Religious Freedom

From AD 30 to 33, as the millennia are now reckoned, an itinerant rabbi named Yeshua ben Yusef, later surnamed el-Mashīah, preached a new gospel to the Jews, God's chosen people. He was tried, condemned and executed for this preaching because it threatened the existing religious and civil authority – or so those authorities thought. Hastily buried before a coming Jewish holiday, His body lay in a borrowed tomb. As dawn rose after the holy day was completed, two women, devout disciples, returned to the tomb to give the body proper care. They found the tomb open and a heavenly herald standing nearby:

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. [Matthew 27:5-6, KJV]

The Messiah had fulfilled, in the ultimate, the commandment given to Moses – to "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." [Leviticus 25:10 ] But the work of proclaiming this gospel, the "good news" of salvation, was just beginning. Though the Roman Empire was generally tolerant of the religions of the conquered, this new faith bore watching. Paganism was the state religion and the Emperor was Pontifex Maximus. No new gods were permitted to challenge Caesar, only the conquered gods of conquered states.

 
For 300 years, Christians, as they came to be called, met n secret; in homes and forests and catacombs. Then, according to legend, Constantine, surnamed the Great, was riding at the head of his army when he saw, in daylight vision, a cross and heard, "By this sign, conquer!" The victory that followed convinced this lifelong pagan that this new god was God, and an imperial edict made Christianity a legal religion. Two generation later, a Christian Emperor would disclaim the title Pontifex Maximus, making Christianity the Empire's state religion. In fact, when Rome fell, and a thousand years later, when Constantinople fell, the Churches were the only imperial institutions to survive. By that time, the oppressed had become the establishment – the Roman Catholic Church in the west, and the Orthodox Church in the east. They, too, would look with disfavor on any challenge to their authority, whether by those they called heretics, or between those two seats of power.

 
But, as these things do, times changed. Though the Roman Catholic Church was synonymous with Christianity in Western Europe, not all the faithful were also the satisfied. Silent questions became open debates in 1517, when a monk, Martin Luther, distributed his now-famous 95 Theses. According to legend, he tacked them to the door of his church. More likely, they were distributed in letters to other monks and bishops, to spark debates over the practice of indulgences. Whatever the history, history changed from that moment. Building on the quiet efforts of Wycliffe and Zwingli, the dissatisfied became more open, and these scattered dissidents became aware that they were not alone.

 
Of course, the Powers-That-Were were not pleased. The divine right of kings was established political doctrine, and challenges to the Church could likewise be challenges to the throne. The "Lutherans" were declared outlaw, but, as Jerusalem and Rome had proven centuries earlier, one cannot outlaw conscience. Luther, Zwingli, Henry VIII, Calvin, Knox and others formalized their dissent. Lutherans, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Reformed, Presbyterians and other churches began to operate outside Rome's sanction. Before the first generation of Reformers was laid to rest, the first of many religious wars was fought. The War of Schmalkald (1546-55) pitted Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against German principalities that had adopted Lutheranism. Though Charles was militarily victorious, he could not force the Lutherans back to Catholicism. Europe formally adopts the concept of a "state religion" in the Peace of Augsburg: Each prince in the Empire will choose an official religion for his territory – Catholicism or Lutheranism. It is a blow to the Reformers, but not a fatal one; those who do not follow the state-sanctioned faith are guaranteed the right to leave the state.

 
Some rulers, over the centuries that follow, would experiment with various levels of religious freedom, but most of these come only after long, painful, internal struggles. England was a typical example: When Henry VIII broke from Rome and established the Church of England, many of his subjects (including his daughter, Mary) refused to renounce their Catholic faith. After succeeding her father, she tried to repoint England's moral compass toward Rome, but her death brought her Anglican half-sister, Elizabeth, to the throne in 1558. She and her successors firmly established Anglican authority, so much so that when Catholic James II was crowned king in 1685, a fuse was lit which touched off an explosion just 3 years later. Parliament called on James' Anglican daughter, Anne, and her husband/cousin, William of Orange, to oust Catholic James in what became known as "The Glorious Revolution." Similar stories could be told of France and elsewhere.

 
To be sure, there were abuses on both sides of the state religion debate. The most heinous, certainly, came from Spain. Though the Pope had authorized an inquisition in to the faithfulness of church members everywhere, in Spain, the insane cruelty of Torquemada (1420-98) and his confederates made theirs The Inquisition, and their infamy a hiss and a byword to the present day.

 
It was politics, not religion, that ultimately drove the Americans to rebellion, but when their political freedom was won, they chose to include religion in their definition of freedom of conscience. When the United States Constitution was first amended to include a Bill of Rights (complementing such Bills already operating in State governments), the first clause of the first article mandated:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Formally adopted by acts of the several States and effective December 15, 1791, it was the first such constitutional guarantee in recorded history.

 
It was not, of course, the end of religious persecution in America or elsewhere. Catholics and Jews had suffered and would continue to suffer. Less than a half-century after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the Latter-day Saints were declared outlaw by the Governor of Missouri, who determined they "must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good."

 
Nor did this religious tolerance immediately extend beyond America's example. Under communist rule, open hostility toward religion drove worshipers into hiding as in Roman times, and, in the 21st Century, the government of China officially opposes numerous religious groups, while Islam proclaims the death penalty for those who convert to other faiths.

 
As Christendom concludes its celebration of the greatest event in world history – the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ – and as conservatives dedicated to the fight for good government, we must not forget that fellow Christians, and others by the millions, still wait for the day when they can enjoy the freedoms we hold so fundamental. Let us not sheath our pens nor our swords until every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve is free to bow before whatever God their conscience leads them to worship.
 
That fight should be as self-evident as the unalienable rights for which our Founders fought over 230 years ago.

 
Thanks for listening, tune in next week for another rant.