderness of winter until Gramps settled in Rogues Island (a state that now goes by the more civilized name Rhode Island).
This small patch of land became a haven for anyone fleeing religious persecution, albeit Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists, Catholics, and yes, even Quakers. In 1639, he founded the first Baptist church in America; though after a couple of months he left the church and went on to become a Seeker of sorts. (I know, I know, this sounds a bit like my foray into the Emergent church. But I'm still IN the church though maybe on the fringes.)
I got up to go cause it was getting late. And this seeker stuff was starting to sound kinda new-agey to me. No offense to Marianne Williamson and her New Thought crowd but that is just a bit too out there even for me. But then Gramps reminded me that unlike this Unitarian minded crowd, at least he remained Christo-centric. However, with so many voices and so many people claiming to have the truth, he felt he was going to have to wait for the new revelation to emerge. In the meantime, he kept looking for the spirit whenever he saw it. But he remained a Christian though he never found a church he could call home.
By now this ol' Rev. is really rarin' to go. He's rantin' and ravin' about this Puritan minster John Cotton. I dunno 'bout you, but I could use some cotton to plug in my ears right about now. Now I see where my family's eccentric streak comes from. Yowie.
Then again, in his 1643 publication "Queries of Highest Consideration," he states that forcing one to worship against his or her conscience is akin to committing “spiritual rape.” Suffice to say, subtle is never a word I'd use to describe most members of my family.
Never one to hold back, gramps argues that church-state separation remains critical for the health of both the state and the church. Huh? Now, uh, wait a minute You mean to tell me that one of my motley relatives and not Thomas Jefferson got the ball rolling with this whole Separation of Church and State jazz? Who would have known? Sweet.
Oops, Gramps just corrected me a bit here. You see, according to his last conversation with Jefferson way up there in the heavenly skies, TJ didn't know diddly about Roger Williams' writings on this subject. So, Jefferson came up with this line of thinking all on his own. Guess great minds kinda think alike.
Speaking of masterpieces, You should see Williams’ 1644 book The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience. Yeah it's long, more than a bit disorganized in spots and gory as all get out. In this tome he proves he'd make a great Wittenburg Door writer as he rants and raves about how ever since Constantine joined church and state, we've been in the toilet, spiritually speaking.
As expected, his critics let him have it. For starters, Parliament banned and then burned this sucker. Then John Cotton got his bloomers all in a bunch and wrote a reply titled The Bloudy Tenent, Washed and Made White in the Bloud of the Lamb. This old stick-in-the-mud toed the party line, arguing that only a fanatic would suggest something as daring as religious liberty. Good 'ol Roger showed his sense of humor by publishing The Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloudy: By Mr. Cottons Endeavor to Wash it White in the Blood of the Lambe (1652). Methinks gramps was giving fellow Anglican clergyman Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) a run for his money here in the satire department.
Seems my ancestor's reputation was further ruined in 1702 when Cotton Mather penned a book that paints Roger Williams as a dangerous fanatic. Sounds kind of similar to the hate mail I got after I interviewed Flip Benham of Operation Rescue for The Wittenburg Door. (September/October 2000)
In 1777, William Backus came to the rescue by writing a book that gave gramps some much needed props. According to Backus, Roger Williams wasn't nutso. Rather, he was a visionary, a man of principle and all that jazz.
But my ancestor's real legacy came in 1787. Although twelve states accepted the constitution; one did not. You got it – itty bitty Rhode Island dug in its heels until the framers of the Constitution put in those bits guaranteeing religious liberty to all. Three years later, the Bill of Rights was adopted along with those famous first words of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
Much to gramp's dismay, even though ol' Roger laid the foundation for the first amendment, all the politician he sees these days start humming Winthrop not Williams when they want to garner the “Christian” vote. The early Puritan (read “Protestant”) influences of the United States as a Redeemer Nation and a City on the Hill mythologized into the civic religion of America. This melding of church and state implied that there must be some kind of religious foundation (read “Christianity”) in place, so as to perpetuate a select set of values in order to avoid moral chaos.
Gramps countered this myth by arguing that forced Christianity is no Christianity at all. He felt men's hearts must remain free to choose their beliefs, adding that if the state privileges Christianity, then it kills the faith. Simply put how can anyone accept Christ of their own free will when it is fed to them by force?
Unfortunately, these prickly debates tend to bring out the worst in all of us. Heck, when I mentioned the Salem witch trials he almost bit my head off. And Gramps can't believe the Southern Baptists wussed out on the issue of slavery, thus leading to the creation of that infamous megachurch monster, the Southern Baptist Convention.
But we got to figure out a way to stop behaving like a buncha monkeys and act a bit more civilized. I mean as much as Williams and Winthrop disagreed with each other they were able to shake hands at the end of the day and remain friends. (The fact that ol' Roger was banished and hence not around to stir up any more trouble in holier than thou Massachusetts Bay Colony must've helped maintain the peace.) Something tells me today's fundamental faithful aren't about to start shaking the hands of say former presidents and fellow Baptists Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Just call it a hunch.
And yep, gramps isn't thrilled with these dudes these days. He told me he's about had it with Rick Scarborough and those short-sighted Vision America folks. He thinks David Barton's WallBuilders ought to be torn down. He then got into Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, John Hagee, Bob Jones and anyone else who claims to be Baptist but acts these days more like a butt ... neber mind. Looks like both of us can be quite the hothead once we get going. But as frustrated as we might sound, deep down, we know that as Christians we need to practice that thingee called “The Greatest Commandment,” which is to love God with all your heart and soul and then to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:36-40). Easier said than done.
Now before we all start singing “It's A Small World,” “Kumbaya” and “The Barney Song” (and I lose my lunch), I'm not talking this schmaltzy let's all get along New Age hooey. Heck no. But if a hothead like Roger Williams can shake hands at the end of the day with his adversary John Winthrop, why can't we all do likewise? Yeah it's next to impossible to extend the hand of compassion and love towards those whose views we despise. While I'll bet gramps and John Cotton have made up in heaven, odds are when they were both living, if you'd have asked gramps way back when if he'd take John Cotton's hand, odds are, ol' Roger would've started foaming at the mouth.
A stellar example of the Winthrop-Williams debate in action today would be the this whole Roy's Rock fiasco--you know that Ten Commandment statue that Judge Roy Stuart Moore erected before the Supreme Court reminded him of that separation of church and state dealie. Judge Moore and his Judeo-Christian buds believe that these commandments reminded us that the legal and moral code for both our religious and political way of life stems from the Almighty. Hence, God's law rules over man's laws. So, it would stand to reason that these commandments must belong in a court of public law. While Winthrop would applaud this gesture, Williams would be shaking his head in disgust asking why a government building should be used to privilege a particular religion.
As I sat there at Pulpit Rock hearing ol' Roger's words ringing in my head, I realized that given the option between Roy's Rock and Pulpit Rock, I'd much prefer to hang out with gramps...I just gotta remember next time to bring a set of earplugs.
These resources helped me converse with my beloved albeit bellowing ancestor:
Balmer, Randall. They Kingdom Come. (NY: Basic Books), 2006
Boston, Rob. “The Forgotten Founder,” AU.org (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5373&abbr=cs_&security=1001&news_iv_ctrl=1085)
“Church History 13: Roger Williams,” (http://www.guam.net/home/wresch/stories/churchhistory/13%20Roger%20Williams.html)
“Errand in the Wilderness: Roger Williams and Soul Liberty,” (http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/chp5.html)
Goddard, Ian Williams. “Roger Williams: Champion of Liberty,” (http://iangoddard.net/roger.htm)
Leonard, Bill, “Dissenters/Believers: Another Look at Protestantism and Conscience Then and Now.” 2006
Murray, Bruce. “Finding the Common Thread of Religious Liberty,” FACSNET. (http://www.facsnet.org/issues/faith/haynes_seattle.php)
Williams, Roger. “A Plea for Religious Liberty,” (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/religlib.htm)
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Leave it to those Baptists....
WOW! What a well researched and engagingly written piece. This may well be the best thing I've read on this site.
You barely even referenced your personal and yet cosmicly significant feelings about the issues at hand.
I've never been able to figure out why religious groups that have flourished as a result of the 'separation of church and state' in the U.S. seem so unappreciative of this classic tenet of American democracy. Thanks for writing this!
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Leave it to those Baptists.... Posted by Cody Moore | Posted at 01/09/2007 12:34 PM
WOW! What a well researched and engagingly written piece. This may well be the best thing I've read on this site.
You barely even referenced your personal and yet cosmicly significant feelings about the issues at hand.
Posted by Guest | Posted at 01/11/2007 11:43 AMI've never been able to figure out why religious groups that have flourished as a result of the 'separation of church and state' in the U.S. seem so unappreciative of this classic tenet of American democracy. Thanks for writing this! Posted by James | Posted at 02/18/2008 11:17 AM