3 minute readIt’s become a folk wisdom among American Christians that people are simply a product of their time and place. For instance, Southern slave owners shouldn’t be judged too harshly because that was the world in which they lived. It’s unfortunate, but they didn’t know any better. The implicit belief here is one of cultural and psychological determinism. We’re products of our environment, unable to do much more than incremental, generational change. I’m calling BS. Yes, it’s hard to overcome the prejudices of our historical context, but it can be done. Two words: Roger Williams.
Williams was a New England Puritan who was convicted of sedition and heresy for spreading “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions” in 1635. He was banished and ended up an O.G. Baptist in Rhode Island. What was the nature of these dangerous new opinions? He rejected the social order demanded by Christian culture of the day.1 Williams believed in the separation of church and state, religious freedom, liberty of conscience, and fair dealings with the American Indians. I wholeheartedly support all four “heretical” principles, but it’s the first two I’m focusing on here.
People argue back and forth about the primary emphasis of the separation of church and state. Does it mean protecting religion from government OR government from religion? That’s yet another false dichotomy. Thomas Jefferson used the term as a paraphrase of Williams and other dissenters in a letter of assurance to the Danbury Baptist Association. For Williams the idea was dual directional. It was a denunciation of Medieval Christendom’s caeseropapism. The principle protects religion from government interference AND government from religious manipulation.
As for freedom of religion, few Jesus followers today seem to understand it like Roger Williams. For Williams religious freedom was the idea that spiritual beliefs and practices shouldn’t be subject to government regulation.2 That’s a principle I passionately affirm. Unfortunately, a great many Christians today conflate “freedom of religion” with Judeo-Christian privilege.3 They want to freely practice their religious beliefs as they see fit plus they want American society at least subtly tilted in such a way as to give Christianity a leg up on other religious faiths.4
The original beatniks were passionate advocates for freedom of expression. They criticized the hell out of the moralistic hegemony of Christian culture over the rest of American society yet supported the natural human rights of all people to freely practice their religious beliefs. Kinda sounds like the worldview of Roger Williams. He was right, ya know. A fundamental flaw of Christian culture throughout the centuries has been Christendom’s desire for power rather than servanthood and honor rather than humility. That’s a complete betrayal of The Way of Jesus.
My kinda heretic.↩
By the way, in this framework both religious faith and the lack thereof are valid forms of expression that need to be protected.↩
These days “privilege” is often presumed to be a pejorative term. The way I’m using it, however, is in its most plain and factual sense. Since the onset of Christendom in the 4th century, Christians in the West have come to expect a certain degree of perks, advantages, preferential treatment, favorable laws, economic benefit, cultural influence, and the like. That’s the quintessential description of privilege.↩
What complicates this is that, quite honestly, I don’t think most of ’em have thought it through carefully enough to realize what they actually think and believe. It’s all this opaque intuition and not clear principles and known convictions. They possess neither a well-developed theology nor a political philosophy regarding the relationship between church and state, so what comes out are these mushy, gut feelings that have a knee-jerk defense of Christianity alongside a knee-jerk criticism of other religions yet is rhetorically framed under the Americanized language of “freedom of religion.”↩
